That is precisely the question which [url=http://www.theregister.co.uk]The Register[/url] asks in a piece of the same name:

[url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/europol_tesat_2008/ wrote:

The Register[/url]]

Is Europe's war on Islamist terror running out of terrorists?

The terror threat to Europe - Islamist or otherwise - may not be all it's cracked up to be, statistics published by Europol this week indicate. Europol, a criminal intelligence support service for European law enforcement agencies, maintains that the Islamist terror threat remains high despite a 22 per cent drop in arrest numbers, but as was the case with last year's report, very few actual incidents of, or attempts at, Islamist terror attacks were reported.

This was gonna be a forum topic [url=http://www.therevival.co.uk/node/3572]reply to this topic[/url], but I had second thoughts, thought it would be better as a blog.

I have been holding a reply to this topic for a while... but I will put it here now...

Been doing a little reading lately.

Some people suggest that the triumph of the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash%27ari]Ashari[/url] school of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam] islamic philosophy[/url] is to blame for the lack of pondering in the Muslim Community, and maybe even its fall from grace.

This must surely be an April fools joke:

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7321964.stm wrote:

BBC News[/url]]

Turkish leaders face court case

Turkey's constitutional court has decided unanimously that it can hear a case aimed at closing down the country's governing AK Party.

The chief prosecutor earlier filed a petition calling for the party to be banned for "anti-secular activities".

He also wants 71 AKP officials, including the prime minister and president, to be banned from politics.

The case revives a battle between Turkey's secularist establishment and the AK Party of devout Muslims...

Apparently not.

A little bit of recent history... a whole lot of perspective

I think it is about time I got back to my driving lessons... after a hiatus of erm... 7 years? (which was a single lesson after my previous hiatus of a year when I had taken three... The first time the Driving instructors uncle died, I never bothered with a replacement, the second time the (different) instructor never bothered to turn up for the second lesson. I never bothered to rearrange.)

So first things first, I Googled (is it still capitals when used as a verb?) for "driving lessons oldham". Got me some good hits. It seems lessons are around £20+ these days.

Crisis? When is Iraq not in crisis?

Well the current surge in violence is a little different.

You see the "Iraqi security forces" (read: Badr Brigades belonging to the SIIC, supported to some degree by both the US and Iran) are trying to root out violent criminals (read the Mahdy Army of one Mr Sadr. Which has been on ceasefire since last summer - something which has been attributed with the recent reduction in violence) out of Basra.

This is being handled personally by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. His game? Well, I will leave it to another article:

Bug anniversary day today. No not that other one, but the fifth anniversary of the US led invasion of Iraq.

Watched a little Sky News today, and was sort of chuckling when they brought on a Fox News ("Fair and balanced(TM)") correspondent in Baghdad. Surprised me a little though. A tacit admittance that while the current violence levels in Baghdad were down compared with 2005/2006, not only was this much worse than under Saddam, even though he was a dictator, but the bigger surprise was that she mentioned it might NOT be to do with "the surge", but more about certain militia's observing a ceasefire.

Don't know about you, but under the previous Fox News terms, that reporter probably committed treason by saying that.

Call this the first of many posts on technology. I will start on something a little more mundane than most technology.

You know how people say that it would be fab if they had a fridge that could talk? Well I don't. I like things to be simple.

When I was young I watched The Terminator. I know what happens when you give technology too much control. Don't people learn from such educational tools?

Which brings me nicely tom the new steam Iron we have at home. Simple it is not.
Took me a while to find out where the water went in from (the back - I almost had to ask! I did, but found it before I got a reply. I call that a no score draw.)

but not for the obvious reason. Not because it is rude. Not because it is a sign of laziness or tiredness or lack of sleep or boredom or... But because my jaw is sort of dislocated. or has a loose socket or something technical - I don't think I was paying too much attention when the doctors told me.

Today I what I call a net win day.

Firstly I fudged around with theme on this site. Previously, it broke when viewing large images in internet explorer. Now it breaks when viewing large in Internet Explorer. Just differently. Something that will go unnoticed on most pages. (I am only aware of one topic with large images - the Jummah Mubarak topic)

While doing this, I also managed to find the missing 20pixels that Internet Explorer was stealing (in short, I was not using the available width as Internet explorer was making the page wider than it should have been on some pages, but not all. The proper browsers out there was doing what they were being told to do.) I doubt anyone will notice this, but it is one less thing on my ToDo list.

hoho, another funny news story I just spotted on the beeb:

Quote:

Blair to teach in the US on faith

Tony Blair is to teach students at Yale University in the US when he leads a seminar on faith and globalisation.

The former prime minister has been appointed as a fellow at Yale and will begin teaching next year.

The prestigious Connecticut university said the work was related to Mr Blair's Faith Foundation which will be launched later this year.