I was going to sit down and scribe a massive essay going over the issues brought up by this Danish cartoon fiasco. But every time I tried it just descended into a vitriolic rant, so I've been thinking and have decided to use some simple and fairly tame sentences to record my impressions of this whole stupid business.

1. The cartoons have been justified by the ridiculous reaction to them
2. World faiths MUST realise that they will only have the respect they earn, and when people committ acts which the majority of the international community dislike they will lose that respect.
3. No system of values is above another - our freedom of speech is no more or less valid than the Muslim credo of not producing pictures of their prophets. However, in the west we have freedom of speech so the Muslims will just have to lump it.