If you still then the people on board the “Freedom Flotilla” had peaceful intentions, watch this video clip of activists singing an anti-Semitic song.

Israel is trying to make sense of the deaths and the international reactions following the flotilla attack.

A Dutch study suggests gay people have better attention to detail than straight people. My own gaydar works the other way around. I simply assume all men are gay until I find a reason to believe otherwise.

Egypt says it will allow Palestinians to cross its border until further notice. I think Egypt should go one step further and take back its old province. Gaza was once a part of Egypt. Let it be so again. That way it would fall on Egypt to stop Hamas’s aggression against Israel. There are no Jewish settlements left in the Gaza Strip, so Israel has no interest in the province apart from securing its own citizens from rocket attacks. And frankly, I think Palestinians elsewhere would do better without the crazy men of Gaza.

Swedish newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet reports that pro-Hamas activists has sent yet another boat to Gaza. It is expected to reach Israeli territory tomorrow. I suspect the activists aboard this new boat are armed more heavily than those on the previous ships.

Israel makes the case before the UN Human Rights Council. But will any of the fine exemplars of human rights—like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Nigeria, Cuba, and China—listen to Israel? Or will they simply follow routine and apply one set of rules for Israel and another for themselves?

Another thing that annoys me is Turkey. Now the Turks demand that the world condemn Israel, they even compare the death of nine armed activists to the terror attacks in America on 11 September 2001! This from the same Turkish government that denies the Armenian Genocide and systematically oppresses the Kurds.

Three young Saudis complained on television about not being free in the theocratic kingdom, now they risk being sentenced to flogging and imprisonment.

Former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein says a ban on recreational drugs promotes crime and is bad for public health:

Drugs will not disappear simply because they are illegal. They will always be around. A minority of users will get into trouble. Drugs are far less dangerous, however, than alcohol and tobacco. Our country is home to 13 times more alcoholics than drug addicts, and alcohol claims 15 times more lives than drugs do. Tobacco costs 333 times as many lives. Because drugs can be dangerous to people’s health, regulation will remain necessary. Drug crime, on the other hand, is something we can do without.

He is right.

“It is important that all this does not degenerate into anti-Israeli hysteria,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt says. Moments later he adds fuel to the hysteria. Everything is Israel’s fault. He doesn’t even mention Hamas’s war on civilian Israelis.

I can’t help but wondering what the Swedish government would do if Denmark or Norway fired thousands of rockets into Sweden every year.

Next time they will send “many more ships” to aid Hamas.

The very same Turkish politicians who are upset about nine dead “peace activists” actively deny that the genocide seen in these pictures ever happened. I suggest we keep this in mind and remind the Turks about this genocide whenever they try to make us believe they care about human rights. We should also remember that Turkey attacked the Kurds only two weeks ago.

Iran and Hamas want to head the international opposition to Israel. European media will probably buy the Islamist propaganda about ending the blockade of Gaza when the real goal of Iran and Hamas is to eliminate Israel and exterminate the Jewish people.

So says Binyamin Netanyahu. Well, we always have a choice. In Israel’s case, it’s probably between war and death. Not a pleasant choice, but a choice nonetheless.

Yes, I’m a libertarian—even in the philosophical debate on free will.

After a few hundred invented murders, Swedish fiction writer Henning Mankell reveals the plot of his forthcoming crime novel. It’s about piracy and Israel is the bad guy. It seems stupid to give away the ending like that. Who will buy the book now?

Feel God’s wrath, Danes!

Is this what peace activism is about?

Just a picture I snapped with my iPhone. The old quarry in Dalby—a few kilometres from Lund in southernmost Sweden—is a popular place for swimmers.

Heeb has a good idea for Israel:

It’s not too late to save the situation, however. All Israel needs to do is announce, in big, big, big letters, that it is lifting the blockade. Then, after “Israel Lifts Blockade!” in big print, will come the fine print that mentions that all humanitarian aid will pass through Ashdod to Gaza.

