The police have balmed loyalists for a "spate" of attacks against catholic churches and catholic-owned pubs in the area, following a recent application for a republican parade in the town. One bar was the target of arsonists while the remains of a petrol bomb were found at another.

Crebilly Catholic church on the outskirts of Ballymena and All Saints Church were both covered in paint. There's really no excuse for that simple-minded bigotry. This is a completely different level of degeneracy from the attacks on the pubs. I don't think there could have been any justification for attacking a simple house of worship, and I'm an atheist.

The parade in question by the "Friends of William Orr" (aye, ballocks) is due to take place on 9th August, the anniversary of internment celebrations. Quite what a 1798 Young Irelander (Protestant I believe) has to do with internment in the 1970s I'm not quite sure.

Yes, I know what you're thinking - another scam. That was my first reaction too. Why so sceptical?

Scam Sites
I've come across sites before offering ipods/mobile phones/games consoles etc. for £20. The way it works is you sign up by buying something silly like a blank CD for £10 or £20. As a 'free gift' you're entered into a queue for a free ipod/phone/console, with no guarantee you'll ever make it to the top of the queue. You can often jump places in the queue by referring friends but rarely will you see your gift and you're out of pocket £20!

What's different?
This site won't cost you a thing if you do it right, which is a good start. That, coupled with the apparent endorsement of BBC website readers following an article there, not to mention reports on CNN and MSNBC and many blogs around the world but the best endorsement I read was at Wired. These guys know their internet and I'd trust them to spot a scam a mile away. freeipods.com actually seems reliable. They even have a good customer service setup where you can send a message via an online form if you've got questions. I did this today and got an answer inside 4 hours.

Yes, Completely Free!
To get your ipod, you join freeipods.com, take part in one offer and sign up 5 friends or "referrals" to do the same. One of the offers for us lucky UK surfers is with DVD rental company ScreenSelect.co.uk where you can sign up for a no-obligation free trial and this counts as your offer. You have 21 days or 6 DVDs (whichever comes first) free and after that it's between £9.99 and £19.99 a month, or, and here's the key, you just cancel as soon as your participation has been registered (it says it can take up to 15 days but mine took one week). So not only do I get a free ipod (hopefully), I've already got a free rental of Lord of the Rings part one (I hadn't watched any of the trilogy up until now) and am expecting Michael Collins, Bill Bailey and Lord of the Rings Part 2 (the two towers).

It's that easy! Get your free ipod
Why am I telling you all? Aside from providing a service, I need to, like I said above, refer 5 other people to the program. In return for signing up via Everything Ulster, once I've got my 5, I'll change the link on the site to give YOU* credit so you might not even have to refer anyone! I'll also post updates on the status on here so you can all see what's going on, including pictures when the ipod comes.

So what are you waiting for?

Get your free iPods now!

* Links on Everything Ulster will only be changed to help my first 5 referrals.

More from "the feud" today. This is just a quick note before bed about the scenes in east Belfast.

So the UVF "own" the estate now. The hoody clad teenagers and their local mafia heroes have done Ulster great service this day, mark my words. Legions of loyal (I'm not sure to what) Ulstermen lined the streets of a housing estate to ensure the nasty LVF terrorist drug-pushers, forced out in recent days, didn't come back, thus freeing up the estate for the much less nasty UVF terrorist drug-pushers.

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Police have released images of men they want to question in relation to the Ardoyne riots which took place on 12th July when an Orange parade was attacked by a republican mob. The images were taken from CCTV footage of the assault in which 100 police officers were injured trying to keep the peace.

Quite where the images have been released I'm not sure, I had a quick hunt round the PSNI website and wasn't able to find anything.

The police have appealed for the Ardoyne community to help them identify the men who were responsible for damaging property in the area as a by-product of their assault on law and order.

"We are asking them to come forward before we come knocking on their doors."

"I would appeal to the community to work with us to prosecute these people who bring nothing but disorder and fear to the streets of North Belfast.

