I had forgot what day it is when I set about to do some shopping, but I was soon reminded as my car became trapped between a communist demonstration and some anti-capitalism street party. I was stuck in my car for an hour, surrounded by police. Thankfully, I had my iPhone, which—ironically—the free market made possible.

While the very young anarchists shouted something about killing the rich and smashing patriarchy, I listened to Leonard Cohen. Watching an angry teenage girl in pink hair screaming to the sound and lyrics of “Bird on the Wire” was quite interesting—in a surrealist sort of way.

Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
Like a knight from some old-fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

Notice the red five-pointed star to the left in the screenshot. It looks exactly like a well-known socialist symbol that the Soviet Union made popular amongst communists and tyrants. I found the red star on the new website of Sveriges Radio, Sweden’s public-broadcasting radio. Perhaps this is a subtle way of acknowledging that the company is in fact a leftist propaganda machine, which is what libertarians and conservatives have said for decades.

I realise that the link to socialism is unintentional. But considering the common criticism of Sweden’s “public service” media, I thought it a bit funny to see a red star on the website.

Sweden’s centre-left opposition has presented its budget proposal. If the three-party coalition wins the general election on 19 September, it will put an even harder tax burden on working people in order to subsidise people who don’t work. People who start their own business or try to do better by working more hours will be punished while those who do the least will get more. The socialists call it justice when workers are forced to give up two thirds of their income in taxes. I call it part-time slavery.

Someone emailed this link to me. Perhaps they thought I had a foot fetish. In any case, I think it is hilarious. I wonder who came up with this.

I always feel guilty when my blogging goes slow and sporadic, as if I had an obligation to produce a certain amount of text every day. Well, the thing is that I am very busy reading at the moment. My professor has assigned me to catch up on twentieth-century Swedish classics in the field of philosophy of religion, so reading is what I do. I must admit that the religious debate that went on a century ago seems very distant now. Back then, Sweden was still a very homogenous country. The Muslims had not yet arrived (they began to come in the 1940s) and the Jews were limited in numbers. Everyone was Christian and a member of the Lutheran Church, and the debate amongst philosophers of religion mirrored that.

Anyhow, now you know why the blogging is a bit slow.

The police questioned a far-right politician in Malmö yesterday after he told Swedish Muslims to leave Sweden at a rally against Islam. Some Muslims confronted the Islamophobic politician before the police interfered. During the turmoil, someone shouted “Jew” at the politician.

What a wonderful city I live in! Far-right extremists rally against Muslims who, in response, see it fit to demonstrate their anti-Semitism. The only thing missing now is the mayor doing his usual routine and blame it all on Zionism.

Thanks to a few brave Liberal MPs, Denmark took one big step towards equal rights for gay families.

The Pride Parades in Tel Aviv and Eilat are well known, but this year, a group of gay activists wants to parade in Rishon LeZion, a city of about 250,000 people. But one local politician is opposed to the parade:

Municipality member Shmuel Jameel, who is heading the campaign against the parade, addressed the municipality directorate and demanded that its members object to holding the event.

“Most members of the directorate oppose the parade. It is not educational and unacceptable—not only for religious reasons, but also for social and educational reasons. Such a thing cannot be done in public,” Jameel added.

I am curious to know what Mr Jameel thinks a Gay Pride Parade is about. I bet it is a lot more fun, filthy, and sexy than what my experience from such events tells me. And for educational—I bet the drag queens can teach the locals one or two things about sun-proof foundation. You never know when such knowledge becomes useful.

The socialist opposition has been ahead of the government coalition since the election four years ago. Everything seemed set for a socialist win in the September election. But a new opinion poll suggests that the four-party government alliance is now more popular. Good news!

From the petition website:

On Saturday 8 May, Lithuania is set to host the 2010 Baltic Pride which celebrates diversity and champions human rights. It will be the first ever Pride event to take place in Lithuania.

However, LGBT people in Lithuania are still subject to discrimination and intolerance, and the Lithuanian authorities have cancelled all previously planned public LGBT events in the country.

Pressure is mounting on the Vilnius City Council to revoke its authorisation of the 2010 Baltic Pride march. There are still concerns that the necessary security arrangements will not be put in place by the Vilnius Police.

Show your support for the 2010 Baltic Pride and demand that LGBT people’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly are respected and protected in Lithuania.

Sign the petition now!

George Galloway, the craziest man in British politics lost his seat in the general election on Thursday. Good!

