Physics Today has a very interesting, and refreshing, online article (hat tip Sargasso) on Islam and science that ties in neatly with AFOE’s review of Olivier Roy’s latest book Secularism confronts Islam. The article is written by Pervez Hoodbhoy, nuclear physics professor at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. As usual, I shall give our [...]

When I look at contemporary public discourse, no day seems to go by without at least someone mentioning the threat of Islam. Last week Dutch MP Geert Wilders even went as far as to call for a ban on the Koran itself, comparing it in true Godwin style to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, because “it incites [...]

It is Summer, the silly season. So, let me chase some chirping crickets here at AFOE with some silly thoughts on public discourse before my more interesting AFOE colleagues spring into action again. And they will, so stay tuned even if my little essay here should turn out to be a bit tedious.
Public discourse, or [...]

Mark Mardell, of Mark Mardell’s Euroblog, a BBC blog that seems to get better and better over time, has a rather typical post on Europe called A country called Europe. It is typical in that it centres around the issue of Europe becoming a superstate or not. Nothing new here. Some people dream of a [...]

Below you’ll find a reaction I posted to an excellent rant by Ape Man on what he believes are some shortcomings in the news coverage of The Economist. His rant ties into what Edward posted below in his post Bad Journalism at The Economist and raises some, in my opinion, hugely important issues. Please go [...]

As you all know EU member states are preparing for an important EU summit to discuss a new treaty replacing the failed constitution project. For a summary of what’s at stake, you can have a look at this BBC News page. I do not have the time to discuss the summit at length, but there [...]

The final results of the French Parliamentary elections 2007 are in. The UMP (Union pour un mouvement populaire) gets 324 seats as opposed to 359 in 2002, the Socialist Party & its allies together have 207 as against 149 in 2002, François Bayrou’s centrist Mouvement démocrate (MoDem, ex UDF) gets 4, the Communist Party [...]

The Canadian Globe and Mail has an article about the Dutch troops in Uruzgan (hat tip Sargasso) that really made my day. One quote, emphasis mine:
The Dutch went into Uruzgan expecting the same kind of bloody welcome that Canadians have found in Kandahar. (…) But the bloodbath never happened. This past week, the first four-month [...]

The 2006 parliamentary elections in The Netherlands have produced some interesting results. Another centre-right coalition of CDA, VVD and D66 (before the latter blew up that very same coalition, see comments) seems to be off the table and the formation of a new coalition will prove to be very difficult what with the votes spread [...]

In November 2003 Dutch Military Intelligence tortured dozens of prisoners in the Iraq province of Al Muthanna. Al Muthanna was under British command at the time. The Dutch did not have an official mandate to interrogate prisoners. Torture consisted of keeping prisoners awake by throwing cold water on them and the use of high-frequency noise [...]