(no subject)

Surely this morning's PhD comic is not a good sign, considering that my TA and I will be grading midterms this weekend:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=974

(Seriously, I think my students will fair better than this, and hopefully the grading process won't make it to hour 20 anyway.)

Sharia law in Britain?

I find this article REALLY interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7232661.stm

The idea that the Archbishop of Canterbury is advocating the adoption of some aspects of Sharia law for the sake of social cohesion strikes me as a frightening blend of church and state (not that the UK has such a problem with it as we do in the US), but also a neat idea. I can think of myriad ways it could be done wrong, but maybe it could also be done very right. The 5 pillars of Islam are good, as is much of the moral code outlined in the Sharia as I know it (and Islam is really a tangential aspect of the area I specialize in, so I don't claim to be terribly professionally smart when it comes to this stuff).