Three things today

Number one:
Nadia Eweida is suing her employer, British Airways, for religious discrimination after she was asked to either conceal or remove a small crucifix necklace. I hope she wins.
See the story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/14102006/140/worker-sue-ba-cross-row.html

Number two:
Supply teacher Aishah Azmi has shown herself up as a total hypocrite. She has been suspended because she refused to remove her full face veil (a niqab I think it's called) when teaching primary school pupils. She says she said she would remove the veil in front of pupils but not male members of staff.
Firstly, Muslim scholars say that women are not actually required by the Koran to wear a full veil in the presence of children.
Secondly, Ms Azmi herself admitted to not wearing the veil when she was interviewed for the post, this despite of the presence of a male school governor.
This is not about religious freedom, this is about hypocrisy. Ms Azmir, you are a hypocrite.
See the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6050392.stm?lsm


Number three:
French MPs seem to think they can dictate to us what we are and are not allowed to say (think?) with their parliamentary vote on an Armenian Genocide (or mass murders) of 1915 denial law.
Denial laws are stupid. If someone chooses to stand up and deny a historically irrefutable truth, they are just making themselves look silly, aren't they? You can't make saying stupid things against the law, because you'd then need to lock about 98% of the population up.
So the deaths of 1.5m Armenians in 1915, like the Holocaust, are historically proven. Why do the French (of all people) feel the need to shore up this truth with legislation to protect it? Do they feel it is such a fragile truth as that?
The real story is the huge anti-Turk feeling in French political circles and France in general. They have already passed law that subjects any further enlargement of the EU to French referendum, so Turkey will never be granted membership. This move is just vote-chasing by mostly left-wing MPs. There are around 500 000 French of Armenian descent, that's a big electorate, right?
I'm not defending Turkey, I'm just outraged at the barefaced cheek of French politicians sticking their noses where they don't belong. Surely some full public investigations into the mass murder of Algerians in the 50s and 60s, and more recently the French involvement in what happened in Burundi and Rawanda (and why not Sudan, which is happening right now) would be a better use of parliamentary time.
See the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6043730.stm?ls

Oh, and I want a flex-fuel car.