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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: NGTM-1R on July 22, 2011, 04:54:47 pm

Title: Shootings in Norway
Post by: NGTM-1R on July 22, 2011, 04:54:47 pm
Hearing something about Norway being hit with coordinated terrorist attacks. No details available at work.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Snail on July 22, 2011, 04:58:21 pm
Heard about it this morning. Something in Oslo. Last I checked there was only one fatality.



EDIT - Just checked again and there's something else that went down. Scary.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on July 22, 2011, 08:09:50 pm
I just read about it on the BBC. 17 fatalities at the least. A bomb blast in Oslo that damaged several government buildings as well as a shooting incident at an island off Oslo a few hours later. The gunman is Norwegian and he is connected to the bomb attack.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: TopAce on July 23, 2011, 04:14:44 am
Yahoo! News puts the death toll to 91 now. That's scary.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: qazwsx on July 23, 2011, 07:27:21 am
I just read about it on the BBC. 17 fatalities at the least. A bomb blast in Oslo that damaged several government buildings as well as a shooting incident at an island off Oslo a few hours later. The gunman is Norwegian and he is connected to the bomb attack.
BBC is now reporting 84 fatalities
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: FireSpawn on July 23, 2011, 08:33:47 am
Apperently it was mostly kids between 14 and 18 at a summer camp, the guy turned up dressed as a police officer and started shooting.
Such a waste of life.  :nono:
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Dilmah G on July 23, 2011, 09:07:43 am
****ing hell...
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: NGTM-1R on July 23, 2011, 10:47:56 am
What the christ.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Nuke on July 23, 2011, 11:44:30 am
I just read about it on the BBC. 17 fatalities at the least. A bomb blast in Oslo that damaged several government buildings as well as a shooting incident at an island off Oslo a few hours later. The gunman is Norwegian and he is connected to the bomb attack.
BBC is now reporting 84 fatalities

i wonder if theres a connection to black metal.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: NGTM-1R on July 23, 2011, 12:45:48 pm
How the christ do you get to 84 dead mainly on the strength of your marksmanship rather than your bomb?
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: FireSpawn on July 23, 2011, 06:42:28 pm
How the Christ do you get to 84 dead mainly on the strength of your marksmanship rather than your bomb?

Apparently he used investigating the explosions as a cover to get the camp goers to group together, then opened up with an automatic when they where all in one place. This has shown a chilling amount of forthought in the method of executing children.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: castor on July 24, 2011, 06:44:15 am
Quote
Apparently he used investigating the explosions as a cover to get the camp goers to group together, then opened up with an automatic when they where all in one place. This has shown a chilling amount of forthought in the method of executing children.
It was a small island packed with 500 people. No boats available. The guy equipped with an automatic rifle, shotgun and a pistol. Took more than an hour for the police to get there. The bomb was just  a diversion. Ugly stuff.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: StarSlayer on July 25, 2011, 02:28:50 pm
Forecast is cloudy with a chance of angry anti game lobbyists waving pitchforks and torches (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/118/1184029p1.html)
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Nuke on July 25, 2011, 03:22:53 pm
why is this topic in this thread? considering some of the other topics in gd right now, many of them belong here more than this one.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Pred the Penguin on July 25, 2011, 09:30:28 pm
Like what topics?
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Nuke on July 26, 2011, 02:58:56 am
^proof that nobody reads this thread
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Scotty on July 26, 2011, 03:00:43 am
^proof that nobody reads this thread

Silly Nuke, this thread isn't for reading, it's for mindless twittering!
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Nuke on July 26, 2011, 05:57:10 am
^proof that nobody reads this thread
What I mean is... what kind of topics should be in here?

i was refering to the norway shooting thingie, it seems too important to be in whiyl, which is a place for random bull**** that nobody ever reads.
Title: Re: Re: W-H-I-Y-L It
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on July 26, 2011, 07:25:05 am
I shall quote from the BBC:

Quote from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14294251
He said his operation had not been aimed at killing as many people as possible but that he wanted to create the greatest loss possible to Norway's governing Labour Party, which he accused of failing the country on immigration.

I'd like to see him say that to the family, friends and relatives of the people he shot dead.

He is a 32-year-old born Norwergian, with religious background (Christianity) and views the world in a way that the multiculturalism is a bad thing that must be opposed at all cost. His main issue seems to be with Islam and how it spreads in Europe, discarding the original European culture. How this leads to killing of 91 children in social democratic camp is a question, though.

Multiculturalism takes time to work and requires constant maintenance. Look at Singapore. We've somehow managed to get it working to a certain degree, and it took us, what, forty-six years to do it?

