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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."
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.
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
This is not the result. This is part 1. Part 2 depends on the action of the government and people. You see, in all cases of what terrorism has done itself was to kill a few people. This only affected a reasonable tiny segment of the population. More are affected by drunks on the road every year.
The important part of terrorism is the part 2 - the so called reaction by the people and the government. They could either,
1. treat this as a criminal act and hold the responsible parties to account, or
2. undermine their own freedoms in their own fear of the "enemy", stop trusting one another and view anyone that appears different as the "enemy". This is the aim of the terrorist, not the initial damage.
So far, the terrorist are quite a ways ahead, if you ask me. A simple bomb here, a bomb there. A handful of people die. People demand action. And soon enough they look suspicious at any minority, become radicals themselves and destroy their own societies simply out of fear. The victims becomes the terrorists themselves. And the cycle continues until we end up with Afghanistan style society.
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
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
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
This is the guy:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002651290254
Religious views: Christian
'nuf said! - It's the Norwegian counter part of Timothy McWeigh. Nothing to do with Al Queda or any other Arab connection - more similarities with the Norwegian "Tea-Party"-look-a-likes.
This is blinging