M&Ms for facilitators

Now that Edvard Munchs paintings Scream and Madonna are recovered, absolutely not sitting with a filthy rich collector in some secluded room, M&M will have to pay out the promised reward of two million M&Ms. That's a whole lot of candy. Two metric tons actually.

David Toska, as we well remember, was one of the robbers at NOKAS in Stavanger, April 5th 2004. While the police now was in the midst of the most prolonged and extensive hunt ever, Munchs paintings were stolen by some cannonfodder August 22th 2004. The police quickly caught on, or not, and all hope seemed lost after just a couple of links. He was caught, or rather called home and surrendered himself, April 5th 2005. Convicted, he has also started talking about the network of lies, deceptions and power implicit in the robbery of Munchs paintings. If not, he has at least been dropping subtle hints through connections having ties to some reporter or the other, as his face has featured with such information now and then the last two years.

Also during the two years which has passed since the NOKAS, certain coercive tactics by the police have been disclosed to great embarrassment

On wiki I attempted to be very factual. As I don't know if that text will be there or not in a day or two in its current form, I cite it:

In 1996 he was arrested for carrying a loaded weapon in a bar in Oslo. When the police searched his home they found an MP5 sub-machine gun, explosives and tools for committing robberies. He is considered the mastermind behind the break-in at Norsk Medisinaldepot (2000), the safe-deposit box robbery at Bryn (2001), the commando-style robbery of Postens brevsentral October 27th 2003 and the NOKAS robbery April 5th 2004.

He admitted his involvement in the deposit robbery at Bryn and the Medicinal Depot, was committed, but later acquitted because of questionable motives and plausible coercion by the police. Emptying the bank boxes in 2001 brought out approximately 3 million USD, or about 20 million Norwegian Kroner in values. A security employee, by the order of the police, fed Toska with information, and so the police was said to make possible and facilitate both robberies.

The NOKAS robbery is probably the gravest example of hardened criminal activity in Norway. Never before has such brutality been evident on such a scale. The robbers got away with approximately 56 million NOK. Following the robbery the police started the most extensive investigation in modern times and focused all their forces on unraveling a hornets nest of suspected syndicate crime. Edvard Munchs paintings Scream and Madonna were stolen August 22th 2004 by three no-ones. All clues as to whom might have ordered the theft seemed to run dry after a few links and hints. Toska was arrested in Spain on April 5th 2005.

In the NOKAS-trial against Toska he and his accomplices confessed to participation in the robbery, but not to the killing. On March 5th 2006 Toska was sentenced to 19 years in prison. August 30 2006 Munchs paintings returned almost unscathed. Police refuses to say a word about where they found the paintings, nor whom they might suspect. No arrests were said to be made or any reward for tips having been paid. M&M however, pledged to pay out 40.000 bags of itself to whomever might have facilitated the rescue of Munchs paintings. Toskas face once more dove into the limelight.

The intricacy of this life of crime might explain his prominence in the media.

Please be aware that some of the information in that article was put there by fellow wikipedians. Most of the form is mine. Every date is verifiable.

More M&Ms to come?

Of course. There are circumstantial, even hard evidence of Toska being under the surveillance of the police in one way or the other since at least 2000. As in This is revolution a whole network has been threathened. Who might comprise that network is what is interesting, as surely it includes at the very least a few rotten apples within the police, or simply subterfuge. That is not conspiracy, that is just planning forward. We come well prepared with the few prominent examples of disclosed crime we have - first there was Treholt, pure espionage. Then came white collar criminals, pyramids, fraud and outright con-men. None high profile, but a few prominent hints into a deceptive net. Then violence erupted and Toska came down as first the devil and then a moderator.

Well, he might be a changed man, but boy, what have our police come to when they have known him, intimately, for the last 10 years? Without managing to take him down. I effin' don't believe it.

Politiet uttrykker i pressemelding 04.09.2006:
Politiet har ikke inngått noen avtale med Toska hva angår de forhold som er omtalt i pressemeldingen.

Pobrezinhos

Os brasileiros não prestam de jogar futebol. Brasil - Noruega, 1-1.

Brasil has never, I repeat, never beaten Norway in a football match. Poor souls.

Calm day?

Well, it seems today has seen at least some improvement. No protest against Israel firing back at Hezballah bone heads. Let's see some withdrawal then. Alas, Netanyahu expresses the following:

"...if the Arabs lay down their arms there will be no more war, but if Israel lays down its weapons there would be no more Israel." - Ynet

And he uses the Hitler card Israel itself has critisized on other occasions.

"since Hitler there has not been a leader like the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." (Ilan Marciano) - Ynet

Outside it rains. It rains so much I believe I have moved into a large aquarium. Needed. Now perhaps those nice chantarelle will come to a forest near me.

A day to forget

Hurrah, an agreement of seize fire has been made. Let's make the most of it and bomb some more!

When confronted with questions of guilty feelings and shame on befalf of their country when watching Lebaneese children and civilian being killed, a lot of Israelis make this answer: The whole strategy of Hizballah is to kill as many civilians as possible. There is no comparison with our professional forces having targeted Hizbollah rocket posts hidden amongst civilians.

