Satanic Verses, indeed.

So, Salman Rushdie (he of The Satanic Verses, amongst other works) has been awarded a knighthood in the UK. Rather predictably, the religious loonies are having a field day with this news. From the Guardian:

The award of a knighthood to the author Salman Rushdie justifies suicide attacks, a Pakistani government minister said today.

"This is an occasion for the 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, told the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad. "The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title."

So, let me make sure I got this right: Muslims are seen as terrorists by a large part of the world, so, in order to make clear that this isn't so, they're advocating blowing people up?

Great.

And, just for those Americans who may be feeling all righteous about this, if Pat Robertson were running things here, it wouldn't be very different. We'd just be burning witches and gays instead.