
Explosion in central Oslo - anteht
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14252515
======
kristofferR
Here's some footage from the attack location just seconds after the explosion:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQvqBgK-nY>

------
guruz
I'm living in Oslo.

With my friends here there is already a Facebook worm going on which is
supposed to show some video footage about the explosion but when you click it
you're just spreading/liking the video.

Shocking to see how fast spammers are.

~~~
blantonl
I'd bet these guys have templates in place just for major events - especially
terrorist attacks.

I recall on Sept 11th the sheer rush from users to consume information on the
Internet. If something like 9/11 ever happens again anywhere in the world,
spammers will jump right on the event like flies on sh*t.

~~~
pyre
It's already happening. There is this example, and I recall one of the recent
Christchurch earthquakes had someone complaining about similar spamming of a
hashtag related to the quake on Twitter.

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swah
We need to partition HN. I love your input, but "If they'd cover it on TV
news, it's probably off-topic."

~~~
lukeschlather
I remember someone noting that "If the world ended, I'm confident it would be
covered immediately on HN."

I think this qualifies as something of sufficient importance that it should be
here just so everyone is aware. We could do without the comments though. Maybe
a "no comment" sort of link for events of vital importance that are off-topic?
It would make a lot more sense than disabling comments for YC job postings.

~~~
nitrogen
I'll second your first paragraph, but would prefer to leave the comments. HN
is one of my two primary news sources, largely due to it being the only place
I've found this quality of discussion. When something really significant
happens, I enjoy participating in a discussion about it with the HN crowd.

------
aw3c2
And everyone jumped to conclusions that it surely was islamist extremist
terrorists, al-qeada or the like. But no, it was a right-wing nationalist
anti-islamist (apparently single) guy. I am so glad.

~~~
umright
You're so glad, really? This guy was apparently Christian, so I hope that
makes you feel better about the religious aspect of it. Extremists and
fundamentalists are all the same, regardless of what they're worshiping.

Also, given that Islamic extremists would be the most obvious conclusion, how
is it unreasonable to draw such assumptions, especially when a supposed
Islamic group claimed responsibility?

~~~
pyre

      > Extremists and fundamentalists are all the same,
      > regardless of what they're worshiping
    

Wouldn't this make it less likely to be _Islamic_ extremists vs
fundamentalists from <insert religion>?

    
    
      > given that Islamic extremists would be the
      > most obvious conclusion
    

Because Muslims are more prone to being crazy and/or extreme than Christians
(or people of <insert religion>)? Because Islamic extremists are the only
people that use guerrilla tactics and explosive devices to get their point
across?

~~~
meric
>> Because Islamic extremists are the only people that use

>> guerrilla tactics and explosive devices to get their point

>> across?

    
    
      Until July 1997, the IRA carried out several bombing and 
      shooting attacks. These included the Docklands bombing 
      and the Manchester bombing, which together killed 2 
      civilians, injured 212 more and caused around £500 
      million in damage.
    

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Ar...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army)

    
    
      The Oklahoma City bombing was a bomb attack on the Alfred 
      P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on 
      April 19, 1995.
    

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing>

_sigh_.

~~~
meric
Sorry, missed the sarcasm there. ( Can't edit above post anymore )

------
Eventh
Police just confirmed that at least 80 is killed at Utøya, earlier reports
were 9-10. All killed by one gunman, and the deaths (at least 7) from the bomb
in Oslo is in addition to these 80. :(

~~~
vegardx
It's been an emotional roller coaster, and things just got even worse. I don't
have words that can describe my feelings right now.

\-- A Norwegian Guy

------
jacquesm
CNN has a timeline that speaks of multiple bombings:

[http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/22/blast-rips-through-
norw...](http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/22/blast-rips-through-norways-
capital-injuries-reported/)

~~~
uggedal
I was at work 3 blocks away from the bombing. If there were several bombings,
they were detonated simultanously. I heard a single bang and our building
shook once.

I'll add that the blast was unlike anything I've withnessed, even 3 blocks
away.

------
Eventh
The name and photo of the arrested man has been leaked. Here is his facebook
and twitter page: <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002651290254>
<https://twitter.com/#!/AndersBBreivik>

------
fossuser
You can watch Al-Jazeera English live for free here:
<http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/> They're covering the Oslo story
right now.

------
sixbit
He's been identified: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/anders-
behring-brei...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/anders-behring-
breivik-id_n_907513.html)

~~~
ristretto
what 's a "ring wing"?

------
vahidR
I Can't understand. Why this happened to such a peaceful nation ?!

~~~
stcredzero
The problem with distributed command & control, is that sometimes small groups
of people working on their own initiative can talk themselves into wacked-out
stuff. There is a lesson here for startups.

EDIT: And by "wacked-out" I mean, "wack by even the standards of Al Qaeda."
9-11 didn't help their cause in my eyes, but I can see how they justified it
to themselves. Whoever bombed Oslo - is a WTF on top of a WTF.

~~~
cheez
Obviously the solution is to control everyone.

