Knighthood for UK author stirs hatred & controversy

The UK author Salman Rushdie has been awarded a knighthood by the Government.

Rushdie has been under threat of death from a fatwa issued in Iran since 1989 when he wrote a book called ’Satanic Verses’. The book would have had very little exposure if it were not for the Moslem threats - and certainly gets far more than I suspect it deserves as a result.

On hearing of the award Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz ul-Haq said:

“If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet then it is justified,”

Everyone’s a critic - I guess he must be a ‘moderate’

He later tried to weasel it by trying to claim he actually meant the honour meant a risk of suicide attacks because Muslims believed Sir Salman had insulted Islam.

Iranian conservatives criticised Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday over the conferring of the honour, presumably having no real idea how the system works - and that the Queen doesn’t just pick the conferees personally.

Iran’s First Deputy Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar addressing Iran's parliament said to great applause:

"The action by the British Queen in knighting Salman Rushdie, the apostate, is an unwise one.

The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th Century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important."

So, if bestowing titles isn’t still deemed important, then why is he bothering to comment? It is obviously is important to him.

I wonder if he ever read the book – Nah! Nor most of the flag burners and assorted rent-a-crowd either.

These Ranters need to understand that the knighthood has very little to do with trying to annoy fanatical religious types. I doubt it even entered into the equation.

It comes from a small insulated little world, as a natural progression of Rushdie being an acclaimed “arty type”, who has been (despite the fatwa) around for a while and not (to mix metaphors) blotted his arty lefty liberal credentials. It was his turn dummies! No conspiracy, no complicated global Zionist Military/Industrial complex, fiendish and cunning plan to diss Islam.

…Just - his - turn. Smell that coffee folks!

Report says BBC operates in "left-leaning comfort zone"

It’s official, a report titled ‘From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel’, criticised the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for an innate Left/Liberal bias. Warning that this angered viewers and risked stifling originality.

The BBC's former political editor, Andrew Marr, revealed during a seminar in 2006 that the staffing of BBC ‘almost certainly’ did not accurately reflect the profile of the country in terms of race, or sexual preference and that it predominantly employed younger people.

A survey of viewers found that while the corporation was still generally seen as impartial, the majority of those surveyed outside of South-East England felt they were under-represented and there was a suggestion that it was felt news reports were sometimes censored in the interests of political correctness.

The BBC is funded by the 'Television Licence' a compulsory tax on each household's television ownership in the UK.