This guy killed children in a camp that was run by the ruling Labour Party. He felt that the Labour Party has failed the country on immigration laws, probably by being too relaxed in his opinion. He can't target the current party members because they are too well-guarded, so he decides to get what he thinks are their successors: the children in that camp. Get them young, and you'll have them for life, see?
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Flipside on July 26, 2011, 07:38:54 am
Split out from WHIYL, since I agree with Nuke that this is too important to remain as part of another thread.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 26, 2011, 07:47:09 am
If the tabloid media is to be trusted here, it was reported yesterday that one of the victims was part of the Norwegian royal family.

The shooter was captured alive since he surrendered to police and answers for his actions in front of court. He is a 32-year-old born Norwergian, with religious background (Christianity) and views the world in a way that the multiculturalism is a bad thing that must be opposed at all cost. His main issue seems to be with Islam and how it spreads in Europe, discarding the original European culture. How this leads to killing of 91 childern in social democratic camp is a question, though.

This is about as neutral as I can write about this sad incident.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Flipside on July 26, 2011, 07:54:39 am
He claims he wanted to undermine the current socialist government and forward his own Far-Right ideals. How he planned to do that by becoming an equal or worse with those who kill whilst hiding behind the facade of being Islamic is unknown.

I find what little pleasure I can in knowing that rather than achieving what appears to be his goals, he has probably succeeded in uniting communities from all cultural backgrounds more closely than ever before.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 26, 2011, 07:55:22 am
Confirmed: one of the dead is Trond Berntsen, 51, brother-in-law of princess Mette-Marit.

The main targets were the current prime minister and the former prime minister, both of them happened to leave the scene some hours earlier.

EDIT: Correction, the main target was only the former prime minister. Sorry for the mistake.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on July 26, 2011, 08:05:32 am
He claims he wanted to undermine the current socialist government and forward his own Far-Right ideals. How he planned to do that by becoming an equal or worse with those who kill whilst hiding behind the facade of being Islamic is unknown.

He may have assumed that the ruling party would rule Norway for several more years, during which the current party members would be succeeded by younger people who would follow in their footsteps. Perhaps he thought that Norway was in some sort of vicious cycle.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 26, 2011, 08:18:36 am
He claims he wanted to undermine the current socialist government and forward his own Far-Right ideals. How he planned to do that by becoming an equal or worse with those who kill whilst hiding behind the facade of being Islamic is unknown.

He may have assumed that the ruling party would rule Norway for several more years, during which the current party members would be succeeded by younger people who would follow in their footsteps. Perhaps he thought that Norway was in some sort of vicious cycle.

This appears to be the case, according to his writings. He seems to have determined that there is a covert conversion war in Europe that goes by the name of multiculturalism, but mainly spreads Islam. When it is a case of war, the Norwegian casualties become acceptable in the name of greater good.

EDIT: For clarification, that's what he said, not me.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Flipside on July 26, 2011, 08:28:10 am
The sadly ironic part is that most people who come to the West from Islamic countries don't come here because they want to spread the word, but because here is where the money is. Which is a lot more than can be said for the West and it's period of sending missionaries to the 'heathen lands' several hundred years ago. Multiculturalism is the bastard child of Imperialism.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Pred the Penguin on July 26, 2011, 08:43:33 am
That's a very big generalization, multiculturalism goes back way way father than that... but you probably knew that already. 
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Flipside on July 26, 2011, 08:49:27 am
Well, even if you go back to things like the Greek empire or further, it all centres around people migrating to more affluent areas and bringing their culture with them, that's why you'll find traces of Greek mythology in Roman culture, and traces of Norse mythology in Christian culture etc. Egypt exported its culture to other parts of Africa through military and financial domination, but at the same time, parts of those external cultures were absorbed into the Egyptian way of life.

I've always felt that 'Culture' is a fluid thing that flows and mingles its way across the globe depending on the expansion and contraction of various Empires and the movement of people, resources and technology within those Empires.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 26, 2011, 08:59:40 am
The sadly ironic part is that most people who come to the West from Islamic countries don't come here because they want to spread the word, but because here is where the money is. Which is a lot more than can be said for the West and it's period of sending missionaries to the 'heathen lands' several hundred years ago. Multiculturalism is the bastard child of Imperialism.

You are seeing this from your point of view. It isn't entirely true in Scandinavia. Most of the immigrants here, according to my understanding, have applied for an asylum and thus are war refugees or otherwise oppressed. If my eyes are to be believed, Scandinavia is more closed for immigration than Central Europe. The reasons behind this are many fold and after traveling quite a bit, I tend to  understand why this is so. I cannot say for certain if this holds for Norway too, but I'm pretty sure it does.

