"Helicopterless" Norway & the Utøya massacre

[lupercal]

And, yes, the whole charade goes according to script, the same script that is currently being played out in Norway.

Yes, an all-too-familiar script. See Madrid, Bali, London repeatedly, Belfast repeatedly, Mumbai, Lower Manhattan, and so on. Complacency and yellow ribbons get you nothing but Patriot Acts, DHS's, TSA's and whatever else they couldn't get away with here before January 2009, but eventually will, like Real ID. Frankly the only question in my mind is what degree of foreknowledge and/or complicity the current PM and administration had. See Clinton OKC, Clinton Columbine and Clinton Waco if anyone is shocked, shocked that I could imagine such a thing.

[Iamwhomiam]

stickdog, in my book it's considered rude and non-responsive to answer a question by asking a question.

I asked you back on page 11 a few questions that you've entirely ignored answering, only to ask me to explain myself:

Me to you: 1) "Now please do understand I am in no way making light this incredible tragedy, but really, what difference would it make to the parents who were first to lose their children if the police had arrived 15 minutes or even a half-hour earlier?"

2) "Besides, what is your point? What new knowledge learned now or anytime during this past week could alter the result?"

Your's to me: "What is the problem with gathering evidence and discussing only what you know for sure first? Please explain yourself."

Sadly, you & Mac both chose not to comment about this: "Barely a word of sympathy for the victims... simply shameful."

So allow me to take the high road and answer your questions.

You call what you're doing "gathering evidence" and "discussing what you know for sure" I think is laughable. There is nothing about this incident you "know for sure," nor could posting what you googled be considered "gathering evidence" by any sane person.

Your turn.

And Mac, what's up with it being fine for you to question DYK, but then disregard my question to you?

And Mac, you're way out of line coming on to DYK as you did: "DYK: Could you please provide some evidence for that confident assertion? Exactly what qualifies you, specifically, to make it? Do you work for Delta, or are you otherwise particularly qualified to speak for them, or for the Air Force base at Rygge, or for its actual state of readiness when the massacre began?"

What qualifies you to question their readiness?

So how about you answering my question to you, Mac.

I should add this too, July 22 was my son's birthday. You may have no idea how powerful ptsd can be, but talk about time-shifts...

I suppose a bit of my reluctance to post earlier had to do with what occurred on RI at the time I lost my son. People here who knew nothing at all about the victims were posting the most foul things from their own lurid projections. People related to the events in Norway may just come upon your specious speculation trying to learn more about what transpired for themselves.

Lastly, whether or not there was a "Conspiracy" that caused some delay in the response time, and even if it was admitted to, how would that change a damned thing? It wouldn't.

Those of us who feel, no, who are convinced 9/11 was contrived by factions within our own government; that a similar conspiracy was involved in both Kennedy's assassinations and so much more, what has this 'knowledge' gained us?. What has the certainty of our convictions brought? Not a damned thing. Yeah, we nod our heads in agreement with the recognition of our powerlessness to effect the positive change we desire.

It is possible some similar conspiracy brought rise to the catastrophic events of 7/22 in Norway? Certainly. Is it likely? No, I really don't think so, but it is possible.

Don't get me wrong... there are foul people in power everywhere, some more capable than others to allow such evil to carry the day.

My point is, there is nothing at all you, me or all of us together here on RI can do to prevent such things from occurring. And more is coming. It only gets worse. and then you die.

[stickdog99]

Iamwhomiam, I distinctly remember respecting many of your posts here, and I am sorry if my approach to this subject has bothered you.

[barracuda]

We received these horrid "solutions" because nobody in power ever asked for or received any blow by blow, minute by minute explanations of what actually went wrong with an eye toward solving each specifically demonstrable problem, even if it meant (gasp!) assessing blame on the responsible parties. The questions were never asked because the answers would have proven rank incompetence at best and almost certainly malfeasance in addition to this incompetence. Because such specific questioning was deemed too aggressive, despicable and cowardly in the wake of such an awful attack, we were treated to generic police state "solutions" rather than reasonable directed solutions to the actual breakdowns and bottlenecks that occurred.

You know this, I know this and everybody reading this knows this.

