Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
The Independent's Extra section today published this article about Bill Gates' recent announcement that he is reducing his commitment to Microsoft to concentrate on his charity work. One sentence that stuck out was this:...
The Guardian recently carried two related depressing stories about the Muslim community here and terrorism. The first was that, according to some survey carried out by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, British Muslims had more negative views about their non-Muslim fellow citizens than do Muslims in Europe and more likely to believe conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks
Zia Sardar in the current edition of the New Statesman on the folly of “intelligence-led” police operations:
Don’t be fooled by the mantra that intelligence is an extremely difficult business, prone to absurdly wide margins of error. If that were so, Britain would have lost the Second World War. The remarkable success of British intelligence, including counter-intelligence, during that war proves that we can produce reasonable – say, 25 or even 50 per cent – rates of success.
Robert Spencer today posted to his blog *Jihad Watch* [a memo](http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011960.php) by one LTC Joseph C. Myers, Senior Army Advisor at Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, in reply to [an article](http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060622_5489.html) on...
On Sunday evening I finally got round to ordering the new hard drive for my Mac (a 120Gb Seagate). It arrived on Tuesday morning by standard first-class post, which was unexpectedly early, though they...
Two interesting articles regarding the British government's enthusiasm for adopting US policies into British criminal law: First, from this week's New Statesman: Martin Bright explains why our ministers seem always to look to the...
Richard Dowden (of the Royal African Society) in today's Independent argues that the Islamic Courts militia which recently seized power in Mogadishu (and may take control of other areas) is not a new Taliban,...
The Guardian's Education section today reports on how recent debates on boycotting Israeli universities produced a flood of often abusive emails: Following a heart attack earlier this year, Paul Mackney, then general secretary of...
Finally, the head of a police force comes out and says what a lot of us have been saying for months if not years: that the Government is caving in to bullying from the...
Saracen just made the point (entry below) about how on the High Street, "stock, price and service sometimes leave a lot to be desired", which is why he buys much of what he buys...
Earlier this evening I ordered a new hard drive for my Mac, one which has approximately triple the storage space of the one in there at the moment (120 gigabytes instead of 40). The...
Here is what Nick Cohen has to say about a demonstration I attended outside Scotland Yard (London police HQ) last Sunday in response to the bungled Forest Gate raid. He is suggesting that everyone...
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Jackie Ashley meets Melanie Phillips I'm sure some of you are getting sick to death with this and wondering if I have an infatuation with Melanie Phillips, but...
The Council on American-Islamic Relations – 'Marines' Cheer Song About Killing Iraqi Civilians I got this via Lenin: a four-minute video, posted on YouTube and later deleted but archived by CAIR (see link at...
Simon Heffer has written what amounts to a puff piece for Melanie Phillips' book Londonistan in the Daily Telegraph, alleging among other things that Phillips had difficulty "exercising her freedom of speech" on account...
IslamOnline reports that a recent poll in Turkey reveals that most people oppose the country's ban on hijab in the civil service and universities (see also this report from the Washington Post, thanks UZ)....
Comment is free: Lost in translation Jonathan Steele on how the president of Iran's notorious "wipe off the map" speech did not in fact contain the offending words at all: The New York Times's...
BBC NEWS | UK | In quotes: Terror raid brothers Abdul Kahar: As soon as I turn around I just see an orange spark and a big bang. At that time I flew into...
A snippet from Anita Anand's conversation with Melanie Phillips (hat tip: Saracen; you can listen to it here until next Monday; it's 1hr 45mins in. Anita: This is another text that's come in just...