It is perhaps inevitable, given the facts of the case, that Norway's worst massacre in recent memory will lead to soul-searching questions about immigration. A blond-haired, blue-eyed sociopath -- who has railed against "Islamic colonization" -- bombed government buildings and gunned down young people at a summer retreat (officials have yet to release information about how many of the victims were Muslim and whether they were specifically targeted by the gunman). But will his actions change anything politically?

Norway's Muslim population has been growing in recent years -- estimates say there are about 100,000 Muslims in the country -- and with that growth has come the kind of backlash many of its European neighbors have seen. Immigration and asylum rules have been tightened. And the anti-immigrant Progress Party has risen to become the second largest in parliament. Its leader, Siv Jensen, has spoken of "a form of sneak-Islamization in this society and we must put a stop to that." (Last week's mass killer, Anders Behring Breivik, was once a member of the party, though he has also criticized it for not going far enough).

Analysts say politicians are going to be careful talking about immigration in the wake of the attack. "In the short term, the parties are not going to touch the immigration issue.… I think it's going to make politicians quite cautious in their wording, their rhetoric," Hanne Marthe Narud, a political science professor at Oslo University, told Reuters.

Some Muslim leaders have said the violent outburst could help bring Muslims and Christians closer together. "I think minorities will think of themselves as more Norwegian.… Religion, ethnicity, color will go into the background. The Norwegian identity will be strengthened," Mehtab Afsar, the Islamic Council of Norway's general-secretary, told Reuters. "We are standing shoulder to shoulder with our Christian brothers and sisters in Norway."

Politically, it's less clear what the outcome of the attack will be. Raymond Johansen, the ruling Labor Party's general secretary, said yesterday that the shooting "will impact Norway and the political debate in Norway for many years." Does that mean bad news for the anti-immigrant Progress Party? Not necessarily, say political analysts. Local elections are set for September, and the Progress Party will "have to keep a low profile on the immigration issue in the upcoming election campaign simply to avoid being associated with the terrorist attack," Todal Jenssen, a Norwegian analyst, told Bloomberg News. But, the party is unlikely to see a major loss of political support since national traumas like last week's rampage "tend to breed cultural fears, which project onto immigrants or the unknown," Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Center for International Political Economy in Brussels, told Bloomberg. "The fantastic show of support for open society and the values of democracy will inevitably fade away and be overshadowed by suspicion of the unknown." As shocking as it is to believe, the Progress Party could actually benefit from Breivik's attack.

One Eritrean immigrant said he wasn't worried about any negative consequences: "The most important thing is what the majority thinks. And the majority is fine with us."

Among the many questions that remain over why and how a gunman was able to kill at least 76 people in Norway on Friday, perhaps nothing is more infuriating than the cushy fate that seems to await Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect. If you're going to go on a maniacal murder rampage and then not have the decency to include yourself in the body count -- Norway is the place to do it.

Norway takes the mantra of rehabilitation to an extreme. Not only are there no death sentences, there aren't life sentences. The maximum Breivik can face is 21 years (not per murder, but in total). Yes, there is a caveat that says a prisoner deemed to still be a threat can have his sentence expanded in five year blocks -- but in a very real sense, that means he will come up for parole every five years for the rest of his life -- or until he is no longer seen as a threat. Few killers in Norway serve more than 14 years.

The Norwegian prison system takes seriously the philosophy that inmates should be treated as humanely as possible and that jail sentences should be seen less as punishment than as an opportunity to reintegrate troubled people back into society. According to the numbers, this approach has some benefits -- only 20 percent of prisoners there eventually return to prison, as opposed to 50 - 60 percent in the United States and Britain. Violent crime is much lower than in other societies.

"Both society and the individual simply have to put aside their desire for revenge, and stop focusing on prisons as places of punishment and pain," one prison official said last year. "Depriving a person of their freedom for a period of time is sufficient punishment in itself without any need whatsoever for harsh prison conditions."

That's a fair point, but can the theory hold in a case like this? Will Breivik be seen as a person who can be rehabilitated and returned to society? And if not, what does the soft Norwegian prison system mean for him?

Wifi and Rock climbing walls

Norway doesn't have many jails to choose from (there are only 3,300 incarcerated prisoners in the whole country, compared to 2.5 million in the United States). Last year, Norway inaugurated its newest prison -- a campus that embodies its principles of rehabbing the worst of society.

