Doug Marlette forgets there is a context to the printing of cartoons. That's why they work. In the case of Jyllands-Posten's publishing of the images of Mohammed, the context is that the paper is a right-wing publication supporting a government that depends upon the support of the anti-immigration People's Party. Accordingly, the Danish government made a very serious (and economically devastating) decision not to address the offense that the cartoons created to local Muslims by meeting with them and conveying a few words of reconciliation which would have resulted in the whole dispute blowing over. And of course we know the context in which the Arab governments reacted to the cartoons - one in which allowed them to use the situation to be seen as coming to the defense of Islam - when militarily and economically there are unable or unwilling to do much of substance.

I think most newspaper in "the West" recognize the games that are being played, and simply don't want to participate in them. Freedom of the press is not being threatened. In fact, as the publication of Doug Marlette's own cartoons show, one can print whatever one wishes, especially in Tulsa, which I presume is a town that treats all its citizens fairly, including the few Muslims there. What one cannot do - in Denmark or elsewhere - is continue without reaction a hostile attitude and action against a group of people who have real grievances - e.g., after being allowed into Denmark Muslims continue to be seriously discriminated against. The New York Times reports that "for 20 years, Muslims have been denied a permit to build mosques in Copenhagen. And there are no Muslim cemeteries in Denmark, so the bodies of Muslims have to be flown back to their home countries for proper burial."

Part of the problem with the performance was the really quite stupid business with the various White House correspondents and Helen Thomas at the end that went on far too long and took a lot of the edge off the entire performance. I think Cobert would have had more impact if he'd been much shorter and dropped the video.

Mark Follman's article is appreciated. There however is a danger to the program he didn't report. The Conservative national government begrudgingly allowed Insite to continue - hoping, most believe, that the next federal election will turn their minority government into a majority, when they can end it. They have bought into the same rhetoric that the Bush Administration uses - playing to their conservative base which wants to believe that addiction is a moral problem (that only born-again Christianity can solve) and not an illness. Only a concerted effort by people and politicians in Vancouver saved the site this time. Nationally, we're not all that enlightened in Canada, as Follman suggests.

What a delightful person!

Now if Fatima had come out in a bikini, that might have been offensive, but the cartoon shows her respecting her faith. So why not publish it? I don't understand the reason.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has just shot a second season of "Little Mosque on the Prairie," a comedy about a group of Musilms in rural Saskatchewan and their adventures, which I think is very funny, and which does poke gentle fun at Muslims as well as Christians and others. (See the show's description on the CBC's website, the link for which Salon prefers I not post.) I do wonder if any television networks in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave will pick it up.

They did have human intelligence, very good stuff, and yet they ignored it. Amazing. I thought the problem was they didn't really have any decent human intelligence, but had to rely on technological spying.

Why is it impossible for Americans to actually talk about policy?

This MS shopping search engine gimmick shows the usual MS response. Buy companies out. Now trying to buy customers out. Rather than be innovative, create a better search engine, bribe people to use an inferior product.

The only MS products that I use are those which MS has in effect created a near monopoly (WORD, Excel, PowerPoint) and you have to use it. Vista, for instance, is a resource hog, and no one who has a choice will upgrade from XP. I cannot think of a single MS project which is the best of its class. (MS Project maybe?) I am so totally sick of crappy MS products gumming up my computer! I simply cannot get a laptop running Windows to run smoothly for more than a few months. The gunk just builds and builds.

When MS develops software the first question they seem to ask is how can we engineer this to make MS money? The marketing angle comes first in their minds. Google at least appears to first of all ask, how can we make something that people will find useful? - realizing if they do that they'll make money. It's a different approach.

The more talk about Palin, the less about the issues, about Bush's record, about the problems that ordinary Americans face. Typical Republican strategy - distract, distract, distract. Palin doesn't matter - whether she's a babe, a mother, a dominatrix. What matters is getting Obama elected.