What tends to infuriate the lay person is that when these people are granted rights to be here, then some of them don't obey the law. I must emphasize that this is a cultural trait in Scandinavia; there is very little understanding of not obeying the law. Don't get me wrong, there are robbers and criminals in Scandinavia without any immigration, but what pisses off most people is that when the immigrants are given a possibility of starting a new life, some of them use it mainly for criminal activities that they were supposed to be escaping in the first place. There were a couple of occasions when it was found out that we have actually been sheltering a couple of war criminals. In some cases, Islamic people have committed honorary killings (several of them) and were asking to be judged by Sharia law and so on - this sounds incredibly offensive to any Scandinavian.

But, what happened in Norway is incomprehensible. The question is, will communities start to listen to the troubled persons more carefully now, or does everything keep going on the same way it has always been? I don't see any other way of preventing this, no gun or other restriction law is going to prevent this stuff from happening again.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Flipside on July 26, 2011, 09:29:16 am
You are correct that I am viewing it more from a UK perspective, though I will note that a lot of our own immigration was also based on refugee status, though this has changed a fair bit in the last few years.

As for Crime, I think the problem here is that, in no country, will 2 disparate law-systems work in tandem. I remember people in the UK getting outraged at a UK teacher being expelled from an Islamic country for calling a Teddy Bear 'Mohammed', because we were trying to layer our own perception of legailty and our own culture over the top of another countries' one. I seem to recall the UK was called a few names over this by various Islamic factions, so I always find it rather worrying when they cannot apply the same mentality to themselves.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 26, 2011, 10:03:53 am
Quote
I seem to recall the UK was called a few names over this by various Islamic factions, so I always find it rather worrying when they cannot apply the same mentality to themselves.

I find that to be the standard behavior regardless of nationality, so nothing new here. The difference might come from how the majority of people of the selected country react to it, and I'm not so sure of even that.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mongoose on July 26, 2011, 03:56:40 pm
So here's an infuriating fact:

Quote
Police spokesman Sturla Henriksbo said Norway — a land some 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) long with around 50,000 islands alone — has only one police helicopter, based at an airport north of Oslo. And that helicopter has only four seats: two for the pilots, one for an equipment manager.
What. the. hell.  Since when is Norway a goddamn third-world country?
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Thaeris on July 26, 2011, 04:38:28 pm
Not every nation needs a substantial garrison (police or military), which includes heavy machinery. In fact, it might even be worth looking into economic conditions in Norway. From a brief look I've had into the conditions, you might even assume they're living within their means. That is nothing to scoff at.

Actual third-world nations often don't even have government-operated aviation. And if they do, it's seldom in working shape.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mongoose on July 26, 2011, 05:30:34 pm
I'm sort of curious as to how a simple helicopter qualifies as "heavy machinery," given that even local TV stations over here own them.  We're not exactly talking about a bank-breaking purchase here.  Given Norway's topography and immense number of islands, possessing only one helicopter for the entire country's police force seems almost criminally negligent.  The fact that said police managed to overload their only boat and subsequently needed to borrow a private one doesn't exactly speak well for their training, either.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 26, 2011, 05:49:58 pm
Before you wonder about this any further, Scandinavian police forces haven't had any serious need for helicopters before. My understanding is that here in Finland the police doesn't even have a helicopter - when they need one, they borrow from the Army. Also, the SWAT forces are almost non-existent compared to elsewhere. Why? No need again. Hospitals do have rescue helicopters, but they are quite unsuited for this stuff.

Add on top of that it is a summer vacation month in Scandinavia, and the guy used a bomb as a diversion, you cannot really fault Norwegian police forces. Most of them came to help from their vacations! Something like this hasn't happened before in Norway. I'm pretty sure there will be some additional equipment coming to the police forces in Scandinavia now, but it is too late to help in this case.

Remember when I said breaking the law is taken quite seriously here and it is a serious infraction of the society norms? Hopefully you are now starting to see what I meant with it. But without visiting this region, you cannot possibly completely understand it.

EDIT: Typos.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: castor on July 27, 2011, 07:18:34 am
..it might even be worth looking into economic conditions in Norway. From a brief look I've had into the conditions, you might even assume they're living within their means.
Well, that was a brief look indeed.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Thaeris on July 27, 2011, 08:43:54 am
I'll have to make admission to that. I wanted to at least have some sort of abstract when making that analysis - of course, that also ensured a good degree of error was possible. I think Mika has made a better illustration/hypothesis of why and how the equipment status exists as-is in Norway.