The lack of specific answers to 911 were and are still problematic, of course. We still don't have them all, though we know a lot more than we once did. But it's an interesting question whether satisfactory answers to the specific security issues, such as the seeming airforce stand-down, would have prevented the many changes we've seen since the attacks. I doubt seriously we would have avoided the loss of personal privacies simply because more individuals in the bureaucracy and government had been found complicit. The results would have naturally depended upon just who was revealed to have commited the crime. But the question would still have existed as to just how can we keep our airplanes safe from hijackers, when the reality is that our government demonstrably doesn't care if we live or die, and obviously the chances of being aboard a highjacked plane are far less than the odds being struck by lightning. As well, the militarisation of the Mexican illegal immigration issue relies implicitly upon racial prejudices that remain completely unmoved by logic and reason. So there are undoubtably more important variables at work in these situations than merely being sensible in the areas of security problem-solving or keeping people safe.

And here we go:

In the days since Norway's worst peacetime atrocity, political leaders, police and ordinary Norwegians have been re-examining the openness that for so long has marked this nation's society and its security policies.

A country of fewer than five million that seemed buffered from the political and security conflicts that have flared elsewhere in Europe, Norway has taken particular pride in its open society and the ease with which citizens can access political leaders. The mobile phone numbers, home addresses and tax records of most politicians, as well as ordinary Norwegians, are listed online. In Oslo, cabinet members walk to and from meetings with little or no security entourage, as does the royal family. The U.S. Embassy is one of the few Oslo buildings surrounded by a high steel fence.

That culture seemed to have helped Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian who has confessed to the attacks, in carrying out his deadly mission so smoothly: There were no barricades or even minor security hurdles for him to clear to park a large van packed with a powerful bomb before the prime minister's offices in central Oslo. Shortly after, Mr. Breivik, posing as a police officer, boarded a ferry to the nearby island of Utoya, where one of his first victims was an unarmed off-duty policeman who was providing security for the camp.

While Prime Minister Stoltenberg last week called for a review of security measures and the police response to the attacks, he has declared Norway's response to the tragedy would be "more openness, more democracy," not more restrictions in the name of security. "We are going to honor and celebrate our heroes, but most of all we are going to stay true to our ideas and our values," he said at another national memorial service in Oslo Friday.

Mindful of the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Norwegians, so far, have echoed that sentiment. "Nobody wants or is talking about a Patriot Act response," said Erik Dale, a Norwegian youth politics activist who lost at least two friends in the Utoya shooting spree. Police, as well, have said they would not welcome drastic changes in security measures.

"We do not want barbed wire, roadblocks and weapons as part of everyday life in Norway," said Oystein Maeland, Norway's police chief who is heading the investigation into the attack, at a news conference Friday.

That Mr. Breivik was a loner who flew under the radar and who appears, so far, to have plotted and carried out his attacks alone is one reason for the broad reluctance to move to much stricter measures. In an interview with Norwegian Public Radio NRK last week, Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway's top-level Police Security Service, or PST, argued not even an extreme police state could have detected Mr. Breivik beforehand.

"I don't think even the East German Stasi would have caught this guy, simply because he hadn't broken the law before," she said.

Still, late last week, Norwegian justice officials said they still planned a thorough review of police security and investigative measures, given how Mr. Breivik didn't appear on any police radar other than a list of Norwegians who bought chemicals from abroad. Police say didn't find any reason to further investigate Mr. Breivik, who had made a 120 kroner ($22) purchase from Polish chemical firm.

Jon Wessel-Aas, general secretary of the Norwegian chapter of the International Commission of Jurists, a nongovernmental advocacy group focused on human-rights law, said it is likely Norwegian officials could propose broader surveillance powers, after already suggesting such measures last year. He argues such a move would crimp civil liberties after Norway already boosted police surveillance powers in 2005.

"I still think it's positive that no established political leader is calling loudly for drastic changes," he said. "But I am bracing for a discussion of widening the criminal code [in a way] that would increase surveillance."

Changes in Norwegian civil liberties are probably coming in one form or many as a result of this incident. As well, the issues surrounding immigration have been thrust into the spotlight there. And the rule of thumb is that terrorism usually causes political repurcussions which tend toward the imposition of less freedom rather than changes that make people more safe. That's one of the reasons terrorising people is so popular. It's effective, or better said, it can have effects which radically outweigh the real world significance of the damage it causes to the society by attacking the innocent individual.