I'll make this interjection: While Hizballah does not have rockets possible to steer, Israel SYSTEMATICALLY targets refugees, UN observers, Red Cross journalists AND make some of their most intensive bomb runs during night. Hizbollah stop firing their Katuschas during night. Hizballah does not have laser guidance, ground forces in Israel and extensive intelligence gathering. They fire and forget those rockets, while obviously giving the Israelis grievances on the ground inside Lebanon. Israel systematically targets civilians. Hizballah randomly hits civilians. While blindly lobbing stupid rockets into Israel is a war crime, intentionally hitting refugee camps and convoys must also be. Kofi Annan has never been more clear spoken in his worries of a systematic breach of human rights from the Israeli forces.

There is no comparing numbers that does any fairness to any war. A civilian casualty is still a civilian casualty, no matter if they are muslim, jew, christian, satanist, Lebaneese, Israeli, Russian, Syrian or whatever. War has the ability to make us all behave like animals. It is its nature. War is stupid stupid stupid.

One point to Israel though. Not compared to Hizballah (which should be kicked out of Lebanon by the way), but compared to US warfare. They do put their soldiers on the line early on and are willing to look their enemies in the eye. No no, not the detached politicians of course, but the lives of teenager reservists. USA systematically abuse human rights on a much higher level than Israel will ever manage. As Israel carries on, with the blessing of UN hater Bolton and Condoleeza Ricebowl, there is much to be said about the logic in politics.

Why, oh why, does Israel continue to defend their honour while targeting civilians and not the least, infrastructure not even under the control of their enemy? They have bombed Lebanon 40 years back in time. Reason: two kidnapped soldiers. No no no, this is not good enough. It is not civilised. It is an poor excuse to use fighter jets to bomb the last escape routes of innocent people to hinder a few guerillas.

It upsets me even more than the fact that I start working again tomorrow. THERE you can find an unreasonable comparison, like comparing a small, tiny in fact army with the might of a nuclear power with its superior force. With power comes great responsibility. When you are so much bigger, why bomb gasolin stations, hospitals, bridges, water and power plants indiscriminately? Hizbollah is not weakened by this, quite the contrary. They gain the support of the ones who are bombed by the, by now, common enemy - Israel. Heart shattering is what it is.

Shame on you, murderers! And if you ever call me antisemittic, your words fall on dead ears. Keep your religion and don't mix it with this. Even orthodox jews protest this war. Speaking of history, I understand you have a long tradition of neglecting UN resolutions, including setting of borders, punishing civilians for the acts of suicide bombers and so forth. Carry on, brave and proud.

One word: Qana.
Two words: Human rights.
Three words: Be very ashamed.
Four words: Get out of Palestine!

Israel, you are the new South Afrika. Apartheid is what your game is. Tear down the wall, let the people free.

Imperialists bork bork bork

Looking into a sky filled by soot, cries and the booms of yet another rocket, bullets, grenades and the splatter of blood. This does not make for a well adapted society. Generations will carry forth a mass induced shell shock, dynamite strapped against their waist - because that is how you expect differences to be solved. By weapon, not with useless words hitting dumb ears.

Jostein Gaarder, you know, the dude that wrote Sophies World, have caused quite a storm here in Norway by his poetic, nearly prophetic style, condemning the state of Israel in its current form. Dagbladet, a leading tabloid, printed a satiric drawing of Olhmert as Goeth in Shindlers List, standing with a view to an extermination camp. That made some people a tiny bit mad.

So, what is the point? Only that I find nothing controversial about expressing a view, however upset you might be. Critique of Israel, their current politics, ties to the USA and abhorrent behaviour in a senseless war - does not make antisemitism. As we would critizise any state or organisation, we have every reason to shout words of condemntation at actors willingly, easily and that with no regret target civilians. What likenesses there might be to the nazi period, where jews were targeted and condemned to inhuman torture, death and betrayal of everything holy are easy to see, exactly because it has happened to one of the involved parties in this current crisis.

I think it is shell shock. When six million of your fellow beings walks as ghost in the machine, you are doomed to have a hundred years of solitude. It is not possible to look away from this past and be reminded of what can happen if you do not, or cannot, stand up and oppose those that wish you harm. It is not strange that Israel every since the war has developed a tendency to behave as its worst enemy. Bitterness fades slowly and sometimes sorrow finds anger and focus it towards your neighbour in a form that we that stand outside cannot understand as anything other than apartheid, slaughter of innocence, xenophobia, rage, animal behaviour.

This is not about jews, it is about how a state carry forth. Religion is a backdrop, as is history and the amalgam of culture everything is. Israel is so much more that the religion of jews. You don't have to be jewish to be an Israeli. But it does seem a prerequisite to be an orthodox jew if you have a tendency to occupy Palestinian soil. As it is a prerequisite to be a fundamental muslim if you want to die the death of martyrs. And I who thought that was the priviledge of sexually frustrated catholic monks. Better leave religion out of it. But if you do that, what else is left of the Middle East? Oil? Oranges? Nuclear weapons? (How come they are called wmds in the hands of terrorist states like Iran, while in the hands of Israel they are necessary if never admitted??

Go fuck yourselves, all you who thinks caricature, critique and flaming words are antisemitism. Go fuck yourselves, all you who thinks caricature, critique and flaming words are worth a jihad.