I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to be muzzled

Rather disturbed at Lord Leveson's proposal to extend his proposed press restrictions to bloggers especially with his sympathy to Inayat Bungawala's complaints about depiction of Islam in the media (hat tip: Kate at Small Dead Animals).

In particular:

Inayat Bunglawala said the amount of negative stories about Muslims in Britain is "demonizing" Islam and fuelling a "false narrative." He called on the government to do all it can to "ensure a fairer portrayal, a more balanced portrayal of the faith of Islam" in the British media.

Inayat, my friend, that isn't the government's job. That's your job. If you want a more positive portrayal, you and your pals need to be writing columns, funding / producing / acting in TV series, or recording songs which give this more positive portrayal. If the British public doesn't believe or listen to your lauding, that's not really their problem.

I particularly liked:

Bunglawala, who says he represents mainstream moderate Muslim opinion

Great. Who represents mainstream Christian opinion? The Archbish of Canterbury? Giles Fraser? The Pope? Jesus Christ and the writings of the apostles? Mrs. Ethel Smith who's attended her local Anglican church for forty years? My local vicar? Or is there no such thing as Christian mainstream moderate opinion? If there's one thing I hate, it's the propensity of activists to claim to speak for a huge swathe of population when there's absolutely no evidence they do so, or accountability to the people they allegedly represent.

Lord Leveson, a word or two in your ear about the Internet. Blogs are supra-national. The ease of setting up a blog on UK topics hosted solely in the USA is in marked contrast to the effort required to establish a dead-tree publication or spectrum broadcast programme. This blog is hosted on Blogger, owned by Google, which means that copies of the blog are distributed around the world in Google's data centers. How are you going to regulate blogs like this which carry content that's perfectly legal in all countries apart from the UK (and perhaps China, North Korea)?