[eyeno]

We received these horrid "solutions" because nobody in power ever asked for or received any blow by blow, minute by minute explanations of what actually went wrong with an eye toward solving each specifically demonstrable problem, even if it meant (gasp!) assessing blame on the responsible parties. The questions were never asked because the answers would have proven rank incompetence at best and almost certainly malfeasance in addition to this incompetence. Because such specific questioning was deemed too aggressive, despicable and cowardly in the wake of such an awful attack, we were treated to generic police state "solutions" rather than reasonable directed solutions to the actual breakdowns and bottlenecks that occurred.

You know this, I know this and everybody reading this knows this.

The lack of specific answers to 911 were and are still problematic, of course. We still don't have them all, though we know a lot more than we once did. But it's an interesting question whether satisfactory answers to the specific security issues, such as the seeming airforce stand-down, would have prevented the many changes we've seen since the attacks. I doubt seriously we would have avoided the loss of personal privacies simply because more individuals in the bureaucracy and government had been found complicit. The results would have naturally depended upon just who was revealed to have commited the crime. But the question would still have existed as to just how can we keep our airplanes safe from hijackers, when the reality is that our government demonstrably doesn't care if we live or die, and obviously the chances of being aboard a highjacked plane are far less than the odds being struck by lightning. As well, the militarisation of the Mexican illegal immigration issue relies implicitly upon racial prejudices that remain completely unmoved by logic and reason. So there are undoubtably more important variables at work in these situations than merely being sensible in the areas of security problem-solving or keeping people safe.

And here we go:

In the days since Norway's worst peacetime atrocity, political leaders, police and ordinary Norwegians have been re-examining the openness that for so long has marked this nation's society and its security policies.

A country of fewer than five million that seemed buffered from the political and security conflicts that have flared elsewhere in Europe, Norway has taken particular pride in its open society and the ease with which citizens can access political leaders. The mobile phone numbers, home addresses and tax records of most politicians, as well as ordinary Norwegians, are listed online. In Oslo, cabinet members walk to and from meetings with little or no security entourage, as does the royal family. The U.S. Embassy is one of the few Oslo buildings surrounded by a high steel fence.

That culture seemed to have helped Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian who has confessed to the attacks, in carrying out his deadly mission so smoothly: There were no barricades or even minor security hurdles for him to clear to park a large van packed with a powerful bomb before the prime minister's offices in central Oslo. Shortly after, Mr. Breivik, posing as a police officer, boarded a ferry to the nearby island of Utoya, where one of his first victims was an unarmed off-duty policeman who was providing security for the camp.

While Prime Minister Stoltenberg last week called for a review of security measures and the police response to the attacks, he has declared Norway's response to the tragedy would be "more openness, more democracy," not more restrictions in the name of security. "We are going to honor and celebrate our heroes, but most of all we are going to stay true to our ideas and our values," he said at another national memorial service in Oslo Friday.

Mindful of the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Norwegians, so far, have echoed that sentiment. "Nobody wants or is talking about a Patriot Act response," said Erik Dale, a Norwegian youth politics activist who lost at least two friends in the Utoya shooting spree. Police, as well, have said they would not welcome drastic changes in security measures.

"We do not want barbed wire, roadblocks and weapons as part of everyday life in Norway," said Oystein Maeland, Norway's police chief who is heading the investigation into the attack, at a news conference Friday.

That Mr. Breivik was a loner who flew under the radar and who appears, so far, to have plotted and carried out his attacks alone is one reason for the broad reluctance to move to much stricter measures. In an interview with Norwegian Public Radio NRK last week, Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway's top-level Police Security Service, or PST, argued not even an extreme police state could have detected Mr. Breivik beforehand.

"I don't think even the East German Stasi would have caught this guy, simply because he hadn't broken the law before," she said.

Still, late last week, Norwegian justice officials said they still planned a thorough review of police security and investigative measures, given how Mr. Breivik didn't appear on any police radar other than a list of Norwegians who bought chemicals from abroad. Police say didn't find any reason to further investigate Mr. Breivik, who had made a 120 kroner ($22) purchase from Polish chemical firm.

Jon Wessel-Aas, general secretary of the Norwegian chapter of the International Commission of Jurists, a nongovernmental advocacy group focused on human-rights law, said it is likely Norwegian officials could propose broader surveillance powers, after already suggesting such measures last year. He argues such a move would crimp civil liberties after Norway already boosted police surveillance powers in 2005.

"I still think it's positive that no established political leader is calling loudly for drastic changes," he said. "But I am bracing for a discussion of widening the criminal code [in a way] that would increase surveillance."

