Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/rantburg/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Britain
Police Petrol Bombed in Northern Ireland Amid Sectarian Violence
2024-08-11
[Breitbart] Sectarian violence was rekindled in Northern Ireland on Saturday night as police were attacked with petrol bombs following a pro-unionist demonstration that took place in the city.

At least 10 police officers were injured in Londonderry on Saturday evening after they came under assault by a reported group of Irish nationalist youths during “several hours of disorder” on Nailors Row.

So far, police have made one arrest in connection to the incident, however, between Friday and Saturday evening, police made 31 arrests amid amid a broader outbreak of violence in the city, the Derry Journal reports.

In a statement, Derry City & Strabane Superintendent William Calderwood said: “The scenes we witnessed were disgusting, and I want to commend our officers for their professionalism. These were difficult conditions for officers from across numerous departments.

According to the PSNI, a mosque on Greenwell Street in Newtownards was attacked with a failed petrol bomb and alleged racist graffiti was written on the building.
“To see our officers injured as a result of this violence is appalling. It is completely unacceptable.”

The fire-bombings came after the Apprentice Boys Relief of Derry parade took place in the city, an annual celebration that marks the anniversary of the end of the Siege of Derry in 1689, in which the local Protestants successfully fended off the Catholic Jacobite forces of James II.

The parade, which saw over 5,000 members of the Apprentice Boys take part as well as 130 bands, is a significant date on the calendar for local unionists in Northern Ireland — also known as Ulster — who favour remaining a part of the United Kingdom rather than joining with the Republic of Ireland to the south.

Londonderry was one of the main epicentres of the decades-long conflict known as The Troubles between Irish nationalists and pro-British unionists, with many claiming that the city was the location for the first major act of the conflict, the so-called Battle of the Bogside following the same Apprentice Boys parade in 1969.

While the incidents on Nailors Row were unrelated to the wider anti-mass migration protests and riots which have swept across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, over the past two weeks, the police did report some suspected ethnically-inspired attacks in the city on Saturday.

According to the PSNI, a mosque on Greenwell Street in Newtownards was attacked with a failed petrol bomb and alleged racist graffiti was written on the building. There were also two instances of cars being set on fire which police are treating as being “racially motivated”.

Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Melanie Jones said: “We continue to investigate all reports made to us in relation to the recent disorder on our streets and we will be making further arrests. The outpouring of support from our communities for their Muslim neighbours has been heartening and more accurately reflects the views of most of the citizens of Northern Ireland.”
Link


Science & Technology
Nvidia's Blackwell is coming
2024-06-01
BLUF:
[Motley Fool] In March, Nvidia announced its most advanced AI product so far -- Blackwell. This isn't a new chip; it's a new architecture for GPUs. Nvidia says that it's "the engine of the new industrial revolution" that will "power a new era of computing."

Blackwell supports large language models (LLMs) with 1 trillion parameters. To put that into perspective, GPT-4 reportedly uses eight LLMs with 220 billion parameters each. Nvidia's new platform enables training of generative AI models up to four times faster and inference of up to 30 times faster than its H100 GPU. Blackwell also has a total cost of ownership and energy consumption that's up to 25 times less than the company's Hopper GPU architecture.

All the top-tier cloud service providers will use Blackwell: Amazon Web Services, Alphabet's Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud. So will Facebook parent Meta Platforms, ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Tesla, and Elon Musk's new AI company, xAI.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said in the company's Q1 earnings call that the demand for Blackwell is "well ahead of supply." CEO Jensen Huang revealed that production shipments will begin in the second quarter of 2024 and accelerate in Q3. He stated, "We will see a lot of Blackwell revenue this year."

THE BIGGER IMPLICATION
I think there's a bigger implication with the forthcoming launch of Blackwell that shouldn't be overlooked: Nvidia is proving that it can continue to out-innovate everyone.

Just when it seemed that Nvidia might have some competition in the GPU market, the company raised the bar. Rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices introduced new AI chips that might give Nvidia's H100 GPUs a run for their money, but they don't come close to stacking up against the Blackwell platform.

