Henry Porter: from war to police state
Out of Afghanistan, into a police state | Henry Porter | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Kim Howells had an article published in the Guardian today, in which he recommends that British forces are...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
No point debating racists
New Statesman – There’s nothing to debate about racism Mehdi Hasan, the NS’s senior politics editor, on why racism should be condemned and fought, not indulged and appeased: I recently sat in a radio...
Fight over life support for disabled boy
Father fights to stop hospital withdrawing life support for baby son I read a disturbing story in the Guardian this morning, which was reported across various other newspapers and in the BBC, that the...
Scarier than Halloween
Hat tip to iMuslim: ten things Muslims find scarier than Halloween. Number 3 is a perfect opportunity for a sister to pull a Towanda, don’t you think?
Stephen Fry might quit Twitter
It’s been reported that, after a bit of a tiff with a couple of his online followers, the comedian Stephen Fry is thinking of giving up on Twitter (more here). This all makes me...
Ubuntu ‘Karmic’: my computer is a joy to use again
Yesterday I downloaded the newly-released latest version of Ubuntu, codenamed Karmic Koala (they all have an alliterative codename; the last was Jaunty Jackalope). I had been using Fedora version 11 since, well, it came...
“Trick or treat” murderer back in jail
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Foyle and West | Greysteel killer back behind bars I’m not sure why this guy was let out at all. He was part of a gang that walked...
Make them Muslim
“But You Have to Tell them” « Ginny’s Thoughts & Things Ginny on one of my pet hates about dealing with (some) born Muslims: those who think any convert can easily “make someone Muslim”,...
Splitters!
Recently some of us have been debating on Facebook whether to take part in a forthcoming coutner-demo to an al-Muhajiroun front group demo, which was to take place on the 31st. The event was...
Muslims and conspiracy theories
Hey Mozzie, Over Here…I’ve Got a Conspiracy to Sell You… « Oy, Habibti…. Sis. Sabiwabi on the popularity of conspiracy theories among Muslims, among them the perennial “Shadows” tapes (or series of tapes) and...
How the 2006 niqab affair popularised the BNP
Gary Younge in today's Guardian traces the upsurge in anti-Muslim bigotry to Jack Straw's attack on the niqab in 2006: Three years ago this month Jack Straw argued his case for urging Muslim women...
Dignifying the BNP, blaming the victims
Melanie Phillips: The true cause of the BNP’s rise Melanie Phillips had this article published yesterday in the Daily Mail (also on her home page) and she comes out with her usual line about...
Pizza Mia
Organica inspired me to post this picture of my own home-made pizza, which I eat on average twice a week. It might not meet everyone’s idea of home-made since I didn’t make the dough...
Panorama: hate on the estate (updated)
There is a Panorama programme on tonight (BBC1, 8:30pm BST) about two Asian Muslim journalists who spent two months undercover in a Bristol housing estate, and encountered overt racist hostility, including both name-calling (Paki,...
Spooked: pamphlet on failures of ‘Prevent’
Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations has published a pamphet, Spooked: How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism (PDF), on how the government's "Preventing Violent Extremism" programme has turned into an intelligence gathering...
Celebrity journalism is rubbish
The Guardian revealed yesterday and the day before that several British tabloids accepted stories about various celebrities which were demonstrably false from an undercover documentary maker who was filming them. The stories included one...
Shelina Zahra takes on anti-hijabists
Last Friday and last Sunday, Shelina Zahra Janmohamed appeared on BBC Radio debating the issue of hijab with two foreign anti-hijab agitators. One of them is part of London’s small but well-connected Iranian exile...
BNP on the BBC: stupidity or deception?
The BBC is being called on to investigate how two senior members of the British National Party were allowed to appear semi-anonymously on the youth-targeted Radio 1 Newsbeat programme. Mark Collett, BNP publicity director,...
The line between compassion and pity
Last Sunday, the New York Times ran a feature on a young woman, Stephanie Smith from Minnesota, who became paralysed and brain-damaged after eating a home-cooked hamburger contaminated with a virulent strain of E-Coli...
Tantawi: the Italian bigots’ imam
Much as I suspected that the snake Tantawi's words would be thrown in the faces of Muslims in the West, this has now happened, as an MP from Silvio Berlusconi's political machine "People of...