I haven’t commented on the British election. There’s not much to say at the moment. We still don’t know who is the next prime minister. The election resulted in a hung parliament, with neither of the big parties in majority. The latest news is that the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats are discussing a coalition or alliance of some sort. Labour’s Gordon Brown stays in Downing Street for the time being. He, too, has suggested a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Personally, I would like to see a Liberal-Conservative coalition government with David Cameron as prime minister. I think the Liberal Democrats could do some good to the Conservatives, especially on issues related to the European Union and civil liberties. I also think the Conservatives would be good for the Liberal Democrats, hopefully influencing them on issues related to trade, taxes, and defence.

But for now I’m happy the racist bigmouth George Galloway is gone.

On 9 May 1950, Robert Schuman presented what would later be known as the “Schuman Declaration”. In this document, he outlines his ideas for an organised Europe. This proposal is considered the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union. This is why 9 May is Europe Day.

Jacob Stein writes a blog called Jewish Philosopher. He describes himself as an Orthodox Jew. Mr Stein is neither a philosopher nor an Orthodox Jew—he is merely a bloodthirsty lunatic using religion to legitimise his perverted ideas.

One of these ideas of his is that the United States should alter the constitution to allow the beheading of gay men. This is the proper Talmudic punishment for a man who falls in love with another man, at least if the two men manifest their love for one another through sex.

Mr Stein represents what I would like to label Taliban Judaism, i.e., an aggressive and unreasoning approach to Halacha (Jewish religious law). The irony is that Stein—like fundamentalists of all religions—believes he represent a more authentic form of Judaism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is also interesting to note that nearly all sources Mr Stein uses are Christian organisations devoted to homophobia. NARTH, short for the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, is a good example. This organisation has no genuine interest in the truth; its aim is to legitimise hatred and discrimination of gay people. What better way to do that than providing homophobes with quasi-academic research to prove that their wish to kill gay people is legit?

What is Taliban Judaism? Well, the best way to answer that question is to read Jacob Stein’s arguments for beheading gay Americans:

I believe that the United States government should amend the Constitution to make male to male anal intercourse a capital crime.

Modern secular people are shocked by this. After all, if two consenting adult men in private enjoy this behavior, why should anyone interfere?

The first and most important reason is: Because God said so. Leviticus 20:13 states “And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Of course, we must obey God’s command without question or hesitation, just as Abraham was prepared to kill his beloved son Isaac (Genesis 22). Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.

The truth, however, is that the Torah’s severe prohibition of male to male anal intercourse has many obvious practical benefits.

Most seriously, male homosexuality represents a huge public health problem.

Because the rectum is designed to hold feces and not to receive a penis, the walls of the rectum are thinner, dryer and more rigid than the walls of the vagina. This makes anal intercourse an ideal way to transmit disease and infection.

In addition to this, male homosexuals are usually promiscuous.

It doesn’t take a lot of medical knowledge to realise that a community of millions of men who are randomly having anal sex with each other is the ideal breeding ground for sexual diseases and for the development of new, more dangerous, ones. The AIDS epidemic may be a divine punishment for homosexuality, but only in the sense that breaking ones neck is a punishment for jumping out a window. It’s worthwhile noting that the United States, which has completely legalised homosexuality, has an HIV rate 60 times higher than Saudi Arabia, which has a death penalty for homosexuality. Encouraging condom usage has not really solved the problem.

The American Red Cross will not accept a blood donation from practicing male homosexuals.

Unfortunately, homosexuals do not keep these diseases to themselves, since many have sex with women as well and then these infections spread to the larger community. In addition, homosexuals are likely to have sex with minor boys.

It’s also difficult to believe that homosexuality is something genetically transmitted and unchangeable like skin color. Like for example alcoholism, there is a genetic influence, however culture plays a huge role. Until the 1944 murder of a homosexual, the New York Times makes no reference whatsoever to a homosexual residing in the New York area. Could they all have been so secretive for generations? It seems hardly likely.

Don’t be surprised if Jacob Stein flies an aeroplane into a building or blows himself up in a gay bar. That is the logical next step for people who have convinced themselves that God wants them to kill.

Sometimes you find the most peculiar books in the library. Today I came across this book on sexual solipsism. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to read it, but the subject makes me wonder if it’s about some very intense form of masturbation. Perhaps Masturbat ergo sum (I touch myself, therefore I am) would be an appropriate slogan?

The Jewish homeland—along with Estonia and Slovenia—has been invited to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is pleased about the failure of the anti-Israel boycotters. So am I.

Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, a geophysicist from the University of Iceland, to the BBC:

“We know of four Eyjafjallajokull eruptions in the past [dating back to AD 500] and in three out of these four cases, there has been a Katla eruption either at the same time or shortly after.

“By shortly, I mean timescales of months to a year.

“We consider that the probability of Katla erupting in the near future has increased since Eyjafjallajokull went.”

A new Swedish study suggests every fourth man aged 20-24 would rather run the risk of infection than decline sex in the absence of a condom. The authorities are shocked and have launched a campaign aimed to make young men use protection. Personally, I am more shocked about the suggestion that 75 per cent say they would not risk an infection for sex. I think there has to be something wrong with this study.

In the new campaign, the government tries to tell us that when we have sex with someone, we also have sex with everyone this person has ever had sex with. This is scare-tactics from the 1980s all over again. I don’t like it. I think this moralism will only hurt the cause.

More in Swedish here.

“Anyone who doesn’t occasionally fantasise about group sex is a boring toad,” a reader writes on The Local’s website.

The latest news from London is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is leaving Downing Street. The negotiation between Labour and the Liberal Democrats is over.

A leader in the Jerusalem Post argues that potential converts in Israel should be given the freedom to choose among the different streams of Judaism. I agree.

Britain has a new government. David Cameron is happy. Nick Clegg is happy. The gay community seems happy, too.

“I’m off to California on Saturday to speak to people in the film business about a long-standing idea I’ve had to do a Michael Moore-type treatment of the Palestinian conflict,” Mr Galloway—Saddam Hussein’s former friend—told the The Times. “I think I could present well—do the Michael Moore part well. The story is attractive and controversial. I like trying to do things that have never been done before.”

Oh, dear.

(Via the Jewish Chronicle.)

Andrew Sullivan is annoyed that no one asks Obama’s Supreme Court nominee if she is gay, as if the question were too sensitive. I don’t know, maybe it still is. But it shouldn’t be. So, to ask someone if they are gay ought not to be a bigger taboo than, say, ask someone if they are left-handed—or Jewish.

In a speech earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reminded the world of how things were when Jerusalem was divided. It didn’t help the peace then, so what says a division of the city would do anything to help the peace now? In my opinion, nothing.

Besides, there is very bad experience of Israel leaving disputed territory to the Palestinians. Every time the Israelis have done so, it has only resulted in more attacks.

I’m no big fan of Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist who has made it his art to humiliate the Prophet Muhammad and to bully Muslims. But when he is physically attacked for speaking his mind about Islam, the attackers violate his human rights just as much as those who wish to criminalise important religious symbols. The right to freely speak one’s mind is as important as the right to practice one’s religion. Therefore, I sign this petition in support of Lars Vilks’s freedom of expression.

Update: Video of the attack on Lars Vilks here.

Two awful pieces of news related to anti-Semitism reach me this evening:

• Neo-Nazis desecrates a Jewish cemetery in the northern Greece.
• Ove Svidén, a candidate for the liberal Swedish Centre Party, blames the Jews for 9/11 and the Holocaust.

Extremism seems to on the upraise. Scary.

Orin Kerr offers his amateurish speculation on why all Supreme Court Judges are either Jewish or Catholic when only about 24% of adult Americans are Catholic and less than 2% of adult Americans are Jewish. Could it have something to do with abortion?

It’s an interesting thought. The Catholic Church has been the strongest opponent to legal abortion whereas no mainstream Jewish movement sincerely questions abortions on ethical grounds. According to traditional Judaism, a human life begins at birth. This should not suggest that Jews don’t take abortion seriously, but the Jewish faith doesn’t agree with Catholicism, which holds that human life begins at conception.

The British police conduct secret investigations of travellers. They consider people extra suspicious if they have bought a one-way ticket, made a last-minute reservation, ordered a vegetarian meal, or asked for an over-wing seat. I understand why they see vegetarians as potential terrorists—people who hate animals that much can only be assumed to hate humans, too. (Make pause for laughs.) But why are last-minute travellers suspects? Terrorists are normally upper-class snobs in first class.

Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma says straight soldiers will not fight for gay soldiers. Therefore, he wants a continued ban on openly gays serving in the United States Army. This not being the experience of any other army. When the British and the Israelis lifter their ban on gay soldiers, nothing of the sort happened. And the Americans know this because they have sent their top men from Pentagon to study in Britain and Israel. From what I have learned from gay friends who served in the Israeli army, their sexual orientation was never an issue at all. Their fellow soldiers asked question and made some silly comments, but when they had a job to do it never came up.