TD Cowen analyst Matt Ramsay hit the nail on the head with his comments in Nvidia's Q1 call. Ramsay said to Huang, "Jensen, I've been in the data center industry my whole career. I've never seen the velocity that you guys are introducing new platforms at the same combination of the performance jumps that you're getting."

It seems that no other chipmaker or wannabe chipmaker on the planet can keep up with Nvidia. Blackwell is proof. The new architecture isn't the end of the story, though. In Huang's response to Ramsay, he revealed, "[W]e have other Blackwells coming."
Related:
Nvidia 05/27/2024 Nvidia supplier SK Hynix to invest $3.87 bln in US chip packaging plant
Nvidia 04/05/2024 Russian role playing video game 'The Troubles'
Nvidia 01/06/2024 Pelosi's stocks surge: 'A sign of quasi-insider trading that's corrupt'

Link


Cyber
The main thing is not to stop. How did the Russian game 'Smuta' turn out?
2024-04-10
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

This is the Russian video game for PC, the development of which was funded in part by the government of Russia

by Mark Dranitzyn

[REGNUM] At the beginning of April, the adventure computer game “ Troubles ” became available to players on the VK Play platform. It was developed by the Russian company Cyberia Nova. The events in the game take place in 1612 in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow and Yaroslavl against the backdrop of the Time of Troubles.
The US currently is going through is own version of Time of Troubles.
Heinlein called the current period The Crazy Years.
Long before its release, “The Troubles” received its first critics on the Internet. Their main complaint: Cyberia Nova, which took on the development of a historical role-playing epic, has not released a single known release before.

But the Russian gaming industry remembers a successful example from last year: the debut project from the Mundfish studio - Atomic Heart. The game literally blew up the Western charts with its magnificent graphics, unusual style of Soviet retro-futurism and, of course, humanized robot girls.

BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPES AND FLINTLOCK GUNS
The release was postponed several times, but on April 4, “The Troubles” officially went to the masses. In honor of the launch, a costume show-carnival with archers, bells, horse rides and other interactive elements was organized on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

The main sponsor of “Troubles” was the Internet Development Institute (IDI), allocating 500 million rubles to the project, excluding distribution and marketing. Development of the game took two years.

To an uninitiated person it may seem that these are gigantic resources - monetary and time. In reality, 500 million rubles is a very modest amount for the gaming industry. The budgets of leading game projects are measured in tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. And the development time takes five to six years.

The already mentioned “Atomic Heart” cost, according to various estimates, from 30 to 100 million. It was developed from 2017 to 2023 in real production hell - 16 hours a day.

Therefore, to expect that in such conditions “The Troubles” could become the breakthrough of the decade is, to put it mildly, extremely presumptuous.

The game has officially released, its key problems have become visible. Firstly, it’s damp - there are a lot of errors: collapsing buildings, graphical glitches, banal crashes to the desktop. However, already 3 days after the release, on April 7, the developers announced the release of an update: the patch corrects errors in various tasks and fixes various technical flaws.

Secondly, the game still lacks interesting tasks. The key now is to run from point A to point B, listen to the dialogue and run further to listen to the next conversation. At the same time, along the way you can swing your saber and shoot from flintlock rifles.

But what cannot be taken away from the game is its stunning visuals. The artists and designers did a great job. Photogrammetry technology, transferring a real image into a 3D environment, accurately conveys the atmosphere of ancient cities and dense green forests. The characters' outfits look natural and rich.

This is where “Siberia” certainly gave it its all and came close in terms of graphics to modern international projects.

USEFUL EXPERIENCE OF "CYBERPUNK"
Now “Smoot” can be bought for 2015 rubles, the game is exclusively sold on the VK Play platform. This is cheaper than most projects coming out today.

The most important point: the developers promised support for their creation for several years. This is really good and gives hope for correcting errors.