~~~
stcredzero
In the case of terrorism, the solution is to address grievances before they
build up into smoldering resentment.

I was surprised to learn that this was done by Norwegians.

------
netmau5
Is there any reason to want to terrorize Norway?

~~~
InclinedPlane
I'm curious, why would you imagine that al qaeda et al _wouldn't_ want to
attack Norway?

~~~
netmau5
I suppose bad people do bad things, regardless of an honorable ideology.
Still, I see Norway in the same way as I see Canada. They do not take strong
statements for or against others, they do not engage in the affairs of others,
they have had a long (modern) history of peaceful relations/intentions. The
most aggressive thing they've done is commit handfuls of troops to a
multinational "peacekeeping" missions.

I guess I just feel like they have more important enemies, from their
perspective, to attack.

~~~
InclinedPlane
What honorable ideology do you mean? Or are you speaking generically?

Al qaeda's ideology is quite simple. They reject modernity, they reject
individualism, they reject modern commerce, and industry, and open societies.
They want to end the influence of the western, liberal world on the
arab/islamic world so that the latter can be returned to or preserved as a
bastion of conservative and traditionalist culture and religion. Norwegians
are as objectionable to their ideology as Americans, as they represent
precisely those forces that they are fighting against (hedonism, personal
liberty, etc.)

Aside from that, Norwegians have not shown as much respect or deference to
Islam as al qaeda imagines they should. Norwegian newspapers reprinted the
famously blasphemous "Mohammad cartoons", for example. We may not imagine that
such a thing is important, we may imagine that free expression including
blasphemy is indeed even a right that all people should have, and I think we
should. But we shouldn't have any illusions that there are a lot of people who
think otherwise. Who believe that blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy should be
banned and punished to the most severe extent even up to death. It's curious
to me that so many people could so easily misapprehend the motives and
ideology of so prominent a movement as militant Islamism and so prominent an
organization as al qaeda.

~~~
h51bus
"Norwegian newspapers reprinted the famously blasphemous "Mohammad cartoons",
for example. We may not imagine that such a thing is important". Actually they
did. That was the _entire_ point of reprinting the cartoons- to show they
would not cower in fear and gag themselves because a very small minority
threaten violence. If you are willing to sacrifice free speech, art and
rational civilised debate for fear of offending people because of "blasphemy"
then those terrorists are already winning.

------
thomasfl
The streets here in Oslo is filled with patrolling soldiers now. Normally you
only see a few policemen, and they are almost always unarmed.

The guy they have arrested for the massacre may face 21 years in prison.

------
chippy
apparently the shooter on the island was nordic, tall, blonde in appearance.
(according to tv2.no news)

~~~
InclinedPlane
That doesn't necessarily rule out al qaeda involvement, there have been
caucasian taliban et al before. But we shouldn't jump to conclusions until we
have the facts regardless.

~~~
cheez
I remember the Oklahoma bombing and the first picture was of some random brown
muslim guy. Turns out, it was a white athiest.

Look up the FBI stats on radical muslim bombings on US soil vs radical
christian vs radical athiest bombings. In fact, I seem to recall that radical
jews had more attacks on US soil than radical muslims.

And since 9/11 was so neatly sown up, we'll never really know who was truly
behind it.

~~~
shrikant
> Look up the FBI stats on radical muslim bombings on US soil vs radical
> christian vs _radical athiest bombings._

There's no such thing as a 'radical atheist' in the sense that you're using
it, mate. Also, there's no mention of atheists in the FBI stats you speak of -
[http://www.fbi.gov/stats-
services/publications/terrorism-200...](http://www.fbi.gov/stats-
services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005)

(Sorry, I'm sensitive to this, but then this is why we shouldn't be discussing
religion and politics on HN...)

~~~
cheez
Alright, s/atheist/communist/

I was being lazy :P

------
Daniel_Newby
More discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793745>

------
jamaicahest
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic."

150 people don't read the guidelines?

~~~
pyre
Apparently neither do you:

    
    
      > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is
      > inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or
      > offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag"
      > link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If
      > you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

------
g123g
The last peaceful bastion in the world has been take over.

~~~
bh42222
Uhm.... Switzerland?

~~~
sambe
Switzerland had a gunman walk into a council office and start executing people
a few years (5?) ago.

------
epynonymous
sorry but this article is absolutely awful, my sympathies to the affected
victims, but there's not a single analysis of the situation. was it terrorist
based, was it a hate crime, why is this stoltenberg guy such an apparent tool,
what does his party do, and i love how the article makes an ass out of
stoltenberg by possibly mis-quoting him as someone who has a god complex by
stating that all govt ministers are ok, what about those injured and killed!?
unimportant? obviously the article is against stoltenberg unless he's really
that much of an incompassionate dickwad

the police in oslo much be very tight lipped, this must also be the first
crime aince medieval times :)

