The obligatory Jackson post
Since so many other Muslims seem to be blogging about Michael Jackson’s death, I thought I might as well, as the papers have been full of coverage, with the Guardian and then the Observer...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Divan 2.0 (featuring moi) is up
Divan 2.0 | Multimedia | The Radical Middle Way This is the video of the Divan 2.0 meeting of Muslim bloggers at the London School of Economics, organised by Radical Middle Way, on 7th...
The price of bigotry (and it’s for real this time)
A few months ago I blogged a piece called something like "The Price of Vilification", regarding incidents of attacks against Muslims in the USA, one of which turned out to be a hoax and...
Review of Channel 4’s “Revelations: Islamic school”
Revelations: Islamic school (Channel 4, 5th July 2009) was an 50-minute documentary following two Muslim girls in Nottingham through a year at a fee-paying Islamic school (a mixed primary with an all-girls secondary). The...
Alcohol and rape story was distorted
PR and prejudice: why rape story erred (from the Guardian) Ben Goldacre writes a regular column, Bad Science, which is often dedicated to debunking stupid newspaper stories based on distortions of statistics and science....
Let Biggs rot
I agree with Jack Straw’s decision not to let Ronnie Biggs go free. He has served, in total, a third of his sentence, and the parole board, despite recommending his release (on the grounds...
Elephant in the carriage
Yesterday, the government decided to withdraw the franchise of National Express, a coach operator, for running long-distance trains on the East Coast Main Line, which despite its name, runs from London to the north-east,...
Denis MacEoin misrepresents the Shari’ah again
Yakoub Islam drew my attention to Denis MacEoin's promotional piece for his Shari'ah-bashing report for Civitass, published on Comment is Free. It contains a series of stupid misrepresentations of aspects of the Shari'ah, obviously...
Responses to Civitas report on Shari’ah courts
Another baseless MacEoin report – this time on Shari’ah councils Denis MacEoin has published yet another of its Islam-bashing reports, this time attacking “Shari’ah courts” in the UK, or rather, Muslim arbitration tribunals (more...
Muslims’ needs and the cause of Islam
In the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed something startling appearing on the Muslim ‘net: conservative Muslims attacking the Pakistani Taliban. These include a series of posts from Abu Eesa ([1], [2] with links...
How real is this hustle?
I was just watching a BBC programme called The Real Hustle, in which the TV people play supposedly real cons on unsuspecting members of the public, and then reunite them with their money or...
MySpace cuts jobs as it loses out to Facebook
MySpace is forced to slash workforce as social network users flock to Facebook | Technology | The Guardian So, why is MySpace losing out? Has anyone been on any MySpace sites lately? The inconsistent...
Planning decisions are never democratic
There is a letter in today’s Guardian in response to the long saga of the intervention by the Prince of Wales in the planning dispute in Chelsea. The letter is from Georgine Thorburn of...
Anonymous netizens should clean up their act
Letters: Time for moderation in the blogosphere | Technology | The Guardian A letter from yesterday’s Guardian in response to the scandal over the unmasking of the “Night Jack” police blogger by the Times...
Are there more stupid cyclists in good weather?
Tom Meltzer on the phenomenon of fair-weather rage | Life and style | The Guardian This article has an astonishingly charitable attitude towards cyclists who hit pedestrians and then get angry with them, but...
What are the shibboleths of ignorance about Islam?
I've been getting a lot of tweets lately about talk of a ban on the so-called burqa in France, the latest chapter in the long saga of the French obsession with what Muslim women...
More UK police thuggery exposed
More video footage has turned up of British police using violence against political activists, this time two women protesting against the proposed Kingsnorth power station. As with some of those who were involved in...
Muhajiroun versus Murray revisited
After writing my last entry linking to Yahya Birt's response to the abortive "debate" at Conway Hall, London, between Anjum Choudhary of al-Muhajiroun and Douglas Murray of the so-called Centre for Social Cohesion, my...
Yahya Birt: How not to deal with the Muhajiroun
Yahya Birt has posted an article on the incident earlier this week at Conway Hall, London, in which the "Centre for Social Cohesion" (run by Douglas Murray; a Civitas offshoot run out of the...
Test running the new Javelin
Recently while in London, I’ve seen adverts for the new high-speed commuter trains to go from London to Kent, which run along the new Channel Tunnel link. That line runs out of St Pancras,...