Just when you didn’t need any more reasons to detest the Islamic maniacs running the country of Iran, along comes one more infuriating piece of news. Britain has decided to give a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, whose book “The Satanic Verses,” if you recall, got him in hot water with the world’s most intolerant people (Muslims). Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini found the book so offensive at the time that he slapped a death sentence on Rushdie’s head, which sent the author into hiding for a decade.

Now, Rushdie has received a knighthood along with a long list of other people who received that and various other honors and — will wonders never cease — Iran is fit to be tied. Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini called the action a manifestation of Islamophobia and said: “Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is . . . a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials.”

But Hosseini was just getting started. “The measure that has taken place for paying tribute to this apostate and detested figure will definitely put British statesmen and officials at odds with Islamic societies, the emotions and sentiments of which have again been provoked.”

In other words, don’t be surprised if enraged hordes of the world’s most intolerant people go on yet another senseless jag of rioting and indiscriminate murder to assuage their hypersensitive feelings. It’s probably only a matter of–

Well, that didn’t take long. This just in: “Muslim world inflamed by Rushdie knighthood.” The legions of brain-dead and chronically unemployed are already out in force in Pakistan where they are burning British flags, burning Rushdie and the Queen in effigy, and calling for the death of Britain and Rushdie, all in blissful cluelessness of the imbecilic picture they present to the civilized world.

The Organization to Commemorate Martyrs of the Muslim World (there’s a mouthful) has already offered a handsome reward to any successful assassin. The group’s secretary general provided this flowery statement: “The British and the supporters of the anti-Islam Salman Rushdie could rest assured that the writer’s nightmare will not end until the moment of his death and we will bestow kisses on the hands of whomsoever is able to execute this apostate.”

Meanwhile, back in Iran, the first deputy speaker of its parliament said, “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, here we go again with another worldwide round of fanatical Islamic “acting out.” It really does get tiresome after a bit. But already the attempts to placate the tantrums have begun and typical of such rhetoric is this statement by Robert Brinkley, British high commissioner to Pakistan:

“It is simply untrue to suggest that this in any way is an insult to Islam or the Prophet Mohammed, and we have enormous respect for Islam as a religion and for its intellectual and cultural achievements.”

It must make a civilized Westerner cringe inside when he has to say something like that, knowing full well that the Islamic world is a fever swamp of poverty, ignorance, backwardness, fanaticism and violence. Shoveling actual sh__ might be more palatable.

Time will tell if the Rushdie riots will outdo the Mohammed cartoon riots or the Koran-flushing riots or the– Well, who can keep track? Anyway, be advised of the usual warnings not to visit any Islamic countries until this all blows over.

Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/