Sharia law enforcement -- self policing. Do not say the word Muhammad. Comedy Central, which is so not funny these days, has banned the word Muhammad. Is everyone in a coma?
And O'Reilly submitted to Islamic law here. This story is bigger than the Icelandic volcano -- a pillar of this great country has cracked clear through. Which is why the SIOA"free speech" bus victory is such a huge story.
Remember when the Nazis marched in Skokie back in the 70s? And what a big story that was? People were outraged, but free speech was (and is) the holy grail (and rightly so), no matter how despicable the idea.
This is the slipperiest of slopes -- right off a cliff and into the stone age.
Now "South Park" can't even say the words "Prophet Muhammad." Hollywood ReporterAfter last week's episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night's continuation of the show's storyline.
For those who missed the drama, the show's 200th episode mocked the one "celebrity" that the show has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A website then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show's production office.
Last night's episode continued the controversial Muhammad storyline, but with a key difference: every instance of the words "Prophet Muhammad" were bleeped out, making the episode practically incomprehensible, especially to anybody who missed the previous week.
A Comedy Central spokesperson confirmed it was the network's decision to censor the words.
The content is also not available on the South Park Studios website.
The character of Muhammad was once again hidden from view, covered by a large block labeled "censored."
Ironically, the show apparently has an image of the Prophet Muhammad that's shown briefly in the show's opening credits that has gone largely unnoticed.
UPDATE: And this: 'South Park’ Episode Is Altered After Muslim Group’s Warning Artsbeat NY Times
SouthParkStudios.com A message posted on SouthParkStudios.com, the Web site of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s production company.
8:56 a.m. | Updated
An episode of “South Park” that continued a story line involving the Prophet Muhammad was shown Wednesday night on Comedy Central with audio bleeps and image blocks reading “CENSORED” after a Muslim group warned the show’s creators that they could face violence for depicting that holy Islamic prophet. Revolution Muslim, a group based in New York, wrote on its Web site that the “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker “will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh” for an episode shown last week in which a character said to be the Prophet Muhammad was seen wearing a bear costume. Mr. Van Gogh was slain in Amsterdam in 2004 after making a film that discussed the abuse of Muslim women in some Islamic societies.The new episode of “South Park” on Wednesday night tried to revisit this character, but with the name and depiction of the character blocked out. It was unclear how much of the bleeping was Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker’s decision. In a message posted on their Web site, SouthParkStudios.com, they wrote that they could not immediately stream the new episode on the site because:
After we delivered the show, and prior to broadcast, Comedy Central placed numerous additional audio bleeps throughout the episode. We do not have network approval to stream our original version of the show.
On Thursday morning, a spokesman for Comedy Central confirmed that the network had added more bleeps to the episode than were in the cut delivered by South Park Studios, and that it was not giving permission for the episode to run on the studio’s Web site.