The same superhit game Cyberpunk 2077, in which the Polish studio CD Projekt Red invested 400 million dollars, came out in such an indigestible state that it had to be removed from sale on some digital platforms. The technical problems of “The Troubles”, compared to those in the overseas action film, seem like baby talk.

But the Poles did not give a damn about their brainchild and methodically completed the game over the course of four years. Gamers positively assessed the changes and voted with their wallets.

The secret to polishing Cyberpunk, among other things, lies in communication with end consumers. Throughout the years of development, players actively sent in their comments, and game makers scrupulously took notes on ideas.

As a result, not only the rough edges disappeared, but in many aspects the final product itself changed beyond recognition for the better, becoming a reference masterpiece and earning many honorary awards.

RETURN COWS AND SAVE BEAUTIES
What can help “Smoot” become better?

First, correcting technical errors.

Secondly, a deeper study of the gameplay, the emergence of new tasks. For example, to knock out the robber detachments of Poles from Russian villages in order to gain a reputation among the common people, which is converted into the growing power of the militia of Minin and Pozharsky. The more feats we perform, the more powerful the Russian army becomes and, therefore, the easier it is to free Moscow from foreign invaders. And this, whatever one may say, is the ultimate goal.

Thirdly, the game is filled with small quests: they stole a cow - return it, captured a beauty - free it.
Praiseworthy goals, both.
The main thing is not to stop. Then everything will sparkle with new colors. The worst thing you can do now is fold your arms and say that the project is obviously unsuccessful, let's try another one.

I picked up the tug - don’t say it’s not strong.

Link


Cyber
Russian role playing video game 'The Troubles'
2024-04-05
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin

[ColonelCassad] "The Troubles" is released.

The game was financed by the state, allocating a rather modest 5 million rubles.
(~ USD $50,000)



Maybe I'll see what happened this weekend.

Based on the videos, I got the following impressions.

Pros:

1. Graphics
2. Historical setting
3. Costumes

Cons:

1. Crazy combat.
2. Mediocre animations
3. Strange facial expressions of characters in dialogues.

The authors stated that they expected to sell 500,000 copies. So let's see if the overhyped "Smoot" can repeat the success of "Atomic Heart".

More from the game website (all in Russian):
[WARGM.ru] Now you can plunge into the historical adventures of boyar Yuri Miloslavsky in Russia in 1612 in the new role-playing game "Troubles" from the studio Cyberia Nova. The official release of the game for PC has already taken place, and it will try to become a worthy competitor to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
A "good boyar"
Travel with the young boyar Yuri Miloslavsky to 1612 to fight enemy troops, bandits and wild animals, meet historical figures and overcome difficult trials.

You will have to explore impenetrable forests and swamps, penetrate caves full of traps, visit cities, complete story missions and face intrigue, treachery and betrayal.

“Troubles” is already available in the VK Play store at a price of 2,015 rubles. In addition, everyone can download the Time of Troubles project for free, which is a gaming and educational tool, as well as a kind of demo version of the game.
USD $21.84 Biden bucks a copy.
System requirements for Troubles:
Minimum :

  • OS: Windows 10

  • Processor: Intel i3/Ryzen 3

  • Memory: 16 GB

  • Disk space: 50 GB

  • Video card: Nvidia GTX 980/1060

  • Other: DirectX 12

Recommended :

  • OS: Windows 10

  • Processor: Intel i7 / Ryzen 9

  • Memory: 32 GB

  • Disk space: 50 GB

  • Video card: Nvidia RTX 3080

  • Other: DirectX 12

Looks promising
Link


Britain
Weapons from ‘Ukrainian Frontline' Reportedly Seized by Police from ‘New IRA' Terrorists in Northern Ireland
2023-09-12
[Breitbart] Police in Northern Ireland have seized weapons from New IRA terrorists that reportedly came to the country from the frontlines of the war in Ukraine.

The New Irish Republican Army (NIRA) is believed to have acquired Russian military grenades that “may have been stolen from Ukraine front line,” police sources told the Belfast Telegraph.