There are several possibilities that arise from this:

1. People see the headline, say “Well, that’s reasonable of Israel,” and don’t read the fine print.
2. People see the headline, read the fine print, don’t know where Ashdod is, and still think Israel is reasonable.
3. People see the headline, read the fine print, say “Israel hasn’t changed anything, humanitarian aid could already reach Gaza through Ashdod” at which point Israel says “Aha!”

The past few days I have had intense correspondence with friends in Israel. One friend suggested Israel should stop trying to win the sympathies of Europeans. Europe seems determined to neglect the suffering of the Israelis, he says. No one is denying that the Palestinians suffer, too. But Europe refuses to see that Israel is fighting a war with Hamas, an Islamist terror organisation deliberately targeting civilians in both Israel and Gaza itself. Instead, Europe is actively ignoring Hamas’s crimes while turning everything Israel does into a severe breach of international law. The only way to please the Europeans would be for Israeli Jews to silently accept being forced into exile or under threat of a second Holocaust. This is not something the Israeli propagandists have made up; Hamas is very clear about what it wants. Their charter clearly states that the destruction of the Jewish people is the organisation’s goal.

One of the Swedes aboard the flotilla, Mattias Gardell, says the Israelis had committed “premeditated murder”. He then adds that he had not personally witnessed many of the events on the ship. He just knows the facts by telepathy, I suppose.

With less than four months to the Swedish general election, the centre-right government coalition is ahead in the polls. The conservative Moderate Party is the largest party in the latest opinion poll.

(Picture from Expressen.)

Update: More in Swedish here.

Hamas has fired new rockets against civilian areas in Israel.

For my non-Swedish readers, here is an article about the centre-right lead in English.

My previous entry on the matter here.

No, the Turks are not about to refrain from adverbs. However, Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc says economic and military co-operation with Israel will be reduced to a minimum. I know his intension is to hurt Israel, but I prefer to see it as a healthy devotion to minimalism. It’s very progressive in these days of mobile text-messaging and microblogging. In fact, I think all politicians should try to make as little as possible. If only the Turkish government could keep to political minimalism domestically, too.

White House correspondent Helen Thomas says Jews should leave Palestine and return “home”, which, according to her, is Poland and Germany. In other words, Jews should surrender their only homeland and once again become second-class citizens in the countries that tried to exterminate the Jewish people. Make no mistake; Helen Thomas is an evil anti-Semite. After centuries of oppression, people like her still consider Jews a problem to be solved.

Personally, I am convinced that for the Jewish people, it is either Israel or death. There will be a culturally vibrant and politically important Jewish Diaspora in the future, too; but to secure a Jewish future, the Jewish people need their homeland. And the Jewish homeland has always been Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

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Update: An online poll asks, “Should the White House revoke the press credential of Helen Thomas?” My answer is yes.

We have seen it before: the pictures of the Star of David next to the Nazi Swastika, the burning of the Israeli flag, and the harassment of Diaspora Jews. The methods used are deliberately picked to hurt Jews. If not to tell the Jews that the Holocaust was right, why would anyone place Nazi symbols next to the most common symbol of Judaism?

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has completely lost it. Now he says that Hamas—an organisation that considers Jewish children legitimate targets and has fired thousands of rockets into civilian areas—is not a terror group but a democratic party of “resistance fighters” who “defend their land”.

Meanwhile, the very same Turkish leader continues to oppress the Kurds in eastern Turkey. Whenever they try to gain independence or demand some basic civil right, they are declared enemies of the state and sent to prison.

I’m not much for political protesting in the streets, but considering the massive protests against Israel, I find this quite nice to watch.

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No reports of any violence so far. The passengers are said to be under arrest.

Update: The Gaza activists deny the reports about ship being boarded.

At a concert on Thursday night, the former star couldn’t sing and told the audience it “pissed her off”. One Danish newspaper writes, “She looked and sounded like a person who doesn’t have many years left to live.”

I have never been a big fan of Whitney Huston, but I was once impressed by her voice. It’s sad to see someone so talented make a fool of herself.

More information emerges about the “peace activists” aboard the Turkish ship to Gaza.

Just a picture I snapped with my iPhone on my way back to Malmö from today’s Jewish studies in Copenhagen.

