I notice that certain bloggers such as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs keep spreading the utterly false rumor that I am the evil shooter from Utøya, the island just outside of Oslo.

I have absolutely no idea who planted that rumor or for what reason, but they obviously don’t wish me well. For the record, I was live-blogging about these horrible events the entire Friday evening, which can be confirmed by nearly a dozen different individuals.

I didn’t respond to these rumors earlier because I was too emotionally exhausted from yesterday’s events. It was hard to pay attention to such things, but now I feel that I must. Some people really do want to smear me that badly.

Evidently Charles Johnson is at it once more, gnawing the ropes that chain his mind to whatever delusions he needs to believe. Most of what he says is long past anything that could be termed “thinking”. Charles doesn’t think, he reaches his conclusions via the vastness of his hatreds and suspicions.

Thus do his irrational rants extrude themselves, so much baloney out of a meat grinder which ends up pasted in his blog. As Pascal said, the heart has its reasons that Reason knows not of. Black as his heart may be, it is indeed the locus of Johnson’s ideas. His atrophied faculty of Reason (a symptom he shares with much of the Left to which he has returned) is not often involved in what he says.

I am told that one of his obsessions is Pamela Geller. That’s understandable, given what he lost in the fight he picked with her. At one point, back before his irrationality was impossible to miss, Pamela attempted to reach some kind of détente with Charles. She was basing her efforts on his previous writings. But her information, like ours, was founded on what we knew of Little Green Footballs before Johnson was ‘turned’ — probably by black psy ops in Europe. This retooling of LGF was an event noticed by very few, though James Lewis sussed it out early (a point to which I will return, below).

These days Atlas Shrugs reaches a formidable audience, while LGF continues its twirling downward spiral. His self-destruction has become obvious to all… the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine indeed.

Today, Pamela Geller frontally attacks Johnson’s Leftist “smear-by-association” tactics, taking aim at the baseless lies of his charges:

Libelblogger Charles Johnson is claiming that the Norway shooter is a “Pamela Geller fan,” and that he is actually Fjordman, whose articles I have published here at Atlas on occasion. He has persisted in this even though Fjordman is online tonight and clearly not under arrest. This shows how desperate Johnson is, and how low he will sink. In reality, the shooter is not Fjordman. I have met Fjordman, I know his identity, and he is not Anders Breivik. This is just a sinister attempt to tar all anti-jihadists with responsibility for this man’s heinous actions.

The Jihadis took credit for it. Who would take credit for such barbarity and carnage? And yet this goes without comment. But there is no compunction in associating me with a mass murderer based on one referring link three years ago. McVeigh watched CNN when he lost it over Waco, so I guess CNN is a terrorist org?

But this is war. And the left is vicious, amoral and depraved. They mean to win, and that is the only way they know how.

As for the Johnson, he is a very sick man. Let’s hope he doesn’t hurt himself.

In a thousand words, Atlas Shrugs brings down this doddering fool. I would dissent only from her final sentence, because he has “hurt himself”, over and over again. These self-inflicted wounds don’t deserve our pity and normally they wouldn’t deserve our notice, but what she has said here needed saying. For the record.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Back in November 2007, when LGF was doing its best to decimate the fledgling Counterjihad group (it was never a monolithic movement), he was a Big Deal with lots of traffic and credibility. So big that when he began tarring smaller bloggers with his lies (“libel” indeed) we asked the American Big Blogs for help. All of us asked. We assembled a complete refutation of his charges and sent it to the influential ‘conservative’ or right wing bloggers. Only one replied, and was obviously too nervous about the consequences to help us. None of the rest answered us by so much as a “don’t want to get involved’ email.

To this day we don’t know why they decided to stay “uninvolved”, but their silence still remains astounding. As I’ve said repeatedly, only Michelle Malkin continued to link to our posts. To the rest, it was as though we didn’t exist. Shunning is a powerful weapon and I’m here to tell you that the Right uses it every bit as effectively as the Left does. Sadly, the new media ain’t so different from the old media after all.

Soon even Pajamas Media shoved us out. We were on our own… except for our loyal readers and the people in Europe who told us how important it was to keep the Gates open.

Meanwhile, in the month following LGF’s treachery, James Lewis wrote an eye-opening essay for American Thinker. He laid out his suspicions about what had transpired, and his ideas fit Occam’s Razor very well. Even the title of his essay fit:

Political Black Ops in Belgium?

Then he proceeded to lay out the reasons this “minor war…in the conservative blogosphere…smell(ed) suspicious”:

Brussels Journal, edited by Paul Belien and others, reads like a solid, sensible conservative website, one of the best in Europe. It has a lot of smart people who don’t go along with the PC Commissars in the capital of the new EU, Brussels. They make a very good case for being skeptical about the ruling class over there. Brussels Journal has never seemed out of line to me.

Editor Paul Belien is a defender of the “Counter-jihad” movement in Belgium, which has been subjected to police beatings when they attempted to conduct a peaceful demonstration. Belien is warning that the Left in Europe is using immigrant Islamic votes to expand its power dramatically, leading to a Left-Islamist alliance that he believes will control Europe in the coming years. Sounds familiar? A Democrat amnesty for 12 million illegals, anyone?

All that seems important and credible enough. But now Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs fame, has gotten into a fight with Paul Belien. Forgetting the who-said-what-when minutiae, the question raised by Charles is whether Paul Belien is defending people who are tainted with racist or totalitarian ideas. In particular, the question is whether Paul Belien is too close to the Vlaams Belang party, which is accused of having racist or neo-Nazi associations. LGF is a very good site, and Charles Johnson is understandably passionate about keeping his reputation spotless.

So now we get into a classical hall of mirrors, of claim and counter-claim, and maybe even spy and counter-spy. Because it’s a good guess that the overheated Belgian political scene is full of mudslinging, disinformation, planted stories, and psyops.

Thus history repeats itself almost four years later, only this time the target of the LGF Tar Machine is Fjordman. Not a politician, not a famous person — Fjordman is simply a scholar deeply read in history. As an observer of the passing scene and a man dedicated to the preservation of Western culture (and of his own small country’s identity), Fjordman has become The Enemy to those who want to destroy sovereignty in the name of some vision of utopian global justice. We know how scared those in power are of those who speak the truth against this pernicious Lie.