What’s so sad about the American debate is that the conservatives who defend the gay ban portray the American soldier as a very insecure and unethical man, much weaker than his foreign colleagues. I don’t think that is fair to the American soldier.

The Swedish Centre Party take action against its anti-Semitic politician.

Der Spiegel has an interview with Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank. I don’t have much to say about it, except that he has some interesting thoughts on the euro. Also, there is some good read-between-the-lines criticism of Europe’s top politicians.

Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, a high-ranking religious leader in Shia Islam, calls for the creation of an “Islamic United States” to rule over the entire Middle East and Central Asia. The new, Islamist state would stretch from Afghanistan to Israel, bringing about the destruction of the Jewish state and everything secular in Arab culture.

More theocracy is not what the region needs. The Muslim countries need democracy and civil rights. And Islam needs a progressive movement that embraces individualism, reform, and equality.

On Tuesday, a Muslim mob attacked artist Lars Vilks at Uppsala University. On Wednesday, his was hacked by cyber terrorists. On Saturday, someone set Vilks’s home on fire. On Sunday, two men were arrested for the arson attack.

Noam Chomsky has been denied entry to Israel. Why would he even consider a trip to the country he hates so much? Considering the man’s love for Iran, that would be a better travel destination.

Well, in Chomsky’s Bizarro World it makers sense. I mean, he lives in the United States—which he hates even more than Israel—and he resides in a mansion worth millions even though he hates capitalism.

The euro has lost value against the American dollar and the dystopians predict disaster. Unlike them, I don’t see a collapse of the euro anytime soon. I’m sure Europe will get through this turmoil, too.

Yes, it’s true.

– Is it kosher?
– What is the robots’ opinion on gay marriage?

I don’t know.

The gap between the two blocs in Swedish politics is tiny now.

That is why I don’t respond to your email.

Update on 18 May: It’s working again.

This letter to President Obama illustrates how absurd the ban on gay soldiers is:

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing to you from a kitchen in the state of Washington. The love of my life is in the other room. It has been eight months since I saw him last and I cherish every moment we spend together. Next week, my mid-tour leave will be over and I will return to Iraq and finish my second deployment. I don’t know when I’ll see my partner again.

When serving in a war zone, you learn quite a bit about yourself and what’s important to you. I’ve had the chance to work on a close and personal level with the people of Iraq, and in doing so, I have realised more than ever that the freedoms we enjoy as Americans should not be taken for granted – we must protect them at all costs. These freedoms are essential to the very foundation of our society. Yet so many men and women who fight for these freedoms aren’t allotted their own. Our freedom to love and be loved by whomever we choose. The freedom to live of a life of truth and dignity.

Recently I was informed that the military was investigating me for violating the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. Another service member had apparently “outed” me. At first I felt free: I didn’t have to lie anymore. But after that initial sense of relief, I’m left knowing just how little the Pentagon and the United States government think of me.

Read the letter in full here.

Progress is in the air. Except in the Vatican, where the Pope is moaning about equality being one of “today’s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good.”

Christopher Hitchens is worried about the Iranian call for an Islamic United States.

I wrote about it here.

Ben is filled with a great sense of satisfaction that he is only two degrees of separation from having given Paul Anka a daily blowjob. It’s quite an achievement for a straight guy with a bad throat.

The Local’s blog 100% Lagom is not lagom at all.

A giraffe by Danish artist Bernard Lipsøe.

Pakistan’s government has ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook in protest of a page that encourages users to post images of the Prophet Muhammad. Meanwhile, the Muslims are mobilizing on Facebook. Here is the score right now:

• The Facebook page “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” has 44,839 fans. (This is the page now blocked in Pakistan.)
• The Facebook page “AGAINST ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!’” has 60,627 fans.

On 24 May, the Swedish Humanist Association will arrange a lecture on male circumcision followed by a panel debate on the subject. My sources tell me that they have told a Jewish mohel that he will not be allowed to participate in the discussion, as he does not oppose male circumcision. The event is strictly for people with no personal experience of circumcision—at least no one with positive experiences that could endanger the perception of Jewish circumcision as the ultimate child abuse.

From a leader in The Economist:

Europeans’ hostility to the burqa is understandable. It doesn’t just deprive them of the beauty of women’s faces; it offends the secularism that goes deep in European—and especially French—culture. Its spread goes hand in hand with the growth of a fundamentalist version of Islam some of whose proponents have attacked the secular societies they live in; and, at a time when those societies feel under threat, the burqa makes it harder for police to identify security risks.

