has anyone here actually READ the “Satanic Verses?”

The book is unimaginative, boring, and puncuated with the worst most vile language.  I got half way through it before consigning my copy to the trash bin, A place (incidently) I have never put a book before…

Bet a fig newton the queen never read it!

79485 by bigjimbo on 6/20 at 12:53 am

“Insulting Islamic values”? And those values are…? And is it the Sunnis or the Shia who represent Islamic values?  Quite obviously can’t be both, since their antipathy towards each other warrants killing each other.  Is Islam a great religion or what?”

Like the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland?

Religion, any religion is poison.

Hooray for the Brits I say.

I think that the cartoon guys deserve some plaques and the like as well.

These monkeys can chop peoples heads off left and right, castrate women, honor killings, you name it, and then they get their disgusting shorts in a knot over books and cartoons?

We need more books and more cartoons depicting this insanity for what it is.

Allah bless Rushdie’s little heart. He’s a darling and a true patriot. No reader of his literature myself, exquisite though I’m quite sure it is for warranting Her Majesty’s favor, of utmost importance for us is the implicit message in his Knighthood. That suborning the murder, for pay, of a literary figure won’t be countenanced. Said the Brits essentially to the Islamic theocrats: up with this, we will not put.

Merits or demerits one thing is proven beyond doubt. The aged queen has the same level of diplomatic skill as GWB and tony (two gun) Blair.

Someone should tell these lunitics that batting at hornets nests get innocent people stung.

Knighthoods can be removed for cause, and college degrees may be withdrawn.

These boys need to at least choose a good writer to get their knickers in a twist over.

Maybe the queen and her family do not read enough to know the difference between a good and bad writer.

Comic books? Now, that is this man´s speed.

Reuters reported that “Iran accused Britain on Sunday of insulting Islamic values by knighting Salman Rushdie, whose novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ prompted the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini to issue a fatwa death warrant against him.” I read on and there is more of this in the piece, faithfully laying out the rant of Iranian Foreign Minister spokesman Mohammad Ali Hossein. He is quoted as saying that “Honoring and commending an apostate and hated figure will definitely put the British officials in a position of confrontation with Islamic society.”
    Who are these barbarians and why do they get such elaborate treatment from Reuters? Why not just ignore the bastards? Why give them the honor of reporting their ravings? After all, what did Rushdie do? He wrote a novel, a fictional story involving ferreting out some parts of the Koran in ways that some of the self-appointed leaders of Islam consider offensive. So what?
    Nearly everything written in newspapers, broadcast on TV and radio, shown at the movies, etc., etc., offends my views daily. The stuff is infuriating—I consider much of it hazardous to the welfare of my fellow human beings, not to mention myself. Do I then call up my favorite thug and urge him to put out a contract against all these people who fail to take into consideration my sensitive nature?
    We live in a world of human beings who are likely to be at odds with one another on innumerable topics, including on just what is true and false in the Koran. Civilized people acknowledge this fact and live with it and if they care enough, they writebooks, articles, letters to the editor and, perhaps, now and then join a march, so as to express their objections but always peacefully.
  But the Iranian Minister is talking about confrontations. Growing out of an insult? Get real—the world would be bogged down in constant, unrelenting large and huge battles if an insult justified a confrontation. Who are these people, the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini or the Iranian Foreign Minister spokesman Mohammad Ali Hossein, to issue death threats against people who speak or writeagainst their views? Have they no shame, acting like angry infants, throwing fits, issuing threats when all they have to deal with is ideas, words, gestures—that is, various peaceful ways of making a point.
  If a set of beliefs is well founded, sound, true, does it really require being enforced by a bunch of thugs? Yes, some have thought this about their own views but they were usually deluded. The Nazis, Fascists, Commies and many others have acted exactly like these barbarians in Iran are acting, all peddling false ideas!
    Why doesn’t Reuters interview some folks who could answer nonsense like this from the Iranian Minister: “Giving a badge to one of the most hated figures in Islamic society is .. an obvious example of fighting against Islam by high-ranking British officials.” Could they not find someone prominent who could be quoted saying, “The Minister is crazy—giving honors to people isn’t fighting! Fighting is sending in an army or, come to think of it, issuing a fatwa! That’s what amounts to fighting. What giving Rushdie a knighthood amounts to extending a peaceful gesture of admiration. Nothing more.  No fighting. And others need not agree!”
  But the failure to heed these and other distinctions in how people can behave toward one another seems to be endemic of the Muslim leadership, at least in Iran. This failure pretty much consigns them all to an age that the West is mostly left, in the spirit of that nice and widely known cliché, “Sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words I can always walk away from” (with my spin).

Time to stop tolerating the intolerant. Tell Iran and Pakistan to go to whatever vision of hell they subscribe to. And as for the craven apologists for extermism in our own country, especially those (ironically) democratically elected by a free peoples, they need to think about who’s side they’re on. Enough religious bullying, reasonable and rational people are sick of it.

Boy, all this publicity is coming at a very good time for Salman, the very first edition of his new comic book series has just been printed and is awaiting distribution.

The first book is supposed to be a riot, in it ‘Krazi Khomeanie’, who plays the ‘Great Satan’, accidentally jams his pitchfork up his own ass while rowing across the river Styx, and is saved from drowning by a bunch of zionist writers who are celebrating their daughter’s bar mitzvahs by giving them a tour of purgatory.

If the Ayatollah has his shorts in a knot because of the Queen’s knighting of Salman, maybe we can smooth things over by having Robertson declare Khoumeni ‘The Great Satan’.

Once again Islamic nations forget that in western countries and most developed countries we have freedom of expression and religion. There is no guarantee even in Islam to what is right and what is wrong. If there was there would be no sectarian murder and no moslems blowing up each others place of worship. Really get over yourself. It is your belief not ours and we are not obligated to validate it for you. Look at yourselves. If there is any disrespect to Mohmet it is the way his believers go about killing each other and not tolerating different views. If God wanted us to be one way or the other, would every religion break up into factions? Would they kill each other? I am so glad that I am un-moved by the arrogance of it all.