Israeli soldiers boarded and took control of the Irish ship to Gaza this afternoon. Unlike the pro-Hamas activist on board the Turkish ship seized by the Israeli navy earlier this week, the passengers aboard the Irish ship neither sang anti-Semitic slogans nor tried to kill the Israeli soldiers. No people were hurt. A fine example of real peace activism.

A Lebanese photographer has testified that activists on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship seized four Israeli marines before other commandos stormed aboard using live ammunition.

New pictures show how Israeli soldiers were beaten and stabbed by violent mob on board the Turkish ship.

There were several ships in the flotilla. Violence erupted on one ship only. This ship belonged to a Turkish Islamist organisation with close links to Hamas. The people aboard this ship were not peace activists, they were religious fascists who sang songs about killing Jews and tried to do just that when they had an opportunity.

I had a long walk through the Danish capital today. The sun shone and the temperature was just perfect. Snapped this picture when I passed through a quiet residential area in Vesterbro I have never been in before.

Iran is ready to send its heavily armed Revolutionary Guard to accompany the next flotilla to Gaza. It is obvious to me that the “peace activists” want a military confrontation. War is their agenda.

A new study suggests Muslim boys from religious homes are more violent than other boys.

Remember now, it is only apartheid if Israel has different rules for Jews and Arabs. Treating Jews as second-class people is “criticism of Israel”.

David Stavrou asks the question.

After identifying a teenage boy as Jewish, about fifteen people started to beat him. I suppose the attackers saw it as legitimate “criticism of Israel”.

A group pf peace-loving enemies of Israel were this morning prevented from carrying out yet another terrorist attack against civilians. Several European intellectuals mourn the setback.

A knife suddenly disappears from a picture to make the Turkish pro-Hamas activists appear peaceful and unarmed. It is not the first time the news agency altars pictures to make the Israelis look bad.

The search engine is so far behind competitor Google News one wonders if Yahoo! is still alive.

Her remarks about Jews ended here career. But she is 89 years old, so it is about time she stopped working. Not the most glamorous end, though.

Dutch politicians argue about who is the better liberal. In Sweden, politicians are normally trying to be the better socialist. The party with the least faith in the citizens wins. But things are slowly getter better here, too. It would be nice with a Dutch-style battle of the liberals, though.

I don’t agree with Andrew Sullivan’s negative attitude towards Israel, but at least he seems to have some understanding of why many Jews feel so passionately about the land. Like all other nationalisms, Zionism is based primarily on emotions. These emotions are not always rational, but that doesn’t necessarily make them any less genuine.

Judaism itself is centred about the Land of Israel. It is not possible to be any kind of Jew and deny that fact. It is important to stress that not all Jews agree on Zionism, and ever more Jews disagree on the State of Israel, but most recognise that Israel is the only land we have. It is what the Jewish faith is about. We don’t have a saviour to place of faith with—we have a tiny piece of land in the Middle East that the religious believe God promised the Israelites and that the secularists see as our refuge from minority life and oppression.

For better or worse, Israel is the one country the Jewish people can call its own.

But philosopher professor Torbjörn Tännsjö doesn’t know that.

What can you expect from an extremist academic who compares gays to animals? Hating Jews comes natural to these people. (The link goes to a Swedish blog entry written by Erik Svensson, biology professor at Lund University. A well-established hater of everything even remotely liberal.)

I have been critical of Carl Bildt’s handling of the Gaza flotilla, but I think he is absolutely right to dismiss the demands for a boycott of Israel.

Yet another attack on Jewish individuals camouflaged as criticism of Israel.

The price for love was too high. Monjeza has left Chimbalangafor a woman after hostility from his family.

“There’s no question that there are rockets fired from Gaza and that there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis,” Tony Blair says in a televised interview. “When it comes to security, I’m 100 percent on Israel’s side. Israel has the right to inspect what goes into Gaza.”

Nice to hear at least one European politician talking about the crimes of Hamas. All we hear from others is the one-sided condemnation of Israel. Listening to the mainstream political debate, one might be excused for thinking that Hamas is a peaceful organisation and the Israelis are hurting people for purely sadistic reason.

The picture is a screenshot. The text below the swastika reads, “Well Done”. See more pictures from the anti-Israel rally in Istanbul here.