With prisoners that include rapists and murderers, Halden Prison -- the second largest in the country and the most secure facility -- looks more like a sleepaway camp than a traditional prison -- architects say they purposely tried to avoid an "institutional feel." When it opened, some news accounts called it the "most humane" prison in the world. According to a Time magazine story last year:

Halden is spread over 75 acres (30 hectares) of gently sloping forest in southeastern Norway. The facility boasts amenities like a sound studio, jogging trails and a freestanding two-bedroom house where inmates can host their families during overnight visits. Unlike many American prisons, the air isn't tinged with the smell of sweat and urine. Instead, the scent of orange sorbet emanates from the "kitchen laboratory" where inmates take cooking courses.... To avoid an institutional feel, exteriors are not concrete but made of bricks, galvanized steel and larch; the buildings seem to have grown organically from the woodlands. And while there is one obvious symbol of incarceration -- a 20-ft. (6 m) concrete security wall along the prison's perimeter -- trees obscure it, and its top has been rounded off.

Prisoners' cells include flat screen TVs, minifridges, and long windows that let in more sunlight. Prisoners share kitchens and living rooms with sofas and coffee tables. There's a state-of-the-art gym with a climbing wall and expensive artwork commissioned for the prison. At other maximum security prisons, inmates have access to the internet, even in their jail cells.

Prison guards don't carry guns. And they are encouraged to be outgoing and friendly toward the inmates -- eating together and playing sports to "create a sense of family," one official said.

Other lower-security prisons in Norway (where violent criminals tend to end up after a few years) are even cushier -- with tennis courts, horseback riding, beaches, and ski trails (prisoners can participate in ski-jumping competitions in the winter at one facility). At an island prison (which includes murders and rapists as well) inmates work on a farm and live in "comfortable wooden houses shared between four to six inmates."

Societal criticism of prison life is somewhat faint (most of the criticism in the past has had to do with the fear that cushy jails could lure more organized crime to the country (one politician argued that some of the nicer prisons should "only be for Norwegian criminals.")

Time noted last summer that: "Norway's cultural values and attitudes toward crime mean the public sees no need to push for tougher penalties or harsher prisons."

The article also noted, "In Norway, acts of extreme violence are seen as aberrant events, not symptoms of national decay."

This unprecedented case could make Norwegians reexamine their thoughts on incarceration. For now, Breivik has been remanded to custody for eight weeks (he'll be held in isolation for the first month -- meaning no outside communication with anyone besides his lawyers). After that, if convicted, the alleged mass killer of at least 76 people may end up in a prison with a lovely rock-climbing wall to keep himself occupied.

Today's proceedings were interrupted for ten minutes after a man who was sitting in the fourth row of the audience "calmly walked up" to Rupert Murdoch and splattered him with a foam pie, yelling "Greedy."

Murdoch's wife Wendi leaped up and attacked the man. One Guardian reporter in the room tweeted: "Wendi can throw quite a punch."

She is the woman in the pinkish jacket in the below video who is leaping over other people to intersect the attacker:

On Twitter, a self-described anarchist, activist, and comedian who goes by Johnnie Marbles is claiming responsibility.

"It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat"

Earlier, he tweeted:

"I'm actually in this committee and can confirm: Murdoch is Mr. Burns."

And:

"Rupert Murdoch appears to be going senile #hackgate"

The man was handcuffed and dragged out of the committee room.

The room where the Murdochs are currently testifying looks more like a place you'd hold a school board meeting rather than a parliamentary committee hearing.  

Murdoch is very low energy and seems to not have a firm grasp of all the information being discussed. He takes long pauses before answering questions. As far as visuals go, Murdoch has had his head slumped down at times when he is not testifying -- looking as tired as he has said he feels.

According to the Guardian, the News Corp. strategy that seems to be emerging is to have James "talk as much as possible and keep the interventions of Rupert Murdoch to a minimum. The role of James Murdoch is to ‘translate' his father's curt responses into comprehensive replies."

But for the most part committee members have directed their questions to the senior Murdoch and not his son, who has been eager to answer. In fact, Rupert frequently has looked toward James, saying it's more appropriate that he answers.

But, on more than one occasion, MPs have said, "If we can just return to your father..."

A few key statements Rupert Murdoch has made so far:

On the reason he decided to shut down the News of the World:

"We had broken our trust with our readers."

Was it a "commercial" decision to shut down the paper?

"Far from [it]."

Is he [Rupert] responsible for "this whole fiasco?"

"No."

When asked who is, he replied:

"The people I trusted to run it and maybe the people they trusted. I worked with Mr. Hinton [Les Hinton, the former News International exec and Dow Jones chief who resigned last week] for 52 years and I would trust him with my life."

Did this scandal cross the ocean to the United States?

"I cannot believe it happened by anyone in America."

A moment of levity: One MP asked why the prime minister had Murdoch come in to 10 Downing Street through the back door, since even world leaders enter through the front.

"I was asked, I just did what I was told."

Murdoch said he was also asked to go through the back door by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The audience laughed.

For Rupert Murdoch, the three hours he'll spend in a small, "bland" committee room across from the House of Commons today, answering tough questions from MPs about phone-hacking and police-bribing within his company, is just about the most important three hours he's ever faced in his career.