Mr. Lewis’ essay goes on to describe the possible outcome of attacks like those at LGF. He outlines the situation in Brussels and in Europe generally:

Europe is still traumatized by its Nazi past, and the Nazis were not limited to Germany. They had sympathizers in every European country.

So it’s not impossible that the governing elites are sending agents provocateurs into the ranks of the Flemish Interest party, to parade around in Nazi drag and make nice with White Power sleazoids in the US.

That’s how J. Edgar Hoover hoovered up the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era. He infiltrated the Klan until every other guy in white sheets was an FBI plant. But it’s easy to slip from being an undercover cop into actually provoking acts of racist violence. That’s how undercover agents might prove they are doing their jobs.

He says of Germany:

In Europe there is much greater fear about neo-Nazis, for understandable reasons. Americans, if they think about them at all, tend to see them as clowns and weirdos, but the Germans see a potential SS goose-stepping into power. You can bet that the German government infiltrates their neo-Nazis.

And after reading up on Vlaams Belang, he concludes it is compatible with “the GOP platform”. Of course Charles Johnson, in his reversion to the Left, would say the same thing, but with an entirely different intent. Ignored by the Bigs in the GOP, Charles has all the hallmarks of a spurned lover.

Lewis reminds us of the inherent problem in choosing “sides”:

So whom do you believe? The trouble is that anywhere you look in Europe you can find smelly associations. The French themselves were by no means clean of Nazi associations sixty years ago, just as famous French intellectuals like Sartre were proud to be associated with good old mass-murdering Stalin and Mao. Socialist President Francois Mitterrand started his political career as a fascist. The whole European governing class has a very bad case of the guilts, and a lot of them deserve it.

The French-speaking elite in Belgium probably believes that they are the only ones standing between civilization and a Nazi revival. That is a common belief in all the European elites. It is one of the major arguments for the European Union, which is hardly an model of democratic governance. The elected members of the EU don’t govern, and the governing elites are not elected. The sneering elites tend to look upon ordinary people as racists. In fact the inconvenient truth is that the Nazis recruited very successfully from the elites themselves.

Yes indeed. In fact this inconvenient truth is responsible for the contortions you see in Europe by the ruling elite. Psychiatrists would call it projection.

Lewis warns Americans to be careful about taking things at face value:

I visited Belgium several years ago, and just happened to see a TV news program featuring some spokesfolks for Vlaams Belang. They looked like extras from the Star Wars bar scene; if they ever lost their jobs in Belgium they could go straight to Central Casting. There’s always a need in show business for bad guys who really look like bad guys. It was amazing. I can’t imagine a real political party parading those people on TV. Imagine if the Republican Party of Mississippi had spokespeople straight out of Deliverance? Would they be for real?

In Europe the electronic media tend to be government-owned, like the BBC (and we know how fair-minded they are). European governments in their turn are mostly owned by parties of the Left. We know that those people are not afraid to use dirty tricks to stay in power. London’s socialist mayor does not mind appealing to blatant anti-Semitism to get Pakistani votes. Jacques Chirac stands legally accused today for using dirty tricks against the new president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. The BBC has admitted to smuggling in its own undercover “journalists” to sniff out racism at a Conservative Party meeting. Nice people.

The average person in Europe isn’t fooled, but he has to work very hard to discover the reality behind the government version of Truth, ladled out in carefully controlled sound-bites. Where do you go to read real unrevised history when all the official channels have taken their lesson plans from 20th Century totalitarians?

Lewis gives his bottom line, five years ago. It hasn’t changed:

Bottom line:

The conservative blogosphere is not immune to disinformation ops. If the American Left can’t knock out conservative talk radio with the Fairness Doctrine, they have enough billionaires who are happy to sponsor dirty tricks to split the conservative movement. “Black PR” is quite likely to happen during the coming election. Keep an eye out for it.

It is therefore at least possible that Charles Johnson has been taken in by disinformation. It’s easy to fall for suspicious information on the web. I would guess that Paul Belien and the writers for Brussels Journal are really decent people. They are constantly smeared by the Belgian Left, which is practically a proof of their personal probity. But they have some unfinished business.

There is a reasonable answer to this mess, which is to ask that Caesar’s wife be above suspicion. After American Labor was penetrated by Communist agents in the 1930s and 40s, the AFL-CIO expelled unions that didn’t clean up their act. That was an act of public clarification — it engendered real trust in pro-American union leaders like George Meany and Ronald Reagan, who began his political career as president of the Screen Actors Guild.

One reason why the American Left is in such bad shape today is that they no longer bother to clean out their totalitarians. Conservatives are doing well today in part because William Buckley and others drew a sharp line against racists decades ago. Conservatives today are delighted to see Clarence Thomas and Bobby Jindal achieving high office, not just because they are good people, but also because their success declares to the world who we really are.

I would only demur regarding his final paragraph, here:

So it may be sensible to ask conservatives elsewhere to prove their good intentions, just as we need to demand that the Democrats throw out their totalitarians.

Mr. Lewis, you sussed out the reasons for part of Charles Johnson’s attacks. However, there is no way to “prove good intentions”. None. Nada. We have learned the uselessness of “proofs” in the face of opponents who argue in bad faith. Their intention is never to “open a dialogue’, it is to destroy anyone who steps out of their multi-culti box.

You cannot prove a negative. Don’t even try.

The mass murderer at Utøya is now said to have been a Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik. He is reported to have posted frequent comments at various anti-jihad websites up until sometime last year. The Scandinavians tell me that these comments showed mainstream Counterjihad sentiments, with no incitements to violence or evidence of homicidal insanity.

Perhaps for that reason, some people have rushed to identify Mr. Breivik as “one of us”, that is, a member of the Counterjihad, more or less like me, Fjordman, Bat Ye’or, Robert Spencer, or Geert Wilders. This is absurd. If this slanderous meme is pushed by the MSM and they continue to beat that hollow drum, then judge them by their fruits.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Let’s tackle the notion of “repudiation”. If someone reports an act of murderous violence, and fails to say “I repudiate this act”, does that report therefore constitute approval or tacit support?

Obviously not. If readers are unable to detect the implicit repugnance and horror when we write about such things, then the fault lies with the reader, who is using his own agenda to jump to his own conclusions.

