The Brass Crescent awards
Aziz Poonawalla has opened nominations for the alt.muslim Brass Crescent awards (nominations here), for the best Muslim blogs and blogs about Islam. I’ve put in my nominations (and no, I’m not expecting nominations in...
Monthly Archive: December 2004
Charles Arthur’s new predictions (updated 31st Dec)
Charles Arthur has just published a new article outlining his predictions for the tech scene in 2005. One thing I noticed was the prediction that “Comment spam” on blogs will threaten to strangle discussion...
Indonesia: ruminations on ruminations
I’m not sure if the sort of ruminations which have appeared since the past weekend’s earthquake / tsunami disaster appear after every such disaster. But the whole idea of “how God can allow such...
The loophole in the “Freedom of Information” act
George Monbiot has a piece in today’s Guardian (which may shortly appear at his website) regarding the Great Skye Toll Bridge Rip-off in which a bridge was built linking mainland Scotland with the Isle...
Whatever happened to BBC pronunciation?
Listening to how people in the British broadcast media pronounce names of people who are very much in the news, you wonder why the organisation does not find out how they are pronounced, and...
New “terrorism” warning
A not-so-secret secret intelligence report reveals that “al-Qa’ida” is planning a big attack on the new year celebrations in London, according to the Daily Telegraph. This means, of course, that the Muslim community should...
Qaradawi on equal blood money
Yusuf al-Qaradawi has called for “equality” in the allotment of blood money on account of manslaughter during a forum in Qatar’s Supreme Council for Family Affairs. (I’m commenting on this here because Al-Muhajabah’s blog,...
Knives and stupid laws
I’ve been meaning to write something about the debate about weapons laws in the letters page of the Spectator for as long as it’s been going on, but have never got round to it,...
Baby milk … and now washing powder?
I just saw an ad on ITV for Ariel non-bio washing powder. The advert featured an African woman, traditionally dressed and with her scarf tied around her hair, kissing a little boy goodbye and...
Out on the road again
I was beginning to miss the experience of being out on the road. Typically my truck and van driving career has consisted of a mix of middle-distance (ie. around the south-east of England) and...
Four dumb things I found this week
It’s only Tuesday, and I’ve already seen four things which make me think “that’s dumb”.
Pipes: keep out thought, not action
On the subject of windbags, Daniel Pipes crows about Tariq Ramadan giving up his professorship at Notre Dame University, after the US revoked his visa for reasons unknown (no doubt, behind-the-scenes pressure). Even more...
Interpal: cleared twice, smeared again
Notorious web windbag Robert Spencer has decided to repeat Israeli intelligence “information” that the registered British charity Interpal is a “Hamas front”. This is, of course, a common tactic of his gang, and the...
The Dutch cesspit
Hearing of the Dutch bigots who are among the most vituperatively anti-Islamic in Europe does not have its full impact until you realise what they are fighting to protect. We’ve all heard of the...
Letter-writers round on Ridley
Last week Yvonne Ridley wrote an article in the Observer about the hostile reaction her headscarf has caused when going about her business in London, including jibes about bombs and “Chechen black widows”, and...
Theatre protest over insult to an Asian religion …
Yes, an Asian religion, I hope you weren’t thinking of Islam? Last night a large protest by Sikhs took place outside the Birmigham Repertory Theatre against a play called Behzti (Dishonour), and the vast...
Blogs and flame wars
Anyone who reads the blogs linked here will have witnessed the flame war currently going on between “Dr Maxtor” and the Canadian Islamophobe who posts under various names on Izzy Mo’s blog. I am...
Register of American Muslims?! (from Al-Muhajabah)
This should, perhaps, be a lesson to those who asked us to declare our religion in the 2001 UK census, just so that an accurate figure for the numbers of British Muslims could be...
Here’s a surprise about Feltham …
Those of you who’ve been following the British news might have heard of Zahid Mubarak, a young Asian man who was beaten to death by his cellmate in Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution, near London...
Got MT going again
Properly, this time, I hope (insha Allah). I ended up having to take the whole lot down and start again, reinstalling the whole Movable Type package from scratch. So far, I haven’t had the...