Guardian on comment links and spam
Yesterday’s Guardian Technology supplement had an interesting article on comment spam and the use of the “nofollow” feature to discourage it. My own view on this is that the value of “nofollow” is limited...
Category: Media
“White privilege” blog carnival is up
Brooke has finally posted her blog carnival on “White privilege and the Ummah”, with my contribution as well as posts from Safiyya of Shalom 2 Salaam, Safiya of Outlines, Ginny, Fairuza/Sabiwabi, Bin Gregory, Nzingha,...
British tabloid hypocrisy shocker
The Sun today featured the story of a former British soldier whose image was featured in a British Nazi Party election leaflet, in uniform next to the words, “we’re fed up with being sent...
Kids are kids
Editor-At-Large: Our bitching and bullying is a form of class warfare – Janet Street-Porter, Commentators – The Independent Yesterday, this article by Janet Street-Porter on the depressing saga of the boy who represented the...
“Civil war” in US anti-Muslim blogosphere
The Washington Independent » Civil War Raging in Right-Wing Blogosphere Or how the alliance between Little Green Footballs and its numerous offspring of mostly Christian (and sometimes Jewish), right-wing, anti-Muslim blogs have fallen out...
Women respond to Melville
Following my rant about Kate Melville's letter in last Saturday's Guardian, two women (one Muslim, one probably not) respond in today's paper: Kate Melville weeps for the hijab- and niqab-wearing Muslim women who have...
Jade Goody: built up, knocked down, built up again
Yesterday morning, Jade Goody, the British reality TV “star”, died of ovarian cancer, so ending the last phase of her roller-coaster media career. Goody first appeared in the third edition of Big Brother in...
The sick whore of Fleet Street
That is how the Sun, which is of course a world-renowned upholder of journalistic standards, described the Daily Mirror when it printed pictures of the late Princess Diana working out in a gym, secretly...
IJ gets a mention in the Spectator
I was browsing through the Spectator the other day, and noticed that Melanie Phillips had contributed a piece about a "new axis of Islamists and Evangelicals" against Israel. The subject was nothing other than...
William Dalrymple on Sufis in Pakistan
William Dalrymple charts Pakistan’s descent into chaos | World news | The Guardian This appeared in the G2 supplement in the Guardian yesterday. Dalrymple has in general been sympathetic to Pakistan in his writings,...
Cerrie Burnell: what’s the problem?
In the Shade of the Veil: What’s the problem here? Last week, there was a huge controversy over the use of a presenter with one hand missing on a children’s TV channel run by...
Review of “Muslim First, British Second”
A brother has asked me to review the Panorama programme entitled Muslim First, British Second which was on BBC1 on Monday night. You can watch it (as I did) on the BBC's iPlayer here...
Wife Swap embarrassment
Br. Umar posted a YouTube video based on a recent American version of the reality TV show Wife Swap, in which an originally British, but naturalised American, man swapped with a family from Missouri,...
Response to Umar Lee on Shaikh Hamza Yusuf
Umar Lee has posted an exposé of what he calls "Rand Institute Muslims" or RIMs as they supposedly exist in 21st-century America. Their characteristics, according to him, are "detachment from the Islamic Revival", supporting...
My letter’s in the Technology Guardian
The technology supplement to the Guardian published a letter from me today, concerning the "no clue" nature of Apple's attitude to low-cost computer kit. You can read what they published here, but here's what...
The fashion police blitz on “rural Surrey”
Trinny and Susannah are something of a national institution here; they are best known as the faces of What Not to Wear and a series of less well-known programmes since they left BBC and...
Brass Crescent appreciation
I'd just like to say a huge thank you and jazakum Allah khair to all those who voted for me in the recent Brass Crescent awards. This blog won in the Best European blog...
A matter of dignity
On Thursday, there were reports about a woman who had taken her former employer, a bar in Mayfair, London, to court for supposedly sacking her for refusing to wear their staff uniform, a short...
Who are you calling work-shy?
Now that the boom years are over and thousands of people are losing their jobs, the government announces more restrictions on people claiming unemployment benefits, with accompanying cheerleading in the popular press which print...
Ed Stourton: Anti-PC gone mad
Edward Stourton (of BBC Radio 4) in the Catholic Herald, on myths about "political correctness" commonly parroted in the British media, such as the "Winterval" event which supposedly replaced Christmas in Birmingham (the full...