perfidy

Found in an AP story:

"If they want a war of religions, we are ready," Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon.

A war of religions? "Oxymoronic" doesn't even begin to cover such an idiotic thing.

Yeah, yeah - I know. There have been religious wars for as long as there have been religions. This history is one of the oldest and most valid reasons for eschewing religion entirely, as I hear some people do. The fact that war of religions is an ancient concept doesn't mean such a thing is any less ridiculous. Even when one side or the other is begging to have its ass kicked, the concept of a war presumably demanded by one's God is an idea I have never been able to wrap my head around.

Of course, the latest such kerfuffle is occasioned by the continued and frightening lack of ability of the most fervent of Muslims to recognize irony when it's right in front of their faces. Islam is accused of violence and intolerance by cartoonists in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, and "Islam" complains mightily. Fair enough. Truth can be embarrassing, and embarrassed people complain.

But when their complaints impinge on the modern world's decided preference for free speech, resulting in further and broader publishing of these same 5 month old pictures, the Islamic zealots react by blowing shit up. Smooth move, fellows. I'd suggest they butch up, even though I'm sure there's a sura somewhere that would tell me this, too, offends mightily.

If you're one of the benighted few who's not yet seem what all the fuss is about, you can find, collected at this site, examples of what it takes to puncture the thin skin of the Islamic extremists.

Oddly, according to a poll reported in the Brussels Journal only a mild majority (57%) of Danes thought publication of the opinions behind the cartoons was the correct thing to do, with 31% opposed and presumably the remaining 12% giggling at the stupidity of it all.

As could be expected, Cox & Forkum summarize matters nicely:

But perhaps a better guide to understanding right from wrong on this matter is to temporarily ignore the free speech implications of Islam's demands to be coddled, as such demands are utterly unacceptable, and instead to focus on the lessons of an old Onion classic.