And how can the Utøya fiend be characterized as “one of us”?

At no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence, and its raison d’être is to eschew violence, to preserve law and order, and to uphold the rights of the individual.

There is nothing in any mission statement of any group I have ever associated with that discusses mass murder as a legitimate operational tactic. In fact, regular readers of Gates of Vienna have seen us delete comments containing such sentiments. Those comments are always wrong.

I refuse to stoop to the minutiae of time-wasting “repudiations”. It’s a Sisyphean task.

This reminds me of the left’s relentlessly malign attacks on anyone who sets foot outside the narrow multicultural ghetto. Those who dare to disagree become “racists”, “fascists”, “xenophobes”, and all the other pejoratives aimed at heretics who refuse to genuflect to their dogmas and their High Priests.

It’s a mug’s game.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The person who did this vile deed is clearly deranged. The writers he cites have written on behalf of human rights and for the international convention of human rights. It makes no sense that he would justify his appalling actions by what he read there.

This has nothing more to do with us than Jared Loughner had to do with Sarah Palin.

As Dymphna said earlier today:

This foul deed puts the man outside the pale of any human community. I categorically reject the claim that he is “one of us”. Indeed, he is not, and I don’t care what his words were. By his acts he is judged, and those killings, ipso facto, make him a City of One, alone in whatever hatred or insanity he dwells.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

I wrote last night about the uncanny similarities between yesterday’s Oslo bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, right down to the (quite reasonable) suspicion that Islamic terrorists may well have played a part in the logistics, if not the execution, of the horrific deed.

As one of my more knowledgeable contacts said in an email this morning:

The attacks leaves a lot of questions. To the best of my knowledge, no army on earth teaches how to make bombs out of fertilizer. To make a large and effective one takes specialized training and practice. Something one gets typically at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The level of tradecraft displayed here is far too high to be a classic lone nut. It has to involve several people at various preliminary stages, if not the actual execution stage. And there may not be a single set of motives for this action.

Similar analyses are being offered elsewhere, by people with far more expertise in this field than I have.

We are left with the persistent suspicion that there is more to the Oslo atrocity than meets the eye. The Utøya massacre is very different, and hardly seems to fit the profile. One can’t help but wonder if both actions really were carried out by the same person working entirely alone.

When discussing the incident, it’s crucial to keep in mind what we know. We actually know very little beyond what has been released by the Norwegian authorities or published by the state media. Additional material comes from semi-private media — not much Scandinavian journalism operates with no state subsidy whatsoever — and sources derived from them. The journalistic digging has just barely begun.

Until an independent investigator à la Jayna Davis emerges, we must take almost everything published with a grain of salt.

Consider these questions:

1.		How do you know the man who made those comments on various websites is the man who is in custody now?
2.		How do you know that the identity assigned to the man existed more than a few days ago?
3.		Has anyone tracked the supposed culprit from childhood through high school and university, right up to today? If this were the USA, hundreds of reporters would be analyzing his old report cards, talking to his aunties, interviewing his former employers, etc. Is any of that happening now in Norway?
4.		Is there any substantive information about him that was not provided via the government or government-backed media?

The process of answering these questions has just begun. We have as yet no significant data on the murderer’s accomplices or preparations.

We need more information derived from something other than state sources. While we wait for additional data, to characterize Anders Behring Breivik as a particular type of ideologue — a “Nazi”, a “Zionist”, a “right-wing extremist”, or anything else — is to jump to conclusions.

Below is the speech given last night to the Norwegian nation by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. It has been subtitled in English, and is followed by a transcript:

Transcript:

Today Norway was hit by two shocking and bloody and cowardly attacks.

We still do not know who attacked us; much is still uncertain.

But we know that many are dead and injured.

We are all shocked at the evil that has struck us so brutally and so suddenly

This night demands much of all of us.

And the days that follow will demand even more

We are prepared to face up to this.

Norway hangs together during critical times.

We mourn our dead, we suffer with the injured, and we comfort relatives.

This is about attacks on innocent civilians, on young people at summer camp.

An attack on all of us.

I have a message to the people who attacked us, and those behind them.

This is a message from all of Norway:

You will not destroy us.

You will not destroy our democracy nor our quest for a better world.

We are a small nation, but we are a proud nation.

No one shall bomb us into silence or shoot us into silence.

Nothing will frighten us out of being Norway.

This night we will comfort each other, talk with each other, and stand together.

Tomorrow we will show the world that Norway’s democracy grows stronger when it is challenged.

We shall find the guilty and hold them responsible.

The important thing tonight is to save lives, to care for the victims and their loved ones

I would like to state my recognition for the work of the police, the medics,

and all the other people who currently do such formidable work

to help others, healing injures and saving lives.

We must never cease to stand up for our values.

We have to show that our open society can pass this test, too,

And that the answer to violence is even more democracy,

even more humanity, but never naïveté.

That is what we owe to the victims and to the those they hold dear.

There’s a lot of interesting news in the feed tonight, but today’s ordeal has been too exhausting and dispiriting for me to feel up to highlighting any of it. Poke around in the headlines and see what you can find — the economic news in particular looks inviting.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Diana West, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

I just received this unpleasantly-worded email:

Now even LGF is getting in on the Fjordman rumor. To not have nipped this rumor in the bud two hours ago was idiotic. I suspect you are purposely throwing him under the bus.

For the record: I did not comment on the rumor that the Utøya shooter was the same person as Fjordman because the assertion is too ludicrous to be taken seriously.

Charles Johnson is free to believe any damnfool thing he wants, and probably will, but I don’t see why I have to concern myself with it.

I strongly regret having to mention this stupid nonsense at all. It is demeaning to Fjordman, to myself, and to this blog to have to refer to it.

However, I will do so here, for this one post only:

I know Fjordman personally, I know exactly what he looks like, and he does not resemble the alleged murderer in the slightest.

Furthermore, I was in conversation with Fjordman all day today, starting before the shootings, during the slaughter, and afterwards. If he was shooting up Utøya, he was doing an amazing job of communicating with his friends the whole time, even after he was thrown in a jail cell.

Finally, I know Fjordman’s character, as do all his regular readers. The idea that he could be capable of such an act is so outrageous, so deeply insulting, and so vile that I feel soiled simply having to discuss it here.

