It isn't going to work. They aren't playing the same game.

Most bullies and dictators aren't playing the same game. Ridicule counters intimidation. Then more people who are cowed or confused feel emboldened to join you.

Dissidents have usually appreciated ridicule of their oppressors, coming from their allies on the outside.

in this case dissidents include most Muslim women and children.

I disagree with Stephen Green on waging a culture war. Attack the religion and its them against us. Make great works of art, beautiful designs or humerous cartoons and you divide those who want a better life from those who thrive on hate.

In the words of Samuel J. Snodgrass, "make 'em laugh."

It looks like this Iranian newspaper is playing the game in their own little way:

http://www.takingaim.co.uk/?p=55

Yes, let's make them laugh.

Except, all of us instinctively know when someone is laughing with us, and when someone is laughing at us. And haven't you ever had the instinctual desire to knock someone in the front teeth while being 'laughed at'?

Ridiculing someone else rarely results in greater kinship or understanding; but it does usually start a fight.

What we need is another way to funnel muslim rage into a productive output....

I suggest giving muslim groups (ie nonviolent muslim groups) a short opinion column in some of these papers (of course, the column will need to be chosen for taste). Maybe some of these groups will feel represented, and be less outraged. Maybe it will encourage greater dialogue between populations. If not, no harm no foul.

Or, why not let muslims respond with their own cartoons (again, leting only tasteful cartoons through). Maybe this will help change the 'laughing at' problem into a 'laughing with' solution.

ryan

We can't make Islamists laugh. It's against their beliefs.

Seriously.

...just after Mr. Khomeini's return to Iran in 1979 as ruler of the country. One of his first orders was to censor pictures of himself smiling, on the ground that this made him look frivolous. Mr. Khomeini later explained: "An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam."

I don't know if humor is against their laws, but if they've outlawed music and representational art, I wouldn't be surprised..

"Or, why not let muslims respond with their own cartoons (again, leting only tasteful cartoons through)."

You're kidding right? Have you seen their cartoons?

This is a carefully orchestrated campaign of violent intimidation. The cartoons were published last October. Global outrage (including burning down embassies and killing people and calling for killing of more people, and faking much worse cartoons to inflame people) started last week.

What purpose is served by instructing Muslims around the world to go on a global rampage?

(Despite not having first checked with Sun-Tzu) Now at gringoman.com: REVOLT OF THE INFIDELS.

Buy Danish! (State Department, White House, listen up)

Against reverence and awe the best argument is sometimes not logic, but mockery. Structures of oppression that may not be susceptible to rational debate may in the end yield to derision. When people see that a priest, rabbi, imam or uniformed official may be giggled at without lightning striking the impertinent, arguments may be won on a deeper level than logic.

We should never, therefore, relinquish, nor lightly value, our right not to argue in the face of other people’s gods — but to fart.

Logic hasn't been working, so it couldn't hurt to try something new...

We've been treating their religion with respect and Muslims as fellow adults since 9/11. It's not working. There has been no movement that I can see for Muslims here in the West nor their fellows back home in whatever quagmire they are mired in to step up to the plate and take responsibility for their own actions and state of affairs.

I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to get along with Muslims, nor to continue to salve their hurted little feelings. If they want a fight, fine. Let's get it out in the open so we're all playing on the same field.

But in the mean time, since respect and fellow-humanity hasn't worked an iota, mockery and humiliation strikes me as something we have not tried ... and it certainly will be more fun than the abject groveling our Muslim neighbors have been demanding of us for the past four years.

P.S. They can always go home and turn off the TV set and quit reading Western newspapers and the internet if they find it so offensive, can't they? Is anyone forcing them to read these things?

I'm still waiting for the Photoshop to the caption:

"I saw Mohammend in a Danish."

What's taking so long?

Sincerely,

Jerome du Bois

OK, some of the links were really funny.

Oh well. It's one possible future.

Currently, they have the desire to inflict mass casualties, but lack the means. We have the means, but lack the desire.But this may not always be the case. They may gain the means, we may gain the desire.

Who will get to the finish line first?

To be clear, when I said "make 'em laugh," I had no pretensions that Islamists see any value in humor. Humor is a form of modernism. Anyone who wants to remake society must deal (read "restrain") with the humanizing ambiguities of humor. There was a history of such restraint in the USSR.