On the line is very possibly the empire he's spent his entire adulthood building. In the past two weeks, the question being debated has gone from whether Murdoch's son, James, will remain his father's heir apparent, to whether Rupert will even be able to remain at the helm of News Corp. Board members are said to be unhappy with Murdoch's response to the crisis and are contemplating what was once unthinkable -- replacing him with his deputy, Chase Carey, if his performance today turns out to be disastrous -- as some board members fear it will.

The setting for Rupert couldn't be worse. Despite the fact that he controls a media empire, the tycoon has never been a very good public communicator. "He is awful at this sort of stuff," biographer Michael Wolff told the Guardian. "He is pretty inarticulate, mumbles all the time and is incredibly defensive."

He has never testified before parliament before and has only attended congressional hearings in the United States twice. There's a reason that so far the only interview he's given is to the Wall Street Journal -- his own paper (and even to them he raised a few eyebrows saying he was "tired.")

Murdoch has been preparing for the performance today like a candidate getting ready for a presidential debate. He's remained mostly behind closed doors for days rehearsing his answers with a team of advisors -- including lawyers and P.R. wizard Steven Rubenstein. But News Corp. executives who have watched Murdoch prepare are concerned about his ability to handle the tough questions, according to Bloomberg.

Murdoch will likely apologize again to the families of murder victims who had their phones hacked. But he is unlikely to accept criticism of his company's handling of the crisis, if the last week is any guide. He told the Wall Street Journal that News Corp. has handled the crisis "extremely well in every way possible" and only made "minor mistakes."

Also testifying today will be his son James and Rebekah Brooks, the former News International executive who was arrested over the weekend. Given the criminal cloud hanging over her, Brooks is unlikely to answer too many questions. Both James and Rupert will have lawyers sitting with them and may consult with them before answering questions.  

The parliamentarian chairing the committee hearing, Conservative MP John Whittingdale, has said he doesn't want the hearing to turn into a lynch mob.

But others on the committee have spoken of the need to ask aggressive or awkward questions. One person to keep an eye on is Labor MP Tom Watson, who is seen as a long-time critic of News International and the Murdochs (the Guardian called him Murdoch's "tormentor-in-chief"). He's solicited questions from constituents via Twitter. And he's likely to ask some very tough ones about alleged attempts to cover-up the scandal by James Murdoch -- who authorized paying millions of dollars to hacking victims over the years.

His stated goal: "To get Rupert Murdoch to apologize to the people his journalists have wronged."

Murdoch's goal now, it seems, is to survive.

Some interesting casting suggestions in this parody movie trailer (though, we suspect a real movie is on its way soon).

But will she be the last to fall on the sword? The knives are still out for Murdoch and his business empire. And focus has shifted to two important people in Rupert's inner sanctum. He might find the need to sacrifice one of them. But who will it be: the son and heir apparent, or one of his closest confidantes who has been with him for 50 years?  

James Murdoch

Given her proximity to the scandal, Brooks sucked up a lot of the media oxygen when it came to blame these past few weeks. But with her gone, that attention could shift to Rupert's heir apparent, James, Brook's boss at News International. British MPs have attacked the 38-year-old executive recently -- saying he has a lot of questions to answer. Chief among them: Why did he authorize payments to hacking victims in exchange for their silence? Critics are saying it smells an awful lot like a cover-up.  

The younger Murdoch has become something of a liability thanks to his response to the scandal -- which many say he was too slow to grasp the severity of.  And by transferring money to victims -- no matter what the reason -- he's only made things worse.

It might seem hard to believe Rupert would dump his own son in order to save his business, but he has had fall-outs with his children in the past that have led to them exiting the company.  And now that Murdoch's empire is under FBI investigation -- in addition to investigations in Britain and possibly soon Australia -- if Rupert believes it's his company or his son, you can bet he'll decide pretty quickly the kid has got to go.

Les Hinton

Few in Murdoch's world are closer to him than Les Hinton, the British news executive who Murdoch put in charge of Dow Jones after he purchased it in 2007. Before that, Hinton headed News International from 1995-2007, when the many dirty tricks were playing out under his watch. Back in 2006, Hinton told Parliament the hacking was limited to a single reporter. Of course, we know now that not only was it not just one reporter, it wasn't even one newspaper. Many of the media properties under his control were engaging in illegal practices. Critics say he either knew about it or he allowed the dirty culture to breed underneath him. He also didn't help himself by publicly backing the former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, who last week was arrested for his involvement in the hacking scandal.

Most problematic for Hinton -- he is the strongest connection between the British scandal and Murdoch's American empire. There are indications Murdoch may sell off his damaged British media properties altogether, but abandoning his stateside operations will never happen. And that means Minton might have to go.  

Update: Hinton resigned from News Corp. late today. A memo from Murdoch after the jump:

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