This allegation is despicable, disgusting, and deserving of any other adjectives of abhorrence that you can think of.

That’s all I care to say on this topic, and more than enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. I will not mention it again.

For obvious reasons, this post is closed to comments.

Almost as soon as the first glass fragments hit the pavement in Oslo this afternoon, the blogosphere was abuzz with the news of the deadly event. The bombing was immediately identified it as a jihad attack by many commentators. This conclusion seemed to be confirmed shortly afterwards when a Islamic terrorist group claimed responsibility for the carnage.

As later reports came in, however, the picture began to change. The shooter at Utøya was repeatedly described as “Nordic” in appearance. Initial reports that he may have been a convert to Islam were never subsequently confirmed. Then the terrorist outfit withdrew its claim of responsibility, and the case for jihad became thin indeed.

No one of “Middle Eastern appearance” was listed as being sought. No witnesses reported hearing cries of “Allahu akhbar!” in Oslo or Utøya.

Now that the suspect is in custody and has been identified as an indigenous Norwegian, the latest reports refer to him as a “right-wing extremist”, presumably linked to some ultra-nationalist group.

Yet his attacks targeted the Socialists, the most anti-Israel of the major parties in Norway. Based on the affiliation of the people he killed, some websites go so far as to describe him as a “Zionist”.

To make matters even stranger, his Facebook page is quite innocuous — unless you consider The Prince subversive. And it was only set up a few days ago.

So I have no idea what the real story is. When the Scandinavian Gang of Five wake up in the morning, they will no doubt sift the latest Norwegian-language accounts, and possibly find something worth reporting.

However — assuming that the young man is not really a “Zionist” — his being a “right-wing extremist” does not rule out a jihad connection. Not at all.

There is ample precedent for speculation in this regard. For a possible parallel, we may turn to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

I’ve read several accounts that describe the Oslo murderer as “a Norwegian Timothy McVeigh”. The crime in downtown Oslo does resemble the Oklahoma City atrocity — a powerful vehicle bomb, possibly a fertilizer bomb, detonated near a government building for the purpose of causing mass casualties. Then, after initial alarm about Islam, we hear that the alleged perpetrator is a crazed right-wing zealot bent on killing as many of his fellow citizens as possible.

Yes, Oslo and Oklahoma City definitely have a lot in common in this regard.

But one thing many people seem to forget — and which they may never have known, thanks to the American government’s actions and the media spin that followed — is that there almost certainly was an Islamic terror connection to the Oklahoma City bombing.

I refer, of course, to the book The Third Terrorist by Jayna Davis. Ms. Davis did exhaustive research, examined all the evidence, interviewed the witnesses who had seen the third conspirator, tracked down the connections, and identified the Iraqi who helped Timothy McVeigh build the bomb. Her work provided more than enough evidence to satisfy Occam’s Razor: there was a third terrorist.

McVeigh’s bomb was thought to have an “Islamic signature” — that is, a bomb of that strength and type was considered almost certain to have been constructed or designed by Muslim terrorists who had the experience and know-how to do the job. It was believed that no domestic terrorist group had the ability to construct such a powerful fertilizer bomb.

That’s why government officials made their early announcement of Islamic terrorism — which, for reasons of their own, they backed away from a few days later. “White supremacists” and “militias” were the preferred culprits, and not Muslims, so the third terrorist had to disappear down the memory hole.

And so he did, as I discovered this afternoon when discussing the horrific events with several Europeans. They had never heard of The Third Terrorist.

So don’t rule Islam out of the Oslo picture, not just yet. Think of the level of destruction the killer managed to accomplish — how unreasonable would it be to assume the backing and assistance of people who have proved themselves proficient at making very, very powerful bombs and detonating them in major cities?

No matter what conclusions the Norwegian government comes to, look for a “second terrorist”. Or a third, or a fourth…

Anybody who is interested in the idea and can read Norwegian should start investigating this right now. If any evidence of such complicity exists, it’s a good bet that it has already begun to disappear.

Further update: The death toll at Utøya is now said to be at least eighty (Norwegian).

The second attack in today’s massacre in Norway took place on the island of Utøya just outside Oslo. Below are a few final notes provided the Scandinavian Gang of Five just before they went to bed.

The police now confirm at least ten dead at Utøya (Norwegian), from execution-style murders. They fear that the final death toll will be higher than this. They are still searching the area. They have also found undetonated explosives there.

The police are also increasingly certain that the same individual with a fake police uniform was indeed at both locations. It’s definite that he was Caucasian-looking. They have identified him, and stated that he never worked for the police.

The island has 8-10 buildings. Besides the swimmers who escaped, at least 20 different boats came to the island to evacuate those fleeing.

Finnish news says the Utøya shooter was 30-40 years old and spoke with an Oslo accent.

The Norwegian news reports say he is Norwegian, 32 years old.

The youths at Utøya used Twitter and Facebook to communicate (Norwegian).

Also: a video from Oslo just seconds after the blast.

Hat tips: Fjordman, Henrik, Reinhard, Kitman, and KGS.

This article from rom VG.no (original in English) recaps what was reported here earlier:

At least ten people are killed in shootings at a youth camp only hours after a massive bomb blast in central Oslo.

One man has been arrested after the shooting and police see a connection between the two attacks.

The first reports of shootings on Utøya, an island outside of Oslo, came around 18.25 PM Friday night.

According to a witness the gunman identified himself as a police officer before he started killing people.

Almost 700 young members of the Labour Party was at the island for a youth camp.

Police now confirms that at least ten people are killed in the shootings at the island. An eyewitness tells VG Nett that more than 20 to 30 people are dead.

Police also fear it could be bombs at the youth camp and are currently securing the island.

The shootings came only hours after a bomb exploded in a government building in central Oslo at 3.30 PM Friday afternoon.

The explosion killed at least seven people and two people are seriously injured in the blast, confirms police.

Surrounding buildings was also affected by the attack. The bomb exploded close to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office. He was not at his office and has not been injured.

Several blocks around the bomb are still evacuated and people are asked to stay away from the city centre.
VG Nett will return with more updates for our international readers.

Hat tip: Fjordman.

Final Update 4:38pm EDT: Live-blogging on this post is now complete. I’ll do further updates in separate posts. Many thanks to the Scandinavian Gang of Five for making this report possible.