I don't think that it is accidental that two of the three social conflicts between Islam and the West were in this area: First, Rushdie's comedic The Satanic Verses and most recently newspaper comics. Idealogues know how to respond to polemics, but humor is a difficult quarry -- it is belittling to engage in a battle of ideas with a joke, even when we everyone know the joke is premised on an idea.

The point is not to win a battle of memes or anything like that. The point is only this: defiance.

I think we are testing the limits of Callimachus' "Duel Purpose" theory (link), according to which we should perhaps "reset the rules so that you no longer can just utter any sort of slander or insult without suffering any consequences."

Domination through fear works until it doesn't. When it stops working on an individual, they may mock you even if they would never have considered doing so had you not menaced them.

We're starting to see a little of that now. (Not much, but it's a sign of life and thus a Good Thing.)

Islam certainly imposes "consequences". Salman Rushdie knows a lot about it.

For the most part, Muslim terror and intimidation are still working great. Respectable people still refuse to show the cartoons, and/or condemn then as offensive even though they are mild - in the main pathetically mild.

Why? Fear. And the attitude of those who want to win a "prisoner's dilemma" game by letting the other guy take the full penalty alone. Speaking negatively about The Satanic Verses without having read it, which some people were willing to do, meant something very like saying: "Kill him, not me. Menace him, not me. He stands alone, I'm not with him."

But some people have had it with this. Courtesy is a wonderful thing, and I'm all for it, especially in matters of religion. Going along with jihad intimidation is another matter. That's what's really in question here. It's fear, not manners, that has made Islam immune to insults that other religions suffer daily.

Therefore, the digitus infamis (the Roman middle-finger salute) to Muhammed.

The balance of terror and submission may be restored by more brutal Muslim killings, though how you get more brutal than the slaughter of Theo Van Gogh is a question.

In the meantime there will be more cartoons, purely because some people (though apparently not very many) have had it with "submission" to Muslim pressure. Good.

'Piglet' shouldn't be the character of choice.

It should be Ms. Piggy from the Muppets.

A strong, opinionated, domineering, female pig.

"Veil this!" Spin...WHACK...thump.

Al,

Good one! She is known to be seductive at times too. The PERFECT character for this purpose!

I knew Western creativity and cultural ingenuity would provide us with limitless weapons against these crude idiots..

"I knew Western creativity and cultural ingenuity would provide us with limitless weapons against these crude idiots.."

So far this thread is only going to prove my point. You are not looking for ideas which you can use as weapons against Islam. You are looking for a way to start a fight, and hoping that by belittling your opponent you will win more people to your side.

Unless your intention is only to start a fight, it's not going to work. Moreover, I suspect that even if you had limitless wit to mock Islam, you wouldn't recruit allies to your side because those allies you wish to recruit have consciously or unconsciously a fragmentary Christian morality (keeping some while discarding others), and they will discern what you are doing and be discomforted by it. You will only win more sympathy for the targets of your attack. All you will manage is to make you more self-righteous, sure of yourself and the validity of your cause. This is useful only if you are a coward.

No, it may be that there is no course but to fight, but if we must fight let's fight like men and not children on a schoolyard. No, we will discomfort Islam not with humor, but with the glaring spotlight of truth. We should be endeavoring to reveal the sham of the Islamist, and all or memetic weapons should be turned in that fashion to undo thier boasts and the words of thier pride by showing them for the foolishness that they are. (Oh that Hollywood should have turned its energy to that cause and shown solidarity with those that Islam oppresses.) The greatest memetic triumph we have made against Islam in the last few decades, was having the Iraqi information minister claiming there were no US tanks anywhere near Bagdad.

Now that was humor. ;)

But, take it from someone who is religious, you will not cause anyone to abandon thier beliefs by by mocking them.

//We in the civilized West have a fine tradition of what the British call "taking the piss" out of bullies and dictators and other self-important people.//

I guess that gives new meaning to the term "piss be upon him!" (Sorry if I offended. Feel free to send me a fatwah)

//Even the French have engaged in this pastime.//

Even the French? Gotta be kidding. Ever watched Les Guignols de l'Info. Or read Charlie Hebdo? To list only 2.

