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He claims to have used the Internet for 70 percent of what he said was 15,000 hours of self-study. And, on the second day of his trial, he admitted that the Knights Templar National and pan-European Patriotic Resistance Movement he claims to represent was “merely a few individuals,” a likely reference to like-minded people he met on Internet forums.

The deaths of the 77 people Breivik massacred in Norway are sadly all too real. But the killer himself looks more and more like a product of the Internet. As prosecutors skillfully drew out details of Breivik’s failed life in the run-up to the attacks, it seemed that from 2006 — when he wound up his business selling fake diplomas and moved in with his mother — Breivik had retreated into an online world.

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In a little under two minutes, the "Norwegian Ninja" trailer combines the Scandinavian martial arts madness that the title suggests and footage of miniatures set ablaze with flames that look like they're coming out of a Zippo lighter. And there are crazy-looking amphibious assault vehicles and sheep -- lots and lots of sheep -- and a synth score that resembles the repetitive triumphalist theme to the Chuck Norris epic "Delta Force," only more somber and European. "Be one of us," a stern blond man wearing glasses and a black karate uniform urges, "Be a Ninja." I am so there.

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Now one of Europe's most successful right-wing parties is on the defensive after one of its former members massacred 77 people in the name of fighting immigration.

The Progress Party has confirmed that Anders Behring Breivik, the confessed perpetrator of last month's massacre, was a member between 1999 and 2006. That has focused intense criticism on its platform of sharply cutting the immigration that is changing Norway's once virtually homogenous population of white Christians.

"They have to change their tone," said Magnus Takvam, a political commentator for Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. "They have to reconsider their vocabulary."

Progress Party leader Siv Jensen has been criticized for warning of a stealth Islamization of Norway. And in May, the party's leader in Oslo called the governing Labor Party's immigration policy a "demographic experiment" and said a left-wing political elite was allowing Western civilization to be eroded by Muslim immigrants with opposing values.

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Anders Breivik, the anti-Islam terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway on July 22, read a lot of American anti-Islam bloggers, many of whom he cited in his lengthy manifesto. Breivik's favorites included Robert Spencer, a self-proclaimed expert on Islam whose "Jihad Watch" blog was quoted and cited in Breivik's manifesto, and Spencer's ally and collaborator Pam Geller, whose "Atlas Shrugs" was similarly recommended by the killer.

So some people have been like, "hey, wow guys, a crazy person took everything you write so seriously that he murdered a bunch of people, in the name of protecting his nation from the creeping 'Islamization' of Europe that you guys constantly crow about, maybe you guys should stop and think for a minute about the horrible, hateful things you all write, all the time." And Spencer and Geller have basically screeched back, "CENSORSHIP!!!!!"

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Even Breivik, on a drug-fueled mission to destroy everything his country stands for, had faith in Norwegian law enforcement. "He was surprised that he reached the island," Breivik's attorney Geir Lippestad told a news conference. "He was expecting to be stopped earlier by the police or someone else during the actual day.... He thought he would be killed after the bombing."

It's widely reported that traumatized survivors of the massacre screamed "Why didn't you come earlier?" when police finally did arrive on Utoya, 58 minutes after they say they received the first notification that an armed madman was on the loose.

But these anguished cries are among very few early outbursts of anger by Norwegians against law enforcement.

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"It"s clear from his manifesto that he was slowly withdrawing from wider civil society," said Matthew Goodwin, an expert on right-wing extremism at Britain"s University of Nottingham. "Online, he was certainly active in terms of far-right blogs such as Brussels Journal and Gates of Vienna. He had a extensive Facebook network and had built up substantial online links."

The network Breivik claims to belong to is a modern day Knights Templar, the order of Christian crusaders who in modern times are popular with conspiracy theorists and feature in the novels of Dan Brown, the author of "The Da Vinci Code." He claims to have met in secret with a like-minded group to reconstitute a modern Knights Templar.

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Over the last decade, virtually every Terrorist plot aimed at the U.S. -- whether successful or failed -- has provoked greater security and surveillance measures.  Within a matter of mere weeks, the 9/11 attacks infamously spawned a vast new surveillance statute (the Patriot Act), a secretly implemented warrantless eavesdropping program in violation of the law, an explosion of domestic surveillance contracts, a vastly fortified secrecy regime, and endless wars in multiple countries.  As it turned out, that massive over-reaction was not a crisis-driven anomaly but rather the template for future actions. 

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Jens Stoltenberg also told reporters Wednesday that Norwegians will defend themselves by showing they are not afraid of violence and that the response will "more democracy, more openness."

Last week's twin attack in the normally placid country has left Norwegians appalled and shaky, but determined to move forward. Some government workers were planning to return to work in their offices in the buildings where the bomb blasts blew out most windows.

At least 76 were killed in the attack on government buildings in Oslo and a rampage on an island youth camp.

Meanwhile, the leader of Norway's Delta Force defended the special operations team, saying the breakdown of a boat didn't cause a significant delay in efforts to reach the island where Anders Behring Breivik's shooting rampage killed 68 people.