Update 3:52pm EDT:

The Norwegian royal family is said to be safe. The Castle is quite close to the blast location in Oslo.

The Prime minister is on camera now, live TV. Undisclosed location.

The New York Times quotes the Islamist group taking responsibility.

A witness saw a suspicious-looking man in police uniform two minutes before the bomb (Norwegian).

It’s possible that the shooter at Utøya was also the man seen in Oslo. The island is an not far from Oslo, and can be reached easily by car in a matter of minutes.

Henrik: “Utøya is perhaps ten kilometers or so away from downtown Oslo. The road is fine (they just showed it), it would be no problem at all to get from the center of Oslo to the island quickly.”

Here is the report (in Norwegian) from the workshop at the Utøya summer Socialist youth camp on “Combating Xenophobia and Islamophobia.”

A shotgun, a rifle and a pistol were used on Utøya. One witness says that the shooter did indeed target swimming youths in the water (Norwegian).

Hat tips: Fjordman, Henrik.

Update 3:25pm EDT:

Norwegian television requests people with blood type O to show up to donate. Medic choppers are now flying back and forth between Oslo and Utøya.

Restaurants and cafes all over central Oslo are closed now.

Despite being a member of the Schengen group, Norway has implemented temporary border controls.

Fjordman:

The reports from Utøya still mention anything from 10 to 30 dead, but everybody says it looks like a slaughterhouse, with dead bodies floating in the water.

Several people (Utøya is an island) tried to swim away from there. Some apparently failed…

The police are now saying (Norwegian) that they “know the identity” of the Utøya shooter, and that he “may have been” involved in both of the attacks, i.e. also the bombing.

Hat tips: Fjordman, Henrik, Kitman.

Update 3:01pm EDT:

TV2 Norway is also evacuated, due to a possible bomb in their buildings. Checkpoints have been set up around Oslo. Military police have been deployed.

Police confirm the two incidents (Oslo and Utøya) are related, according to Dagbladet.no.

The latest indications from police point in the direction of a convert in the Utøya incident. Aftenposten.no says four are probably dead. Other sources say “many,” not just several. Danish television repeats the figure “possibly 25-30 killed on Utøya”.

Henrik: “The situation in Utøya will take some time to clear up. It’s somewhat remote, a countryside setting, a tent camp for the youth. Many were swimming for safety. Very difficult to figure out who are safe and who are missing.”

The Utøya killer identified himself to security, and was granted passage to the (tiny) island. His weapon was a rifle with scope. Police suspect there may be explosives on Utøya.

560 were on the island. It’s hard to keep count of who was there.

More on Twitter (Swedish site):

IntelTweetEvanKohlmann

Abu Suleiman al-Nasser: “Today, Norway was targeted in order to serve as a lesson and example for the rest of the nations of Europe.”

[…]

Notorious online extremist Abu Suleiman al-Nasser has also now responded to reports of a possible terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway.

Hat tips: Fjordman Henrik, Reinhard, Kitman.

Update 2:42pm EDT:

There is still chaos in central Oslo, much of it evacuated. They are also checking the airport express train for bombs.

Al Qaeda claims responsibility on Twitter (Swedish).

“Many” are now said to have been found dead at Utøya. Unconfirmed numbers (eyewitness calling on the phone, unverified): 25-30.

It took an hour to eliminate the killer, who apparently had several weapons. The authorities are now checking the island for bombs.

Photos just broadcast on Danish TV show bodies floating in the water. Henrik says, “If what I see in the television pictures is bodies floating in the water, there are roughly ten.”

Hat tips: Fjordman Henrik, Reinhard.

Update 2:08pm EDT:

The shooter at Utøya is consistently described as tall and very Nordic-looking.

Hat tip: Fjordman.

Update 1:54pm EDT:

It is now confirmed by the police that a person has been caught at Utøya.

Seven people have been confirmed killed by the bomb, and several others severely wounded.

This video shows the full extent of the destruction after the bombings.

Hat tips: Fjordman and Kitman.

Update 1:47pm EDT:

Corriere Della Sera reports (Italian) that the terrorist group Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami has claimed responsibility for the explosion in Oslo with a message on a jihadi forum, blaming the presence of Norway in Afghanistan and “insults” to the prophet Muhammad.

Update 1:33pm EDT:

The Guardian reports:

NRK is reporting that an unknown group called “Helpers of the Global Jihad” have posted a message that this is only the beginning of the reaction to Norwegian periodicals publishing the Muhammed cartoons, according to Andrew Boyle, a journalist in Norway.

Hat tip: Kitman.

Update 1:20pm EDT:

There are now unconfirmed rumors that the shooter in Utøya has been caught.

Several of the shooting victims were allegedly killed. No word on how many.

Witnesses in Oslo report that they can still hear multiple helicopters and ambulances.

Update 1:15pm EDT:

There are now four confirmed deaths in the Oslo attack.

There may well be several dead at the Utøya shooting, too, but we don’t know yet. There are conflicting reports, lots of chaos and rumors.

The latest report says he used a maskinpistol, which means submachine gun.

Update 12:56pm EDT:

The police have asked everybody to evacuate central Oslo (Norwegian). That includes the news desk of newspaper Aftenposten:

At least four people are now reported to have been shot (Norwegian) at the shooting incident in Utøya. An “automatic weapon” of some sort was used.

People are hiding and swimming away from the area. It is hard for ambulances to get there because the shooting is still ongoing.

Numerous deaths are now reported from the shootings. But there are conflicting reports; some say wounded, others dead.

The foreign minister spoke at Utøya today, and the topic was the Middle East. There is even a video of it, uploaded three hours ago. Seems to have been an anti-Israel speech. According to Fjordman: “It’s an anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian crowd of young Socialists.”

Hat tips: Fjordman, Kitman.

Update 12:20pm EDT:

The Prime Minister himself confirms that there has been a shooting episode at the Labour Party’s youth summer camp. Still ongoing, with few details (Norwegian).

The shooter was dressed in police uniform, referred to the bombing as the reason he needed to get into the meeting, before he started shooting.

Update 12:13pm EDT:

Social Democratic Youth sponsored the meeting where the shooting took place. Utøya was filled with a crowd of young members of the Labour Party. Former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland gave a speech there earlier today, and the current Prime Minister Stoltenberg is supposed to do so tomorrow.

