The Kipp Report have an interesting story on the growing phenomena of the “halal hotel”:

Dubai-based Almulla Hospitality plans an international chain of 150 Sharia-compliant hotels by 2015. Around 90 are planned in the Middle East and North Africa, but the remainder will be Europe, Asia and North America - and Almulla says it will develop non-Muslim brand names.

The plan is to create three sub-brands - Cliftonwood, Adham and Wings - all operating under universal Sharia codes (no booze, halal food). Almulla has signed with the UK’s Jasper Capital Group to structure the new venture. Jasper Capital chief executive Stewart Jack has previously worked in the banking industry in the UAE and managed the development of an Islamic bank project in Europe.

And in other hotel news (also from the Kipp Report):

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The Quilliam Foundation — a British group run by a coterie of ex-HT’ers such as Ed Husain — has an open challenge:

The Quilliam Foundation openly challenges Islamist groups to public debates. Our first challenge is to Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), the group that influenced Syed Qutb in prison and is thus the ideological inspiration to al-Qaeda. While HT may disagree with Osama bin Laden’s methods, they both aspire to the same end: the creation of a theocratic, expansionist dictatorship.

Debate is good and should be welcomed.  However,  one must really question whether the Quilliam Foundation is interested in doing more than just talking about such debates.

It turns out Ed Husain and another member were recently booked to host the BBC program called ‘World Have Your Say’.  Sadly, as a BBC journalist explains, they had to cancel at the last minute:

Ed Husain was booked to host the show with me today. Along with a colleague at the newly-formed Quilliam Foundation, he was going to discuss with you how he became attracted to radical Islam and turned his back on it.  And how he’s trying to stop other young Muslim men becoming radicalised. But today he cancelled for a variety of reasons, the main one being that he wasn’t prepared to take part in the show if certain people (whose organisations he has been critical of) were invited on.

Oh dear.  And who exactly were the people he didn’t want to debate or discuss matters with on air?

‘Sometimes it’s as simple as some people being wrong, and some being right. I’ve better things to do than argue with these people.’ This was in response to me saying that we would have to offer the organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir a right of reply as I knew he would criticise them on the programme.

ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint program have ‘selected highlights‘ from the recent debate on Islam and democracy.  It’s not the entire debate but begins with Daniel Pipes making the case for the affirmative (that Islam is incompatible with democracy).

The Australian reports today:

In the absence of halal food - prepared in accordance to sharia dietary laws - the Islamic delegates were forced to eat “salad sandwiches and vegetarian pies”.

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Patri Friedman (son of David and grandson of Milton) has just launched an interesting initiative; backed by Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal, the Seasteading Institute has been founded to establish “permanent, autonomous open communities” based on private man-made structures or islands built in the ocean. The view being that such communities would allow political, legal and social competition as different groups, free from the strictures of government and nation, could experiment and innovate.

They explain:

Currently, it is very difficult to experiment with alternative social, political, and legal systems on a small scale. Countries are so enormous that no individual can make much difference in how they work, and the existing entrenched power structures have tremendous inertia. Seasteaders believe that government shouldn’t be like the cellphone or operating system industry, with a tiny number of providers who offer few choices and make it hard to switch. Instead, they envision something more like web 2.0, where many small governments serve different niche markets, a dynamic system where small groups experiment, and everyone copies what works, discards what doesn’t, and remixes the remainder.

Patri expands further on this idea of competitive government in this essay and in Seasteading: A Practical Guide to Homesteading the High Seas.

In an inspiring and moving series of videos, one Australian talks about her long journey to the Prime Minister’s 2020 talkfest this weekend:

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The Youth Talkfest 2020 was held in Canberra over the weekend and the communique is now available online.  Amongst the ideas:  paid-parental leave for all, compulsory climate change education in schools, nationalised broadband, more “humanitarian intervention” abroad, enforcement of mandatory study of a second language in schools, implement a London-style congestion tax. and cease all federal road funding that will result in increased car use (in areas where there is public transport).

Vidia Naipul regards himself as the greatest living writer of the English language. Those who know him best have a different and much less flattering view.

This word “master”, used often in the letters, is interesting. It is a slave word. In role playing – and most of these love letters refer to highly eroticised power games – the master is regarded as dominant; but, paradoxically, it is usually the submissive person, the masochist, who has the ultimate power – maddening for the sadist.

Here is one instance. Margaret shows up unexpectedly in Wiltshire. Naipaul is displeased with her. He beats her and afterwards explains, “I was very violent with her for two days with my hand; my hand began to hurt . . . She didn’t mind at all. She thought of it in terms of my passion for her. Her face was bad. She couldn’t appear really in public. My hand was swollen.”

And later:

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