For people raised outside the Gulf or Afghanistan, dealing with somebody whose facial expressions are hidden is uncomfortable. Unlike the headscarf, the burqa appears, in itself, to be a restraint on female freedom, and also symbolises what many Europeans see as the repression that women can suffer in Islam.

But:

Yet the very values which Europeans feel are threatened by the burqa demand that they oppose a ban. Liberal societies should let people wear what they want unless there is a strong argument otherwise. And, in this case, the three arguments for a ban—security, sexual equality and secularism—do not stand up. On security, women can be required to lift their veils if necessary. On sexual equality, women would be better protected by the enforcement of existing laws against domestic violence than by the enactment of new laws forcing them to dress in a way that may be against their will. On secularism, even if Europeans would prefer not to have others’ religiosity paraded on the streets, the tolerance that Westerners claim to value requires them to put up with it.

Correct. What many people forget is that freedom of religion is one of the reasons democratic Europe can claim moral superiority. But if the militant secularists get their way, we lose that superiority as totalitarian and theocratic states can rightfully say that we behave just as they do. Forcing everyone to convert to Christian-style atheism is not what a free society is about.

Europe’s dogmatic atheists resemble mediaeval Christians. The new war on religious minorities is on. Read Shelina Zahra Janmohamed’s blog entry about Europe’s new burqa laws.

Despite condemnation from the international community, Uganda plans to introduce a draconian new law against homosexuality, which proposes the death penalty for so-called “serial offenders”.

Watch John Simpson’s BBC report from Uganda here.

After the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, the Holocaust, and the confiscation of Jewish property in Europe, many European Jews gave up all hope of a decent life in the Diaspora and began to see the Zionist movement and its idea of a modern Jewish state in Palestine as their only chance of survival. At the time, this solution pleased the Europeans, too.

Despite these historical experiences of anti-Semitism, some Europeans keep agitating for yet another war on the Jewish people. Now they want the Jews to leave their homeland, too. Swedish blogger Niklas Dougherty—who once held liberal views but now hovers about the extreme right—suggests all Israeli Jews be deported to Greenland.

I have a better idea, why not send all anti-Semites to some remote island where they can preach hatred in solitude?

I never thought the day would come when I credited Noam Chomsky for saying something positive, but here we go. Via L. O. Kristoffer Ejnermark’s blog:

“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.”

Philosopher Chomsky had a good day.

Again! This is an annual tradition we can do without.

Ecology professor Erik Svensson has written an article blaming Greece’s huge financial crisis on libertarians. “Libertarianism should be as politically discredited as Stalinism, Nazism, and other authoritarian ideologies,” he writes. This is advanced newspeak even for a Swedish academic with a Karl Marx portrait on his blog. It takes a lot of guts—or brain damage—to equate libertarian opposition to government interference with Stalin and Hitler’s genocidal regimes.

I think Herr Professor should keep to frogs.

There has been a First Dog in the White House for some time now, but I have never heard of a First Rat before.

In the time of the Second Temple, there were three Torah scrolls, each slightly inconsistent with the others. Since there was no way to determine which text was the original, the priests and rabbis said the version that appeared in two out of the three scrolls was to be accepted as the standard text, even if the minority text, in theory, might have borne the original version. The result of the method gave us the Torah that Jews around the world use today. But what if we are reading the wrong texts? What if the odd text was in fact the original one?

Now there is a discussion amongst expert on how to use modern science to reconstruct the original Torah. Some theists argue that the contemporary Torah came to be not because of human activity but because God wanted this version.

The Jerusalem Post has more.

There’s no discrimination against homosexuals because there are no homosexuals.

European media is silent when civilian Israelis are attacked, but I’m sure there are now thousands of journalists bust preparing sob reports about innocent Palestinians being attacked by evil Jews in American fighter jets.

Haaretz has more.

Nader Helawis, a Sweden Democrat of Iraqi Chaldean Christian origin, is a smart man. He realised that the only way he could win votes in Södertälje—a Swedish town with a large Muslim population—was to appeal to the only thing the Muslim community and the Islamophobic Sweden Democrats has in common, namely homophobia. The irony is that if his party had been in power, he had not been allowed to live in Sweden. But now that he is here, he has decided to run for Södertälje City Council. If elected, he wants to combat the Muslims whose votes he now seeks in his campaign against gay rights. Religious Muslims and gays have no place in Mr Helawis’s vision of a Sweden based on Christian values.