#17 from celebrim: "You will only win more sympathy for the targets of your attack. All you will manage is to make you more self-righteous, sure of yourself and the validity of your cause. This is useful only if you are a coward."

Again, you are quick to put insulting and nasty implications on those you treat as your opponents.

Meanwhile you tell them that verbal attacks only recoil on the attacker, and are useless unless you are a coward.

You haven't acted like you believe your own story.

"Even the French? Gotta be kidding. Ever watched Les Guignols de l'Info."

Which is no doubt famous for its frequent satirical depictions of Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Charles Taylor, the Chinese Communist party directors, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Iranian Mullah's, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, Jean Kambanda, Kim Jung-Il, and other actual bullies, dictators, and self-important people who might take personal offense at getting satirized and so cancel contracts with Elf-Autofina, Aerospatiale, or the Thales Group?

Because we all know that Bush is a bigger dictator than good old French pals like Bashar, Hussein, Aristide, Kambanda, and the Sudanese, right? Those are business partners for crying out loud.

Muslims have a good sense of humor... although it usually is quite a bit darker than ours is. (But I wouldn't be suprised if fundamentalists had less of a sense of humor)

For example; I heard this Iraqi joke about Sadaam a few months ago...

one of Sadaam's advisors came to him one day and said there were problems with refugees trying to leave the country. Sadam was outraged, and disquised himself as a peasant and went to the border.

when he got there, he waited in the long lines until it was his turn to leave the country. Then he turned around and yelled "Surprise, I've fooled you all!". But when he looked around, everyone was gone.

"Where did they go!?" he yelled at the guard.

So the guard answered him "When they saw you were leaving, they decided to stay".

"Muslims have a good sense of humor... although it usually is quite a bit darker than ours is."

I'm sure that they do, but so far the thread has been about mocking Mohammed and not say the Iranian Mullahs. I'm willing to bet that the people of Iran would welcome darkly humerous jokes about the plight of living under the Mullah's, but I'm equally certain that mocking Mohammed isn't going to get you anywhere - unless what you want is fight.

Celebrim: the Guignols do that all the time when those people are in the news. Making fun of self-important people is the issue here. We deal with the ones that are in the news. Making fun of Charles Taylor on prime time French TV is not exactly going to boost ratings, nobody knows him, whether in the US or in France. But making fun of Chirac (ridiculing him, really, his name on the show is Super Liar), is a great success.

There is really no equivalent in the world that I know of of such a self-deprecating show as the Guignols. Your own self-deprecating shows come on late night or are just on cable (the Daily Show might be the closest thing, with far less punch).

Can you imagine a Guignols show here, constantly ridiculing Bush and everyone else in the news on a prime time TV network?

For that matter, do you have any show making fun of the dictators with which American companies do business with?

"Making fun of Charles Taylor on prime time French TV is not exactly going to boost ratings, nobody knows him, whether in the US or in France."

But isn't that my point entirely? So its more profitable to make fun of Bush and Chirac. I agree. Pat yourself on the back for taking the bold step of making money.

"There is really no equivalent in the world that I know of of such a self-deprecating show as the Guignols."

Self-deprecating? You mean it makes fun of itself, or do you mean it takes the daring step of making fun of things that are French?

"Your own self-deprecating shows come on late night or are just on cable (the Daily Show might be the closest thing, with far less punch)."

Mad TV? Saturday Night Live? The Late Show? The Simpsons? South Park? Sure, they are on cable and on late night. Part of that is that they are typically pretty vulgar and would provoke protest if they were on prime time.

"Can you imagine a Guignols show here, constantly ridiculing Bush and everyone else in the news on a prime time TV network?"

They tried one back in the '80's IIRC, shortly after the British puppet show started up. I believe it was a flop, because I don't remember it lasting too long. Politics can make for good humor, but strident self-important politics is just irritating. That's the reason that SNL hasn't been funny since the '70's, and wasn't that funny then. The Simpsons on the other hand (at least in the early seasons) mocked everyone and managed to make most everyone laugh at themselves.

"For that matter, do you have any show making fun of the dictators with which American companies do business with?"