I know some of you don’t like it when I link to articles in Swedish, but here is one to Sakine Madon’s Expressen leader about Israel, Turkey, and the Gaza activists.

The organisers of Madrid’s Gay Pride stop the only gay-friendly nation in the Middle East to please the world’s most outrageous homophobes. Shame on you!

A female lawyer on television encourages Arab men to sexually harass Israeli women as a form of resistance. It seems too bizarre to be true, but it is true. I can hear the my antagonists say that this is not anti-Semitism because (1) Arabs are a Semitic people and (2) it must be allowed to criticise Israel.

The Anglican Communion figured it had to punish the American Episcopalians for the election of a lesbian as a bishop in California, so its leadership suspended them from serving on ecumenical bodies. I’m not sure it really is a punishment. Who wants to work with a bunch of bigots, anyway? The Americans should be relieved.

Taliban fighters are burying dirty needles with their bombs in a bid to infect British troops with HIV.

Good news. Focus on rockets, bombs, and the stuff that can make explosives.

Here’s the link.

The shop owner, John Curovac, tells communist newspaper Proletären that he is proud of his boycott and that he has put up big signs at the entrance telling people that Israelis goods are now bared.

History tends to repeat itself. Not too long ago, signs with a very similar message were popular in European shops. It appeared innocent and brave then, too.

Sweden 2010

Germany 1933

Rosie O’Donnell says Jews can go back to Poland and Germany because the ovens are not there anymore. To tell black Americans they should go back to Africa is wrong because they are not occupying land, she says. But why talk about black people when it is the white people of America that lives on land once taken by force? I suggest all white Americans go back to Europe. Let’s start with Rosie. She can live in the cottage her poor ancestors left behind.

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Read it here.

The Saudi theocracy is truly bizarre. A man in his 20s has been sentenced to four months in prison and ninety lashes for kissing a woman in public.

Pink News writes about Madrid Pride’s decision to ban Israeli participation. One commenter writes:

The aid flotilla and the Israeli actions have nothing to do with the Gay Pride celebrations. It is our own struggles to achieve greater tolerance and acceptance in society that we are celebrating. Should we be banning Israelis from a Gay Pride event because of something done by their Government and Military? Would we then ban the British and Americans and Australians because of the Iraq War? Would we ban Chinese because of their government’s repression in Tibet? Where would this end?

Many have made the same observation. China and other countries with disputed areas never get the same treatment as Israel. The Jewish state is singled out amongst the nations, and I think it has to do with Israel being Jewish. Arab occupation in North Africa is rarely mentioned, but Jewish settlements are condemned all the time.

It would be impossible to do it in Sweden. In Finland, however, it is still possible to show public support of Israel and the Jewish people. Yesterday, 2,000 people marched through the streets of Helsinki in support of Israel.

A group of gay Christians is organizing a summer camp. When the group wanted to place an advertisement in Sweden’s largest Christian newspaper, Dagen, the editor-in-chief Elisabeth Sandlund said no. “A large portion of our readership would be offended by an ad of this kind which deals with open homosexuality,” she says.

Closeted homosexuality and self-hatred have never been a problem to Dagen’s Pentecostal readership. But when gay people show their love in public without shame, it really turns their stomachs. Personally, I am offended by homophobic Pentecostalism.

The is a consensus of opinion in the Icelandic parliament. Yesterday, all its members voted in favour of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Afrol News writes about the moral decline of a Dakar:

In colonial times, Senegal’s metropolis Dakar was famous for its open and tolerated homosexual prostitution market, and as late as in the 1970s, as many as 17 percent of Senegalese men admitted having had homosexual experiences. Now, Dakar is West Africa’s centre of gay oppression.

A sad, sad story that shows how fast a liberal society can deteriorate. Liberty and equality must be fought for in every generation.

The Conservative Jews have decided that interfaith couples must be buried six feet apart.

Yesterday’s parade was a huge success. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni spoke out against hate. It is needed after last year’s shooting at a gay centre.

Andrew Sacks things the answer is racism.