PM Stoltenberg will not give a press conference proper, for security reasons.

Police now report that fifteen were wounded.

Update 12:06pm EDT:

An additional attack outside of Oslo (Norwegian): One person dressed as a police officer opened fire at a crowd of several hundred young people.

There are conflicting reports about how many devices were detonated. It is believed that some bombs did not detonate, and are still in place in one or more buildings.

The bulletproof windows next to the Prime Minister’s office are intact, but the rest of the Government building is severely damaged.

It is reported that it might have been a fertilizer bomb.

Update 12:01pm EDT:

Prime Minister Stoltenberg is on the air now. The members of the government are all reported safe.

People are reported to be stuck inside some of the buildings. Fire in one corner of the building.

“According to U.S. government sources on the scene”, one of the two blasts was the result of a massive vehicle bomb.

They are evacuating other media houses, and say that the evacuations seems to have nothing to do with the prior explosions.

Hat tips: Fjordman, Henrik, KGS, Kitman.

Update 11:46am EDT:

It is now reported that Prime Minister Stoltenberg was not present in the building. Stoltenberg will comment in half an hour.

A wrecked car can be seen in front of the building. But it’s not sufficiently destroyed that it could have held a bomb of this size.

One corner of one building appears to have had all its bricks stripped off.

Nine people are now reported wounded.

It is now solidly reported as a “terrorist attack”.

Hat tip: Henrik.

Update 11:41am EDT: Comment from Fjordman: “Please keep in mind that the left-wing government of Jens Stoltenberg that was just bombed is the most dhimmi appeasing of all Western governments, to the extent that this is humanly possible. They even wanted to fund Hamas openly a while ago.

“The most suicidal and cowardly government in a country with no colonial history was just attacked. How do you explain that as a response to Western ‘aggression’?”

Update 11:38 EDT: The Ministry of Oil was hit, the Ministry of Nutrition, and the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Prime Minister’s office, of course.

Update: The police fear additional bombs, and warn people to stay away from central Oslo.

Fortunately it is raining heavily in Oslo now, which may help put out the fires.

At Oslo Airport, armed police are now checking all cars entering or leaving.

Update: video of an eyewitness account, subtitled by Kitman:

Update: The police are now calling the incident a “bomb”, and not just an “explosion”, and the newspaper VG calls it a “terror attack”.

This is breaking news — the situation in Oslo is chaotic at the moment, and the only definite news is that Norwegian government buildings were badly damaged, at least two people were killed, and a number of others were injured.

A digest of the various reports:

The building that was attacked houses the office of the Prime Minister.

Hans Rustad from the quality blog Document.no, who calls the explosion simply “terror in Oslo,” says that the Government building resembles the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998.

If this is a terror attack, which it most likely is, it is unprecedented in Norwegian and Scandinavian history outside of wartime. Even the Muslim suicide bomber in Stockholm last year didn’t do nearly this much material damage, and he only killed himself.

They are evacuating parts of downtown Oslo now.

From the sound of it, it seems that eight injured people is a gross understatement. No reports of dead yet, but many wounded.

Although the source of the blast is unclear, Al-Jazeera TV notes that Norwegian prosecutors on Tuesday filed a terrorism charge against Mullah Krekar, founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg is safe, the Norwegian news agency NTB reports, according to the Associated Press.

Reuters says PM Stoltenberg is reportedly safe after a blast that rocked central Oslo and knocked out windows in government buildings.

Reuters reports at least 8 people injured in an explosion that knocked out most of the windows in a 17-story building where Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg’s office is located. The nearby oil ministry is reported to be on fire.

A photograph of the scene on the Aftenposten web site shows several blocks strewn with rubble, and almost all the windows of one building shattered.

Witnesses claim to have seen dead people.

There are rumors that the explosion started in a large car, and there may have been a second explosion in downtown Oslo.

Later report: One confirmed dead.

Later report: Several car bombs, apparently. The entire city center of Oslo in chaos now. Two confirmed dead now, many wounded.

Links to sources, both Norwegian and English:

• Aftenposten
• Aftenposten
• Document.no
• TV2
• TV2VG.no
• VG.no
• Reuters
• USA Today
• Video

Hat tips: Fjordman, Kitman.

According to the latest reports, President Obama and House Speaker Boehner are very close to cutting a deal to break the impasse on raising the debt ceiling. In return for the Republicans’ agreement to an increase in the debt level, the president is willing to see some spending cuts, lower tax rates, and a “simplification” of the tax code that is expected to increase revenues.

Meanwhile, President Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany have reportedly reached agreement on a package that will lead to the next bailout of Greece.

In other news, Enda Kenny, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland, has castigated Pope Benedict XVI for the priestly child sex abuse scandal.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JP, Kitman, Lurker from Tulsa, MF, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has filed a follow-up report on the controversy over the historic site of Stiklestad. He includes this note:

This is another article concerning the Stiklestad controversy. It’s good to know that not everything is doom and gloom in Norway today. There are still people who are willing to stand up for their ideals and values.

I believe that we are going to see more of this, not only in Norway but all over the Western world. People have simply just had enough.

NB: Olsok is Norwegian for “Olaf’s wake”, and is a celebration for King Olaf Haraldson, who died at the battle of Stiklestad on July 29, 1030.

The translated article from Trønder-Avisa:

Stiklestad belongs to us, not the Muslims

Campaigners from all over the country will attend this summer’s Olsok celebrations in Stiklestad and demonstrate against religious dialogue on what they perceive to be sacred ground.

“Stiklestad is sacred. Stiklestad belongs to us and not the Muslims. Those who wish for dialogue can go to Medina,” says Eivind Lundager, spokesperson for the newly-formed organization.

They will be there this year and at every future Olsok as long as the threat of transforming Stiklestad exists.

Levanger and Oslo

The new organization began as a direct result of former Bishop of Oslo Gunnar Stålsett’s idea published in an article in Trønder-Avisa for establishing an international, permanent venue for interreligious issues and reconciliation in Stiklestad. Stålsett also proposed that the organization “Religions for Peace” should host an interreligious conference there.

There has been an intense debate in the Christian community in Norway, and detractors of Stålsett’s vision have formed an organization with branches in Levanger and Oslo. They are prepared go to Stiklestad and join forces next week where they will express their opinions on the new inter-faith proposal.

