A Dutch Blogger has recently started a photoshop ‘parody Mohammed’ competition which, it would seem, is basically trying to see who can make the most offensive pictorial of the Muslim prophet Mohammed … and my god do they go at it.

Do not click if you are easily offended by gratuitous takings of the piss or liberal use of the Dutch language (most pics speak for themselves).

Obviously this is going too far, but then again so is burning down an embassy or murdering a priest, all’s fair in love and war no?

I’m of the mind that I should head down to my local mosque (if there is one around here - there must be I’d rekon) and try and get myself a little bit of exposure to western Muslim culture and thinking, because I’m getting the impression that since all my education on Muslim ideology comes from the right wingers in Syria via the western media maybe I do not have a clear picture of what a ‘real’ Muslim is like.

We’ll see … I doubt they’d let a white boy in anyway.

Michelle Malkin is leading the charge to create a road map to the cartoons which have raised the ire of so many right wing Muslims out there.

All the cartoons can be seen here, or this handy little snippet comes from Michelles own site;

Now for my thoughts:

I am not a fan of religion, I think it does more harm than good as it has nothing to do with spirituality but is rather a vessel by which smart but corrupt men rule dimmer, more suggestable ones, lets have that straight from the start - I am biased in that respect.

Over and above this I think modern day Islam is a particularly potent means by which evil men seek to rule, again, dimmer ones, and manipulate them into doing what they want them to (namely killing and maiming and generally being bastards). Yes Catholicism/Christianity (particularly more modern day evangelical types) are the same, but they are far less violent and thus more readily ignored. The only other marginally similar religion I see today is Judaism, but I think the Jews have a far more rational basis for their violence (if ever there is such a thing) whereas most Islamic fundementalists seem to just be wantonly seeking destruction and it takes nothing more than cartoons to set them off.

Am I taking a stab at Islam here ? … maybe.

I find it interesting that the violence (tactfully called protests by some) is mostly directed at governments, as though they have something to do with it. I think this is a telling factor in the question of why we can’t all just get along, if a newspaper says something offensive it occurs to these types that a government ought to be able to do something about it. In case you’re not picking up my poorly constructed point - a government in the real world should be no more able to control and censor what a newspaper says then I should be able to smack a Liberal in the face for being a twat - but it seems this is not the attitude of some of the Islamic far right.

To any government who has contemplated asking newspapers to censor these cartoons because some right wing dicks got their panties in a bunch - fuck you, grow a spine - to any that actually did ask - a pox upon your house.

To any newspapers who apologised for or withdrew the cartoons: see message to censory conteplative government. To those that ran them (in particular to the french fellows who ran the story basically entitled fuck you I can say whatever I want) well done, good show, keep up the good work.

To anyone offended by my thoughts on the issue - if you want to dialogue about it feel free I have not been in contact with any of the middle-ground/left wing Islamic folk … if you’re out there I’m keen to be enlightened, if you’d rather burn me at the stake and kill my family - you’re not worth my time to even ridicule … except to call you a monstrous wanker maybe.

Oh for fucks sake !!

It would seem our fundemental (emphasis on ‘mental’ as opposed to ‘fun’) friends in the Middle East have no sense of humour and could use a geopolitical lesson.

Honestly if you take anything (especially something as fucking pointless as a religion) that seriously you need a hobby, might I suggest truck dodging ?

It’s high time the religious fanatics of the world took a long hard look at themselves and their religions so they can realise it’s all a crock of shit and give up fighting about it.

But I don’t suppose anybody will listen to me on this one either - oh well.

hat tip to The Marmot (can he still be called that ?)

hahaha is this Karmic or what ?

Bull fighting is an abomination of a passtime (this post is categorised ’sport’ very loosely) and I’m glad these spectators got some of what’s owed them.

Cruising around the blogosphere this morning I came across Joel’s take on this recent piece from Simon World - I hadn’t read it before now and now that I have, I’ve got some thoughts.

In rare criticism, the People’s Liberation Army Daily has criticised the armed forces taking part in a major live-fire exercise for their lack of efficiency and failure to master the skills needed to wage information warfare. The criticism followed poor results from the recent Hanhai Storm exercises on the Kerqin grassland in Tongliao city , Inner Mongolia , according to the paper.

Three divisions, comprising about 50,000 troops, from the Shenyang military region took part in the four-stage exercises, in which the troops representing the PLA were defeated by the enemy Blue Army - believed to have simulated US battle techniques.

In the first stage, the Red Army was ordered to repel the attacking Blue Army. Despite its firepower being strengthened by the availability of six hi-tech aircraft, the Red Army troops were defeated because the army commander forgot to call in air support. The other three stages revealed the PLA officers were slow to respond and did not have a firm grasp of the advanced technologies needed to stage information warfare.

Antony Wong, president of the International Military Association in Macau, thought the exercises simulated a “ground battle” on the Korean Peninsula, with the Blue Army representing the US.

Simon World

I do hope somebody in the Washington/Seoul heirarchy is paying attention to this, not that a country conducting exercises to keep its soldiers in the practice of warfighting is necessarily worrying, but consider the location and capabilities of the groups concerned and this becomes something to keep an eye on.

Given that the Shenyang Military Region has a field strength of 250,000 it becomes fairly clear (well to me anyway) that this was an exercise of the command structure (look at the number of troops utilised) and it would appear they did not do so well. With any luck this means the command and logistical infrastructure does not yet exist to such a degree as to be able to effectively weild a quarter of a million soldiers in a field environment (no mean feat for certain) - chances are it doesn’t though, more likely is one or two of the commanders are just good old fashioned clusterf#c#s.

As yet there is nothing, as far as I am concerned, to be troubled by, however the recent tensions on and around the peninsula (NB: final emphasised paragraph) make it fairly clear to me that now is the time for diplomacy, not posturing (from both sides - don’t hear me wrong there). It’s time for the generally useless politicians of the world to step up and begin a dialogue of interaction and peace, start early before any (ok - too much more) bad blood starts running - please don’t fuck this up as well, it’s not in anyone’s best interests.

Hat Tip to Joel and Simon - linkage/emphasis inside article mine.

This Washington Times article is borrowed from the Nomad, but have a look at the Joonang version and notice how the U.S. v Korean media each give account of this story - makes you wonder no ?

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