The Terrorism Investigation Unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on Thursday conducted raids against suspected terrorist cells in the city of Derry and the town of Strabane that uncovered two military hand grenades, a handgun, over 50 rounds of ammunition, and over a kilogram of plastic explosives.

The searches were followed by an outbreak of public disorder, with police officers being attacked with petrol bombs and other makeshift missiles. In total, 16 police officers suffered injuries during the aftermath, including burns and suspected fractures.

On Friday, in the Rosemount area of Derry, police also recovered a machine gun pistol and six explosive devices. So far, three people, two men and one woman, have been arrested under the Terrorism Act, with connections to the New IRA being the “primary” line of inquiry.

The New IRA — believed to have been formed around 2011 as an outgrowth of the original IRA and other paramilitary groups — is one of the most active paramilitary terror groups in attacking Northern Ireland police and British security forces in the UK country.

While there is currently considerably less violence than during “The Troubles”, tensions have been rising in Northern Ireland, particularly amid efforts from the European Union to isolate the country from the rest of the United Kingdom economically following Brexit.

Police sources, speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, claimed that the hand grenades recovered during the operation are believed to be of a newer type used by the Russian Army.

The sources said that weapons from the Ukrainian war were increasingly appearing in the possession of criminal gangs and paramilitary groups operating in Northern Ireland.

It is believed that the weapons may have been smuggled into the country after being stolen by foreign mercenaries who flooded into the war zone last year, with an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters joining the Ukrainian Army during the outset of the war.

It is unclear as to which side of the war the grenades recovered by the Northern Ireland Police came from, given that Ukraine has used Soviet-era weaponry and has captured Russian weapons throughout the fighting.

At a press conference following the raids, Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan said: “The significance of this recovery cannot be underestimated.

“These items are military grade and we believe the intention was to mount attacks in an attempt to kill Police Officers.

“Not only was the intention here to kill and maim but there is a total disregard for the wider community.

“These items were being stored in a residential area in close proximity to a children’s play area and any attack that would have been mounted would have taken place within our communities.”
Related:
New Irish Republican Army: 2020-08-27 UK police arrest Pro-BDS Palestinian activist on terrorism charge
New Irish Republican Army: 2019-04-22 Lyra McKee: Police release without charge 2 men held over journalist's murder
Related:
Northern Ireland: 2023-08-09 White House Cocaine Traced to Individual in ‘Biden Family Orbit': ‘If You Want the Name, Ask Joe Biden,’ Claims Source
Northern Ireland: 2023-07-30 New 'beautiful' world: Russia will have to fight constantly
Northern Ireland: 2023-04-19 Tracking Bill: Hillary rides along to Bill's party in Ireland
Related:
Derry: 2023-04-11 Northern Ireland dissidents throw molotov cocktails at police vehicles one day before Biden's visit
Derry: 2022-11-11 Miss America Organization Crowns Its First Biologically Male Queen
Derry: 2020-03-14 Pandemic accelerates push to move supply chains out of China
Link


Home Front: Politix
Annals of the Biden Crime Family - Another DIY Extravaganz
2021-09-08
[A view from the beach]

Who’s In Charge? Most Voters Don’t Think It’s Biden - Rasmussen Reports

CBS Poll: Majority of Americans No Longer Believe Biden Is Competent

Rep. Van Drew: Biden ’Cognitively Impaired' or 'Purposely Harming' U.S.

This Guy Is Senile and Can the Media Stop Pretending He’s Not?

Joe Biden Is Unfit for Office, and Republicans Have a Choice to Make — RedState

Biden Laughs Off Poll That Found a Majority of Americans Think He's Incompetent — PJ MediaThe Troubles with Biden's Brain

Can America Survive Three Years, Five Months More of Biden? — PJ Media

Joe Biden warned chances of Kamala Harris replacing him by end of year 'above 50%' - Express.co.uk

Stand-by for the Real Insurrection... by the Democrats - American Thinker

EXC: Top Biden Advisors Collaborated In CCP-Sponsored Event Aimed at Boosting China's Global Power, Wiped Webpages Reveal.

