It's not art, but is it funny?

Some of the vivid imagery of the post-9/11 era is searing itself into popular culture. For example:

Yesterday, Boing Boing pointed us in the direction of a website where contributors post pictures of themselves making the famous Lyndie England pose next to the passed out, homeless and other unfortunates.

A group calling themselves Stockholm's Militant Graffiti Artists has kindapped one of those ubiquitous painted CowParade cows that's been sprouting up all over town. They sent a video to a local paper, which shows masked men holding a power drill to the cow's head: "We demand that the cows are declared non-art. Otherwise the hostage will be sacrificed," one of them says.

And in some cases, some people see 9/11 references that aren't even there. A Subway restaurant ad campaign had a hamburger rampaging through a central business district, Godzilla-style. For some, this proved too reminiscent of airplanes hitting the WTC.

Are any of these beyond the pale? Disaster movies must be fine — millions of people die every year in Hollywood blockbusters. It's also apparently okay to mock evil (think Charlie Chaplin as Hitler). Is it only in poor taste if the reference isn't clearly condemnatory of an event that affected us directly?