“Stiklestad is not the correct location to host a ‘multicultural’ experiment, nor is it the correct location to throw around political rhetoric linked to undefined dialogue or vague peace terms,” according to the petition

[…]

Who’s behind the new organization?

Eivind Lundager describes the organization as a popular movement based on the “Haugianske spirit’ of Hans Nilsen Hauge who had the ability to motivate people from all over the country. The organization wishes to follow Hauge’s example.

“In our group you’ll find people from all walks of life. We are teachers, historians, artists, priests and theologians. We all believe that things are heading in the wrong direction. The politicians don’t seem to realize that there are certain things that are sacred,” says Lundager, who describes himself as cross-denominational, worried that we as a society are losing our foundation.

Besides Lundager, the interim board also consists of Ragnhild Heggdal from Levanger, Arnhild Gjendem from Oslo and Greta Aune Jotun from Trondheim.

The Stiklestad campaign

In the petition the campaigners state that Stiklestad is a unique piece of cultural history, which is important to our roots, our identity, our values and our traditions. “If other religions are allowed to establish a base here, the place of our historical roots, there is a real danger that the foundation that our nation is built upon will be weakened.”

It also states that “We have noticed that the term ‘dialogue’ is undefined, and that it can along with other diffuse peace concepts easily be misused as political leverage in the hands of an elite, in an attempt to weaken Stiklestad as an important milestone in the history of Norway, and to introduce foreign religions by means of a ‘multicultural centre’. This is completely wrong. It is also an attempt to introduce ideologies that not only challenge our historical roots and cultural heritage, but also threatens our freedom and democracy.”

The petition also states that Stiklestad needs to be protected for future generations — and that there is a need to protect it from new political and religious experiments.

Going ahead as planned

The Director of Stiklestad National Culture, centre Turid Hofstad, says that the events will go ahead as planned.

“We have registered that there are strong reactions to Gunnar Stålsett’s proposal to use Stiklestad as an arena for inter-religious dialogue. People are of course allowed to express different views and opinions, as long as they stay within the limits of the freedom of speech that exists in Norway. We don’t expect that this will interfere with the arrangements, and that these will go ahead as planned.”

Gunnar Stålsett declined to make a comment on the planned demonstration. The Petition:

Petition against a multicultural centre at Stiklestad!

On July 2, 2011, Trønder-Avisa published an article about a proposal to transform the Stiklestad National Culture centre into a multicultural centre for politics, religions and “dialogue”. The process seems to be well under way for this year’s Olsok program with the invitation of this year’s Olsok’s profile, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store — whose speech in Stiklestad will be in tune with that of former Bishop of Oslo and politician Gunnar Stålsett. We disagree with this, and we have decided to establish a national organization which will employ a wide range of methods to oppose this proposal — beginning at this year’s Olsok and during every other Olsok as long as this attempt at transforming Stiklestad continues.

The 2011 Stiklestad Campaign

No to the establishment of a multicultural centre in Stiklestad!

Stiklestad is an important historical and national footprint and a very visible crossroads in the history of Norway, primarily associated with the introduction of Christianity in Norway. Olav Haraldsson is also significant in this sense by paving the way into a new era. He introduced a new national authority that helped build the nation, of which we can still see the remnants today. A new era arrived in 1030 that became an important milestone, a vision, a concept; in short, a monumental event in our history and a transition to a more civilized society. Stiklestad is still a very strong symbol and an historical footprint!

It’s a piece of cultural history which is unique to us, that belongs to our roots, our identity, our values and our traditions. The Frostating law states “With law the land shall be built, and it shall not be destroyed by illegality”. The Constitution confirms this, and the constitution can’t be changed without the people’s consent. Both the Mosaic and Christian law are cornerstones in our cultural heritage. These values were and are today helping to improve communities, and we would like to share them with others. If other religions are allowed to establish a base here, the place of our historical roots, there is a real danger that the foundation upon which our nation is built will be weakened.

We have noticed that the term” dialogue “is undefined and that it can along with diffuse peace concept easily be misused as political leverage in the hands of an elite, as means of trivializing Stiklestad’s significance as a crossroads in the history of Norway, and to introduce foreign religions by means of a “multicultural centre”. This is completely wrong. It is also an attempt to introduce ideologies that not only challenge our historical roots and cultural heritage, but also threaten our freedom and democracy.

What Norway needs now is the exact opposite. There are clear indications that ignorance, indifference and poor knowledge of history are on the rise. Our history, our values, our democracy and our identity must be made more obvious for future generations. Values that used to be, still are, and will continue to be building blocks, with norms and laws which we would love to share with others on our own terms, and not dictated by the political elite.

The Frosta Parliament is the oldest and the most unambiguous legal system in Norway. With the introduction of the Mosaic and Christian law, the Judeo-Christian building blocks that go back several thousand years, civilized societies were created, and it gave us our democracy. This is the mold, the platform and the atmosphere that gave us a nation, which again gave us our freedom which so many of our forefathers gave their lives for — and that still means a lot for us today. We still believe that this is worth fighting for. Do not rob us of our past. We had expected that one battle in Stiklestad would be enough.

It is completely senseless to transform Stiklestad, of all places, into a centre for several religions, including Islam, as former Bishop of Oslo and politician Gunnar Stålsett and the political elite are now proposing, without consulting the people first. It’s a sign of a democratic deficit. What about our voices? This “dialogue” would perhaps be more useful in a place like Medina in Saudi Arabia? Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, and former Oslo Bishop Gunnar Stålsett should perhaps take their dialog there? By all means they can bring their own well-groomed camels, desert, and private cemetery. Stiklestad is not the correct location to host a “multicultural” experiment, nor is it the correct location to throw around political rhetoric linked to undefined dialogue or vague peace terms.

Where are the politicians who will defend our values? Where are our bishops? Where are our Christian leaders? If they have lost the voice that reflects our real values we reserve the right to choose new leaders, who are better able to serve the people they are meant to represent — that are more in line with what we have mentioned here and with the cultural heritage that goes back to Stiklestad in 1030.

Do not rob us of our history!

Do not destroy our historical roots!

Do not destroy our values and heritage!

Protect Stiklestad for future generations — and protect it from new political and religious experiments!