What Biden Doesn't Understand by Salena Zito

Biden’s Declining Approval Rating Is Not Just About Afghanistan - FiveThirtyEight

EXCLUSIVE: Active Duty, Retired Naval Intelligence Members Told They Cannot ’Disrespect’ Biden Over Afghanistan Debacle - The Daily Wire

Image of Joe Biden crumpling during tense exchange with reporters goes worldwide - Daily Mail Online

Biden Again Turns His Back on Afghanistan and Refuses to Answer Questions - The Last Refuge

And a dozen or so more at the link.
Link


International-UN-NGOs
Netanyahu says he has been tipped for peace Nobel
2020-11-26
Another deserving nomination that will never be considered by the Committee.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says he has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize together with the UAE’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Zayed for their decision to normalize ties.

The nomination is made by British politician David Trimble, who as head of Northern Ireland Ulster Unionist Party helped broker an end to The Troubles there, netting him and David Hume a Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.

Trimble was appointed by Netanyahu a decade ago to sit on the Turkel commission, which examined Israel’s use of force of the Ottoman Turkish Mavi Marmara ship trying to break the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
blockade. The commission found Israel had acted appropriately in fending off attacks on troops during a deadly melee on the ship.
Link


Britain
Woman killed after shots fired during violent riots in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, police treating attack as ‘terrorist incident’
2019-04-20
[TWITTER] Wikipedia on Lyra McKee
Lyra Catherine McKee (31 March 1990 – 18 April 2019[1]) was a Northern Irish journalist.[2] She was an editor for Mediagazer, and had written for The Atlantic and BuzzFeed News. On 18 April 2019 she was shot dead during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry, County Londonderry.

McKee first came to public attention in 2014, with the publication of a blog post titled "Letter to my 14-year-old self" in which she described the challenges of growing up gay in Belfast; it was subsequently made into a short film.[6] McKee's work as a journalist included a number of pieces that appeared in both domestic and international media.[7] Among these were articles she wrote for The Atlantic,[8] The Belfast Telegraph, Private Eye and BuzzFeed News; she was also an editor for Mediagazer.[2][3] In 2016 Forbes magazine named her as one of its "30 under 30 in media" because of her work as an investigative reporter.[7]

Her first book, a non-fiction work titled Angels with Blue Faces, was published in 2018, and deals with the Provisional IRA killing of Belfast MP Robert Bradford. McKee sought crowdfunding to finance its publication.[3] She subsequently signed a two-book deal with Faber and Faber.[7] At the time of her death, her second book, The Lost Boys, was scheduled for release in 2020.[9] It concerns the disappearances of Thomas Spence and John Rodgers from Belfast's Falls Road in November 1974. Faber and Faber had compared the work to that of Anna Funder's Stasiland and Andy O'Hagan's The Missing.[7]

McKee wrote on the consequences of the Troubles. She notably wrote "Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies", an article on teenage suicides linked to the conflict.[10][11] At the time of her death, McKee was researching unsolved killings during The Troubles in Northern Ireland of the late 20th century.[1]
On 18 April 2019 McKee was shot dead during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry, County Londonderry.[13][14] Police blamed dissident republicans for her death.[15][16][17] Mobile phone footage and police CCTV footage[18] shows a masked gunman, believed to be a member of the New IRA, opening fire with a handgun.[16] In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, police took her to Altnagelvin Hospital in an armoured police Land Rover, where she later died.[16]

Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May called the murder "shocking and senseless". She said McKee "died doing her job with great courage".[16] Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said "our solidarity also goes out to the people of Derry and to the entire journalism community. We cannot allow those who want to propagate violence, fear and hate to drag us back to the past."[16]

