This is a trivial item in the great scheme of things, but I can’t help finding it intensely amusing. So I thought I would share it. I lapsed into frivolity for a few moments yesterday – I frittered away a little time and energy in mocking a reactionary commenter at Twisty Sticks. I know that’s a silly thing to do, but I felt like it. Come on. Some people watch football, some play golf, I occasionally mock commenters on blogs. I don’t do it for hours and hours every day for crying out loud so lighten up already! It was just a few minutes.

Okay, I know, it is stupid, but in this particular case it paid off handsomely. A … Read the rest

Blimey. A reader emailed to tell me he’d tracked down the ‘April Fool’s leader’ in the Guardian that Anthony Andrew mentioned in his Guardian article that I commented on yesterday – got all that? It is a bit complicated – but then that’s how this sort of thing works. One article leads to another which leads to a comment which prompts an email – and so it goes. At any rate I read the leader, and boy it’s foolish all right.

There are many in the Muslim community whose warnings, through the early 1990s, of a radicalised generation fell on deaf ears. They would argue that Britain has not so much failed to integrate Muslims, as failed even to try…They

A couple of brief items to follow up previous items in either News or Notes and Comment or both – she said pompously. My point isn’t to be pompous, it’s just to say that these items refer back to previous items as opposed to being new ones, just in case anyone wants to, you know, get a broad overview of er um –

Anyway. There is a long, detailed post by Chris Mooney on his blog, about Bush’s science advisor John Marburger and his response to the charges by the Union of Concerned Scientists that Bush administration has systematically distorted science. Mooney writes for The American Prospect and the Washington Post about these issues, so his blog is an excellent … Read the rest

So is diversity maybe not such a hot idea after all? Always depending on what we mean by ‘diversity’ of course, and it can be very difficult to figure out exactly what people do mean by it. As is so often the case with fuzzy woolly words and ideas – which is exactly why they’re called fuzzy-woolly, obviously. But then are they called fuzzy-wooly enough? I’m not sure. I’m not sure it does get pointed out enough that people tend not to specify what they mean when they use the words, but rather, just use them to project an air of righonitude, of conspicuous virtue, of ostentatious morality. That’s understandable. Shock-jocks and Limbaugh-O’Reilly types like to sneer and mock, … Read the rest