No we don't. I think that the whole point of the thread was that we should. I believe that you think I'm taking this whole 'The US is better than France' approach, which I'm not. There are many things that I rue about our culture. However, while we are on the subject, what dictators and companies would you be talking about? Right at the moment the major contriversy of US corporations working with dictators I'm aware of is the information sector companies (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, etc.) agreeing to help the Chinese with thier political censorship. Someone does need to be ridiculing that; I'd be all for it.

"Google: We only do evil when its really really profitable"

"Google: We only want governments to know what there citizens are reading when those governments are willing to pay us money."

"At Google we want our customers to know, that we only bow to government pressure when the jackboots are sufficiently big; otherwise you can count on us to bravely resist"

Or some such.

celebrim: //I believe that you think I'm taking this whole 'The US is better than France' approach, which I'm not.//

You may not be, but whoever wrote "even the French" in the original post clearly was.

That was the point of my reaction. We do self-deprecate as much as the next guy (really, more, AFAIK)

And making fun of obscure dictators is just not going to be fun if nobody knows them. But even then, publications like Charlie Hebdo or Le Canard Enchaine do that all the time. Pick one up one day that you're in Paris (unfortunately, neither is online)

I agree with the rest of what you wrote.

My basic point is simple. I'll try to be brief, though brevity is the thing I have the hardest problem with.

What is your goal? Is your goal to provoke a fight? Or is your goal to provoke constructive self-criticism in Islam?

If your goal is the provoking the constructive self-criticism of Islam, you aren't going to accomplish it by finding ways to make fun of Islamics at thier expense. If you on the other hand want to provoke a fight, then lots of mockery of Islam that only someone deeply entrenched in the Western culture and already accepting of its precepts would find funny is a good and subtle start.

Mocking a group in order to alter thier behavior only works if they really care what you think of them. These people are by definition outsiders that don't identify with our cultural identity. Setting here in the tribe and poking jabs at the other tribe might be a way to work yourself up for battle, but its not really going to promote dialogue between the two tribes or get the other tribal leaders to look at themselves in the mirror and go, "Gee, I guess I am ridiculous." Heck, even looking at the results of our culture wars ought to convince you of that. Laughter only comes after understanding. (Does anyone else read Jonathan Lethem?)

See... that didn't turn out nearly as short as I envisioned.

Who's the bully? The ones with all the cargo, or the ones without?

celebrim: //What is your goal? Is your goal to provoke a fight? Or is your goal to provoke constructive self-criticism in Islam?//

My understanding is that one of the goals of the current administration in the Middle East is to foster democracy over there. Democracy based on our understanding of what is a democracy, not based on the understanding of it by a mullah.

A free press is part of our understanding of democracy.

You can't be showing them what democracy is all about if you back off those principles in your own country at the first sign of trouble.

I advocate humor, not mocking insults. For example, replacing the Prophet's head with a pig is an insult. Replacing the Prophet's head with a bomb is a visual critique. Creating a scene in which jihadists find no more virgins waiting for them is humor. We've seen tons of variations on the guy waiting in line at the pearly gates and getting something other than expected.

I don't believe, as superfrenchie seems to suggest in #28, that the freedom to poke fun at people's religious beliefs is essential to the creation of a democracy. It is certainly not a precedent in this country -- religious humor did not exist or could only be found in much more subtle forms, like Huckleberry Finn's anxieties about a heaven in which there was nothing to do all day but play the harp.

I do believe humor is an inoculant against totalitarianism. My favorite Frenchman, Milan Kundera, has made this point a lot.

PD Shaw: //I don't believe, as superfrenchie seems to suggest in #28, that the freedom to poke fun at people's religious beliefs is essential to the creation of a democracy.//

I'm not trying to knock you in any way, but I find it a bit ironic that we get constantly criticized in the US for having limitations on racist speech (which I'm against (the limitations), but that's for a different day), whereas you seem to be OK with having speech limitations on poking fun at religious beliefs.

What's better: saying the holocaust was a good thing, or saying that the prophet Mohamed was a moron?

Love Milan Kundera. He's Czech and French. Born in Brno, which can be funny if you're dislexic.

NPR had a great show this morning interviewing multiple sides of the story.

A mullah (nonviolent, against threats) indicated that just because you are free to do something, it does not mean that it has to be done.

An intereasting point. Do we stick so proudly to the idea of 'free-speech or death' that we proudly use racist insults just because we can? Or are we expected to act of a higher morality?