The leaders of Northern Ireland's main political parties, the DUP, Sinn Féin, UUP, SDLP, Alliance Party and Green Party, released a joint statement condemning the killing of McKee and described it as "an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on the peace and democratic processes". They also said that it was a "pointless and futile act to destroy the progress made over the last 20 years, which has the overwhelming support of people everywhere". They further reiterated their support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who were the intended targets of the gun attack.
This is exactly what Theresa May and the UK are worried about with France and the EU bureaucrats demanding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. I am sure this is leaving Macron of France with a warm feeling in his stomach tonight since he hates the Brits so much.
Link


Home Front: WoT
After Paris and California attacks, U.S. Muslims feel intense backlash
2015-12-05
You knew this article was coming. From WaPo. Way too long (and boring) so just the high points here. I'm only surprised that they beat the NYT to the punch...
American Muslims say they are living through an intensely painful moment and feel growing anti-Muslim sentiment after the recent Islamic State attacks in Paris and this week’s San Bernardino shootings, carried out by a Muslim husband and wife.
Does any of this anxiety cause you to turn in your crazy co-religionists to the police? No? How come?
The motivations of the California killers are still unclear,
No, WaPo reporters, the motivations were completely clear...
although authorities are investigating it as a potential act of terrorism. Muslims said they are bracing for an even more toxic climate in which Americans are increasingly suspicious of Muslims.
There are plenty of tolerant, decent, peaceful Muslims in the U.S. It sure would be great if they'd start ratting out the fools, crazies, and evil ones among them. We asked Irish-Americans to do the same during "The Troubles"...
Muslims say that Americans, like many in Europe, often do not draw a distinction between radical Islamist militants, such as those associated with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and the religion of Islam and its followers who have no ties to extremism.
It would help if you could give us some reasons why we should...
Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer who is working on a book on Islamophobia in the United States, said that headline was evidence of how people jump to conclusions about a suspect in a crime who is Muslim.

“When a Muslim American commits a murder, their religion is brought front and center,” he said. “With anyone else, [it’s] a crazy, kooky loner.”
You deliberately obfuscate, Mr. Iftikhar. The press was trying to blame this attack on anyone BUT Muslims, going so far as to point out that the attack occurred within a short commute to a Planned Parenthood center so that the press then could gratuitously attack conservative Christians.
Many Muslims said fear of Islam is being fueled by the heated rhetoric of Republican presidential candidates, particularly businessman Donald Trump, who has called for surveillance of some mosques and requiring Muslims to register with the government.
Did Trump say that or did reporters plant those words? We've seen the latter a couple times recently, haven't we...
That may be smart electoral politics: A 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 82 percent of Republicans said they were “very concerned” about the rise of Islamic extremism in the world, compared with 51 percent of Democrats.
So even Democrats are worried. Then again, even a flatworm can feel pain...
Estimates of the number of American Muslims vary from about 4 million to perhaps 12 million. The backlash against them has created a deepening sense of alienation. Talk of creating Muslim databases and noting Muslims’ religion on their IDs has echoes for many of the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Recall that the response of many, many young Japanese men in that situation was to join the U.S. Army. They fought for America in the European theater and were among the most heroic troops we had. If you want to ally concerns, have your young men join the U.S. Armed Forces -- and be similarly heroic in defending America...
Many mosques have asked local police for more security.

“There’s a constant climate of insinuation of terrorism and disloyalty that creates this pervasive sense of being an outsider,” said Haroon Moghul, a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington.
That Institute is, of course, your typical progressive NGO and is always good for a quote for a reporter looking for something from a progressive NGO that has a neutral-sounding name...
Pew studies show that since the 9/11 attacks, Americans have become far more likely to think that Islam encourages violence more than other religions might. A Pew survey in March 2002 found that 25 percent of Americans held that view, and the number reached 50 percent by September 2014.
Why could that be? 9/11? London? Paris? Bedlam? Madrid? All the car bombings throughout the Middle East and North Africa? How on earth did Americans come to believe that violent Islamicists were violent?
Research by Pew and CAIR shows that apprehension about Islam has increased sharply with the rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, in the past two years, especially since the group’s highly publicized beheadings of foreign journalists and aid workers began in August 2014.