Changes in Norwegian civil liberties are probably coming in one form or many as a result of this incident. As well, the issues surrounding immigration have been thrust into the spotlight there. And the rule of thumb is that terrorism usually causes political repurcussions which tend toward the imposition of less freedom rather than changes that make people more safe. That's one of the reasons terrorising people is so popular. It's effective, or better said, it can have effects which radically outweigh the real world significance of the damage it causes to the society by attacking the innocent individual.

I read. I found no disagreement in 'this' statement.

We know "whodunnit" so this one is one the books. Now its time to figure out who is next. Because as sure as Sun/Moon RiSEanDSet there will be another, and another, and another...

[Dradin Kastell]

Barracuda has already compared the police response to one shooting, so I thought we might also look at examples from shootings in one another nation of Hobbits and Teletubbies. I mean the 2007 and 2008 schools shootings in Finland.

In November 2007 the Jokela school in Tuusula, about 35 km from central Helsinki, was attacked by a student wielding a semi-automatic pistol. Pekka-Eric Auvinen entered the school at about 11.40 am. He started shooting immediately. At 11.43, the emergency centre received the first call, which was relayed to the Järvenpää police station, about 14 km away. The first local police unit arrived at the school at 11.55, 12 minutes after the first call. The police located the shooter visually at 12.00; he then took a shot at them and hid himself. At 12.08, the police started to evacuate the building. But they decided not to confront the shooter until the arrival of the ”SWAT” team, Karhu. These specially trained cops arrived at 12.30, 37 minutes after the first call, having driven from Helsinki.

But even if the police continued to empty the building of students, they only stormed the part of the building Auvinen was thought to be in at 13.53 – more than two hours after the initial emergency call. They found the shooter in the school toilet – he had shot himself and died later in the hospital. Nine people had died, including the shooter.

The police received heavy critisism for the delayed response, mainly in the media, and the government moved to change the laws regulating gun ownership. The massacre inspired a spate of 70 threats about bombings and massacres in Finnish schools (including the one where two of my relatives works as a teachers). None of these led into a similar incident.

Until 23rd September 2008, less than year after Jokela. At Kauhajoki in central-western Finland a school was again attacked. The attacker was a student at the school and again a semi-automatic pistol was used to kill fellow students and members of faculty. The shooting began at 10.40 am; the first emergency call was received at 10.44. The first cops arrived at 11.02, 18 minutes after the first call. This despite the local police station is located some 750 meters from the school in the centre of the municipality. As in Utoya, the ambulance (and a fire truck) had arrived before the police. Armored cars were requested from the army and the Karhu team was again called. They arrived by helicopter from Helsinki (about 300 km away by air) sometime before 12.00.

About 12.20, 1 hour and 35 minutes after the first emergency call the police moved in to confront the murderer, who in the mean time had set fire to the building, making it harder to reach him. At 12.30, the shooter (Matti Juhani Saari) shot himself in view of the cops. He had killed eleven people, himself included.

In the immediate aftermath, the media found out that just the day before the shooting Saari had been interviewed by the local police about a Youtube video he had made of himself shooting his pistol. At the time, however, the police decided not to rescind his gun license or to take away his pistol, and thus he was able to go on rampage the following day. The police officer in question was charged for misfeasance but acquitted in 2010.

So, the time from first emergency call to confronting the killer: over two hours in Jokela, about one and a half hour in Kauhajoki. In both cases, the delay seems to have mainly caused by the cops waiting for backup, following protocol and ”putting their ducks in a row” (though the time after the arrival of Karhu in Jokela does seem unconscionably long). In both cases, the shooting took place in a school in the middle of a municipality, in Jokela even within the greater capital region. They were closer to the local police station and much easier to reach for the police than Utoya was.

It is hard to say how many people would have been saved had the local police not waited for Karhu or other backup but instead moved in immediately after arriving. I think it is worth to notice that at Kauhajoki the police acted more decisively than at Jokela the year before. Especially the Karhu team arrived very soon considering the distance and then moved in soon after arriving, comparing. This would indicate that the time in between had seen some improvements in readiness and communication, as was widely demanded in the papers after Jokela.

[stickdog99]

Were the shooters actively dispatching victims during these delays?

If so, these delays were completely unconscionable. If not, the delays are not analogous.

[stickdog99]

And here we go:

In the days since Norway's worst peacetime atrocity, political leaders, police and ordinary Norwegians have been re-examining the openness that for so long has marked this nation's society and its security policies.

