Harry's Place

Thankfully, Free Schools will not be allowed to indoctrinate children with creationist rubbish:
Free school bids from groups advocating creationism and intelligent design as scientific theories will not be approved, according to the first government guidance on the issue.
The move follows repeated concerns that fundamentalist religious organisations would establish free schools to promote [...]

Update: I should add that this is a response to this – which is why the title seems a bit odd perhaps.
Until a few years ago I was neutral towards, and comparatively uninterested in, I/P.  My growing interest can be directly traced to the efforts of Palestinian advocacy, as I first began to take notice [...]

This is a cross  post by Matthew Harris, from And Another Thing
What was that wonderful line of Harold Wilson’s? He arrived to speak at a Labour Party Conference, took the stage to rapturous applause, and said: “Thank you, my friends, for what the BBC will doubtless call a reserved and unfriendly welcome,” or words to [...]

Is the best way to achieve  a lasting settlement to the Israel-Arab conflict, to exert external pressures on Israel’s government?
The argument that lies and boycotts will help Israel achieve a peace which is in its interest, and should therefore be unopposed, is premised on a number of mistaken assumptions. The first is that successive Israeli [...]

Those who recall the 1970s in the UK may well recall an example of the following graffiti as it was painted in numerous places:

The BBC reports:

A man who continually denied his involvement in an armed robbery in the 1970s has won an appeal against his conviction.
George Davis was jailed for 20 years for armed robbery [...]

This is a guest post by Peter Tatchell
Bradley Manning: One year in jail, without trial

Cameron and Clegg refuse to support Manning and his Welsh mother
“US President, Barack Obama has declared Private Bradley Manning guilty of passing classified information to Wikileaks, even before he has gone on trial and been convicted,” said Peter Tatchell, Director [...]

This is a guest post by Anthony Cooper
Before getting to my argument I feel I ought to lay out my “credentials”. I am a Jewish supporter of Israel. Whilst surrounded by enemies bent on her destruction she has gathered and absorbed people from different parts of the world with different cultures and in so doing [...]

Whether I’m a footballer, MP, journalist, or candlestick maker, does anyone – other than my wife – have a right to know with whom I’ve been having extra-marital sexual relations?

Berlusconi has been lashing out at his opponents following his candidate’s poor showing in the first round of local elections in Milan.
Milan cannot turn into an Islamic city, a ‘gypsyopolis’ full of Roma camps besieged by foreigners to whom the left wants to give the right to vote,” Mr Berlusconi said on his People of [...]

Through sheer murderous brutality, the thugs who run the Islamic Republic of Iran are for now managing to keep protesters off the streets.
But there’s not much they can do about spontaneous demonstrations at football matches.
Here fans at Azadi stadium in Tehran on May 10 chant: “Bassiji get lost!”

And here the next day at the same [...]