The Muhammad Cartoons

So I've been following the Muhammad Cartoon debacle ever since the beginning of last week and am astounded by how ridiculous it has become. Actually, let me rephrase that -- I am astounded by how far the ridiculousness has gone, since this thing was ridiculous from the beginning. If you aren't aware of what is going on, check out this CNN article as I don't feel like recapping it here.

Just a few things:

1. This isn't being widely reported, but apparently 3 false cartoons were inserted with the original 12 published in the Danish newspaper, quite possibly by the group of Muslim leaders who first alerted the Islamic world, all in an effort to inflame passions. Of the original 12 cartoons only 3 or 4 made an actual political statement -- the rest were simply drawings of Muhammed. This whole thing reeks of a plot to enrage the Islamic world, and strangely enough it isn't a Danish newspaper nor the west that is fanning the flames. Which leads us to...
2. The same exact cartoons were published in an Egyptian newspaper months before this ever came out. Oddly enough, it got very little reaction. A blogger named egyptiansandmonkey remembered seeing the cartoons earlier and scanned them onto the net. Here's the blog, a definite must read.
3. How absurd is the Muslim reaction to this? It's moronic. If people weren't actually dying, it would be even funny. Think about it: They are reacting to what they perceive as an unfair portrayal of themselves and their prophet as violent by, you guessed it, being violent. Don't they see the irony here? I did my own cartoon on this, here you go:

Hey, so it's my first ever political cartoon. Cut me a break.

I've got a whole lot more to say about this, but I got to go. I'll finish tomorrow.