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  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    Congratulations to Dimitrij Muratov and Maria Ressa with the Nobel peace prize! Free press and truth itself is under attack and they are just two of the many journalists who risk their life every day to expose power.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    The glaciers feeding the famous Seven Sisters waterfalls by the Geiranger fjord (do yourself a favour and search with Google Images) have become 40% smaller in the last thirteen years. Glaciers are disapearing all over the world. Do you think this is pure chance or could could it be that almost all scientists working with meteorology and other related fields be right?

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    Tonight there was a mass shooting in the town of Kongsberg near Oslo. Very rare here, but even rarer the man used bow and arrow! The archer is arrested and there are five killed and two wounded. We don't know the motives of the killer.

  • Charmed & DangerousCharmed & Dangerous Posts: 7,358MI6 Agent

    It's the leading article on BBC News here in the U.K. A bow and arrow is very bizarre to say the least. It looks as though it's not being treated as terror related.

    "How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathises."
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent

    The police can't say yet if it's terror related, but the police security service PST (domestic counter-inteligence) was contacted very early.

    I have a little bit of experience with archery and I think the ratio of deaths versus wounded indicates he's a skilled archer.

  • The Red KindThe Red Kind EnglandPosts: 3,119MI6 Agent

    Very sad news @Number24 My condolences🙏

    "Any of the opposition around..?"
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    Thanks. In an average year we get about thirty murders (seven gun related so far) so five murders in about 40 minutes is a shock.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    The arrested man is a Danish citizen living in Kongsberg. The domestic inteligence service PST say they were aware of him. He has converted to islam and threathend to kill his father earlier. PST say it looks like terrorism, but they can't say for sure yet.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    Childhood friends warned the police against the arrested man for four years, but so far the police haven't replied to questions about what they did with this information (if anything). The man is now turned over to the health services while the investigating continues. I guess the court will decide if the man was accountable for his actions at the time of the crime. My take on everything is that the killer was mentally ill for years and his illness and agression happened to find an outlet through radical islam. It could easily have been radical far-right ideology or conspiracy theories.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited October 2021

    I'm not going to make much more of the tragedy in Kongsberg, but here is an update. The who incident looks less like terrorism and more and more like a mental health issue. It also looks like all of the murder victims weren't killed by arrows, but by some kind of knife. The killer wasn't a skilled archer, he was a novice with a beginner's bow and arrows.

    Two big questions emerge:

    -Why didn't the police do more to help the mentally disturbed man? They for warnings for about six years.

    - The three police patrols reached the Coop within minutes after he started firing arrows at people. The officers tried to stop him there, but pulled put to get better armour for themselves in spite of all the civilians in danger inside. Then it seems like the police stood waiting outside, er soting for their hemets and better armour, forgetting to cover all the doors. The attackers escaped, and the police hunted him for about thirty minutes until they managed to arrest him. It was in this time period he killed five people, en entering people's homes to kill them.

    I have a suspicion of what happend. Norwegian police are very good at social relations, de-escalating dangerous sitiations and negotiationg. You only need to look at murder rates and other crime statistics to understand this is nearly always a great success. But in these situations the police need to enter "soldier mode". Their job may require them to put themselves in extreme danger and even kill to protect civilians. It looks like the police officers didn't manage to change their mental state in time in Kongsberg, much like at Utøya ten years ago. There two police men wearing armour and armed with pistols and submachineguns hid behind boathouses on the mainland while civilians were risking their lives using their boats to save the fleeing kids in the water. The two officers thought their job was directing traffic while waiting for SWAT from Oslo.

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    The cinemas are re-opening soon here after a year of being closed. Hopefully will be able to see NTTD soon 😁

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    We went to Fort San Pedro yesterday. Dating back to 1565 it has a long history and now houses a museum with lots of Spanish artefacts, paintings, sculptures and documents.


    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent
    edited November 2021

    Beauty pageants are still very popular here in the Philippines and a lovely Filipina has just been crowned Miss Globe 2021.