A country of fewer than five million that seemed buffered from the political and security conflicts that have flared elsewhere in Europe, Norway has taken particular pride in its open society and the ease with which citizens can access political leaders. The mobile phone numbers, home addresses and tax records of most politicians, as well as ordinary Norwegians, are listed online. In Oslo, cabinet members walk to and from meetings with little or no security entourage, as does the royal family. The U.S. Embassy is one of the few Oslo buildings surrounded by a high steel fence.

That culture seemed to have helped Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian who has confessed to the attacks, in carrying out his deadly mission so smoothly: There were no barricades or even minor security hurdles for him to clear to park a large van packed with a powerful bomb before the prime minister's offices in central Oslo. Shortly after, Mr. Breivik, posing as a police officer, boarded a ferry to the nearby island of Utoya, where one of his first victims was an unarmed off-duty policeman who was providing security for the camp.

While Prime Minister Stoltenberg last week called for a review of security measures and the police response to the attacks, he has declared Norway's response to the tragedy would be "more openness, more democracy," not more restrictions in the name of security. "We are going to honor and celebrate our heroes, but most of all we are going to stay true to our ideas and our values," he said at another national memorial service in Oslo Friday.

Mindful of the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Norwegians, so far, have echoed that sentiment. "Nobody wants or is talking about a Patriot Act response," said Erik Dale, a Norwegian youth politics activist who lost at least two friends in the Utoya shooting spree. Police, as well, have said they would not welcome drastic changes in security measures.

"We do not want barbed wire, roadblocks and weapons as part of everyday life in Norway," said Oystein Maeland, Norway's police chief who is heading the investigation into the attack, at a news conference Friday.

That Mr. Breivik was a loner who flew under the radar and who appears, so far, to have plotted and carried out his attacks alone is one reason for the broad reluctance to move to much stricter measures. In an interview with Norwegian Public Radio NRK last week, Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway's top-level Police Security Service, or PST, argued not even an extreme police state could have detected Mr. Breivik beforehand.

"I don't think even the East German Stasi would have caught this guy, simply because he hadn't broken the law before," she said.

Still, late last week, Norwegian justice officials said they still planned a thorough review of police security and investigative measures, given how Mr. Breivik didn't appear on any police radar other than a list of Norwegians who bought chemicals from abroad. Police say didn't find any reason to further investigate Mr. Breivik, who had made a 120 kroner ($22) purchase from Polish chemical firm.

Jon Wessel-Aas, general secretary of the Norwegian chapter of the International Commission of Jurists, a nongovernmental advocacy group focused on human-rights law, said it is likely Norwegian officials could propose broader surveillance powers, after already suggesting such measures last year. He argues such a move would crimp civil liberties after Norway already boosted police surveillance powers in 2005.

"I still think it's positive that no established political leader is calling loudly for drastic changes," he said. "But I am bracing for a discussion of widening the criminal code [in a way] that would increase surveillance."

As long as the actual reasons for the slow and ineffectual police response that day are shrouded in the "fog of war" in order to protect those responsible, the only feasible reaction will be a generic ratcheting up of "alertness" and "precautionary measures" at the cost of a more bloated security state and at the expense of civil liberties.

In contrast, a sober and honest appraisal of the emergency response system's actual bottlenecks and inefficiencies that day would (well, should) result in highly directed improvements in responsibilities of command, interdepartment communication requirements and vehicle commandeering protocols that would save lives in the future, assuming good faith on the part of future leaders. Such an appraisal would also present the opportunity to root out any bad actors in positions of power who may have purposefully gummed up the works that day.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant, whether the problem is malfeasance, incompetence or merely organizational inefficiency. You don't get explanations of delays and directed solutions to mitigate these delays when you take the stance that you don't need any explanations because things progressed about as well as could have been expected "considering". What you get instead is some extra funding (and perhaps even a whole extra bureaucratic layer) to augment generic police state "alertness" and prevent thoughtcrime. And, yes, the whole charade goes according to script, the same script that is currently being played out in Norway.

[barracuda]

That looks familiar. And I agree entirely, with the reservations I expressed above remaining in full attendance.

[stickdog99]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world ... .html?_r=1

Six motorboats used in the rescue belonged to the camp at Utvika, said Bredde Johbraaten, 59, who has managed the site for 21 seasons. Local residents provided at least four additional vessels, Mr. Johbraaten estimated. “Each boat went many times,” he said. “They saved many lives.”

