Mohammed Cartoons controversey

[MsFish]

However, they knew it would be inflammatory as well (or, if as the editor claims, they didn't think of it, they're complete idiots who really shouldn't be running a newspaper), and thus really shouldn't be indignant that there's fallout over it.

I can understand not being indignant over fallout.  But even fallout has a statute of limitations.  Protests I could understand.  Unreasonable demands I could understand.  Death threats and riots?  I don't think anyone is stupid for not expecting those as a response to printing some cartoons.  

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

thats because your to young to remember the Snoopy Riots of 1982.

/me shudders to remember

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

hello?! have you been around any of the last 60 years?

They blow themselves up in discotheques. They offer rewards of millions of dollars to kill someone for writing a book. They crash airplanes into buildings over general discontentment with a foreign power.

You're telling me you couldn't predict death threats from the people who commit that sort of behavior?

[MsFish]

No, I'm saying it's not stupid to not print something because of the possible reaction of a group of people.  Isn't that what people who try to force behavior with violence *want*?  That's the whole point of death threats--to frighten people into giving up their freedoms willingly.  Whether it was right or wrong to print the cartoons, I'm reallly glad someone did, because if no one uses free speech it's the same as not having it.  

On the other hand, I do see your point.  And I wish that the newspaper had handled things differently.  But I still don't think they're at fault.  

hello?! have you been around any of the last 60 years?

And there's no need to be insulting.

[Spriggan]

Children don't make me step in and separate you two.

[MsFish]

Wait, wait.  Since when is Spriggan the peace maker?  

Excuse me while I step back and reevaluate my entire world schema.

[Spriggan]

Wait, wait.  Since when is Spriggan the peace maker?  

Ever since my avatar got a pipe, it make one more Mature.

[MsFish]

That explains so many things.  

[Spriggan]

indeed

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

You're right. That first line was out of line. I'm sorry.

But I didn't claim it was stupid to print something because someone wouldn't like it or would have a response to it. I was saying that editor was stupid because he said he wouldn't have printed it if he had known the details of the response. As a major newspaper editor, he should be well-informed enough to be able to predict something very close to this. thus, yes, he is stupid.

[MsFish]

Okay, yeah, he's trying to be a fence-sitter then, and that's stupid.  

[Entsuropi]

Give it a mustache, and Spriggan will truely be the grand vizer pretending to be making peace, but really setting the stage for a bloody religious civil war and coup followed by 200 years of vile leadership under a succession of plantpots.

Good job that man.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Little Thelma comes home from first grade and tells her father that they learned about the history of Valentine's Day. And, "Since Valentine's Day is for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," she asks, "will God get mad at me for giving someone a valentine?

Thelma's father thinks a bit, then says "No, I don't think God would get mad.  Who do you want to give a valentine to?"

"Osama Bin Laden," she says.

"Why Osama Bin Laden?" her father asks in shock.

"Well," she says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish girl could have enough love to give Osama a valentine, he might start to think   that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little bit.  And if other kids saw what I did and then they sent valentines to Osama,   he'd love everyone a lot. And then he'd start going all over the place tell  everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone  anymore."

Her father's heart swells and he looks at his daughter with newfound  pride. "Thelma, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."

"I know," Thelma says, "and once that gets him out in the open, the Marines could blow the **** out of him."

[Skar]

Warning: Old and rather tasteless joke to follow:

Grampa and little Jim are on a vacation in New York.  They see the sights.  The spaceport.  The Nanofactories.  The AI sports colisseum and so on.  

One afternoon Grampa takes Little Jim to a small memorial in Manhattan.  The plaque reads "World Trade Center: September 11, 2001."

Grampa gazes at the plaque, tears up and squeezes Little Jim's hand.

Jim has never heard of this monument and so he asks, "Grampa, what happened in 2001?"

Grampa kneels down and explains to the little boy "Well Jim, this was where some arabs crashed planes into two huge buildings, knocking them down and killing everyone inside.  This plaque is here so we don't forget what happened that day."

"Oh," little Jim replies.  After a moment he looks puzzled and asks another question.

"Grampa, what's an arab?"

[Fellfrosch]

That is both funny and frightening at the same time. I love it.