Sydsvenska Dagbladet has more in Swedish here.

A reader writes, “Why do you blog in English when you’re a Swede and lives in Sweden?”

I get this question quite often. And I understand why it puzzles people.

Had I blogged in Swedish, I would probably have had more readers. But I love the English language. I lived and studied in Britain for a while as a teenager, and one of the things I remember best is the astonished face on my English teacher when I handed in my essays. He couldn’t figure out how I, a foreigner from Scandinavia, could master the English language better than most of my peers, who were native Britons. He often told me that, and since I was an odd boy with few friends, these flattering remarks from my English teacher were very important to me.

The secret of my success had to do with my falling in love with the English language. I actually spent many evenings studying style guides, dictionaries, and grammar book—for fun. (The boys in my dormitory thought I was mad.) When I found a new word I liked or discovered some new punctuation technique, I tried to use it in my assignments.

I have tried to maintain my flow in English since. Blogging in English is one way to keep it up.

In short, I’m an Anglophile. I often think in English, I prefer to read English literature, and I listen to British and American radio programming on a daily basis.

Some people have suggested that my English-language blogging is only an attempt to show off, a sign of snobbishness. It’s not. I do it for the same reason people blog about fashion or food—out of personal interest.

Fewer Swedish readers is a negative consequence of blogging in English when you live in Sweden. That’s annoying sometimes; especially when I think I have a really clever take on some big event in Swedish politics. On the other hand, my choice of language has built me an international readership. Soon after I dropped the bilingual blogging, I noticed that readers from all parts of the world began to send me emails. I now have a big network of online friends and news sources. And I can tell from the statistics I get from Google that I would lose about half of my readers if I switched back to Swedish.

Thank you all for reading, and keep sending me emails about things you think I might be interested in.

Let’s get caught up in the Tiger Woods drama! I vote yes, Elin should take the 750 million dollars and sign the confidentiality clause. Read the latest gossip here. Vote about it here.

For the record: No, I don’t care about Elin and Tiger, I’m just bored.

This is unbelievably stupid:

A 29-year-old gay man is going to be deported from Canada to Iran, where he could face death by stoning for charges of sodomy. The young man, identified only as Yaser, had his deportation ordered after the Immigration Refugee Board determined that he could not be gay because he could not identify the rainbow flag and didn’t attend a Pride parade.

The ongoing turmoil in the international currency market has given new energy to the people who never liked the European Union to begin with. They find it hard to hide their joy as they predict the end of the euro. But even though the EU faces huge problems, we should remember that the Eurosceptics—especially those in Britain—have always predicted an imminent collapse of the EU and the euro. I think they were wrong before, and I think they are wrong now. The EU will not collapse and the euro will survive. However, it will take some courage from Europe’s top politicians.

In contrast to the Eurosceptics in Britain, Hans-Werner Sinn of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich believes the euro is overvalued. The euro’s true value lies at around $1.14, he writes.

Nothing unites foes as a common enemy. Machiavelli knew this, and so he recommended political leaders to declare war against other nations to settle domestic unrest.

Could Iran play the role of the “common enemy” in the Middle East? “Despite the outward condemnation of Israel by many Arab Muslim states, there are persistent stories of behind-the-scenes cooperation between these blood enemies against the common foe Iran,” American intelligence analyst Ryan Mauro writes.

Read his article in full here.

Being overweight or obese is not easy. People look at you with disgust and you are less likely to find a life partner and a good job. Yet, more and more people are getting too heavy. Obesity is an epidemic—even in places where you might think poverty would make overeating impossible.

Marc Ambinder knows what it is like to be obese in America. He has written a personal and very informative article about it for The Atlantic. Read it here.

In this video, ABC News tests the American public’s attitudes towards gays being openly discriminated.

Update: The video has been removed from the Internet.

With slogans like “I like bikes but Jesus is my life”, 25,000 people partook in the annual Jesus Manifestation in Stockholm on Saturday. The event began three years ago as an anti-Pride manifestation, but has since grown to something more positive and less homophobic.

They do this sort of thing all the time; it’s hardly news any more, it’s just boring and predictable. Still, the biased information about the Middle East conflict results in the kind of violence against Swedish Jews and synagogues we have seen in Malmö. Not that the missionaries of hate care about that.

