Mohammed Cartoons

It's hard to believe that European embassies are burning over this:


Fortunately there are voices of hope and sanity even in the Muslim World. I like Grand Ayatolla Ali Al-Sistani. He had this to say:

In Iraq, the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests.

"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," he said in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Tuesday.

Al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, made no call for protests and suggested that militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting Islam's image.

He referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community and said their actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood."

"Enemies have exploited this ... to spread their poison and revive their old hatreds with new methods and mechanisms," he said.

Or in other words "I'm not happy with these drawings, but perhaps the way to make them disappear would be to stop confirming their prejudices by blowing people up and setting fire to things." What a guy.

Oh and if a Muslim out there is reading this blog and is offended, then my apologies. I'd also like to note that I'm an American and we have rights to self defense which secure our rights to free expression. Go bother a softer target.