Police have come under close scrutiny over how long it took them to reach the island after first reports of shots being fired at the island youth camp Friday. Although the island is only about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Norwegian capital, police needed 90 minutes to get to the scene.

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Speaking with Democratic strategist and syndicated columnist Karl Frisch, Keith Olbermann on Tuesday asked what was behind Beck's comment: "Is this ignorance? Is he obtuse? Is he insane?"

Frisch noted that the youth camp -- organized by Norway's ruling Labor party -- where Anders Behring Breivik murdered 68 people actually seemed more reminiscent of the YMCA camps scattered around America.

Olbermann went on to criticize Bill O'Reilly's troubling analysis that Breivik -- a self-identifying Christian -- could not really be a Christian because Christians do not commit acts of terror (the preserve, in some conservative eyes, of Muslims).

"There is no logic. You will never hear the words 'respected theologian' and 'Bill O'Reilly' in any other sentence than the one I just said," Frisch noted.

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Here's a portion of an email I got last night that baffled me:

Just to be clear, the killer was, in fact, not a Christian and said so explicitly several times in his writings... So, in fact, "in fact" was the wrong term to use...

I thought, foolish me, that Breivik had repeatedly and forcefully argued that he was waging a war on behalf of European Christendom. I guess while I wasn't paying attention, everyone decided to make up a new reality.

It looks like Bill O'Reilly was on the forefront of this bizarre argument:

Also Breivik is not attached to any church, and in fact has criticized the Protestant belief system in general. The Christian angle came from a Norwegian policeman not from any fact finding. Once again, we can find no evidence, none, that this killer practiced Christianity in any way.

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Anders Behring Breivik is not aware of the death toll or of the public's response to the massacre that has rocked the country, but believes the "operation" is going according to plan, Geir Lippestad said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Lippestad said Breivik asked how many people he killed.

"This whole case has indicated that he's insane," Lippestad told reporters during an earlier press conference.

Breivik has confessed to last week's bombing in the capital and a rampage at a Labor Party retreat for young people, but he has pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charges he faces, claiming he acted to save Europe from what he says is Muslim colonization.

"He expects that this is a start of war that will last for 60 years. but his mind is very... well, I don't want to comment more on his mind, but that's what he believes," he told reporters. "He looks upon himself as a warrior. And he started this war, and takes some kind of pride in that."

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July is holiday time in Norway, and a bad time to set up appointments. The king leaves his palace to go sailing, and ordinary Norwegians flock to their mountains and their seashores as the country goes into a kind of exhilaration, as if on a high from so much light lasting so long.

In Oslo, Norwegians flock to their water-front restaurants and bars, perhaps to stroll by the yachts in the harbor, or gawk at the ever-bigger cruise ships that bring boatloads of tourists to their fair shores.

I have written in this space about how Norway's foreign policy is hard-wired into conflict resolution and trying to bring peace to the many wars that have plagued the world since the end of the Soviet Union. The "Oslo Accords" that almost brought peace to the Israel-Palestine conflict is only the best known.

Norwegians are proud of the fact that the inventor of dynamite, the Swedish Alfred Nobel, chose Norway, then joined with Sweden, to be the site of his Peace Prize, the world's most important and prestigious award.

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Breivik is a psychopath, but he is a psychopath whose politics are indistinguishable from Pamela Geller's, to name one American right-winger whose work was approvingly cited by Breivik in his extensive writings.

While I don't expect a bunch of Islamophobic pundits to take responsibility for a massacre committed in their name, it would be nice if people maybe apologized a little bit for blaming Muslims, first?

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The world was stunned Friday by a double tragedy in Norway: An explosion in the nation's capital, Oslo, left seven dead, while a shooting spree on the nearby island of Utoya reportedly claimed the lives of 86, mainly teenagers from a Labor Party youth camp. Though many at first suspected the involvement of international terrorism, both acts of violence have now since been pegged to a 32-year-old Norwegian man named Anders Behring Breivik. Breivik has confessed to orchestrating both attacks, and says he acted alone. (Though he made further statements in a  court hearing today -- where he pleaded not guilty -- that have stoked fears about two more possible terror cells in the country.) Breivik has called his actions "atrocious," but also "necessary."

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Before his attacks that killed more than 90, mostly young, people on Friday, Breivik appeared to have been a small fish in the murky waters of Europe's extreme right political fringe.

If the rambling 1,500 page testament attributed to him and posted on the internet on Friday is authentic, Breivik claims to have founded a movement inspired by the medieval Templars during a 2002 meeting in London with seven rightists from other European countries. (See VIDEO of alleged manifesto.)

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Andre Scheie told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he saw "very many dead by the shore" of the camp on Utoya island, where the youth wing of the Labor Party was holding a summer camp for hundreds of youths. He said some victims were shot in the water after trying desperately to swim away. "There are about 20 to 25 dead," he said.

Police did not immediately confirm the account. but Inspector Bjoern Erik Sem-Jacobsen said a suspect in the shooting has been arrested. He said the gunman, who was dressed as a police officer, pulled out a gun and started firing into the crowd of youths.

Acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim told broadcaster NRK that investigators suspect the two attacks are linked.

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