A new study suggests Swedes hold increasingly more positive attitudes towards immigrants and foreigners. And a new opinion poll shows a sharp drop in support of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats. This is good news for most, but it is a bad for the racists who thought they would win seats in the Riksdag in the September general election.

He has agitated in favour of genocide, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and racism—now he feels he is himself a victim whose identity should be protected by the authorities. When denied protected identity, he uses racism to help his appeal against the authorities.

Some people are just not very bright.

A new survey has found that support for same-sex marriage in America is up to about 44% while opposition is down to 53%.

It has been around for a while, but only in a small circulation distributed secretly amongst gay men. But now, the Moroccan gay magazine Mithly is online. So far, it is available for reader in Morocco. But it would not surprise me if the Moroccan authorities will do what they can to stop it.

In a letter to Congress, a coalition of ten major Jewish organisations urges America to repeal the military ban on gays serving openly. “We believe this policy is unjust and become an anomaly among western nations,” the letter says. “Advanced militaries throughout the world, including many of our NATO allies and Israel, allow gay, lesbian and bisexual personnel to serve openly. It is time for the United States to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and we encourage you and colleagues to act swiftly.”

A group of European socialists and Middle Eastern Islamists are sailing towards the Gaza Strip. It is a publicity stunt. The message is that Israel I starving the Palestinians living in Gaza, but the truth is the exact opposite. Israel controls Gaza’s border to prevent Hamas from obtaining material for rockets and other weapons, but there is no shortage of food or building material.

The organisers of “Ship to Gaza” will probably succeed in getting their distorted story through. Europeans and Arabs love to hear about the evil Jews who suppress the innocent Palestinians.

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese terror organisation Hezbollah, has said his terrorist army would attack ships approaching Israel in any future war.

More here.

Sweden’s heir to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, will marry Daniel Westling on 19 June. The Swedish media is filled with stories about the event, from all possible angles.

Today I read that the King is considering giving Mr Westling the rank of Royal Highness as his personal gift. This would not even be an issue had it not been for the gender of the two. The woman who marries a Crown Prince is automatically styled Crown Princess and given the same rank as her husband. But for some reason, everything becomes more complicated when it is the other way around. Mr Westling will never become Crown Prince and his future rank is open for debate.

In my opinion, anything less than equal rank would be sexist. If I had anything to say about it, I would alter the constitution and make men who marry into the Royal Family equal to women who marry into it. In other words, I would like to se Mr Westling as not only a Royal Highness but Crown Prince, too.

While on the subject of rank and styling, I remember one funny episode in the Netherlands last year. The Dalai Lama was on an official visit, and he is normally addressed “Your Holiness” on such occasions, but one person—it think it was a government minister—did not know what to say, so he bowed and said, “Welcome, You Divine Being”.

If I could pick a rank for myself, I would go with “Your Fabulousness”.

The eleven Swedes who are heading towards the Gaza Strip should stay there.

A group of Israeli politicians has decided to do something about the harassment of non-Orthodox Jews. Good!

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has released its annual report. Things are particularly grim for Jews in Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia as the governments of theses states encourage anti-Semitism.

Pro-Hamas activists are sailing towards Gaza camouflaged as humanitarian aid. From a leader in the Jerusalem Post:

If these activists were truly concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza, they would happily have accepted Israel’s offer to facilitate the transfer of their humanitarian cargo to Gaza, after it was inspected to ensure that it contained no arms. Their initial refusal to grant the Schalit family’s request to deliver packages to their son Gilad—who has been held in Hamas captivity for almost four years without access to the Red Cross, in stark violation of international law—was a further indication of these activists’ underwhelming championing of humanitarianism.

And:

Hamas-controlled Gaza … is a major obstacle to any future peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Even if Israel manages to progress in negotiations with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, any peace agreement would be unimplementable so long as the implacably rejectionist Hamas controls Gaza.

If the activists behind the Freedom Flotilla were sincerely interested in advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinians, they would be castigating Hamas for its unrelenting rejectionism and urging it to relinquish power or shift toward positions that would enable a viable two-state solution. Instead, those activists are attempting to shift the focus from the nightmare reality Hamas has created for Gazans to a misrepresentation of Israel’s attempt to protect itself from the terror state on its southern doorstep.

Correctomundo!

Sweden’s GDP is up. What will the socialist opposition do now? Lie about the figures and distort reality, probably. I bet they will somehow make this good news into something bad for “ordinary people”. That is the beauty of Marxism: no matter how good the achievements of the opponents to communism, there is always some “inequality” to milk for those who need proof of failure.