“After 2010, we had a few years where things seemed to be getting better,” said Corey Saylor, national legislative director at CAIR. But he said the beheadings “set us back down a darker path. . . . People of goodwill are trying to do work to bring people together, and it just takes a few moments of ISIS’s time to unravel all of that.”
Yes, beheadings do make people anxious, particularly when the hard boyz doing the beheadings wave the bloody scimitar at you and tell you that you're next...
Muslim leaders are also debating whether they need to apologize each time Islamic extremists carry out an attack, said Adem Carroll, a member of the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition in New York.
We don't need you to apologize. We do need you to clean out your communities. We'd ask that of any community that is sheltering crazies. So get on it.
Other Muslims think that moderate Muslims need to be more aggressive about denouncing acts of terror and rejecting the Islamic State’s call to establish a caliphate — a Muslim homeland ruled by sharia.

On Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, a group of American Muslims will announce the Muslim Reform Movement, calling on other American Muslims to reject the caliphate and advocate for the equality of men and women.
By jove, somebody's got it!
“We need to deal honestly with issues of extremism,” said Asra Nomani, an author and activist who is part of the group. “As long as Americans see denial and deflection, it feeds distrust.”

Muslims, Nomani says, need to directly address how extremist Muslims interpret the Koran and how that affects church-state relations.

“What we’re struggling with is on the far right, a lot of people who want to deal with Islam in a monolithic way, and on the far left, no one wants to acknowledge there’s a larger problem,” Nomani said. “The truth lies somewhere in the middle. There is an extremism problem. The majority of Muslims don’t live that way, and we have to reclaim a middle path.”
You need to put your words into action...
Link


Britain
Second night of riots in Northern Ireland
2011-06-23
[Al Jazeera] Sectarian festivities involving hundreds of people continued for a second night in Northern Ireland in the worst violence in the province in years, police said.

A press photographer was shot in the leg and two other people suffered burns on Tuesday evening as up to 700 people threw fireworks, petrol bombs and other missiles at each other in a Catholic enclave in east Belfast.

Police fired stun grenades as festivities broke out and groups of hooded and masked men pelted each other with stones and missiles, and many attacked police vans.

'Worst violence'
The violence first erupted on Monday after suspected Protestant gangs, who support British rule in the province, attacked homes overnight in Short Strand, a Catholic district in mostly Protestant east Belfast, local officials said.

Police blamed members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), one of the deadliest pro-British paramilitary groups during the province's long-running sectarian conflict, for initiating the first night of disorder.

The violence reignited late on Tuesday as local television station UTV reported that a man was seriously ill in hospital after his skull was fractured by a breeze block.

"It is probably the worst violence we have seen in that area for some considerable time," said Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Niall O'Donnghaile, Belfast's mayor and a councillor for the republican Sinn Fein party, said it was a "tense and dangerous situation".

"They've hit homes with paint bombs, pipe bombs and petrol bombs. There's a number of Short Strand residents who are injured and a number of homes have been damaged," he added.

'Unprovoked attacks'
Michael Copeland, an Ulster Unionist politician, confirmed that several hundred people had been engaged "in hand-to-hand fighting."

O'Donnghaile claimed that the attacks were unprovoked, but Copeland claimed the violence was in response to attacks by Catholic republicans, who favour a united Ireland, on Protestant properties over the last week.

"It doesn't really matter who is responsible at this stage. It's getting it stopped that is the problem. You have two sides to these stories," Copeland said.

Unionist and republican-backed parties share power in the Northern Ireland Assembly, which was set up following a 1998 agreement that ended years of sectarian violence, known as "The Troubles", in which around 3,500 people died.

The area affected by the rioting is one of more than 30 areas of Belfast where high barricades separate Catholic and Protestant areas.

Such barricades, called "peace lines" locally, have grown in number and size, despite the success of 1998 peace accord.

