What was that we were saying about racism and abuse and hatred and violence?

In Fermo, Italy on Tuesday:

A Nigerian man who had recently fled to Europe to escape Boko Haram militants was beaten to death on the streets of Italy this week as he tried to defend his wife against racist abuse.

Emmanuel Chidi Namdi, 36, and his wife Chimiary, 24, were walking through the north-central Italian town of Fermo on Tuesday when a man called Chimiary a “monkey” and tried to grab her, according to local priest Vinicio Albanesi, a friend of the couple.

Namdi intervened, and the resulting fight left him in a coma. He was pronounced dead on Wednesday.

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Amedeo Mancini, a

The Guardian tells us:

Police recorded a 42% rise in complaints of hate incidents – numbering over 3,000 – in the weeks before and after the EU referendum, amid a heated national debate about immigration leading up to Britain’s decision to leave the union.

New figures released on Friday showed a large rise in reported incidents, averaging over 200 a day. Police said 3,076 hate crimes and incidents were reported to forces across the UK between 16-30 June; one week before and one week after the vote on 23 June.

Police chiefs said the rise amounted to a 42% increase in reporting week on week, and an increase of 915 reports compared to the same time last year.

The words “Reichstag fire” keep coming to mind.

The Washington Post:

At least five Dallas police officers were killed and seven others wounded Thursday evening in an attack by snipers in downtown city streets that followed a peaceful protest over recent police shootings. The Dallas police chief said an attacker told authorities “he was upset about the recent police shootings” and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

The city’s downtown suddenly exploded into violence at around 9 p.m. when gunshots echoed through the streets, sending protesters and police officers alike scattering for cover. Authorities said two civilians were also injured during the shooting.

I can see such terrible possibilities flowing from this.

The police had a long … Read the rest

A powerful essay by Matthew Parris in the Spectator about feeling, for the first time in his life, ashamed to be British.

I’ve sometimes regretted what we do but never hated what we are. Foibles, yes; miscalculations, yes; selfishness and silliness — well, which of us is immune?

But these last few months I’ve seen a Britain, specifically an England, that I simply do not like. I’ve seen a nasty side, and seen colleagues and friends pander to it in a way I never thought they would. It has made me feel lonely in my own country, and the experience has touched me irreparably.

The reliance of the leaders and opinion leaders of the Leave campaign upon resentment of foreigners,

Ammon Bundy is grandstanding again.

Bundy, looking pale and thin after five months in jail and lacking the quiet vigor he exuded during the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon, has so far never spoken out of turn during proceedings leading to his Sept. 7 trial.

But he shot out of his seat at the end of a hearing on Wednesday where U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown had earlier denied his request to delay the trial date — a date he argued in February violated his right to a speedy trial.

First he wanted a speedy trial, but now that they’ve scheduled that, he wants a delayed trial. That’s so Bundy.

 Ammon and

Originally a comment by Artymorty on What exactly did she mean by that?

Well I did some reading around, and — whaddayaknow — everything I could find of the left’s efforts to reconcile their conflicting ideas about gender and race is terribly flimsy. I thought at least I’d find some food for thought, but no. This was the best I could muster:

– “Gender is more deeply rooted in one’s own mind, while race is more forcibly imposed by the surrounding society.” (Hmm citation seriously needed there.)

– Transracialism is about Deception therefore it’s deceitful, whereas transgenderism is about Truth therefore it’s true. (Circular reasoning at its most absurd.)

– Transgendered folks face discrimination and social disapproval in a … Read the rest

Facebook has disabled Tasneem Khalil’s account. He’s been reporting on the people behind the massacre in Dhaka and on the new IS video saying IS is going to keep on attacking Bangladesh. Now Facebook have disabled his account. That’s stupid and wrong and bad.

Tasneem Khalil ‏@tasneem 6 hours ago
Nice! Looks like @facebook has disabled my account for covering news about the rise of ISIS in #Bangladesh. Disappointing.

I understand #Bangladesh government is keen on downplaying/hiding ISIS presence in country. Why is @facebook aiding censorship?

Ridiculous indeed: the way @Facebook censors independent journalism.

Siddhartha Dhar ‏@SiddharthaDha11
@tasneem @facebook that is ridiculous. I can’t believe Facebook did that. What’s wrong with covering a story?
9:48 AM – 6 Jul

A new battle breaks out:

On 1 July, ELLE India featured the extraordinary author Arundhati Roy as the cover woman of the magazine’s July issue, in which she was interviewed on her writing, exercise habits and first new novel in 20 years. The interview also raised the issue of blackness, which MISHKA WAZAR interrogates.