[stickdog99]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14302945

Last Friday the people in the camps heard the shooting. Some thought it was fireworks set up at the summer camp. Then they saw the frantic swimming, the cries for help that echoed across the bay. In the hour and a quarter afterwards, this camp site was the centre of a rescue operation. Holiday-makers scrambled down the cinder path, leapt into their boats and headed towards the island. There may have been 100 people in the water. Among the first to go out were Bjorn Juvet and his wife Aasa. Because the young people were fleeing a man in police uniform the swimmers were suspicious.

"The first thing," said Aasa, "was that they didn't trust us." Even though they were desperate they held back from climbing into the boat. "Can we trust you?" they shouted again. Aasa told them she was a mother and they came to the boat.

But there were too many in the water. Some were wounded. Some had found life jackets, most had not. Bjorn said it was good to help people but others had to be left in the water. A terrible choice. The freezing, shivering swimmers were wrapped in blankets. Aasa told them, "Someone has to call the police." But they said they had been making calls but, at first, no one believed them.

No mood to criticise

Questions about the police response should come later, people around Utoeya say

Aasa drove some of them towards the nearest town of Sundvollen. On the way they encountered a police roadblock. The local police were waiting for armed response units to arrive from Oslo. The police officer was a woman in uniform with a gun.

When the young people saw her they screamed and urged Aasa not to stop. They did not know who to trust.

Many of the rescuers are scarred by what happened. Bjorn said: "I saw things that no one should see." ...

There are questions about the police response but the local community is in no mood to criticise. Everything is so raw and painful.

[stickdog99]

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-wo ... 1i8mo.html

Norway gunman claims he called police
August 2, 2011 - 4:34AM
AFP

Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to the twin attacks in Norway on July 22, claims he called police during the massacre of 69 people on the island of Utoeya, his lawyer has told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

"He has explained (during a police interrogation Friday) that he called police from Utoeya, but I don't know if that is the case," said Geir Lippestad, who is defending the 32-year-old rightwing extremist.

A call to police could explain some witness accounts from survivors of the bloodbath, saying they heard Behring Breivik speaking on the phone or a walkie-talkie.

Most of the 69 people killed on the island were teenagers attending a youth summer camp hosted by the ruling Labour Party, while another eight people were killed earlier after Behring Breivik set off a car bomb outside government offices in the capital.

Oslo police could not be immediately reached for comment on Behring Breivik's claim he called them.

They meanwhile said earlier on Monday they had gathered all the mobile phones, computers and cameras found on Utoeya as evidence, and were analysing them to trace the killer's movements on the island.

[DoYouEverWonder]

Western press largely overlooks heroism of lesbian couple in Norway massacre

Aug 2, 2011

As Norway continues to grapple with the attacks by a home-grown extremist that killed 77 people last month, one couple, who moved to help young people fleeing from gunman Anders Breivik, is getting a bit of belated recognition.

Hege Dalen and her wife, Toril Hansen, were eating dinner on July 22nd on the other shore from Utoya island when they heard screaming, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sannomat reported. After bombing government buildings in Oslo, Breivik had come to the island dressed as a policeman and went on to shoot more than 100 young people attending a Labour party camp there.

"We were eating," Dalen told the newspaper. "Then shooting and then the awful screaming. We saw how the young people ran in panic into the lake."

The couple took off in their boat for the island, picking up shocked victims from the water and transporting them to the mainland. They made four runs in all, helping rescue some 40 of Breivik's victims, the paper reported.

"Between runs they saw that the bullets had hit the right side of the boat," the paper wrote.

Some lesbian-gay news sites and blogs have picked up the account in recent days, noting the same-sex married heroes of the story haven't gotten much attention in the Western press.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/norway-couple-helped-utoya-victims-163023260.html

So while the authorities were all running around with their heads up their asses, a pair of women show the world what really bravery looks like.

[Lord Balto]

Do you have any kids? I wouldn't hang up from that conversation without asking a few questions and giving some reassurance. I doubt seriously that many parents would. LOL yourself.

I'm a parent. I would.

you'd hang up on your kid? why?

So you could call the police and save his life?

[Lord Balto]

My point is, there is nothing at all you, me or all of us together here on RI can do to prevent such things from occurring. And more is coming. It only gets worse. and then you die.

Sounds like a justification for not even trying. These people WILL eventually fall, as the Roman Empire eventually fell. If we can advance that by a single day, it will have been worth the trouble.