You's blog

Just commenting on the Newstatesman piece about howThe Times ignores Mark Thompson's criticisms of Sky - The Times generally being considered a "proper" newspaper and thus generally above such editorial tinkering with content.

There is also "Sky News paper round up: Wot no Guardian?" that someone blogged about Sky News not showing the Guardians front page when doing its paper review since it featured a front page criticising Rupert Murdoch.

Is it me or has Murdoch's media become terribly emboldened since (before) the last elections?

nb I don't wear underwear on the outside of my clothes either. Atleast not intentionally.

One was called David, the other Michael.

They were dying of hunger and thirst, when they suddenly and unexpectedly came upon an oasis, with what looked like an emirate with a mosque in the middle.

David said to Michael, "look, lets pretend we're Muslims, otherwise we won't get any food or drink. I'm going to call myself Mohammed."

Michael refused to change his name, he said: "My name is Michael and i won't pretend to be someone else."

The Imam of the mosque received both well and asked them their names. David said "My name is Mohammed" and Michael replied, "My name is Michael".

The Imam turned to the helpers of the mosque and said "Please bring some food and water for Michael Only." and then he turned to David, continuing "Salaam brother, Ramadan Mubarak..."

At the Editors request, anonymous posters can post again, some ip addresses and email addresses I was blocking have been unblocked too.

Thatisall.

When listening to the Let's Talk show on the Muslim World, the guest on the show mentioned how the US was leaving Iraq in defeat and other Muslims seems to be of the same view too...

but is that not foolish to think the US is leaving in failure and instead never got exactly what it went?

Firstly its not a withdrawal (as there are still 50,000 troops there and some permanent bases have been built...) and secondlt, I would question wether it really is defeat too.

To assume that it is losing in failure, you have to assume or accept that America is not getting exactly what it wanted in Iraq - a state of general chaos.

Just imagine a fairy tale - a tale in which everyone starts to be good.

They may not be perfect, but they "be good".

That would be a wonderful world wouldn't it? Or would it?

If you are really security conscious and just one antivirus program for your PC is not enough, surely instally two will be twice as good, right? (wrong - they conflict and can cause great harm where they fight each other instead of viruses potentially allowing them trhough and slowing your system down greatly.)

Some times people can try too hard in things and this can lead to unnecessary hardship.

No not today/yesterday, but time ago.

Back, time ago I went for umrah. as you do. during ramadan. As you do. Because my mum wanted to go and I had calculated that if I said no, I wouldn't hear the end of it for atleast a year. As you do.

any way, I tried at first to sort of drag my feet but eventually everything got sorted and we were off on our way.

While random browsing of the net, I came across the above sentence.

I couldn't help but disagree with an immediate mentally but visceral ersponse: "yes it does!".

Thatisall.

I was reading today that ""The Coordination Committee of Major Mosques and Islamic Centres" have announced..." and having never heard of this huge organisation before, I decided to google it and it linked me to East London Mosque.

Now that suddenly seems to be less spectacular. (if I am wrong and this is actually a big organsition or something, please correct me.)

I wonder if this is in the long tradition of spectacularly exaggerated names that many people use?

There is the "European Islamic Centre" that UKIM are opening in Oldham, and many asian business can't help but adding worldwide, continental or international to their names.

Recently I have been taking an interest in the country that is Turkey. It is quite a fascinating place for a number of reasons, not least because less than a century ago, it was the leader of the Muslim world in the form of the Ottoman empire.

I have many unanswered questions on it - some that I can put into words, such as "why did the Arabs rebel and join the British against" but there are many many more that are less easy to ask (let alone answer). Just a warning - the rest of this blog post is a "brainfart" of ideas and thoughts hopefully structured in a semi-cogent manner, however it may not make any sense at all or may be entirely wrong. Feel free to correct me.