god does not play al-zār with the universe

The ground has already been well-travelled, but that just means I can steal other people's ideas as my own (eg No Right Turn's and DPF's). So let's have the keywords:

• Danish
• Cartoons
• Muhammed
• Free Speech
• Waffles

Or, we can sum it all up in two words: Hysterical. Overreaction. From everyone.

Right, first up, if the Danish want to publish cartoons making fun of religion, in this case Islam, then all power to them. It's a Free World after all (okay, so it's not, but let's just file that under lies-to-children for the moment, keep smiling, move along). If everyone else in the Judeo-christian world wants to do it - well great. Super. Love ya all. Send the funny ones my way.

Cuts Both Ways.

If muslims want to march up and down with posters and banners and burn effigies (heck, I've burned a few effigies in my day - or at least stood around looking innocent while other people burned effigies - and the only harm that does is when you get poisoned by police fire extinguishers) to protest said cartoons making fun of Islam - well, that's just super too. Because, you know, that's free speech too.

And we like Free Speech very muchly.

If you want to go further, and get your Government to call their Government and say, "hey man, that shit ain't cool. We ain't going to buy any more of your windmills." - well, that's cool too. You're going to miss out on some sweet windmills by the way ... but sometimes you've just got to go with the principle of the thing. I can respect that even if I think that you are over-reacting and falling for obvious bait. After all, we call up the Japanese occasionally and ask them nicely to stop hunting them poor whales for your "scientific" "experiments" with whales and "wasabi". And they ever so sweetly agree, and sure they give up - but wait: do you hear the lambs screaming, Clarice? Do you hear them screaming?

Protests are fun, bonding experiences. It Takes a Village to Raise A Protest. We all get to have a bit of exercise in the city, yell at the top of our lungs while not drunk, and meet some nice policepeople who want to hold our hands. And when the National Front or Destiny Church have a protest, we can go protest too! (some people get confused: "you're denying my right to free speech!!". Nope. I've counterposing your speech with my speech. Free Speech also means Free Reply, usually at high volume, and sometimes with hand-gestures). Hell, not a few of us turned up to protest without knowing what the subject was (what are we protesting for? Gay Penguins? Great. Can we occupy something?).

We can all hope that free speech is fair, and tolerant and respectful, and happy-clappy joy-joy fairy tree-blossom. We can, dare I say it, hope for that big, bad word, reasonableness (not quite as big and bad as that king of words, disestablishmentarianism). But we don't have any right to it, and if you go around expecting it habitually you are likely to not have a very happy life.

Now where it all goes fig-shaped, is when you say "you can't say that", or it's slightly more ugly and stupid inbred and drooling hill-billy cousin, "if you say that I'll kill you".

That shit is cold.

... if you do that no one likes you. You're the big cry-baby in the corner that no one will play with anymore, not even the kid with the constant cold who smells really bad. Or the kid in the sandpit who won't let anyone else play with the bucket and spade, and everytime you try to use them calls you "antiseptic" or something, which is confusing because you don't need any medicine.

So stop it. Grow the fuck up. God doesn't need you to fight his wars, in fact he never wanted you to fight his wars in the first place, he just had the misfortune to create humans, who created sex so that they would have something to fight over.

In fact - God? It's me, Frank. No, the other one. We give up. Give Palestine to the Whales. Um, and you might want to to give them opposable thumbs.

They'll need them to drive the tanks.