Thanks again to Sounder for bringing this to my attention.
The Jawa Report tells us of the latest crazy fatwa, emoticons.
Emoticons are forbidden because of its imitation to Allah’s creatures whether it is original or mixture or even deformed one and since the picture is the face and the face is what makes the real picture then emoticons which represent faces that express emotions then all that add up to make them Haram
I especially love this discussion over why this ---> :-) is okay, but not this ---> 
Then there's this:
A woman should not use these images when speaking to a man who is not her mahram, because these faces are used to express how she is feeling, so it is as if she is smiling, laughing, acting shy and so on, and a woman should not do that with a non-mahram man.
It is only permissible for a woman to speak to men in cases of necessity, so long as that is in a public chat room and not in private correspondence.
Since I'm already in for a penny, might as well be in for a pound. If emoticons are harem, what about emoticons of dancing terrorists?
Thanks to Jane.
UPDATE: Black Flag gets the fatwa for the day!
Don't even get them started on Mohammed emoticons. ;)
