Reasons to hate Yahoo
No, not just that they rat on their users to the Chinese government. Their site is one of the most frustratingly badly organised out there. I use Yahoo mail and groups. I use secure...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Crying wolf
If any proof were needed that some Jews will cry “anti-semitism” at the slightest nuance of hostility to their organisations or to Israel, however well-grounded, it comes in Melanie Phillips’ latest “diary” (posh word...
Victims and relatives
I was preparing a post on the recent proposal to introduce American-style “victim impact” statements in British murder and manslaughter trials, which I think is a really foolish idea. You can guess that it’s...
I see Biloxi, you say Biluxi …
Joni Mitchell famously sung that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, and this is surely the case with quite a few places along the US Gulf Coast which are suddenly world...
Looting: it’s not a race issue
While in no position of great authority on US race relations, I find it sad, but by no means surprising, to hear people already rushing to make a race issue out of the looting...
London public transport blues
New Malden isn’t the best-connected of places when it comes to the London public transport system, although I speak as someone who was formerly spoiled, living within walking distance of East Croydon station with...
MT 3.2 is out
Movable Type, the blogging engine whose hopelessness in dealing with spam drove me to use WordPress … has just had a major update. According to the features page (emphasis is mine): Movable Type helps...
Linux Format tackle user interface problems
A few months ago I blogged here in response to an article in Linux Format magazine in which the author, Paul Hudson, said that Mac OS X “sucks”. Most of the time I use...
Reflections on last Sunday’s Panorama
I actually wrote most of an article for the Sharpener, a British group blog to which I occasionally contribute, about this awful programme, but stumbled on the bit where I had to deal with...
Opposition to faith schools
The Guardian today published the results of a telephone poll conducted on its behalf by poll agency ICM, showing that two thirds of their interviewees oppose government funding for faith-based schools, which are, as...
Rat lovers demonstrate: terror works
The BBC has reported that a family which has been running a farm breeding guinea pigs for medical research has decided to cease its operations after a campaign of intimidation by animal rights freaks....
Flaming the Left
Crooked Timber has published a poem about the often-repeated insults right-wing columnists and bloggers throw at liberals. I have to say, I was thinking of the likes of Geras, Cohen, Harry and co when...
Some amazing storm pictures
Looking through the reports on the storms which hit the UK today, I found a real Subhan Allah moment in these pictures of the June storms in Dorset (on the south coast of England)....
Macs, mice and web browsers
I’ve been a Mac user for well over a year now, and I’m more than impressed with the whole system, particularly of course the operating system. I wouldn’t have touched the Mac if it...
Guardian: religious reform and iconoclasm
More comment on the Rushdie reform call, this time from Giles Fraser, “vicar of Putney and a lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford”, in the Guardian. It brings in the issue of the...
Rushdie: Careful what you wish for!
There was a letter published in the Washington Post last Friday by one Irfan Murtuza attempting to rebut Salman Rushdie’s distasteful call for “reforming” the religion he makes money from insulting (thanks Ginny). The...
Shaikh Ya’qoobi on Mahdi
There has been some confusion recently as to the pronouncements by certain ulama on the coming of the Mahdi; some have even been quoted as saying they expect his coming next year! This provoked...
Rod Liddle on hijab
There is some of the usual “Roddle Twaddle” in the Spectator this week, in which he criticises the government for trying to ban Omar Bakri from “spew[ing] out his rubbish” rather than rebutting it...
Just upgraded my Mac
Last weekend I finally bit the bullet and bought the latest version of Apple’s Mac operating system, OS X Tiger or 10.4. Apple has given all its versions of OS X big-cat names, which...
Shiv trots out “conveyor belt” claim yet again
The Independent on Sunday today contains yet another multi-page feature on the London bombings and its aftermath, including yet another feature by Shiv Malik in which the “conveyor-belt to terrorism” claim is trotted out...