Harry talks sense (yes, you read it right) on the muslim student in Luton, while another young muslim woman opines.
It seems a little odd that Turkey can manage to get their kids to wear appropriate school clothes on the grounds that they are a secular state and we can't. And that ain't about to change, with laws flowing in the opposite direction like it's 1399. And there's a nice political touch with dear Cherie handling the case. There, there, men in beards, goes the subtext, never mind that we're going to stop and search you 'til the cows come home, never mind that we're gonna keep some of you under house arrest for as long as we deem necessary without trial or even without telling you what we think you're up to. Never mind all that, your daughters' pretty little heads are safe with us.
Elsewhere, A Cyber Tour of Christian Right Wingnuttery is an entertaining read and the third Skeptics Circle gives the intellectually curious some sustenenance. I have been following, in a half arsed sort of way, the intelligent design debate raging over the other side of the pond. I can see why the atheist scientists get so angry, if only because of the dishonesty of the opposition, but at the same time a little humility wouldn't go amiss. It's those three little words that mean so much, but are so rarely uttered, that can make all the difference. Come on guys, take a deep breath, then say it: I don't know.
Because that is exactly the problem. They could qualify it afterwards, of course: I don't know, but we're working on it, but without the admission of the incompleteness of knowledge as it stands as of now, their arguments sound just as bombastic and empty as the barmiest fundie alive. But you've got to be on the side of rationality, or at least the side closest to it. And those Creationists really are quite a scary bunch.