Faith schools: Ulster card played yet again
In the edition of the New Statesman before last (19th Sept 2005), Nick Cohen had an article published in which he questioned the religion and religiosity figures in the 2001 census and called for...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Palazzi reveals his disbelief
Massimo “Abdul-Hadi” Palazzi hasn’t been heard from much lately in the sections of the Internet I inhabit – a couple of years ago one of his minions was a persistent presence on one of...
Another anti-war demo
So, another anti-war demonstration is over. I attended today's event more to cover it than to take part in it, because I'm becoming rather cynical about the whole situation. I always thought the war...
Accessibility features for next version of Qt
My main programming interest is Qt, which is a programming toolkit which allows the same program to be deployed on the Mac, Windows, and X-Window systems such as exist on Linux and Solaris. One...
Bad names, bad kids
This is something I’d never have thought of myself, but having read it, I sort of wonder why I never thought of it. The BBC reports that teachers think they can tell which kids...
It’s safe to protest tomorrow
I’ve just been looking at the list of speakers at the rally tomorrow in London (12 noon at Parliament Square), and there’s a refreshing lack of Marxist sectarians (Lindsey German of SWP, John Rees...
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on arbitration
While we’re on the subject of people who pretend to be Muslims and presume their opinions on Muslims and Islam count, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has her take on the Ontario arbitration affair printed in today’s...
Butt out, Salman
While it’s still Wednesday, I thought I might point out an article in today’s Guardian, in which Giles Fraser advises Salman Rushdie to quit his “crusading” (wrong word, but still …) and concentrate on...
HT defence & McGill prayer room controversy (updated)
First, Natasha Walter in the Guardian states what we all knew: that Hizbut-Tahrir are not a violent organisation and that there is no reason to ban them. I have to say that her quotes...
It’s a bit flat
An interesting follow-up to the story of Qibla Cola’s failure can be found here in today’s Guardian “g2” supplement (third story down), which gives another angle on why the product failed, rather than the...
Ich bin kein Berliner (2)
Looking at today’s Saturday-edition Guardian, it’s becoming clear that the Independent isn’t the sinking ship some bloggers might have thought. Can anyone who’s read today’s edition confirm or deny my impression that the articles...
Qibla Cola goes down
Some sad news I got off DeenPort this morning is that Qibla Cola, a Muslim competitor to the major cola brands, has gone into receivership. According to this BBC report, the two-year-old company blamed...
Ich bin kein Berliner!
Sorry if I’ve mangled my German, but yesterday the Guardian, a generally left-leaning British former broadsheet, relaunched itself with a “Berliner” format – the size used by Le Monde, slightly wider and quite a...
Petrol panic
Today I was back driving vans, delivering fixtures and fittings for an Asian food company from south London up to town for an exhibition. There’s a shortage of petrol stations on the main road,...
Spencer applauds Ontario arbitration axe
Latest in Spencer’s “Canadian Shari’ah Watch” (and here‘s a local Muslimah’s opinion): A hard-won victory for human rights. It is only unfortunate that the other religious arbitration arrangements have to be sacrificed, which feeds...
BNP turns to Slovaks for printing
A few months ago I blogged here about how a publishing company owned by a Saudi prince was printing the BNP’s monthly paper, Voice of Freedom. It now appears that the organisation has turned...
Pictures at Guidance Media
Via Deenport, there are some new pictures at Guidance Media taken during the visit of Habib Ali al-Jifri and some of his students to Malaysia recently. They include some scholars who are students of...
Spams for other people’s blogs
A bizarre new spam trend has emerged over the last few days – spamming people’s blogs with links to other people’s blogs. I’ve had a large number of trackback pings over the past few...
Dumb trojan assumes you’re a pervert
Both the press and the blogosphere lately have been buzzing with news of a new “trojan” program known as “Yusufali-A“. This program, when the user types a number of words commonly used in porn,...