The Norway Attacks at 'The Big Picture'

An amazing photo-essay, at Boston Globe's, "The Big Picture."

Also, at New York Times, "Norway Displays Unity at Attack Victim’s Funeral."

Michael Coren Interviews Robert Spencer

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Pat Condell: 'Violence Is Not the Answer'

Via Blazing Cat Fur, "Pat Condell on Anders Behring Breivik."

New York Times Reader Kills Dozens in Norway

A classic piece from Ann Coulter, at FrontPage Magazine.

And speaking of New York Times, see Timothy Egan's desperation, "A Madman and His Manifesto."

RELATED: Anders Breivik is explained — indeed, he's all boxed up and ready to go — at Los Angeles Times, "Norway attacks: The Breivik-McVeigh connection," by Andrew Gumbel.

Norway Killings Shift Immigrant Debate in Europe

At New York Times, "Shift in Europe Seen in Debate on Immigrants":

BERLIN — Less than a week after the mass killings in Norway, evidence of a shift in the debate over Islam and the radical right in Europe already appeared to be taking hold on a traumatized Continent.

As the police in Norway and abroad continued to search for potential accomplices, expressions of outrage over the deaths crossed the political spectrum. Members of far-right parties in Sweden and Italy were condemned from within their own ranks for blaming multiculturalism for the attack. A member of France’s far-right National Front was suspended for praising the attacker.

Lurking in the background is the calculation on all sides that such tragedies can drive shifts in public opinion. Nonviolent political parties can hardly be blamed for the violent actions of a terrorist or a homicidal person. But politicians have begun to question inflammatory speech in the debate over immigrants, which has helped fuel the rise of right-leaning politicians across Europe in recent years.

More at the link above.

I'm kinda shocked to see right parties endorsing the killings, or at least defending Breivik. What he did is indefensible. More at the Right Perspective, "European Far Right Cautiously Stands With Brievik."

And at Telegraph UK, "National Front member suspended for defending Anders Behring Breivik."

Diagnosing the Left

A must-read, from David Solway, at FrontPage Magazine, "Diagnosing the Left."

It should be clear by this time that there is no medium of intellectual exchange with the left, that facts do not matter, that logic is helpless to convince or to prompt even the slightest reconsideration, and that practically every counter-argument can be turned on its head and interpreted as confirmation of the original idée fixe. As I wrote in The Big Lie, this is a tendency or disposition that bespeaks the resurgence of a political romanticism wedded to motives rather than consequences, unachievable ideals rather than practical values. It consists largely of the cryogenized remnants of an antique crusade for unperturbed happiness and tranquility, actuated by a child-like desire for transcendence that is the curse of liberal political civilization, and that, in various spiritual and revolutionary forms, has caused untold harm and suffering in the past.

Ultimately, it amounts to a prepossession that resembles a species of clinical paranoia, associated with symptoms like unbridled hostility where disagreement is perceived, extreme sarcasm often rising to livid vulgarity, an intense need for control and the belief in personal infallibility. It is, in effect, a squalid amalgam of hubris and the herd mentality. Obviously, the disorder is not exclusive to the left, but it is on that side of the political spectrum where it manifests most prominently and insistently.

RELATED: "W. James Casper is a Coward, a Fraud, and a Liar."

And a perceptive reader, from out of the blue, comments on clinical progressive W. James Casper:

Suzie Q said...

Has it occurred to you ... that you are a stalker??

Seriously. This is pure sickness.

RELATED: "British Progressives Allege Melanie Phillips Took 'Part in the Norway Massacre'."

Lawyer Says Anders Behring Breivik 'Insane'

At Telegraph UK, "Norway killer: Anders Behring Breivik 'insane'."

Anders Behring Breivik was “surprised” he was able to carry on shooting students on Utoya island for 90 minutes before police eventually caught up with him, his solicitor said, as he made clear he regarded his client as “insane”.

'The Left hasn't been this giddy since Rep. Giffords was shot'

That's Darleen Click, at William Jacobson's entry, "My challenge to Charles Lemos."

Along the same lines, Darleen has her interesting entry at Protein Wisdom, "Kind of sums up what passes for principle on the illiberal Left."

And more of this at POH Diaries, "Tragedy In Norway Compounded By Left-Wing Glee."

Plus, Mollie Hemingway writes a beautiful essay, "The Atlantic has this terrorist all figured out."

And then check this post from Power Line, "IN DEFENSE OF BLOND NORWEGIANS":

The relief–not to say glee–with which many liberals greeted the news that the Oslo mass murderer was a “tall, blond Norwegian” was palpable. Liberals pilloried those who ostensibly leaped to the conclusion, in the first minutes after the massacre began, that it was probably the work of Islamic jihadists. Scott noted earlier such attacks on Jennifer Rubin.

As far as I know, liberals haven’t attacked me for the post I did while the attacks were in progress. But what I wrote was, I think, typical:

The perpetrators of these attacks have not yet been identified, but they likely were Muslim terrorists.

Was that wrong? Not at all. Any time mass murder attacks take place, it is not just likely but highly probable that they are the work of Muslim jihadists. Over the last several decades, jihadists have launched hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks. They dwarf, in numbers, similar outrages perpetrated by anyone else. That is why, whenever a bomb kills innocent bystanders or an armed man guns down children, the first thing everyone thinks is that it likely will prove to be another instance of Islamic terrorism.

See also: "SOMEONE IS PUTTING WORDS IN JEN RUBIN’S MOUTH." (Via Memeorandum.)