Fans of Roy and her Booker Prize-winning debut The God of Small Things fawned over the cover and interview, which gave rare insights into the life of the private writer and activist.

However, the bubble of idolisation quickly burst somewhere during Roy’s answer to the first question of why she was featured on the cover of ELLE India. Her response was: “Because I have seen

The Chilcot report is out; the BBC summarizes.

Tony Blair overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had “wholly inadequate” plans for the aftermath, the UK’s Iraq War inquiry has said.

Chairman Sir John Chilcot said the 2003 invasion was not the “last resort” action presented to MPs and the public.

There was no “imminent threat” from Saddam – and the intelligence case was “not justified”, he said.

The Beeb offers highlights:

• The circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were “far from satisfactory”
• The invasion began on 20 March 2003 but not until 13 March did then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith advise

Deutsche Welle has more on that IS video from yesterday.

The video, which was verified by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group and Terror Monitor Group, contained clear signs that the terror group has some Bangladeshi nationals working for it.

One of the Bangladeshi jihadists shown in the video said: “what you witnessed in Bangladesh … was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and the Sharia is established throughout the world.”

The video also appreciated last Friday’s attack on a restaurant in Dhaka that killed at least 22 people, the majority of them foreigners, from Italy, Japan, India and the United States.

The attackers were mostly from wealthy, liberal families – a development

IS has released another disgusting video saying it’s going to kill us all unless sharia is established everywhere.

Hailing the July 1 Gulshan terror attack, international terrorist group Islamic State has now released a video calling for jihad in Bangladesh and threatening more attacks on “crusaders” and “crusader nations.”

The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa in Bangla was first found in an IS-affiliate website and then released on YouTube early Wednesday.

…

In the video, three of the speakers are of Bangladesh origin, but they could not be identified immediately.

One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world. “The Jihad that has come to Bangladesh now has been promised

You know how people like to use “intersectionalism” as a kind of intellectual bludgeon? Well that’s a silly question; of course you do, because we keep talking about it. Anyway – I’m wondering how they’re dealing with Toronto Pride and BLM. They crashed right into each other at that intersection on Sunday.

Members of the Black Lives Matter Toronto group briefly halted the Pride parade today, holding up the marching for about 30 minutes.

The parade didn’t re-start until after Pride Toronto executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed a document agreeing to the group’s demands.

The organization was given the status of Honoured Group for the parade, which is the grand finale of Pride Month. It did not give Pride

Here’s a bad thing I overlooked, from the NY Times on June 23:

Echoing anti-Semitic claims that led to the mass killings of European Jews in medieval times, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority accused rabbis in Israel of calling on their government to poison the water used by Palestinians.

He made the unsubstantiated allegation during a speech to the European Parliament on Thursday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement later that Mr. Abbas had spread a “blood libel” in the speech.

He retracted the claim two days later.

Mr. Abbas was repeating a claim initially made on the website of an office of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Anadolu, the Turkish state-run news

Islamists like their televangelists too.

One of the attackers, suspected to be Rohan Imtiaz – the son of a politician of Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League – posted a message on Facebook last year quoting 50-year-old Naik, a Mumbai-based doctor and an Islamic televangelist, the Daily Star reported.

…

Naik’s speeches are beamed on Peace TV across the sub-continent, even in China, with a100 million viewership. He is said to be wildly popular in Bangladesh.

The founder of the Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, Zakir Naik is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speeches. He is also among 16 Islamic scholars banned in Malaysia.

So, Zakir Naik may have been one of the influences on the slaughterers at … Read the rest

NASA has put a spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter.

Around 10:30 p.m. on Monday, Juno passed over Jupiter’s north pole and through a region that Heidi Becker, the leader of Juno’s radiation monitoring team, described as “the scariest part of the scariest place.” In this belt of radiation, electrons bouncing back and forth at nearly the speed of light could have knocked out the computer and other electronics.

“They will go right through a spacecraft and strip the atoms apart inside your electronics and fry your brain if you don’t do anything about it,” Dr. Becker said.

But a titanium vault built for Juno proved up to the task of shielding its crucial systems.

Someone in a NASA video … Read the rest

Crap news from India:

A Facebook group, which levelled a death threat against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, has raised fears of the influence and presence of dreaded Mideast terrorist group Islamic State in Kerala. The page, which had posts in Malayalam and English, was taken down on Saturday morning soon after media started reporting about its existence.

It is not clear who moderates the group, Ansarul Khilafa (The Followers of Khalifa). The threat against the Bangladesh writer known for her progressive views was made by one of the members of the group. The group had 135 likes before it was deactivated. The group’s presence comes amid a spate of terror attacks in Bangladesh, the busting of an IS module