This past May Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of parliament for Fremskrittspartiet (the Progress Party) in Norway made a speech to a party convention about the Islamization of Oslo and the dire effects that mass immigration has had on the capital city.

He was later brought up on a “racism charge” based on a complaint filed by the Young Social Democrats, as reported in an article from TV2 (in Norwegian).

So it’s now officially illegal in Norway to say that immigrants have quicker tempers than ethnic Norwegians, or that they harass girls with blond hair.

I don’t have an English-language report on the charges against Mr. Tybring-Gjedde. Below the jump, however, is a subtitled video of the speech that got him in trouble, followed by a full transcript. Many thanks to Cecilie Gamst Berg for the translation, and to Kitman for the subtitling:

Transcript:

Dear National Congress,

The Labour Party has turned Oslo into an ethnically divided city.

In the Grorud Valley the indigenous population is moving out and non-Western immigrants are moving in.

Norwegians feel ostracised in their own neighbourhoods

children don’t feel at ease in kindergartens, schools and leisure activities.

No politicians should decide where people should live,

but the reason behind thousands of people deciding to move away

Is not something we politicians can just ignore.

In the Grorud Valley blonde girls are harassed into dying their hair dark.

Children are threatened with beatings if their lunch box contains salami.

Boys of immigrant backgrounds threaten to beat Norwegian boys

if they are not given extended playing time in football.

Bags of sweets handed out at special occasions in kindergartens,

are rifled through in search of gelatin.

Such bags are marked with pictures of pigs, as a warning.

On Evenings and weekends cars are set on fire, windows smashed in at schools.

This is not something Made up by a “mono-cultural” member of parliament like me

it is part of everyday life in the multi-cultural Grorud Valley in Oslo.

One of the people who decided to move away is Patrick Åserud.

Patrick works in a kindergarten at Grorud, like his wife. Both resourceful people.

But they can no longer stand the Labour Party’s demographic experiments.

As Patrick told me: An ethnic and cultural self-annihilation is taking place,

and worst of all, we are allowing it to happen.

British historian Toynbee said “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder”

And that is exactly what is happening.

The modern Western civilisation based on:

science, secularity, democracy, equal worth, equality, pluralism and freedom

is gradually giving way to forces representing the opposite.

The changes are applauded by the cultural relativists of the political elite,

and academia and journalists, recruited from a one-sided radical environment.

We in the FRP (Norwegian Hard Right) has been accused of being extremist.

Dear Congress defending our values of liberty without compromise is not extremist.

What is extremist, is at all times caving in to special demands

which undermine our own culture and the values our country is built on.

And it is both radical and extremist to carry out immigration policies

which in a matter of decades will make the indigenous population

a minority in its own capital.

One of George Orwell’s many quotations says

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth”

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”

And dear National Congress: I will continue to be a revolutionary!

The greatest danger facing Europe today is the resurgence of nationalism.

What? You don’t agree?

But… but… if you read the newspapers or watch the news on television, you will have noticed that the emergence of “right-wing extremists” in Europe is an alarming trend, to be countered at all costs.

These newscasters wouldn’t lie to you, now, would they?

Citizens are warned every day about “neo-fascists” and “neo-Nazis”. These dangerous demagogues are alleged to be prominent among the “xenophobic” nationalists who have done so well in recent elections all over Europe. The Powers That Be need citizens to keep an eye out for any recurrence of Nazism, so that it may be stamped out vigorously as soon as it appears.

The article below serves as a typical example of the “Beware of the Nazis!” genre. It concerns the emergence of cult among Nazi nostalgics centered on the grave of Rudolf Hess in Bavaria. From Reuters:

Bones of Nazi Hess exhumed from “pilgrimage” grave

(Reuters) — The remains of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess have been exhumed from a grave in Bavaria after it became a pilgrimage [site] for thousands of right-wing extremists.

A church official in the southern town of Wunsiedel said on Thursday the tomb had been razed and its headstone removed after consulting with Hess’s family over how to handle the grave site.

“The bones were removed and brought to the crematorium, and the ashes are to be scattered at sea,” Peter Seisser said.

[…]

After World War Two, [Hess] was sentenced to life in prison at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, then hanged himself in Berlin’s Spandau Prison on August 17, 1987, at the age of 93.

Officials granted his wish to be buried in Wunsiedel, but earlier this year started preparing the transfer of the remains elsewhere because extremists had treated the grave — on which the phrase “I dared” was engraved — as a shrine.

Many far-right groups say Hess did not commit suicide but was killed by British military guards in prison, and conspiracy theories about the Nazi, who was interested in the occult, abound.

Extremist groups often portray him as a martyr figure, and some from as far away as Oregon and California have organised memorials for him in the past, including a number of outdoor ‘white power’ rock concerts.

But here comes the most important part of this story:

The annual pilgrimage of neo-Nazis in Wunsiedel peaked in 2004, when authorities say some 5,000 people came from across Europe, including left-wing counter protesters.

That’s right: at the peak of their resurgence, the neo-Nazis could muster only five thousand people, including counter-protesters, coming in from all over Europe.

Wouldn’t Lady Gaga draw a crowd ten times as large for one of her shows? Or even a hundred times, if the venue could hold that many?

Heck, I’d wager that the Flat Earth Society could muster a better turnout, even on a rainy day!

Seriously: five thousand people from all over Europe converged on Bavaria for their annual pilgrimage? That’s pathetic.

As I have said many times before: the Nazis in Europe are a sick joke. Their idolatry is evil, but their numbers are laughable.

This preoccupation with a “Nazi resurgence” has nothing to do with reality. It is a mind parasite that has invaded the brains of most Westerners. The obsession with fascists and Nazis is a symptom of our own mental illness.

Rather than examine the world around us, we stare into the mirror. And what do we see there? Nothing more than the devils of our own febrile fantasies.

Meanwhile, millions upon millions of people who hate Jews and admire Adolf Hitler crowd the streets of European cities, eager to overthrow the existing order and establish a totalitarian regime.

And yet all our focus is on a handful of cranks and loons who make pilgrimages to the grave of a dead Nazi!

What sort of madness is this that has come upon us? Who will exorcise this demon from our collective soul?

The Nazis are dead, but we demand they be revenant. We exhume their rotting corpses so that they may walk again amongst us.