Slashdot Mirror
Terror Attack On Norwegian Government
techtech sends this quote from the BBC:
"A large bomb blast has hit near government headquarters in the Norwegian capital Oslo, killing at least one person. The offices of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg were damaged extensively — a government spokeswoman said he was safe. Police said a number of people were injured in the city center explosion. No-one has said they were behind the attack, which witnesses said could be heard across the capital."
According to ABC news:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/oslo-explosion-blast-result-massive-vehicle-bomb-sources/story?id=14134197
Earlier this month, a Norwegian prosecutor filed terrorism charges against an Iraqi-born cleric who had allegedly threatened the lives of Norwegian politicians. Mullah Krekar, the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, said in a news conference in 2010 that if he was deported from Norway he would be killed and, therefore, Norwegian politicians deserved the same fate, according to an AP report. The Norwegian government had considered deporting Krekar because he was seen as a national security threat.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
So far there is confirmed 2 dead and 15 injured by NRK news. It is confirmed that it was a car bomb.
It's funny how nowadays topical information (news for nerds) comes to Slashdot days after other internet news channels, while off-topic posts like this hit the front page only a couple of hours after the event.
Because this is in Norway? I thought only Finnish news get a blank pass for nerd news.
Ninjas, pirates, cowboys, cyborgs, and vikings are /.'s top demographic categories.
Several people shot at UtÃya according to Dagbladet.no
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
But an attack like this is big deal in Norway, I live nearby, and the blast has blasted the window in almost 1 km radius, check these images. This is the main government building in Norway: http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge/1.7722919
The bomb was a phaser set to overload -- happy now?
Thought thinks itself.
Not necessarily, if the shooting at the social democrat youth camp just now (by a fake police officer) is related then I'm betting on local nazi crackpots...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
if anywhere.
Then again, terrorism does affect nerds. I know many love to ignore it, but it is crap like this which ends up getting the laws passed that we do discuss and do not like.
So, I can see a connection. If we don't closely examine one of the source causes how are we ever to stop the erosion of our rights? What is it going to take to bring these people in a modern society where they coexist with others on equal terms, or at least on terms which don't make people look over their shoulder every time they pass or have fear of cars parked where the should not be?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This is news for everyone.
Nerds are just a subset.
I stole this Sig
I work stright across the street just from the prime ministers office and was on my way there when the bomb went off and came there not many minutes later. Because of vacation, I think most of the buildings were empty. Almost every shop in down town Oslo has or is shutting down. The public transportation is working more or less as normal, but there are a lot of people down there filming with their phones and calling relatives.
A lot of windows are broken and I saw one probably 400+ meters away blown out. People are very calm and just interested in more information.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14254705
The BBC article? Yes, but I've also been following Norwegian and Swedish news and who did this has yet to be confirmed, what has been confirmed though is that there has also been a shooting at a social democrat youth camp, and for some reason the nordic neo-nazis hate social democrats which is why I pointed out that if these events were related then this makes it a lot more likely that this is a domestic terrorism incident and not islamic terrorists.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
LUKE 19:27
"But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me."
The attack was on a government office, so it's still too early to say whether it was an act of terrorism or war.
Al Qaeda and the organizations allied to it in "the Resistance" are the most obvious suspects, being that they are at war with everyone else in the world and they have the talent and desire to do it.
The attack could be in response to the recent filing of charges against Mullah Krekar, leader of Ansar al-Islam which was one of the first groups to rename itself to "al-Qaeda in Iraq" after the US invaded.
The motivation could also be the Jyllands-Posten cartoons that were published in a Denmark newspaper. The Muslim Brotherhood and Hizbut Tahrir encouraged attacks on Norwegian embassies after the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet republished the cartoons.
Norway has been active in the bombing of Libya. The attack may have come in retaliation from the Libyan government, which has pledged to strike back at its attackers any way it could, or it may have come from unaffiliated right-wing Muslims who see the attack on Libya as kaffir invading the ummah.
It could be someone else. Remember that the Oklahoma City bombing was a couple of white ultra-Christians. Everyone thought it was Hezbollah at first. The attack could have come from Jews who are pissed off about European spy agencies funding the the NIF, B'tselem, Peace Now, Human Rights Watch, and all the lies they tell about Israel. It could have been a nut from an opposing political party or a farmer with a grievance about a change in subsidies and the knowledge to make a fertilizer bomb. The only thing we truly know is that we don't know yet, so wait a day or two for the investigators to do their jobs.
