And the blasphemous cartoons from the unbelievers go on and on and on at the Professional Cartoonists Index.

The knee slapping response from the Arab world? Anti-semitic cartoons which include Hitler and Anne Frank in bed after apparently having sex.

There is one problem, however: the anti-semitic cartoons … just … aren’t … funny. Why? Because the views or beliefs they are trying to satire are not absurd.

For the people of the Arab world to realize this lack of humor in the anti-semitic cartoons and the humor in the Muhammad cartoons, they have to gain a sense of freedom.

In lieu of that freedom, people of the Middle East are beaten and conditioned into thinking a guy with a turban, a bloody knife and a harem is as innocent as a lamb and worthy of worship and rabid defending.

No matter how foolish your beliefs are, even if you behead everybody who disagrees with you, you are still a fool.

The business of marketing has always been a less than ethical affair. It comes as no surprise then that there is now a book devoted to the subject:

Americans have come to tolerate, embrace and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents’ generation – from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion-on-demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade-schoolers.

Does that mean today’s Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian. But they have fallen victim to some of the most stunningly brilliant and compelling marketing campaigns in modern history.

The Marketing of Evil reveals how much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to them as though it had great value. Highly skilled marketers, playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity and tolerance, have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America’s founding regarded as grossly self-destructive – in a word, evil…. (worldnetdaily.com)

There goes Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge! a unique wildlife habitat area in Cambridge, MD. Local animals are forlorn at the prospect of pollution run-off, stream degradation, noisy bothersome homeowners and their upcoming animal exodus from the pristine waters and land at the refuge.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (cbf.org) is paying particular attention to this newest of mega-blights on the Eastern Shore of Maryland:

Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) was among several panels testifying before the Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee.

“Replacing 1,000 acres of farmland with development is not smart growth,” said George Maurer, CBF’s Senior Land Use Planner. “Why aren’t we developing urban grayfields instead of rural soybean fields? We’re losing farmland twice as fast as we are able to preserve it, and we have an opportunity now to reverse that trend.”

Plans for the project include 3,200 homes, acres of pavement, and a golf course dependent on fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that will produce large volumes of polluted runoff. This polluted runoff will degrade the waters of Little Blackwater Creek, which flows into the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, a third of the project is in the Critical Area.” (cbf.org)

Sign the “Say No to Blackwater Resort” petition to get this bloated beast shelved for eternity.

Burning and aggressive gesturing continues in the extreme religious outposts of the world in reaction to the lampooning of the great prophet Muhammad. Cartoons usually point to something satirical (exposing human folly to ridicule) and Muhammad and the Islamic religion are no exception.

Muhammad is indeed a suspicious figure worthy of satire when the Book of Islam tells of him having a penchant for violence and an insatiable need to bed down with multiple women, an accomplishment worthy of being considered a male whore in later times.

He is a man similar to world’s greatest con-artist, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormons who stumbled upon some golden leaflets he claimed were long lost additions to the Bible telling of Jesus’ coming to America and frolicking with America’s native Indians. Smith, like Muhammad with the Koran, had his own interpretation of these sacred leaflets which somehow justified his lustful appetite for sex with slews of women.

In the above cartoon, Muhammad was depicted with a lit short-fused bomb for a turban for several reasons:

• Many people in Islamic countries are emotionally and mentally unstable,
• There are large numbers of Muslims who are willing to blow themselves up,
• Islamic religious violence is occurring in dozens of countries,
• and Muhammad seems to be at the helm of all this nonsense.

But you’re too busy baking chocolate chip cookies and asking your Muslim extremist friends, "Chewy" or "Crispy", to notice that something is wrong. All of this adds up to a delightful opportunity to poke fun at the inconsistencies and flat out wackiness of a religion that has been exposed and derailed.

Animal zoos are a constant reminder for us to beat down nature and to congratulate ourselves on stuffing an animal that needs square miles of space into a cubicle nook more befitting to tickle our fancies.

As you stroll around gawking and exclaiming at your favorite zoo, at the greatness of the bison droppings and the minuteness of the feed pellets that jaguars munch on, wouldn’t it be better if the animals were there for a nobler cause: if they were injured and to be released upon recovery, or there as part of a species recovery and habitat restoration program?

Could the part of the zoo devoted to permanent animal retention and display be razed and converted into a wooded garden designed to attract wildlife naturally? Yes, it could, but the typical American pet owner would never allow it, being adamant and transfixed as they are by the wide array of astonishing mutations that can be derived from nature and confined to a series of small rooms.

“All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.” —Henry Louis Mencken

Worldly, compassionate, and super-rich are some of the words to describe “Bono”, the lead singer of the popular music band U2. His latest offering to his beholden masses and to anyone else who will listen is a determination to end world hunger and forgive Third World debt. This coming from a man who frivolously extracts large sums of money from his listening audience seems quite contradictory.

If “Bono” really wanted to forgive the debt of those less fortunate, why not give refunds first to the millions of kids duped into buying his intoxicating music mix of confused emotion, then get on to examining Third World debt?

Alas, careful examination reveals two problems: one, that G8 countries forcing Third World nations into unmanageable debt shouldn’t happen in the first place; and two, the sashaying in of an ear-pierced, sunglass shaded singer clearing away all debt with a grandiose sweep of his hand convinces people of the Third World to continue to not be financially responsible.

To truly end world hunger, couldn’t “Bono” give most of his 100’s of millions of dollars away to food bank charities, and keep enough money for himself to live simply? That should be part of the solution to his efforts to end world hunger, if he were to follow his own logic. However, his feel good logic is plain wrong.

See, “Bono” thinks in terms of the “if you feel good, I feel good” mentality so that by helping Africans feel good by loading them up with rice bags, you feel good too, and therefore this is good for everyone.

Wrong. Africans still don’t understand how to be healthy and self-sufficient, like how not to screw everyone in the village because of overpopulation, lack of food, and AIDS, instead of loving other people properly; and Africans still would not know how to grow their own food and how to develop their villages in a more sustainable way.

Non-monetary assistance and education is the solution to end world hunger.

It’s simple, you can’t keep building L.A. style where everyone has their own house and yard. If you pepper single family homes over the landscape, that’s what you get: Los Angeles sprawl.

One solution is to build an apartment/condo for every 15 single family homes. That way people have a choice of where to live within a higher density community.

Traffic problems occur because each of those single family homes has 2 or 3 cars, there is no effective public transportation, and because sprawl lessens the ability to walk.

Many towns throughout the U.S. could be designed more compactly, it is not too late. Towns should have a good overall plan for city growth which developers can access and design their plans in accordance with. Unfortunately, most U.S. towns have horrendous growth plans.

If more people want to come to designated growth areas, they should be encouraged. But more people and more development should have a well planned framework to come to: compactly designed, walkable, and public transit supported.

The sprawl and growth problems of cities boils down to one general solution: make it walkable with efficient public transit options. Communities that are walkable inherently means built more compactly, or that their home, office, and shopping needs are built closer together.

Email everybody at the Wicomico County and Salisbury Planning and Zoning Department, or the officials in your own sprawling town, and tell them their planning and zoning stinks!

Remember, the reason our cities and landscape look like crap is because you’re still twiddling your thumbs.