Next, Mongoose, I'd like you to buy a modern multi-crew helo for a few cool million, maintain it, and train the crew, and operate it on a yearly basis. And then call it cheap. :p
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Nuke on July 27, 2011, 10:00:39 am
its not like in the us where crime is so bad you absolutely need top notch equipment. i figure norway's police forces are sufficient for its usual level of crime. what we have here is an extreme case where police equipment and perhaps training was insufficient. they will no doubt increase their law enforcement budget over this. if this happened in the us, several new government agencies would be created almost overnight, and law enforcement would be rolling in extra cash.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Pred the Penguin on July 27, 2011, 11:24:47 am
But that's always after somethings happened...
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: FireSpawn on July 27, 2011, 11:44:03 am
As bad as it sounds though, sometimes reaction is the only viable method with dealing with something. They've never had to deal with something of this magnitude before or even consider it, so preparing for something with a negligible chance of occurring would be a waste of resources. It'd be similar to building a reinforced bunker in your garden in the off chance of a nuclear strike. Sure it could happen, but what are the chances?
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Nuke on July 27, 2011, 01:16:39 pm
But that's always after somethings happened...

by all means, invent a time machine so we can stop the mass murders before they happen.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on July 28, 2011, 06:23:42 am
I'm sort of curious as to how a simple helicopter qualifies as "heavy machinery," given that even local TV stations over here own them.

Well, they are heavy...
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Black Wolf on July 28, 2011, 07:09:53 am
So here's an infuriating fact:

Quote
Police spokesman Sturla Henriksbo said Norway — a land some 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) long with around 50,000 islands alone — has only one police helicopter, based at an airport north of Oslo. And that helicopter has only four seats: two for the pilots, one for an equipment manager.
What. the. hell.  Since when is Norway a goddamn third-world country?

WA is nearly 10 times the (physical) size of Norway, and we only have one helicopter. Fewer islands, I'll grant, but still. And the single extra seat is because, assuming it's used like ours, it's intended for chasing suspects through urban environments, following cars during high speed pursuits etc. etc. - not for deploying troops.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mars on July 28, 2011, 07:43:08 am
How. . . ? Denver is no megacity, but you'd be hard pressed to figure out how many helicopters we have in the state (quite a lot indeed) or how many the police have access to.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Dragon on July 28, 2011, 10:00:06 am
In Poland, police has 16 choppers, most of them Mi-2s or deveratives, which are suitable for transporting a fair amount of troops. In Krakow itself we have two PLZ Kania choppers, which are capable of taking 9 passengers.
Also, I heard that they'll be changing law in Norway because of that incident, for the purpose of it's investigation.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Grizzly on July 28, 2011, 11:06:44 am
..it might even be worth looking into economic conditions in Norway. From a brief look I've had into the conditions, you might even assume they're living within their means.
Well, that was a brief look indeed.

Hmm. I do remember to have read somewhere that the Norse goverment put a lot of money they earned from oil in reserve, and used it when the economic crisis came about, thus managing to guide Norway trough that without all that much issue.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: NGTM-1R on July 28, 2011, 08:19:41 pm
WA is nearly 10 times the (physical) size of Norway, and we only have one helicopter. Fewer islands, I'll grant, but still. And the single extra seat is because, assuming it's used like ours, it's intended for chasing suspects through urban environments, following cars during high speed pursuits etc. etc. - not for deploying troops.

Not every country has the posse comitatus/equivalent issues about borrowing military equipment for civilian purposes. In fact, there are a good number of countries in Europe that would have sent in a military or paramilitary team for something like this rather than civilian SWAT.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Mika on July 29, 2011, 04:45:01 am
Quote
Hmm. I do remember to have read somewhere that the Norse goverment put a lot of money they earned from oil in reserve, and used it when the economic crisis came about, thus managing to guide Norway trough that without all that much issue.

I was visiting Norway some years ago (Bergen to be exact). During the discussions with the taxi driver, it came apparent that Norway has more than enough of funds, mainly because of their natural gas and oil reserves. I recall the driver saying jokingly that the Norwegians had at some point been discussing about buying Microsoft...

Of the Scandinavian countries, Norway is the most well of at the moment. Believe me, this sad incident has nothing to do with available funds in Norway, and everything with the fact that nobody thought this could happen. I repeat that you need to spend some time here to see why it is so, just reading this on the internet without sufficient background from the region is guarantees you will be thinking it on the basis of your own surroundings.  Scandinavia is quite an extraordinary place in the global scale. I have met a Polish exchange student who was amazed that the wallet he dropped in the bus was actually returned to him next day, and even more so because nothing was stolen... To give you perspective, my thoughts were like: what, what did you expect then?

EDIT: Just recalled something else
The same Polish guy later said that what he has seen here is something that he hasn't seen anywhere else in the world. He realized that he had to change his whole way of thinking when he realized that for a quite significant majority of Scandinavians, the thought of swindling him doesn't even appear on their minds - they just do not think that way.
Title: Re: Shootings in Norway
Post by: Thaeris on July 29, 2011, 08:54:54 am
If I had to move to Europe, I always thought that I'd like to move to Austria, even though I've spent a decent portion of time learning French (France would thus be a more logical country to move to, but there you go). I might need to add Norway to the list. :)

I do hope that the nation can maintain that kindly mindset despite the recent tragedy inflicted upon it.