Are You a Radical Mob Or An Oil Painting?

Terrorists struck yesterday in Samarra, blowing up the Golden Mosque -- a Shiite shrine -- and not a single imam could be bothered to issue a fatwa.

Last week, the faithful were wreaking international havoc because of what they perceived to be the unspeakable blasphemy displayed in a series of European cartoons. Now a mosque gets blown up and...crickets.

Yes, the local Shiites countered by attacking (as of yesterday) twenty-seven Sunni mosques. But as of now there have been no riots in Nigeria protesting this grievous insult to Islam; none in Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria or any other place recently set aflame (literally) by the cartoon controversy.

Was blowing up the Golden Mosque not blasphemous enough? Is the spontaneous outrage of the offended crowds on a time delay? Are the rabble-rousing imams collectively suffering smoke inhalation from torching all those flags?

Somewhere a cartoonist in Denmark is very confused.