WWJB?

 So... how’s that whole “charismatic” thing workin' for ya? Not so good when your church is just about the ugliest group of people around. Panel printed in the hottest new issue of the Ester Republic - every outhouse should have a copy handy. In fact there's a nice accompanying editorial written by the editor to this editorial cartoon. I like best the solution that I read from a commenter on a related thread: why don’t they just download a digital file of the book, and then angrily delete it? 

I'm firmly in the unpleasant position espoused by PZ Myers (as in: Its. A. BOOK.), and think this is symptomatic of both religious insanity and the general stupidity of misplaced priorities. We’re actively using game-boy predator drones to kill innocent civilians, torturing them, reducing infrastructure to rubble, even evidentially keeping body parts as trophies etc. etc. and people honestly think burning a book will influence public opinion? Really??? It's like a slow nightmare watching irrelevant obsessions trump common sense: I recall seeing the article in our local paper visually dominate 3/4's of the page while tucked underneath was a little bit about the ongoing WAR. Suppose I should be glad it even got any mention at all, but that this ludicrous speed-bump of book-burning insanity was treated like it seriously rated anything approaching legitimate equivalence of  attention in comparison to the daily horror of war is simply astounding. But it really should come as no surprise - check out the screen-grab from a day's worth of headlines posted here: which one of these is not like the other?

On a distinctly related note, the atheist in me wonders why all the time, energy and money being spent on both raising and protesting anything Muslim in NYC shouldn't be used instead to take better care of and maybe buy some damned up-to-date equipment for firemen and other first responders. The former New Yorker in me wonders which is truly more disrespectful to the memory of 9-11: that annoying fact, or having to listen to the ignorant opinions of grandstanding, opportunistic right-wing assholes telling me what's tasteless.