    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,172MI6 Agent

    Nice. Interesting pendant.

  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,644MI6 Agent

    Beautiful pictures there, @CoolHandBond! Thanks for sharing. 🙂

    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent

    When in the Phillipines, one should delve deeply into it's treassures.

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    It’s 8 years to the day that Supertyphoon Yolanda wreaked havoc on Leyte and the neighbouring island of Cebu and the rest of the eastern Visayas. Thousands died in what, at the time, was dubbed “The Worst Storm In History”.

    I had arrived in Cebu only 2 days earlier, in search of a house after retiring from the bookshop that I ran. We were safely ensconced in the Marco Polo hotel, but watched the events from the windows.

    The picture above shows the mass grave in Tacloban, Leyte, which contains 2200 bodies from the event. Before sunset, church bells in Eastern Visayas simultaneously pealed to commemorate those who died during the supertyphoon.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    That was a huge tragedy. Unfortunate timing on your part, but you got through it.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent

    A brothel in Wienna offers one free gift card for a single visit to their place of business to anyone who takes a Covid-19 vaccine. I hear vaccination is slow in some countries, including the US. Has the Biden administration considered using this incentive? 🙂

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    So, cinemas are still closed here and NTTD is now available to rent on Amazon Prime. Do I forgo my lifetime record of seeing every Bond movie at the cinema upon release, yes I am that old 😂, or do I wait a bit longer to enjoy it as it should be seen?

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    I'm glad I didn't have to make that decision!

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent

    You can run into all sorts of types while shopping groceries for the weekend.


  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,906MI6 Agent

    try living in Canada, where huge gaggles of our geese routinely jaywalk en masse and bring traffic to a halt!

    are they really too stupid to ever learn what cars can do, or do they just have attitude like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy?

    is your goose a wild goose or an escaped farm goose? he does have a tag on his leg

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited November 2021

    Just to be clear, that's a wild swan. As you can see in the bottom photo the swan is marked with rings om the legs for science. We have goose too, mostly wild ones, but probably not as much as Canada. There are geese in the river running through the nearest small town and they sometimes form a line and cross the road. But this doesn't happen often enough to be a problem. Animals can get incredibly used to cars. When I was young and the local road was scenic and dangerous, goats used to spend a lot of time on the road. They barely looked up if a vehicle was coming. We learnt to keep rolling very slowly, but only to stop if neccessary. Then the goats moved away very slowly, like snotty school children ordered to get off a bench.

  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,906MI6 Agent

    ah OK, we have a few wild swan here too but I've never seen one in a parking lot. whereas the Canada Goose blocking traffic in vast hordes is a common site.

    its funny I watch the behaviour of tiny little birds and they seem quite intelligent, and then I see these great big geese and does their brain do anything at all? they just saunter round obliviously waiting to follow the leader. and yet their brains can navigate them 1000s of kilometres every winter, so I guess they just have different priorities.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    edited November 2021

    I haven't seen a swan in a parking lot before either. It seemed calm and used to people. It didn't mind me standing 6-7 feet away. Navigating north and south for the seasons is more down to instincts and senses we don't have than intelligence.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent

    I'm reading an update about the horrible tragedy in Waukesha, Wisconsin. My thoughts are of cource with the victims and their families.

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    This was horrible, as you say. What a terrible world we live in.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    I saw this footage. There was a little girl dancing at the road side as the car went past at speed. It chilled my blood to see her come so close to death.

    There can never be any justification for such senseless acts of violence, but somewhere in his twisted mind, the man responsible must have thought he had some reason? I was wondering if he thought it was some way in retaliation for the young gunman being found not guilty?

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    On another thread somewhere, @Number24 was listing some humorous book titles. The ones listed below are actually real books which were published at that time but I don’t think they would be today!

    Shag The Pony (1952)

    British Tits (1979) (An authoritative book on birds of the feathered kind.)

    Games You Can Play With Your Pussy (1982)

    My Big Book Of Pretty Pussies (1965)

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
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