Malaysian Seeks End to Decades of Firm Rule – a pretty decent roundup of political developments in Malaysia, from the New York Times.

Sidi Khalil Moore will be in Singapore conducting a workshop for The Spiritual Aspirant, to be held 27 June to 5 July. I had the pleasure to hear Sidi Khalil speak in Detroit back in 2002 in conjunction with the US tour of Habib Ali Al-Jifri. I regret I won’t be able to make the short trip across the South China Sea to attend, but I recommend it to anyone in the area. The workshop is being sponsored by Simply Islam, under the capable hands of …

The transition from the USSR to the republic of Russia was a catastrophic event for the people who lived through it. The eventual (imminent?) collapse of the US will be much much worse, warns Dmitry Orlov. The USA has a Collapse Gap. Orlov realizes
that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who …

Nominations are open for the annual Brass Crescent blog awards organized by AltMuslim and City of Brass. Hurry on down and nominate your favorites. There’s even a brand new category for Best South/Southeast Asia Blog! *cough cough*

O Muslims! Have too many bins and abduls in your name? Afraid you may be on a watch list? Worried you may get classified as an enemy combatant by mistake? Plan your defense now! You can’t be framed, railroaded or wrongly convicted if you’ve got more documentary evidence on yourself than they do. Rutgers Professor Hasan Elahi has been recording his every move and his every meal for three years and broadcasting it on the internet. It’s a brilliant bit of performance art, …

No, I don’t mean Malaysian Borneo, I mean rural Michigan. Travel + Leisure Magazine proves that exotic is purely a matter of perspective when it sends a reporter to my Mom and Dad’s farm! Read the article and then hurry to volunteer before Three Roods Farm starts charging you for the privilege.
By the way: that stylish colorful shirt my mother is wearing? Straight outta Sarawak.

Have a look at a terrific set of black & white portraits from the streets of Amman, Jordan, taken by a Malaysian photographer.

In other news, this past Friday was the 10th anniversary of my marriage, walhamdulillah. I wouldn’t change a thing, but 5 (and a half) kids, 4.5 circumnavigations of the planet and 8 changes of address in ten years – whew! I hope the next ten are slightly less hectic.

I’m going home!  After more than four years living in Kuching, I’ll be making a short trip home for a little vacation.   It’s for three weeks only, from the end of May to the middle of June.   I fly into Chicago to see some old friends and then wend my way to Detroit after that.  I’m looking forward to it, but it is bittersweet nonetheless.  I can only bring along my two oldest children.  The three youngest will remain behind with my very pregnant wife.
Since those kids represent my only …

Check out these two recently launched sites that deliver positive, interesting material every single day:

Muslim-A-Day:  A lovely little project by Hijab Man, Muslim-A-Day features cool photos of Muslims photographed in the wild, as they are.  Anyone can contribute, even hacks like me!
Arabic Word A Day:   Learn Arabic a word at a time.  Each word is defined and used in a few different phrases.  Every little bit helps.

I’ve discovered feeds, only three years late. Better than a bookmark and a blogroll rolled into one, with a feed you can read updates to your favorite sites right when they update, without having to visit the site. If you’re already using feeds, subscribe to my site now. Keep abreast of comments. I’ve even got a feed for my flickr photos. Feeds are great. I’ve all but abandoned my blogroll now on account of it. If you’re interested in what sites I’m reading …

By now, you’ve probably heard plenty about the peace and stability brought by the UIC during their six months of rule.  Sure enough, order always looks better than chaos at the start.  But where was the UIC heading from there?  Bashir Goth supplies some Somali perspective.

It’s school vacation time.  I’m packing up the troops for a three week road trip in West Malaysia.   I’ll be back in Kuching on the 23rd.  In the likely event that I don’t update before Christmas, might I suggest the full online translation of the Hikam by Ibn Ata’Allah, courtesy of Dr Aisha Bewley’s homepage, which is no less tremendous for looking like it hasn’t been redesigned since the internet was born…