European leaders, their proudest moment to date.

As we know there has been a carefully coordinated uproar over those Danish cartoons of Mohamed.  The bloody handed dictatorships of Iran and Syria have arranged top burn down their Danish embassies and pull a few more stunts too.  Typical thugocracy behaviour, 100% expected.

Here's the European Union's response:

The European Union may try to draw up a media code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the furore caused by the publication across Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an EU commissioner said today.

In an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the charter would encourage the media to show ''prudence'' when covering religion.

''The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression,'' he told the newspaper. ''We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right.'' The cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September before being reprinted across Europe, sparked a wave of protests around the world.

I don't think "cheese eating surrender monkeys" quite captures the craven nature of that statement.  Reminds me of the old WWII joke about Italian tanks having one forward speed and four reverse.

Were I a European newspaper editor, I'd print a new cartoon every single day and dare the EU bastards to jail me for it.  You either have free speech or you don't.

The Phantom