In a perfect free world there are consequences. The consequences of printing racist murals are that you have a crowd of protestors in your office. If your protesters pillage or burn, thier consequence is going to jail.

Still, these comics were worthless. Not only did they 'stir the hornets nest' but nothing of positive worth came from them. They were created to spark outrage. And SURPRISE! that's what we got.

For info, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's cover for tomorrow's edition.

Translation: Mohamed overtaken by integrists - "it's tough to be loved by morons!"

Nobody knows how to put oil on the fire like Charlie Hebdo ;)

The entire edition is dedicated to the issue. I can't wait to see what else they have inside :)

PD Shaw: "I advocate humor, not mocking insults. For example, replacing the Prophet's head with a pig is an insult. Replacing the Prophet's head with a bomb is a visual critique. Creating a scene in which jihadists find no more virgins waiting for them is humor."

You are missing the point. One mans side-splitting subtle but respectful satire is another man's sacriligous blasphemy. (I ought to know.) The problem is that by your standards, all the Danish cartoons were no more than visual critiques - heck some of them tried there darndest to be respectful. You may think that creating a scene in which jihadists find no more virgins waiting for them is humor, but the jihadists - and apparantly a good deal of mainstream Islam - doesn't. I don't get it either. I'm used to God being reviled. What's the big deal? God can take care of himself. I don't like to see it, but its not because I'm worried about God getting insulted. But that's the whole point. They aren't me. They aren't us. The question is how we get from here to there, and its not going to be through humor. The humor - the point were we can tell each other jokes - comes latter, after trust and respect. You ought to know that. You don't start friendships by humorous critiques, however witty you may be.

"We've seen tons of variations on the guy waiting in line at the pearly gates and getting something other than expected."

Yeah, but they haven't. Miss Piggy, and Piglet, and Dilbert, and even the pearly gates are all inside jokes - you have to be part of the culture to appreciate them. They aren't aimed at Islam. They are aimed at everyone else already on the inside. So what is really thier purpose?

"I don't believe, as superfrenchie seems to suggest in #28, that the freedom to poke fun at people's religious beliefs is essential to the creation of a democracy."

Well, the probably I have with this is the whole 'essential' is a pretty absolutist term. I could get into a long discussion of the evolution of free speach, standards of civility, and so forth, but it mainly misses the point. We aren't talking about the functioning of a single society. We are talking about the relationship of multiple societies and cultural groups. I'm pretty sure that tolerance for people poking fun at people's religious beliefs is going to be essential to global peace, so we either find a way to develop that (or a corresponding global civility, which seems really unlikely to me cause I'm not sure who would prove more uncivil in this, the decadent civilized countries or the barbarians) or else we have war. There aren't any other alternatives.

Humor won't work - especially if they aren't laughing at it. I mean, you think the Mullahs are going to be overturned by a really good joke on Jay Leno? You think David Lettermen could tell a really good joke, and the Islamists will leave the streets in embarassment? You think embarassment is going to diffuse the situation in a shame culture? Try again.

"It is certainly not a precedent in this country -- religious humor did not exist or could only be found in much more subtle forms, like Huckleberry Finn's anxieties about a heaven in which there was nothing to do all day but play the harp."

It wasn't so much the satire that you had to worry about. It was the guy getting up in the pulpit and declaring the Methodists to be heretics dangerous to the morals of the community. We had the 'Great Awakening' to fix that, or else we probably would have never been a country.

"A mullah (nonviolent, against threats) indicated that just because you are free to do something, it does not mean that it has to be done."

I would agree with that. The printing of the Mohammed charactitures was uncivil. It shouldn't have happened. More to the point though, it shouldn't have had to have happened. It happened because so many of the Moslems are uncivil to the point of barbarism. The cartoons are a litmus test. The reaction to the printing proved the editors of the paper right. If the reaction had have been repectful disagreement or even non-violent outrage, then I'd be totally siding with Islam here out of respect not for Islam but for the principle of civility. But because the paper was merely rude and was responded to with barbarism, the paper completely has the moral high ground.

The newspaper proved their point. Maybe better than they thought they would. Though, I really hope that they didn't print them with some niave multi-culturist faith that something like this wouldn't happen, because if they did they are probably reeling in disbelief right about now. I wouldn't rule that out completely.

