Big news this weekends is that the government will not benefit from raising tuition fees by £6000 at the start of this parliament a few years ago.

The math they did was that as long as they had to write off less then around 48% of student loans, they would be better off. Now it seems already they have to write off around 45%, and that figure keeps rising.

Bigger News is that the Lib Dems, who campaigned against tuition fees and then said they had to change their mind to save the government some money are proven wrong.

So now we have a system where the student is more indebted at the end of the education cycle, all without a financial benefit to the government.

There is a story that has been doing the rounds for the last couple or so weeks about how certain segments of Muslims in Birmingham are trying to "take over" state schools in Birmingham.

This was all based on a document that was found outlining a "Trojan Horse" style conspiracy which allegedly suggested that muslims should underhandedly sabotage schools to remove their head teachers etc.

The claims ranged from exposing teacher collusion in exams in a top accademy to sabotaging ofsted inspections to discredit the school, with the aim of "regime change" so that the schools can be taken over to have a more conservative outlook.

It has been known that webcams are easy to hack and any privacy conscious individual should put a piece over the webcam build into their laptops.

Criminals have been known to hack into webcams etc.

But now we know that the government has been watching the world's webcams on a massve scale. According to a report in The Guardian based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, The UK GCHQ has been monitoring Yahoo on a massive scale. In one 6 month period they took/obtained pictures of 1.8 million people. None of this was targetted at criminals or potential terrorists. They simply spied on everyone.

This one is a toughie.

For Scotland and people living there, IMO Scots should vote YES to independence. ("No tory government for scotland ever again")

But for England and the people living there, the Scots should vote NO or we are stuck with the tories forever.

Scotland can do fine without the rest of the UK.

On the issue of monetary policy, its pretty simple. Either they are allowed to keep the £ and get a share of the debt or they aren't in which case Rest of the UK keeps the pound and the debt.

Scotland will do fine as an oil economy. It has enough natural resources to not need nuclear.

It has no enemies nearby so it doesnt even really need armed forces apart from for the sake of pride abd future deterrence in the case the vikings invade.

Valentine's day. A day on which a couple show their outward affection for each other through gifts and other acts of devtion. It may involve flowers and even chocolate. Isn't this the height of western decadence mixed with fairytale Hollywood romance?

Surely this is something that all Muslims should stay away from Or should they?

If you look at the underlying message of Saint Valentine, who was Christian, the message is not one of romance, decadence or fairytales. It is a simple tale of marriage.

Saint Valentine conducted marriage ceremonies for individuals who wanted to get married but for whatever reason wanted to get married, religion allowed but but for whatever reason they couldn't (including reasons of societal taboo).

Tony Blair backs Egypt's government and criticises Brotherhood

Former British PM says Muslim Brotherhood was stealing Egypt's revolution and army intervention has put it on right path

It's like you read in the Qur'an described as the blind, deaf and dumb, people who are so evil they God has closed them to the truth.

...from Monday.

So that they can kill all the men.

#ReadBetweenTheLines

Then again that may be better than them all starving to death.

">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh9awD5KwNY]

A very interesting talk Yasir Qadhi covering events that shaped our wrorld that took place a century ago.

A must watch for everyone.

This week there was meant to be a peace conference to try and solve the syrian situation. There has been much wrangling over who will attend. First the rebels said they wouldn't attend. then they said they would.

Then it transpired that Iran wasnt invited. Then it was. Then it confirmed that it will attend. Then the rebels said that they won't attend. Then the invitation to Iran was withdrawn. Now Assad may decide to withdraw.

Unconnected countries like Mexico are allowed to attend but not Iran...

While this was going on, Qatar, a major backer of regime change in Syria had commissioned a UK agency to prepare a report on attrocities commited by the regime. It decided that today was the right day to release the report (pdf).

i've been keeping a cursort interest in the "Australis" interface that is being developed as the new interface for firefox. It looks both interesting and different.

Recently I have not been too much a fan of different or change, so I was a little wary over this new interface.