This criminal behaviour will not be tolerated.We are determined to bring before the courts those who have taken part in this serious rioting and are appealing for the public to help us identify those involved in breaking the law."

Chief Superintendent Mike Little, PSNI North Belfast District Commander

The people of Ardoyne don't need the area's reputation tarnished with shit like this on a regular basis. I sincerely hope that they realise it's in their own interests to turn these scumbags out for a bit of recreational rioting in to the police for questioning.

Northern Ireland went out of the Under 19 European Championships which they're hosting yesterday in front of a crowd of 2,169 (a record for the tournament so far). They needed a 3 goal victory to go through to the next round but the German keeper denied them with 3 good saves from captian Kieran McKenna (Spurs), Kyle McVey (Coleraine) and David Buchanan (Bury).

One thing that struck me about the game was the Germans were huge as usual. Yet despite this, they seemed to fall over at the slightest sign of a breeze. More surprising is the fact the referee kept falling for it, booking Northern Ireland players for next to nothing and letting the Germans away with blue murder by comparison. Nevertheless, in this spectator's opinion, McVey had a great game in defence with some excellent tackles keeping Germany at bay and in midfield number 16, Jonny Steele (Kansas City), also impressed me.

Then in the 79th minute, Mustafa Kukukovic was dismissed for wha the UEFA website describes as "an off the ball incident" - the kraut headbutted one of our players! The referee either didn't see it or didn't want to, but thankfully one of the linesmen was paying more attention to the game.

Then in the 85th minute disasters struck as there was a bit of a chaoitic scene in the Northern Ireland goalmouth and Germany took the lead through Markus Steinhöfer. This was followed up in the 89th minute with one from Denis Epstein before Thomas Stewart bagged a "deserved consolation" for the home side - and boy did we need it.

There were other matches too
Elsewhere, Serbia & Montenegro beat Greece 3-0 (all goals in the first half) to maintain their 100% record and I could easily see them winning the tournament. In group B France beat Armenia 1-0 to top the group with 7 points and England beat Norway 3-2 to ensure their qualification in 2nd place.

UEFA have the final group tables on their website. Match reports are available from UEFA or from the Irish FA.

Semi-Finals
In the next round Serbia & Montenegro will take on England and France will play Germany.

I'm not sure which match is where but the match in Mourneview Park, Lurgan (I think the Serbia/England game but I'm not sure) kicks off at 4:30pm while the one at the Showgrounds, Ballymena kicks off at 7:30pm.

The Irish independent is reporting today that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (along with Irish TD and conviced gunrunner Martin Ferris) have stepped down from the IRA's seven-man army council, effectively the terrorist organisation's leadership (hat-tip to slugger). There is much speculation that this is in preparation for the IRA's anticipated (and much overhyped) statement on it's future.

But wait a minute... haven't Sinn Fein been saying for a decade that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were never on the army council and that "Sinn Fein are not the IRA"? We all know Irish republicans never lie so this must be some kind of mistake.

The posts are said to have been filled by a hunger-striker from Belfast, who previously held responsiblity for the IRA's "engineering" department, another man from Belfast, who has been convicted of posessing explosives, and the IRA commander in Tyrone.

It seems to be something of a PR stunt, removing the most obvious connection beween Sinn Fein and the IRA. When Sinn Fein make the laughable claim that they "don't speak for the IRA" or "are a democratic political party" the most obvious evidence against this was the position of senior Sinn Fein members on the ruling council of a terrorist group responsible for killing thousands of people.

However, aside from some good PR for Sinn Fein, nothing's actually changed. The new militarist members of the army council are said to be "loyal" to Adams and McGuinness. All this change actually does is ensure that Adams/McGuinness still lead the IRA by the nose, and possibly now carry more influence. Now anything they say will be approved by an army council made up of 7 militarist IRA members, rather than one that may have been seen as being dominated by Sinn Fein 'politicians'.

Only when the IRA has disarmed, and stop all their activity will Sinn Fein be able to claim to be democratic and peaceful. Sinn Fein are still the mouthpieces for the IRA and until the IRA are no longer a threat, Sinn Fein still effectively have their guns under the table and won't hesitate to intimidate anyone who might show them for what they really are.

This is a current event and the story may be updated
Reports are coming through that the police have shot a suspected suicide bomber as he boarded a train at Stockwell station on the London underground network.

Reports at the BBC and Reuters

Update
More info at the Daily Mail" (thanks to Slugger). Apparently there are unconfirmed reports that the man shot was a suspect for yesterday's attempted bomb attacks.

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has said that suicide bombing is a legitimate tactic for terrorists to use! Unbelievable! 2 weeks ago these monsters killed around 100 people in London, yesterday more tried to do the same and less than 24 hours after that second attack the mayor of the city bombed goes on TV defending the tactics used by the terrorists! (Hat tips to A Tangled Web and JihadWatch)

"Given that [they] don't have jet planes, don't have tanks, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In an unfair balance, that's what people use."
Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London

What kind of fucked up world is this?

Ken Livingstone was talking about the Palestinians use of suicide bombers against Israel, rather than the Islamofascists bombing the shit out of London but a bomb's a bomb. Also, a fanatic is a fanatic, and if it takes one to know one, Red Ken should be able to spot them a mile off.

Ken has in the past defended IRA terrorism, Palestinian terrorism and now suicide bombers. In a disgusting distortion of reality, he went on to launch a verbal assault on Israel. If you want to read more of his interview there's a report on haaretz.

I don't give unreserved support to Israel as I don't know enough about the situation, but coming from Northern Ireland it's hard not to have sympathy with any state that gets a hard time for defending itself from the onslaught of fanatical terrorists with no idea of basic common human decency and no respect for life.

Is it far fetched to say that Britain looks to be a soft touch for terrorists because of wackos like Red Ken who apologise for every terrorist movement going? I'm not so sure. Livingstone gave this interview in response to a "media frenzy" surrounding the possible visit of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a muslim cleric who has voiced support for Palestinian suicide bombers. The USA on the other hand have it sussed and have banned al-Qaradawi from entering the country. It's time for Britain to take a similar stance with the preachers of hate.

There were a number of minor "partial" explosions on the London transport network today, 3 tube stations were closed and evacuated. Nobody seems to have been seriously injured.

• Passengers heard a bang at the front of a train at Warren Street Tube station.
• Shepherd's Bush tube station saw a man threaten to blow himself up before disappearing.
• At Oval Tube station passengers were evacuated from a train after seeing "white smoke".
• The driver of a route 26 bus in Hackney Road in Bethnal Green heard a bang and went upstairs to find the windows were blown out.

It seems that these were atacks designed to kill, at least so say the Metropolitan police, though thankfully nobody seems to have been seriously hurt and there are no fatalities.

There were reports that bystanders tried to tackle the Oval station suspect as he fled the scene. I want to offer my admiration to those people as it must take some guts to tackle someone so deranged and twisted. I only hope that faced with a comparable situation I would react similarly.

Hopefully this ballsup by the would be terrorists will give police forensic teams the opportunity to put together some sort of case against the perpetrators, with the BBC reporting on speculation that the devices were so similar to those used in the 7th July attacks that they may come from the same batch.

Anyone with information can contact the police via their website.

The Independent Monitoring Commission, the body that monitors paramilitary ceasefires, is to probe the loyalist feud between the LVF and UVF. The announcement comes as loyalist sources link the UVF to a gun attack in east Belfast where shots were fired into a house in the lower Newtownards Road area.

An MLA for the area, Robin Newton said that the paramilitaries "pretend to represent the people" without listening to what the people are saying.

"They are saying, they don't want violence on their streets. They are concerned about the welfare of the children, they are concerned about the welfare of the elderly."

Robin Newton, DUP MLA for East Belfast

And the paramilitaries? They are concerned about their own pockets and their own power bases. These are not defenders of communities, but parasites living off the backs of communities they claim to protect.

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