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Back at Crazy Go Nuts University (to borrow a phrase from Joey, who borrowed from Homestar), the Golden Words used to carry a cartoon called Blasphemy Corner. (There are some online. Sadly, the following is not one of them.)

One of the best bore the caption “The Second Coming of Christ.” It depicted Jesus in bed with a woman. She says, “Christ, that was incredible!” He lies back, hands behind his head, and says, “Son of God, baby. Son of God.”

Yes, it was blasphemous. Hence the title. It was also damn funny.

Is it sad that the main problem I have with the Danish cartoons of Muhammad is that none of them is especially funny? The violence has escalated and escalated, and what started it? Basically, a dare. A dare by a Danish newspaper to some cartoonists to draw a satirical portrayal of Muhammad. They were trying to make a point about self-sensorship, but that point really got lost after the eigth or so reprinting.

Salman Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, was at least good (judging by reviews and awards and such). At least there was something there to defend.

This is a bunch of doodles. Caricatures of the prophet, intended to offend. Did they have their intended effect? To make writers and artists think about self-censorship when dealing with Islam. Maybe only too well.

I’m frankly pretty tired of the debate over these cyclist vs. motorist pictures (there’s even a CBC letters page about it, for Pete’s sake), but there’s a new wrinkle in the story.

An amendment to the original post on citynoise.org says the Toronto Star printed the photos without the permission of the photographer.

If this is true, did the Star figure the photos were fair game because they were on the internet, despite the copyright notices at the bottom of every citynoise page?

Rob Cottingham tried, he really did, to liveblog the state of the union address last night, but sometimes life just gets in the way.