"Do we stick so proudly to the idea of 'free-speech or death' that we proudly use racist insults just because we can? Or are we expected to act of a higher morality?"

We stick to a higher morality. However, there remain two very relevant questions. First, can the higher morality of Islam as it stands now be made compatible with the modern world. And second, to what extent can we or must we encode higher moral values into the legal code of the nation. That's a non-trivial question as far as I'm concerned. What constitutes a higher moral value, and what constitutes as cure that is worse than the disease are complicated issues.

I think it should be self-evident that it would be impossible to encode a law for a diverse society which made it illegal to offend someone's religious beliefs without completely chilling all free speach - whether in philosophy, science, religion, or politics. The ideas of religion are too closely tied to every aspect of society. Take the recent case in Italy of guy suing a Priest for claiming the reality of Christ, because he was firmly convinced that it was a provable fact that Christ didn't exist and he wanted to get a judge to force the Priest not to claim that he did. Some one is always going to be offended by something.

"Still, these comics were worthless. Not only did they 'stir the hornets nest' but nothing of positive worth came from them. They were created to spark outrage. And SURPRISE! that's what we got."

Some would argue that the outrage was a thing of value in and of itself. Sometimes the world needs a dose or two of reality.

celebrim, you're wrong. But I guess the reason you're siding with the Muslims and against Americans and our traditions is you tilt personally towards long-winded speechifying, lecturing and hectoring, and obviously never met a strong silent type in your life.

Superfrenchie: I'm not trying to knock you in any way, but . . . you seem to be OK with having speech limitations on poking fun at religious beliefs.

I believe in no limitations on religious oriented speech of people. I do believe that if we are going to have such limitations (such as hate speech laws) then they need to be uniform -- the same protections must be given Christians, Muslims, Jews and Athiests.

I just don't believe as a historical matter you can make the case that robust anti-religious speech is that important to democracies. I certainly believe that Iraq will have laws prohibitting depections of the Prophet and that will have no consequence on the democracy project.

PD Shaw: If we believed that anti-defamation laws were incompatible with democracy, we'd have to argue that Germany isn't a democracy.

What they may however be incompatible with is a multicultural democracy. The situations in which they've worked you had a cultural consensus and potentially offensive 'rudeness' was constrained by civil convention. Certainly, Germany is having an increasing problem enforcing its anti-blasphemy laws.

you think the Mullahs are going to be overturned by a really good joke on Jay Leno?

I have no naive belief that the WOT will be won by getting the Blue Meanies to laugh. I am naive enough to believe that the rioting thugs on television do not reflect the views of all Muslims. Sistani seems to understand that the butts of the "joke" are the militants that are killing in the name of Allah.

What do I expect? I think humor might provide relief for some of the victims of the worst forms of religious abuses. I think it provides an avenue for discussion and critical inquiry that may be more difficult in other forms. And lastly, I think it keeps the religious fanatics from holding a monopoly on the images of their religion.

I do think humor can be distinguished objectively from insult (see #29). I didn't say these cartoons were "funny," which would be subjective (and I don't think they're particularly funny), but at least the one with the jihadists going to heaven, it follows a pretty classic form of "what if" or an unexpected twist to a conventional situation.

But I do expect some people to be offended. The Producers offended some of Holocaust survivors when it was recently presented in Hebrew in Israel. c'est la vie.

PD Shaw: While I do believe that all speech should be free, I make a distinction between racist speech and anti-religious speech. Not for the purpose of protecting one over the other, but for the purpose of determining what offends me and what does not.

A religion is a choice you make (or should make, at least). As such, it is open to criticism, ridicule, whatever. Anti-religious speech does not offend me (on the contrary, I find it refreshing!)

A race (an ethnicity would be a better word), is not something you choose. As such, racist speech offends me.

It can of course be tricky when people pretend "to be" their religion. Muslims have a tendancy to do that. But that's their problem, as I do not believe that man has a "destiny" to be this or that, and I won't back away from ridiculing their religion, just like I would ridicule the Jewish religion, the Christian religion, the anemists, or the voodoo stuff. I am an equal opportunity religion-basher. :)

Today's first page of French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine.