f13.net

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NORWAY_EXPLOSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NORWAY_EXPLOSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

Initial reports indicate several car bombs.

First terrorist-attack on Norwegian soil. Large bomb (or several bombs) went off near government buildings hosting various ministries (also the location for the prime minister's office), extensive damage to several buildings, windows blown out in a very large radius surrounding the blast, so far confirmation of 15+ injured and at least 2 dead. People are being evacuated from all major hotspots for traffic, and are told to stay in their homes etc.

Some links to news about this in English:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14252515
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/22/blast-rips-through-norways-capital-injuries-reported/?hpt=hp_t1

Also, in a potential related and still ongoing event (the timing is at least suspicious) - one or more people dressed as a police officers have been firing shots at a convention for the youth-wing of Norway's largest political party (the Labour Party). Around 560 people on the island where they had their convention, and unconfirmed reports of people fleeing the island in boats and/or by swimming.

Edit: 4 people confirmed dead in this incident, according to some reports.

I heard about this and couldn't concieve of why anyone would bomb Norway, of all places.   I haven't seen any speculation as to who it could be, either.  Attacking the left-wing party like that makes me think hard-right crazies, but does Norway have a large contingent of them?

ed: Derp, I forgot about the Mohammed cartoons.  Something made me think that was the Netherlands, not Sweden.

I think it's probably ostensibly about the cartoons, but it's also probably about unprotected targets that score a big publicity haul for terrorist factions--Norway counts as "Western" in terms of bragging rights with their supporters.

Anybody have more news on the shooting?  It sounds pretty bad actually.  Lots of people injured, but can't find specifics.  With the gun attack happening right after the bomb attack, its possible this was domestic political terrorism, rather AQ or the like (though they are still certainly suspect).

Thankfully, it sounds like all my friends in Norway/Oslo were unaffected by this.  Hope the same is true for all of the Norwegian members here.

The shooter seems to have been arrested. Several people are injured and/or dead - numbers not yet confirmed, though.

Edit: Number of confirmed deaths at bomb site up to 7, plus an additional two critically injured, according to the Oslo police.

The cartoons, plus their NATO involvement with Libya, compounded by this:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/07/2011722135232705239.html

The shooter was as mentioned dressed as a police officer... which gives the real police officers a challenge when it comes to convincing people who were present on the island during the shooting that it's now safe to come forward/out of hiding etc.

I love how everyone instantly jumps on the idea that it's Islamists.

Want to know which group is responsible for the least terrorist incidents in Europe in recent years? Islamists. Most common are national/regional seperatist groups:
http://www.dangardner.ca/index.php/articles/item/90-remember-that-eurabian-civil-war


It's not impossible that it's Islamists here, but jumping to that as your first suspicion shows how effective the waves of Islamophobic scaremongering has been.

If it turns out that the Crab People living under the Earth's crust for thousands of years were behind this, I'll say you were right.  Haven't really heard much in the way of domestic terror or any other 'big time' terror groups lately, certainly not in Oslo of all places.

Are there many separatist groups in Norway?  I know about the Sami people who mostly reside around Finnmark, but I'm not aware of any salient separatist movement from them.

Update on number of unconfirmed deaths amongst the youths at the political convention: 20-30 9-10

Because almost none of those separatist groups ever perform massive bomb attacks that kill a bunch of people (at least in the last decade or two).  Blowing up crowded subway cars?  Skyscrapers?  The Prime Ministers office?  All Islamic.

When your country is on AQ's official "its OK to blow them up" shit list, has no major separatists groups, and no history of domestic terrorism, I think its only logical and fair to assume, given no other info, that the attack was likely Islamic.  Until other information is presented, there is nothing Islamophobic about it.  Its cool and logical.  The shooting at the island, however, seems to suggest it could in fact be domestic.  But before that was known, the most likely guess was AQ or something like that.

Fuck, that's horrible.  To make it even more creepy (for me), a good friend of mine in Norway was actually in charge of running that camp last year I've found out.

Tim McVeigh was Islamic?  :why_so_serious:

Hey, I did mention domestic at first.  Islamaphobia was introduced by the liberal press' speculations. I expect them to mention possible militias/ separatist groups who've made threats.  :why_so_serious:

I was talking about Europe specifically.

With how fucking crazy politics and fringe factions have gotten over here lately, its a god damn coin toss on guessing if a terrorist attack is foreign or domestic here at this point.

Seems like it could've been the same person doing the bombing as the shooting, as apparently someone fitting his description had been observed at the site of the bombing minutes before it happened. The number of dead from the shooting thankfully seems lower than the earlier unconfirmed reports - so 9-10 instead of 20-30 - but any amount over NONE is still bad, and this puts the total confirmed deaths today up to 16 or 17.

Living in Oslo, it is absurd seeing areas of downtown looking like a warzone. Norway has been mentioned by Al-Qaida several times as a viable target, The reasoning being the publishing of cartoons of muhammad, troops in Afghanistan and Libya.

That said, unconfirmed eye-witness reports say the arrested shooter was tall and had "scandinavian" looks. The police has only confirmed that the man has norwegian nationality.

The police has just said they found several undetonated explosive devices at the youth camp. And the number of deaths at the youth camp is expected to rise as the search continue. They have also confirmed that the suspect is a man of norwegian decent.

I have read that the fake policeman on the island was blond, tall, young and Norwegian looking. If its terrorism (why not call it bombing and/or massmurder until we know more) it seems to have been carried out by an ethic Norwegian. Taking the targets into consideration this lends credibility to the theory about an homegrown domestic right wing attack. But lets see...

Scary stuff through. Hope every Norwegian on the board is A-okay.

edit: uhh I am soo slow at typing..

I fail to see how this would not be considered terrorism even if he's "blond, tall, young and Norwegian looking". From having seen his Facebook profile I can also tell you that he claims to be a Christian, has a business education, "conservative political view", likes hunting and e-sports, watches True Blood and Stargate Universe, plays World of Warcraft, Modern Warfare 2 - and from his musical taste - Age of Conan. :(

He is still a terrorist.

He tweeted something too: http://twitter.com/AndersBBreivik

McVeigh was white, domestic, and a veteran. White people can still be terrorists. It's happened.

He needs an agenda to be a terrorist, that's all. We don't know if/what his was yet. Also I'm not sure we know 100% for sure the incidents are connected, yet.

Oh good. Norwegian newspapers are now starting to focus on the fact that he played World of Warcraft.  :uhrr:

EA will stop at nothing it seems.

Stupid media they should be focusing on Modern Warfare 2 instead :oh_i_see:

How do you guys know this is the suspect?  I haven't seen the suspects name listed in any official news articles.

Local media sources have named the arrested suspect.

E.g.:

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10080610

http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/anders-32-i-oslo-ble-paagrepet-etter-bombe-og-massedrap-3544629.html

Yeah, now I'm starting to see it trickle in.

Really sad. I've liked the few Norwegians I've had a chance to work with.  :cry:

So in the last 20-25 years theres been two major terror attacks carried out by non-Muslims compared to the hundreds or even thousands committed by Muslims.  Tim McVeigh...and now this dude.  I don't exactly see this as terror attacks trending towards the white, Christian demographic.  I do, however, see this thread trending towards to the politics forum.

Uhh.. So I found this picture that could very well show the perpitrator on the island in his murderous act surrounded by his victims. While its hard to count, it seems from this picture that there potentially could be alot more dead victims. I am not sure its a good idea to post it, but since it took me less then 5 mins to accidently stumble upon it, I will just post it in the spoiler as a link. Please remove it if its to much.

This is definitly NOT SAFE FOR WORK or the faint hearted:


As for him being a terrorist or not, my main point was that its too early to be absolutely sure what he is and is'nt. So lets wait with the labelling until we know more.

As for the label "terrorism" and "terrorist" itself, its interesting just how easy we and the media throw it around for all kinds of different criminal activities, which might be quite different in a number of ways. Hell there is'nt even a consensus on what the two labels contain, besides a weak notion that the perpitrator(s) must have an religious, political or ideological motive, disregard civilians/bystanders, and have the intention to cause fear/terror. If we applied this weak and broad notion on this case, the only criteria the Norwegian perpitrator currently fulfills for sure is the disregarding civilians part, according to the information at hand.

Two? What the fuck are you smoking?

The IRA don't count ... I guess.

Citation needed.

There are also numerous factors that go into some attacks outside of religion, unless you see the good Christian nation of Russia being attacked by the evil Muslim state of Chechnya as the total view of that region's current affairs.

Norwegian cops now say the death toll on the island is 80+

"It is now clear that the events have a larger scope than previously thought."

Bear in mind that's kids at a camp.

https://www.politi.no/Kampanje_51.xhtml

80.... citation?

That's... pretty dramatic.

What. The. Fuck.

I work in the news. You can cite me.

But here's a Norwegian journalist: http://twitter.com/#!/rtege

Al-Jazeera's liveblog: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Norway

Australia's ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-23/explosion-rocks-norway-pm27s-office/2807138

This thread...

SIGH.

Not to make this too political but it started off with "probably Islamic terrorists" and ended up at "a white guy - nope probably not terrorism!" Come on!

Anyway terrible terrible news. 80+! Dear god.

I think this terrorist has set up a line of internet profiles to deliver messages, e.g. his single tweet I linked earlier, plus his Facebook says he's a WoW player, so people look up his character and find it's called "Conservatism" (edit: Conservatism was an Alliance Mage on Silvermoon, profile now removed by Blizzard).

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2423043490?page=1

EDIT: Disturbing pic from that thread of the gunman surrounded by dead bodies: http://i53.tinypic.com/23r263t.jpg

Article from yesterday about the summer camp where the shootings took place: http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/07/21/labours-summer-camp-opens/

He voted for Steven Harper, his cognitive faculties are suspect.

Ok.  Find me a comparable number of terror attacks committed by non-Muslims over the last 20-25 years (note the time frame btw) to those of non-Muslims and I'll retract me earlier statement.  Fact is, when we here of terror attacks these days I'm fairly certain the first thing most people speculate is "it was probably done by Islamic extremists".  Even you.  Its well earned speculation.  Most of the victims of terror, sadly, are also Islamic, so it doesn't stick in our heads just how often it happens because its easy to ignore it when its done "over there".  Anyway, it seems this was done by someone who looks like the poster boy for the Aryan super race.  Only way this could be classified as another Islamic extremist attack is if he converted to Islam, like that American guy who was a mouth piece for the Taliban. 

So, the score is now Militant Islamic Jihadists 7323 - Angry White Christian Right Wing Nut Bars 2.  I totally can see how having your first thought about this being done by Islamic terrorists makes someone an Islamaphobe. :oh_i_see:

The Norwegian Prime Minister was supposed to be at that camp/rally thing, right?

You still crying about that?  Those tears must be very stale by now.

He wasn't supposed to be there until tomorrow (or possibly even the day after) I think. One former prime minister from the same political party - Gro Harlem Brundtland - was there earlier though, but left the island a few hours before the shooting.

Fuck, this is horrible.  The death toll at the camp is horrendous, and it deeply saddens me.  Norway is an awesome country, and I can't think of a people who could possible deserve it less (not that anybody deserves this, but still).

I've been trolling the comments section on the WSJ website over the last few hours, since the vast majority of the comments started out as Islamic and Liberal bashing, and now the terrorist turns out to be a right wing christian.  But I just don't have the strength in me any longer, this is to fucked up.  They've moved on too saying how if Norway didn't have such strict gun control, the shooter would have been shot by one of the kids long before he killed so many.  Somebody go over there and troll them harder please.

Tomorrow. He was going to attend tomorrow.

Blog by a girl who escaped the shooting (in Google Translate): http://t.co/u9jgH1l

WARNING: Graphic and disturbing - video of bodies on the shore: http://youtu.be/W8LAt7mqoa0

P.S. Ginaz, this thread is about the Norway attacks, not your asstasticness.

This thread needs to go into politics.

It's not our job to prove you wrong -- it's your job to prove you are correct.

Just ignore Ginaz. He's obviously functionally retarded and/or trolling. There is no point in dignifying his moronic obviously false ranting with real responses.

After doing a little checking, I'll have say that I didn't expect so many terror attacks to have been carried out  by non-Jihadists as I found.  The numbers in Columbia and Sri Lanka were esp. surprising.  However, as far as stating that any large scale terror attack has caused people by default to first assume they are Islamic in nature due to the scale and number of previous attacks, I don't think I'll revise anything.  Far more people have been killed by Islamic terrorists than by anyone else, esp., as I said, in the last 20-25 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_and_other_violent_events_by_death_toll#Terrorist_attacks

Anyway, 84 people killed by one guy is truly amazing.  He must have been planning this for months or even years.  Knowing nothing about Norway, I don't understand what he was so pissed about.  Norway is constantly rated as one of the best places in the world to live.  Some of the pictures, esp. the ones from the island the kids were on, are really hard to look at.  Heartbreaking.  Is there any word if the guy is alive or did he kill himself too?

Edit:  Good lord.  Theres already a wiki page on the Oslo bombing and shooting.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

I managed to load Anders Behring Breivik's comments (http://www.document.no/anders-behring-breivik/) on the conservative website Document.no and run them through Google Translate. They end last year when he disapproves of the site hiring a reporter instead of using voluntary resources like him.

He's coherent. He's fiercely anti-multiculturalism, which he sees as a form of enforced socialism. He proposes a conservative newspaper and youth movement. He talks about making his "first million" in business and names a friend who owns one of Norway's social media sites.

Here's a comment on his religious views.


He's a Christian fundamentalist.

And allegedly a mass murderer.

Ter-ror-ist. In the actual definition of the word, as opposed to resisting occupation or leaking documents.

A sad day for Norway; my thoughts are with the families of the victims.

Now we know he's not a Muslim (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14259989) can I just point out that blonde, blue-eyed people born in Norway of Norweigan parents can be Muslims.

Can we stop bringing up Muslims in a thread about a terorrist attack? Theres a place where we discuss that sort of thing.

So has this kid been linked to the bombing or are they still two separate instances that just happened to go simultaneously?

Norwegian cops are saying it's likely both events were him. He was seen in Oslo just after the explosion. He ran a farming business which most likely enabled him to stockpile fertiliser for the bomb.

You know, the only thing driving this to politics is the one guy who wants to make it about politics.

Let's just stick to tracking the news. Assholes who want to play numbers games are welcome to start a Politics thread.

How is this NOT a political subject? A terrorist attack of any kind is, by definition, political. Any discussion about it that takes a single step away from just expressing horror and sympathy for the victims and their families has to take on a political aspect!

I feel tremendous sympathy for the victims, their families and all who are affected by this, it's a monstrous act.

But it's not an act that exists in a vacuum and which came out of nowhere except one crazy guy's derangement. If Anders Behring Breivik is indeed the culprit then his motives and his reasons are important. He was a Christian fundamentalist, filled with Islamophobic hate and who claimed to have been inspired by and had talks with (among others) the EDL - English Defence League, which are an off-shoot of the British National Party.

He targeted people attending a Labour Youth gathering and Norway's main government building. He posted messages on a Norwegian website expressing his admiration for the English Defence League:


Oh, and out of interest, the headline of The Sun today? "Norway's 9/11 - Al-Queda massacre". Don't tell me this isn't political every which way there is.

The police has evewitness-reports of a man dressed as the shooter being observed in the bomb-area just minutes before the blast. Also, he is the owner of a farm/farming-company and bought 6 metric ton fertilizer two months ago. The Police have searched both his apartment and his farm.

It is strange walking around in Oslo today. Armed police and soliders in the streets have never been a common sight here in Norway.

No one has asked or mentioned this, but if the guy was acting alone who took the picture of him with the bodies and who posted it to his Facebook page?
Maybe I'm missing something cause I'm high as a kite on opiates right now, bit that question leapt out at me.

In all the sorrow and grief, I'm just "happy" it wasn't a muslim group doing this shit. Norway, in all it's "glory", is in no way a racist-free country. IF it had been AQ-attack, it would have gotten ugly. Fremskrittsparteiet, is pretty much like the conservatives in the US. And with the election in a few months time, would probably gotten 50% of the votes IF it had been an outside job. With the psycho-insider-thing, i hope they are erased from the political map. Fucking nutjobs....

I would assume a news feed that was leaked.

Is this big news in the US? People on Twitter were saying even CNN continued with Casey Anthony stories and all but ignored this, long after it unfolded. Doesn't seem to be generating much discussion here either - major event, two page thread.

If ever there was a country to sit up and take notice of mass, planned, apparently political killings by right-wing Christian fundamentalist nutjobs...

It's the weekend. 2 pages is pretty good.  Plus, any further exploration would definitely send this into Politics, so I imagine people are avoiding saying a lot of things.

Or, like me, they see it as horrific and tragic but don't have a hell of a lot to say. Much less being able to wrap your mind around one guy killing 80.  That puts it above even the Port Arthur incident by 2 1/4.. in a nation that nobody's heard of anything similar before.  It's probably just too stunning to process right now.

It was a lone guy, apparently, who was caught.  He's wacky-unstable and thinks himself some sort of conservative messiah from his twitter message.  Did he think he'd inspire the right-wing to rise-up and take arms with his 'inspirational' message and proof that he's a man of action?  No, he's a fucking nutter.

Also, we're a bit riveted over here by our country's "leaders" deciding to just up and fuck us all over.

News didn't get their that fast. Also that wouldn't explain who posted it to the suspects Facebook page.
Imagery looks like some sort of still from a security came maybe.

Which picture are you referring to?

I think you've nailed the issue with calling him a nut-job. If his name had been Ali, it would have been proof of the worldwide Islamic conspiracy to bring down the Western world. But it isn't, so he's just (at this point) a well-planned sociopath on a spree kill.

He doesn't fit with the 'story' of terrorism, so therefore he doesn't count.

It's been a lead story on my local newpaper's site all weekend, at least.

Anders Breivik's Manifesto (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/86567544/2083-AEuropeanDeclarationofIndependence)

Clocks in at ~777,000 words  :ye_gods:

Picture of him surrounded by bodies in water at island. It was used as a Facebook profile photo for profile with person with we name as suspect.

The man was clearly a maniac, not sure I'd call him a sociopath though. I'm basing that just off the fact that I don't really know enough about him but someone inspired to kill by their political beliefs is probably thinks they're acting in the best interests of 'the people' or somehow doing something to make the world better in their twisted mind view. This doesn't mean he isn't a sociopath but it seems a leap, plenty of people can be twisted and horrible without that particular strain of disaffection and just labelling him a sociopath, imo, just makes it easier to dismiss everything else that motivated him. Like others have said if he was a muslim we'd be hearing about radicalising mosques that preach hate because that fits the narrative. For whatever reason we haven't got a media narrative of radicalising message boards full of racist reactionaries to explain this but sociopathic white men is a pretty popular one. Since he fits the visuals for that it's the 'easy sell' and it pretty naturally occurs to journalists to view the situation as such.

Also it's such a mindfuck in terms of scale for a one man operation. I honestly didn't believe it when I heard that there were 80 people killed in the shooting on that island, the number is just so huge. On top of that there just isn't anything to follow up on unless the story breaks that he was part of some group that planned more of these. It just seems to have come utterly out of nowhere, probably because it was one guy planning the whole thing in his head. What happens to him now is going to be really fucking interesting. I also really don't want to be the one to drag this to politics so I'll stick to saying that the whole thing is fucking horrible and I just really hope that there isn't more grief for the families of the kids on the island in terms of finding bodies or not knowing what happened to their kid.

Unusually, we have a lock on where the "it was a Muslim Terror Group" rumour came from

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/benjamin-doherty/how-clueless-terrorism-expert-set-media-suspicion-muslims-after-oslo-horror

It was a 'terrorism expert' talking out his ass, basically.

I will say that Ginaz talking about how the reason we didn't all assume it was an Islamic terrorist attack was because the media doesn't report enough on the actual number of such attacks while also believing that there had been a total of 2 non-Islamic terrorist attacks in the last 25 years a high point of someone talking authoritatively on a subject they have no clue about. On the other hand he isn't (I assume) consulted by international media organisations. This is something that you'll get on any story though, like I said the media likes events that fit into a narrative and if someone with 'authority' is telling them this fits a story that's what they'll run with. Otherwise it's back to seeing which one most easily fits. I should say this isn't meant as some condemnation of all journalists as lazy sensationalists but, I hope accurately, reflecting the way the system is set up at present.

Also apparently the guy had fairly extensive links to various far-right organisations in the sense that he corresponded with members in groups like the EDL and posted on Stormfront and similar sites. Hardly a surprise in itself but with the attention that gets directed towards Jihadist web sites I wonder if we might start seeing a similar media focus on these sites as incubating political terrorism? They're certainly already pretty heavily monitored by the police but it would be interesting to see more attention getting paid to them. If nothing else having user information posted on the net for some of the higher traffic ones would be amusing again.

Thats not what I was really saying but I won't comment any further because I realize that what I said so soon after the attacks came across as a bit douche baggish and this isn't the politics forum.  Sorry.

I saw a link to some EU commissioned study that put terrorist attacks by Islamic groups in the EU at something like 20% of all total attacks.

That terrorists are Mulsims is just the media narrative and confirmation bias.

Members of the press arrived at the island in a news-chopper before the police did (as they were already in the air and nearby), and they took some pictures.

Most of it has also apparently been lifted verbatim from the Unabomber Manifesto, with Liberalism changed to multiculturalism/Marxism.

Considering the Unabomber's manifesto was around 50 pages, and this is over 1000, that would be basically impossible unless he repeats passages from it over and over again.

Edit:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8658269/Norway-shooting-Anders-Behring-Breivik-plagiarised-Unabomber.html

Drudgereport had it huge at the top for awhile. Starting with the bomb blast.

(http://popshifter.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/the-shining-typewriter.jpg)

NPR ran a piece this morning discussing how this is just a bit of the roiling Right-Wing in Europe finally breaking the surface.   I hadn't realized just how many ultra-right parties had begun gaining power over there.  Or that, as one anylist put it, there is a culture of Exclusion rather than Inclusion in most European countries, leading to lots of problems as immagrints have moved in over the last several decades.

Its been a big story on the main page of every US news site I've seen since it happened.

http://news.yahoo.com/norway-rampage-culprit-calm-expects-life-jail-161443626.html

Its still hard to imagine a lone gunman managing to shoot 68 people let alone kill 68 people.

Being dressed as a policeman directing children probably accounts for lots.

So that was definitely not an inner-city school camp then?  :why_so_serious:

So this guy has said in court that his Knights Templar Europe network has up to 80 "solo martyr cells" and he was working with two of them before acting alone.

We're about to find out whether it's the ravings of a madman, or a right-wing terror network.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/norway-attacks-suspect-arrives-in-court/2809930

Just got back from the "Rose-parade" in Oslo. 200 000 people gathered in front of the town hall tonight, most carrying either a red or white rose .Love and peace.
Was meant to go from there down to Youngstorget, but they had to change those plans since to many people showed up. Some pics from the norwegian newspaper VG here http://www.vg.no/bildespesial/spesial.php?id=8410  , hope that link works anyway. Feel free to yell at me if it doesn't

Didn't he have an automatic weapon of some kind? That paired with him being able to gather crowds around him as a fake officer.

One of these, apparently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruger_Mini-14

This guy sounds like a good candidate for waterboarding.

I'm curious how Norwegian/European conservative/nationalist groups/parties are talking about this. Especially the ones he's refered to by name. Judging by posts in boards by people claiming to be Norwegian it's about as tacky as I'd expect from our own groups.

Also, that wierd horizontal bracket shaped beard thing he had should have been a red flag to everyone that the guy was batshit crazy.

The 'head' of the EDL was on Newsnight last night and responded pretty much as you'd expect. He refused to acknowledge that he knew the guy in any way or that he might have attended any EDL marches, when pressed he claimed he'd never met him, that hundreds of people take part in their peaceful protests and not all are members or really believe in the same things as them and finally, when pressed on members that claimed said nutter was associated repeatedly asserted that you couldn't deal in hearsay and they had to base these things on facts. He also exclusively quoted one sentence in the 1500 page manifesto where the guy said the EDL were naive fools and berated them for accepting non-white members (honestly this surprised me. Are there any non-white people involevd in the EDL?). He wouldn't deal with anything else but did condemn the violent action taken against innocents. Apparently the guy is entirely unconnected to his movement and noone in the EDL would ever consider anything even remotely like this, they just desperately want their right to peaceful protest, human rights being something only given to Muslims. Finally he pontificated on the hundreds of thousands of people with genuine concerns about Islam and how it was inevitable something like this would happen in the UK and that he hoped the Norway events would act as a 'wake up call' to politicians that they need to take action.

It was pretty much what you'd expect to hear from someone holding forth in a pub that knows they win the discussion by not letting anyone else speak and was full of, "I've never met the man, you can't expect me to remember all the people I meet anyway and if I did meet him it doesn't show that I agree with any of the actions he's taken." largely my bias but the guy also looked exactly like what you'd expect if you took a bloke that would beat the shit out of people that disagreed with him in the pub and dressed him up neatly in a suit. Paxman has a reputation for political grillings so he went in with a few talking points and just hammered those relentlessly so he wouldn't actually be asked any awkward questions. Paxman gave up about 5 minutes in and just let him rant with the odd question lobbed in, I don't think he was really on form and he clearly couldn't be bothered.

I was also unaware of the fact that there are currently 14 people associated with the EDL/NF/etc. in prison on terror charges right now in the UK.

Turns out the lawyer Breivik requested is a member of the Labour Party, and Breivik still does not know this :)

http://twitter.com/#!/KJBar/status/95810954452942848 (http://twitter.com/#!/KJBar/status/95810954452942848)

You stay classy Glenn Beck. (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/07/26/Glenn-Beck-likens-Norway-victims-to-Hitler-Youth/UPI-97021311665400/?spt=mps&or=3)

Note, I don't actually want this thread to be purged into politics, but I guess this is the only place to put this.   :awesome_for_real:

Its already in politics.

Oh, sorry, guess I should bother reading that forum again.....

Wow... just wow.

There is a Sikh chap called Guramit Singh (http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/12404) who is quite big in the EDL, and also demonstrates that they are absolutely 100% not racist in any way.

Talking about the EDL also gives me an excuse to post (re-post?) this superb video demonstrating the average EDL member (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL1jDcAHkc8)

My favorite part of the article:

 :uhrr: @ the Glenn Beck thing. I am constantly amazed at the pond scum that are allowed to earn a living from spouting hateful shit under the aegis of politics around the world.

About the EDL, just as a kind of FYI, they grew out of the BNP in an attempt to keep the more militant sections of British fascism in check and unified to some extent. The BNP grew out of a split (and near-dissolution of) the NF. The BNP represent the "mainstreaming" attempt of British fascists, the respectable face of Nazism in the UK. The BNP's strategy is to do everything they can to outwardly hide their fascist nature and attempt to appear to the electorate as a normal political party. John Tyndall lost a leadership battle to Nick Griffin in the 90s I think, and that marked the evolution of the new strategy in British fascism, modeled on Jean Marie Le Pen of the French FN.

However within fascism there is always a conflict between those elements seeking power through electoral means and the shock troops, the thugs on the ground. For fascism to succeed it has to demonstrate that it can crush working class resistance with force and that's the role of the EDL - they're there to provide an outlet for the fascist foot soldiers.

But, since the EDL were created by the BNP they have also taken on board the same duality - on the one hand, to their members, they are a fascist, white supremacist organisation. But on the other hand they know they have to appear to distance themselves from unacceptable racism, hence the token sikh guy. What they demonstrate quite clearly is the recognition that Islamophobia has become the acceptable face of racism.

I don't really have a specific point here, just thought some background information on the EDL might be interesting to those outside the UK.

If you want a point, well, to me this act of Brevik's makes it even clearer that groups like the EDL need to be stopped and that fighting against the Islamophobia being incessantly rammed down our throats is even more important.

There's also a Murdoch WSJ editorial (in print and behind the paywall) claiming Breivik was actually left-wing.

To be fair, WSJ editorials were batshit *before* Murdoch too.

Eh, WSJ actually use to be fairly decent when I read it back in college.  I've taken to reading it again, post Murdoch, and it seems to have gotten a lot worst.  Other than the opinion section (which is almost universally bad anywhere), they actually seemed fairly even handed with just a pro-business slant back in the day.

The articles were fine, I am speaking specifically of the editorial page. For many many years that's been kind of a schizophrenic departure from the tone of the rest of the paper.

I just wanted to share this : http://www.vgtv.no/#!id=42479 (http://www.vgtv.no/#!id=42479)
Norwegians has put flowers all over Oslo as a way to remember and honour the victims of this horrid event.

Edit by Trippy: fixed link