Here's Reuters's speculation.
Captcha: compute. If anyone was complaining that this was not news for nerds, it is now.
Large (some estimate 100kg of explosives) bombs against the headquarters of western governments far removed from any local conflict are rather rare. This is the equivalent of someone blowing up the White House or Downing Street in the UK. It might not reach quite up to the UK subway bombing or the Madrid train bombing but this was way more than one man with a suicide vest.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The terrorist story is a cover-up.
What really happened, is a young Jutnar (a species of large mountain troll) wandered into Oslo through the sewer system. It was eventually destroyed near the capital building when courageous members of the TSS removed a manhole cover above the troll. Sadly, the dying troll exploded in a massive burst destroying several city blocks.
Student: Is it true that the foundation of the universe is paradox?
Master: Well, yes and no.
While I was abroad, I found it very interesting that back in the U.S., I didn't hear about U.S. Solders being killed in "The Wars." But abroad I heard about it all the time on the news. Although I knew that the media in the U.S. is fairly "censored" (not comparable to other countries such as N. Korea or China), it was amazing how much they were really keeping from us (regarding the war).
More recently, the story about the ATF sending weapons to Latin America - though it is still a "developing story," trying to find images of the heavy weapons confiscated has seemed difficult to obtain! But on the Spanish speaking news mediums, they have plenty of footage of just this! Why don't we get to see the same thing? We get shown the "new rifles sold in mass quantities by legit stores" but not the heavy anti armor and vehicle mounted weapons that you just can not buy from stores.
So while this at a glance might not seem as a story for nerds, it is appreciated by nerds... soon enough we'll learn about the specific bomb type and mechanism that was used and we'll discuss many things about that. But don't disregard it just because on the front page news it's "only a human tragedy/act of terrorism."
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
While granted terror attacks in Norway are probably pretty rare
Actually, nothing like this has happened in Norway since WWII, and AFAIK no known terror attacks whatsoever has been perpetrated on Norwegian soil in modern times. That might be the reason it's made the news worldwide, I'm still not sure why this is on Slashdot.
On a side note I work at the University of Oslo, I heard the blast clearly from my office (believed it was thunder at the time). An hour prior to the explosion I suggested to colleagues leaving early and having a beer at this pub, now I'm happy they declined... While I'm very conscious that this shall not influence my everyday life in any way in the future, it *is* a strong reminder that even our peaceful country is vulnerable.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
1. Are you saying that the Koran does not command the killing of "infidels"? That it is merely passages taken out of context?
Well, duh. I'm not a Muslim, and I know that much. The Koran has a lot of passages about fighting wars with enemies of Islam, who were a combination of pagans, Christians and Jews. However, it also has passages about treating Christians and Jews fairly and allowing them practice their religions, and passages stating that they can achieve salvation (or whatever the Islamic equivalent, not sure here). And more generally, it has passages about not picking fights with people who don't pick fights with you.
So, well, the straightforward conclusion here is that the Koran says a lot of different things about the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, and that the context in which each of those things is said needs to be weighed to see which of them best match any given situation. As, well, every single damn book ever written to guide human behavior.
PS: Muslims do not generally consider Christians and Jews to be "infidels." Rather, they consider them to be people who believe in the same god as Muslims, received the same teachings that Mohammed did, but then lost or distorted them. You will of course find plenty of counterexamples to this rule—"Christian = infidel" is an Islamist terrorist theme—but it's by no means a majority opinion. So I'm not interested in responses that document Muslims who have labeled Christians as "infidels"—I know they exist, and I know it's a minority opinion.
PPS: The fact the the Koran periodically has nice things to say about non-Muslims doesn't mean that all Muslims in general will have a good opinion of Christians and Jews; I'm not interested in responses that document cases of Muslims saying bad things about non-Muslims, mistreating them or showing prejudices toward them. In fact, the Koran's nicer statements about non-Muslims often seem like attempts to correct early Muslims' pre-existing prejudices and ill will against them. Take, for example, the Koran's statement that the food of the Peoples of the Book (Christians and Jews) is OK for Muslims to eat. Why would such a rule need to be stated? Well, some early Muslims must have seen some forms of physical contact with Christians as taboo. Similar comments apply where it says that you should not fight or kill non-Muslims who haven't tried to do the same to you: "Don't kill Christians and Jews" must have been a teaching that needed to be taught in Mohammed's time as much as in ours. Religion exists in a harsh, often brutal world of people who adopt it more as a tribal identity than as a moral guide.
Are you adequate?