I’ve just invented a new word:
usmanov /’us mÉ™ nÉ’v/ verb to unsuccessfully attempt to stifle undesired content on the Internet by taking legal action against websites where the content appears, with the result that the undesired content becomes more widespread and better known. [named after Alisher Usmanov, a Russian/Uzbek billionaire who did this regarding allegations [...]

Norman Geras asks:

Imagine two situations, both involving a religion with influence over large numbers of people. (1) The religion teaches that all are children of the same God and have a spark of the divine within them; and therefore one must treat others with respect. (2) The religion teaches that only some people are favoured [...]

Melanie Phillips writes that Europe needs to become re-Christianised to resist the tide of Islamic extremism:

In today’s Britain, the ability to think logically appears to be under serious threat. This is most apparent when browsing sections of the blogoball* and when listening to our politicians.
Here’s a non-specific example of a particularly common error. Let’s say that A is a defined characteristic or experience and that X is a particular act. [...]

The more I think about the John Reid story yesterday, the more angry I get. Yesterday, John Reid address an audience of specially-invited Muslims in Leytonstone. I wasn’t happy with this yesterday. After all, Charles Clarke had problems with Rachel North’s dad - though as the latter is an honorary Canon, which makes him a) [...]

Someone has to post here, so it may as well be me. This is in part a follow up to my last post and part just my weak-willed submission to overwhelming temptation. (WARNING! Some righty-baiting follows.)

Google Trends is rather an impressive new piece of software. In the style of late-90s favourites like Search Voyeur, it allows you to see what other people are hunting for. But instead of merely providing a list and allowing you to marvel at others’ illiteracy and perversion (these days, a function that Sitemeter is admirably [...]

Richard Dawkins’ new show is on tonight. The Root Of All Evil is entertaining. If you believe yourself to be intelligent-ish, and are somewhat anti-fundamentalism and pro-science, it’s obviously a joy to watch a well-read academic who understands logical argument debate a succession of hardcore religious types who have little concept of logic, argument or [...]

Muslims may not be on course for another set of gas chambers as some seem to think (see this entry at my own blog), but Islamophobia in Europe is taking on yet another of the characteristics of traditional European anti-Semitism: the conspiracy theory. We’ve all heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, [...]

On Friday night, I went with a group of friends to see Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the ICA in London. The event was part of English Pen’s campaign for free-speech. Before Ayaan was interviewed by Timothy Garton-Ash, the film that she made with Theo van Gogh was shown.
Ayaan is still [...]

When one learns that George Monbiot has murder, venereal disease and marital breakdown in mind, one would be well advised to lock up daughters, cats, dogs, ferrets and other domesticated animals, and hope for the best. When one learns, however, that he has these things in mind only in abstract consideration of their connection to [...]

Via Crooked Timber, I read that Niall Ferguson, writing in the Los Angeles Times, decries the decline of Christianity in Britain (evil registration required, or use BugMeNot):

* A void left in ‘Christendom’ by pervasive lack of belief may be creating a soft target for the religious fanaticism of others.
Americans tend to assume that what is [...]