The “war on drugs” is a metaphor for the utopian idea of narcotics being eradicated from the world through punishment and prohibition. Alexander Bard, Louise Person, Per Ghosh, and Oscar Solberger have written an article—in Swedish—about the failed war on drugs. Read it here.

Contrary to popular belief, things are not getting better for gay people. In fact, it is only in Europe and America gay people can enjoy the basic human rights that are supposed to be universal. In this week’s issue, The Economist has an article about the horrific spread of homophobia, which is often sanctioned by the government. If you are a subscriber to The Economist, you can read the article here.

I don’t know why, but I spent he entire evening watching the Eurovision Song Contest on television. Germany won.

This is absurd. No country would allow ships to enter its territory without any control of their cargo, but when Israel does what all other nations do, the anti-Israel lobby turns it into a media circus. Is it really that difficult to understand that Israelis want to prevent further rockets attacks? What other country would accept that thousands of rockets rain over its civilian areas?

The Israelis will stop the ships. Brace yourself for sob stories about starving Palestinians and evil Jews with American backup. Don’t expect to read a word about the fact that the United Nations and others confirm that the people in Gaza have all the food and medicine they need. And don’t expect a word about rocket attacks—other than those carried out by the Israel Defence Forces.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives approves President Obama’s request for 205 million dollars to help Israel protect itself from Palestinian terrorism. Good!

The headline says it all. I have never seen pigs swim before.

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On Tuesday, I wrote about the royal wedding and the speculation about what titles the Crown Princess’s future husband will have. Now it has been set. After the marriage, Daniel Westling will be known as His Royal Highness Prince Daniel of Sweden, the Duke of Västergötland. Fancy.

Andrew Brown reads Stieg Larsson’s novels and meditates on contemporary Sweden:

Crime fiction always exaggerates, and Swedish left-wing crime fiction, the tradition to which Larsson belongs, is a genre quite as stylised as Agatha Christie’s. There will always be villainous millionaires and noble women. It is not enough to be a sadistic serial killer: You have to vote conservative as well. But what has changed since the genre was invented in the 1960s by the husband and wife team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö is the overwhelming loss of confidence in the future, and in the state. This does reflect reality.

The story of Sweden over the last 50 years has been one of a steady loss of exceptionalism. In some ways the outside world has grown more “Swedish”—we all wear seatbelts, drink less, and believe in gender equality. At the same time, Sweden has grown much more worldly—it drinks more, works and earns less, and struggles with the assimilation of immigrants. The Swedes themselves no longer believe in a Swedish model, or, when they do, it’s very different from the heavily regulated “people’s home” of myth.

Al Jazeera reports that the terrorist organisation is preparing a grand welcome for the activists onboard the flotilla now heading towards Gaza. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that Israeli warships have make contact with the ships. The Israeli plan is to board the ships and steer them towards Ashdod. It is highly unlikely the activists will remain peaceful, as their goal is to portray Israel as a tyrannical state that oppresses the peace-loving Hamas.

Update: More in Swedish here and here. Needless to say, both articles are extremely biased. The Israelis are portrayed as evil, the activists as heroes.

Andrew Sullivan is right. It’s absurd that a politician feels he must hide his homosexuality to save his job. Unfortunately, it is not restricted to politicians. Men—and women—everywhere lie about their family life on a daily basis because they fear the consequences of being honest. This is why so many people think there are so very few gays around.

Two Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded after clashes with militant “peace activists” aboard a Turkish ship headed for Gaza. The Turkish prime minister calls Israeli self defence an act of “state terrorism”, which is ironic considering Turkey’s long track record of state terrorism against the Kurds and its denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Nineteen extremists were killed as they attacked the Israeli soldiers. But overall, it has been a great day for anti-Israel activists everywhere. They could not have wished for a better opportunity to spread their distorted propaganda. Around the world, extremists are now rallying against Israel.

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This is extremely collectivistic, even by Swedish socialist standards. Torbjörn Tännsjö, professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University, writes:

When violent crimes are committed by fundamentalist Muslim groups Muslims all over the world are rightfully called to come forward to condemn the crimes—in order to show that these actions are not consonant with a reasonable Muslim belief. We see this over and over again. Now the time has come for Jews, individuals and organisations, to do the same, in order to obviate anti-Semitism.

Nuts.

Read Danny Kaplan’s article in Foreign Policy.

Only moments ago, these pictures were released from the Israel Defence Forces. So much for peace activists. Political hooligans and agents provocateurs more like.