Walmart Caves- Removes Papa Pashtun Halloween Costume

Walmart caved to pressure and removed a Papa Pashtun Halloween costume, after a social media backlash. The costume was deemed racist.

“When it was brought to our attention on social media, we began working to pull this down. We are deeply sorry that this costume is on our website, and we are pulling it down as soon as possible. We are calling on all of the other retailers to pull it down as well,” Brooke Buchanan, senior director of Walmart Corporate Communications, told BuzzFeed News.

It was sold through a third-party vendor Costume Kingdom.

“We have strict policies with our third party vendors, and It’s very important to us that products on the site don’t offend groups of people, or minorities.”

This reminds me of when Sears pulled their Sexy Burka costume back in 2012.

Source: Al Arabiya

TV Skit Mocks Nasrallah, Protests In Lebanon Ensue

A Lebanese TV skit mocking Hezbollah's head honcho Hassan Nasrallah so enraged his supporters, they did what Muslim extremists do best- flocked to the streets in protest and burned tires. LBC TV's comedy show 'Basmat Watan' has targeted Nasrallah before, and as far as the producer Charbel Khalil is concerned, religious figures are fair game. Since he also happens to be a political figure, others believe there's nothing wrong with mocking him.

This week’s program poked jokes at Hezbollah's role in Syria, with Nasrallah's character lamenting what he said was a late intervention.

"Our weapons should have included planes and submarines," he said.

There is a video news report on this on Al Arabiya.

No sense of humor.

France's Charlie Hebdo Magazine To Publish Life Of Mohammed

Charlie Hebdo's back again. This time the French magazine plans on tackling the life and times of Prophet Mohammed.  Charlie Hebdo's editor Stephane Charbonnier (aka Charb) still has a fatwa on his head after he published several cartoons in a September issue - including one of a naked Mohammed- that had the usual suspects outraged, particularly since they were already revved up about that anti-Islam film. Since then he's had to live under police protection, as so many others do who dare to push the boundaries of freedom of expression when it comes to conservative Muslims. But this time Charb is resting easy, so he says.

“It is a biography authorized by Islam since it was edited by Muslims" [snip]  “I don’t think higher Muslim minds could find anything inappropriate."

The biography will be published Wednesday and was put together by a Franco-Tunisian researcher known only as Zineb, Charb said.

The publisher said the idea for the comic book came to him in 2006 when a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of Mohammed, later republished by Charlie Hebdo, drawing angry protests across the Muslim world.

“Before having a laugh about a character, it’s better to know him. As much as we know about the life of Jesus, we know nothing about Mohammed,” Charb said.

Well, I guess he still knows nothing about Islam because the not-so-higher minds are going to be just as infuriated about the cartoon biography as they were about a naked Mohammed since drawing the Prophet is haram (forbidden).  Then again, there's nothing more they can threaten him with.

Now we just wait to see what happens next.

France's 'Charlie Hebdo' Publishes More Mohammed Cartoons- Update

Charlie Hebdo, the French (mostly leftist) weekly satirical magazine that had the guts to republish the Danish Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons back in 2006, and was subsequently sued by a group of Muslims in 2007, is at it again.  In today's edition, it plans on publishing a few more Mohammed cartoons that the editor claims will "shock those who will want to be shocked." And, no doubt, there will be plenty.

However, those champions of 'freedom of expression' don't seem to be too worried about being the next targets of Muslim rage; after all, Charlie Hebdo survived a firebombing of its offices last November over the "Charia Hebdo" edition. If you recall, that was the one "guest edited" by the "Prophet Mohammed", and captioned with "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter."  Well, we all know there is no humor in Islam, or at least its adherents are sorely lacking.

Naturally, everyone is panicking in that country- considering the amount of disenfranchised, unemployed Muslim youth just waiting for an excuse to rampage.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, the prime minister, issued a statement expressing his "disapproval of all excesses."

The magazine's editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the name Charb, denied he was being deliberately provocative at a delicate time.

"The freedom of the press, is that a provocation?" he said. "I'm not asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just like I wouldn't go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go against everything I believe."

Muslim leaders have also piped in, not that anything they might say will change the minds of those hell bent on revenge.

Dalil Boubakeur, the senior cleric at Paris's biggest mosque, appealed for France's four million Muslims to remain calm.

"It is with astonishment, sadness and concern that I have learned that this publication is risking increasing the current outrage across the Muslim world," he said.

"I would appeal to them not to pour oil on the fire."

France's Muslim Council, the community's main representative body, also appealed for calm in the face of "this new act of Islamaphobia."

Muslim leaders need to control their wayward followers, and not simply try to appease them.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting for the news about the angry mobs taking to the streets in France.

UPDATE 9/19/12:  Here is one of the cartoons published on the front of Charlie Hebdo.

The cover of Charlie Hebdo (seen above) shows a Muslim in a wheelchair being pushed by an Orthodox Jew under the title Intouchables 2, referring to an award-winning French film about a impoverished black man who helps an aristocratic quadriplegic. Another cartoon on the back page of the weekly magazine shows a naked Mohammed exposing his backside to a film director.

Asked if it was a provocation, Editor Stephane Charbonnier said:

“The freedom of the press, is that a provocation? I’m not asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just like I wouldn’t go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go against everything I believe.”

Many people do. But as Charbonnier says, if you are offended by something just turn your head. No-one is forcing you to watch or read something you might find offensive.