Morally and Intellectually Superior

So Breivik's trial is receiving far more scrutiny than many other trials I'd like day-to-day live updates on (like the child sex-ring case in Rochdale). I find it particularly interesting how we're frequently reminded how right-wing Breivik is, and how he does these right-wing salutes, sits in a right-wing way taking sips of right-wing water with right-wing lips.

When not reminding us he's very right-wing, the reporters quoted in the Telegraph seem to be trying to outdo themselves in moral superiority.

To be honest, unless you've slaughtered large numbers of people, you really don't have to try so hard to make out you're "better" than Breivik. But, since no one seems able to legally kill him, I guess they'll have to make do with mocking him. Hell, he played World of Warcraft for a year, the sad Billy No-Mates. (I did rather like the report that the judge asked if it was a violent game - rather reminded me of an old Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch.)

Now, hearing he got his facts from Wikipedia and wished to commemorate the Gates of Vienna battle, the Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent David Blair soon put him in his place:

As someone who is old enough to have learned his history from lessons and books, as opposed to Wikipedia, I would suggest that the Battle of Lepanto of 1571 was a far more significant event. This clash at sea destroyed Turkish naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and began the long retreat of the Ottoman Empire.

Battle of Lepanto: 1,070,000 hits on Google. Gates of Vienna: 2,590,000 hits on Google. Significance? Not a lot - using Google to assess importance is about on a par with using Wikipedia for serious study. Then again, feeling you need to show you're intellectually superior to a mass-murdering World of Warcraft expert strikes me as equally vacuous.

Blair also reported how the prosection had cleverly got Breivik to say he should be executed:

And, as the piece de resistance, Breivik recommended his own execution. So it was that the defendant was drawn into hanging himself.

But Breivik said he wants to either be executed (by a court he does not recognise the authority of, and therefore perhaps would feel he is being put to death for his cause) or set free (by a court he would then perhaps feel had come round to his way of thinking). He doesn't want to be locked away (like a common criminal, even if he only gets 21 years). I've read little in the Telegraph to suggest he's tripping himself up in some way, the real meaning of a defendant "hanging" themselves. But what do I know? I've played Xenoblade Chronicles for 80 hours.