...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

No jokes, please, we’re Shias: I forget—was it the Ayatollah Khomeini or Mo Elmasry who said “there are no jokes in Islam”?  Oh, well, never mind. Whoever said it sure knew what he was talking about, since over in Iran—you know, land of Holocaust denial/nuke the Jews for a Shoah, Part II—the humourless ones are roiling, and not in a good way, over a John McCain bon mot. From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran harshly condemned remarks by Senator John McCain on Sunday, after he jokingly commented last week that cigarette exports to Iran could be "a way of killing them."

The presumptive Republican presidential candidate made the statements after he was asked about reports that US exports to Iran - a big part of which were cigarettes - had risen tenfold during US President George W. Bush's presidency. He immediately added: "I meant that as a joke."

But Iranian officials were apparently unamused.

"McCain's crude remark on the indiscriminate killing of the Iranian nation not only testifies to his disturbed state of mind, but also to his warmongering approach to foreign policy," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said in a statement Saturday.

"We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a US presidential candidate. It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans," he added.

It’s like that old line—laugh and the world laughs with you; nuke and you nuke alone. And it should be clear to all by now that for the mullahs, who, like the Nazis, take their genocide very, very seriously, wiping the map clean of Jews via a nuke is no laughing matter.

And speaking of the paucity of yucks in those quarters, it looks like another European 'toonist has run afoul of the humourless thought police. From the WSJ:

On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle.

"I never expected the Spanish Inquisition," recalls the cartoonist, who goes by the nom de plume Gregorius Nekschot, quoting the British comedy team Monty Python. A fan of ribald gags, he's a caustic foe of religion, particularly Islam. The Quran, crucifixion, sexual organs and goats are among his favorite motifs.

Mr. Nekschot, whose cartoons had appeared mainly on his own Web site, spent the night in a jail cell. Police grabbed his computer, a hard drive and sketch pads. He's been summoned for further questioning later this month by prosecutors. He hasn't been charged with a crime, but the prosecutor's office says he's been under investigation for three years on suspicion that he violated a Dutch law that forbids discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation.

The cartoon affair has come as a shock to a country that sees itself as a bastion of tolerance, a tradition forged by grim memories of bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The Netherlands sheltered Jews and other refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, and Calvinists fleeing persecution in France. Its thinkers helped nurture the 18th-century Enlightenment. Prostitutes, marijuana and pornography have been legal for decades.

"This is serious. It is about freedom of speech," says Mark Rutte, the leader of a center-right opposition party. Some of Mr. Nekschot's oeuvre is "really disgusting," he says, "but that is free speech."...

Funny how humour and freedom go hand in hand.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:20 | link | comments

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