Sectarian tensions typically flare in the build-up to July 12, a divisive holiday when tens of thousands of Protestants from the Orange Order brotherhood march across Northern Ireland.

The parades commemorate British victories and are supported by the Protestants who want to remain part of the United Kingdom. But Catholics regard the marches as provocative.
Link


Europe
136-kg car bomb found near North Ireland school
2009-02-02
A viable 136-kilogramme car bomb was discovered close to a school in Northern Ireland, police said on Saturday, in a grim reminder of the increasing threat posed by dissident paramilitaries.

The home-made device was in the back of a black Volkswagen car in the village of Castlewellan in the southeast of the British province. The device has now been made safe. A telephone warning claimed the bomb was originally intended for a nearby British army base but had been abandoned.

The callers claimed to be from a dissident republican organisation -- Catholic paramilitaries opposed to the peace process and wanting Northern Ireland to sever links with Britain and join the Republic of Ireland. Bomb discoveries in Northern Ireland are now rare compared to the heights of The Troubles, the three decades of sectarian bloodshed in the province.

"The people who have carried this out showed a callous disregard for the lives of everyone in our community," said police superintendent Greg Blain. "They placed the lives of every man, woman and child in the area at risk and simply have nothing to offer society. Those who operate under various flags of convenience are simply terrorists and criminals ... I would call on all in our community who want to see a happier and more peaceful present and future to give us the information to detect and bring these criminals to justice."

Margaret Ritchie, the local Northern Ireland Assembly representative, said, "This was a large device even by the standards of the past but those who planted it should be in absolutely no doubt -- we are not going back to the past even if they are locked in it. "They need to realise that times have changed, that we have an accountable policing service and we will back it to the hilt against those who would bring danger into our midst in such a reckless way."
Link


Home Front: Politix
Roseanne vs. Spiderman
2008-01-28
When hyperliberal Sen. Pat Leahy criticizes Bill Clinton for “glib, cheap shots” at Barack Obama, Hillary is in real trouble. Clinton’s Troubles aren’t caused only by backfire at Bill’s blunt use of racial prejudice against Obama in South Carolina. The Troubles are much more basic. Bill’s charm isn’t transferable to the lady who is known to some as Bill’s lovely wife, Bruno.

Hillary’s poll numbers may be a bit above Obama’s nationally -- yesterday, RealClearPolitics had her ahead by about 8 points -- but those polls are not yet indicative of nation-wide strength. And there’s one factor the polls don’t measure.

Last October, gushy Katty Kay of BBC and Chris Matthews had this exchange about Obama:
Matthews: “This guy can stand before a crowd and make them feel magic.”

Kay: "And along comes somebody like Obama, who has all sorts of charisma, he is ridiculously good looking!"
No one ever said that about Hillary. Add to that what Caroline Kennedy twittered about Obama in yesterday’s New York Times:
I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility…I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president -- not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
No one will again confuse Katty or Caroline for serious people. But why are so many Democrats of both genders going goo-goo eyed for Barack? Easy: Bruno doesn’t run well against Barack.

Saturday’s blowout win by Obama in the Democrats’ South Carolina primary (55%-27%) cannot be disregarded by the Clintons, because it’s the first time this year that any candidate got more than 50% of the vote. According to Fox News exit polls Obama beat Clinton among women voters (53%-30%) and especially among black women (79%-19%) though she won among white women (44%-34%). It was as if Obama swooped down up at the right moment to rescue the voters, scooping up South Carolina in his arms, firing his webbing at a nearby wall and swinging out of range while the octopus-like villain was clicking its claws futilely in the air.

The Democratic primary race is Spiderman versus Roseanne. A lot of gals’ (and some wimpy guys’) favorite self-doubting superhero against the pain-in-the-butt wife that is every man’s nightmare. Call it what it is: a stylish rookie against the most charisma-free presidential candidate America has seen since Bob Dole.
My advice to O'Bama: Keep her laughing and you'll win in a landslide.
Link



Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/rantburg/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More