“If the Europeans deliver weapons, then Europe’s backyard will become terrorist, and Europe will pay the price for it,” the dictator was quoted as telling German daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Well that precisely the argument Muammar Qaddafi used to legitimize his reign of terrorism in Libya. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. Europe will be safer with a democratic neighbours.
I snapped this picture when driving about the Swedish countryside a few days ago.
I have a thing for maps. When I searched after some historic maps of Europe, I found this interactive version of our continent through the centuries. There are, however, a few minor mistakes in it. For example, Scania—the region at the southernmost tip of Scandinavia—did not become Swedish until 1658.
So say a girl in an Guardian article about eyeball-licking, a popular Japanese fetish that is making teenagers ill. What a dull place the world would be with our Japan’s apatite for the more bizarre fringes of human sexuality!
The three water-nymphs—Woglinde, Wellgunde, and Floßhilde—in a 1876 production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. Splendid madness! I can’t believe anyone could sing in these merry-go-rounds.
The famous designer makes the dog tag for Stockholm Gay Pride 2013. Cool!
American writer Leon Wieseltier says, “Unless there is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there will not be a Jewish state for very long.”
This is what he’s talking about:
In the next few decades, the number of Palestinians is expected to exceed the number of Jews living in areas now under Israeli control. Those who agree with Wieseltier insist that if Israel maintains the status quo, where Palestinians in the West Bank can’t vote, but Israeli Jews can, it will end the country’s democracy but maintain its Jewish character. Or it could grant Palestinians equal rights, including voting rights, threatening the country’s Jewish majority.
The Moscow News reports about a new survey:
Negative sentiment towards homosexuality has grown over the last six years, according to the poll, which was conducted over the weekend. A total of 88 percent support the government’s bid to ban propaganda of homosexuality among children, a figure that has grown by two percent over the last year, ever since the proposals for the ban were introduced. A total of 42 percent said they believed homosexuality should be a punishable crime. In 2007, that figure was only 19 percent.
Meanwhile, the Russian Parliament approves a bill that bans “homosexual propaganda” to minors.
To me, it’s surrealistic that people can hate love between consenting adults so much only because the lovers have the same sex.
Picture: Rembrandt’s (1606–1669) The Stoning of Saint Stephen (1625).