Hugh Tomlinson of The Times writes, “Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

For once, nearly the entire Arab world sides with Israel in a potential conflict. No officially, of course, but if we read between the lines, it is obvious no one in the region likes Iran’s superpower ambitions.

It would only bolster Hamas, he says. He’s right.

Another low for the Afghan Islamists. Afghan officials say the Taliban accused the boy of spying for America and hanged him from a tree in southern Afghanistan. The provincial governor says the killing happened only days after the boy’s grandfather spoke out against the Taliban in their home village.

More on the provincial Swedish shop-owner who boycotts Israeli goods. I wrote about it here.

While leftist activists in Europe call for a boycott of Israel, some Israeli activist call for a boycott of Swedish clothing company H&M. Boycott seems to be the answer to everything these days. Politics has never been this stupid. Well, I take that back. Politics has always been this stupid.

Personally, I think we should trade with everyone. People that trade don’t fight, that’s my philosophy.

Two representatives for the Tällberg Foundation write that a number of international rankings combined prove that Sweden and its social model have created the best society in the world. This is bullshit. But Swedes love bullshit like this.

Something that looks like a civil war is going on in Kyrgyzstan. Reports talk about ethnic cleansing. But what is behind the unrest? The answer is Stalin and communist ignorance about ethnic identities. From The Economist:

The Fergana Valley, where most of the killing happened, was divided arbitrarily by Stalin in the 1920s among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. As a result, the Kyrgyz Soviet republic was left with a sizeable Uzbek population, the Uzbek Soviet republic with a Tajik population, and so on. While the Soviet Union existed and the republics were part of the same country, this made little practical difference. But when the Soviet Union fell apart, these artificially created borders became final, separating newly independent states and fomenting ethnic tensions.

It is time for some pragmatic identity politics.

I found some nice pictures from Tel Aviv in Swedish gay magazine QX.

A gay man winked at two American soldiers, so the two men beat him so badly that he suffered bruises on his brain. How is it possible to get that mad from someone showing affection? If you don’t like the flirty person, you walk away. It’s that simple.

From Newsweek: “Thanks largely to the efforts of same-sex-marriage advocates, heterosexual couples have more unmarried rights to partnership now than ever.”

Oops. The Christian Right’s fight against marriage equality is slowly making marriage irrelevant for heterosexuals. Had they given same-sex couples the right to marry, they would have preserved marriage as a special institution. Now they are killing that very idea of marriage.

I have had a Twitter account for some time now, but to be honest, I didn’t really see the point of that particular social medium until I downloaded the perfect application for my iPhone. My new social-media philosophy is simply that if it’s not easy to do on iPhone, it’s not worth doing at all. I do most of my Facebooking (yes, it’s a verb now) on my iPhone, and how much I use other social media depends entirely on the application available for my handheld friend.

If you find me amongst your new followers, it’s because your other writing interest me and I’m curious about your tweets. If you don’t know me from Facebook or the blogosphare, I’m probably interested in you because of your religious or political views.

Sara-Jane Cromwell has written a book about what it is like to be a transsexual in Ireland. I think the interview with her in the Irish Time is good, and it is nice to see a transsexual woman who is not hiding her past, which seems to be the unfortunate norm. But there is nothing shameful about being born with a condition where gender identity and biological sex do not match. You go, girl!

The rural landscape in southern Sweden seen through the car window.

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The view of the Sound seen from Helsingborg.

The mediaeval tower Kärnan in Helsingborg.

Andrew Sullivan has something for the libertarian to chew on. I don’t have an answer. All I know is that government is no fix-all solution, either.

In my opinion, this is the real threat to Israel and the Jewish state.

I don’t agree with Bruce Bawer’s ideas about Islam, but the attacks on him are surely absurd.

I began the day at the Öresund Bridge in southern Malmö, where I had this spectacular view of the Sound. I was there to talk about safe sex and gay issues.

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Today, the local council for the Malmö borough of Husie had its last meeting before the summer holiday. Tonight, I, along with the other councillors, was given a tour of the new building for the local administrative department. It looks fine, and I will appreciate the new and modern setting for our meetings in the autumn. Until now, we have had our public meetings at Höjaskolan, a large council-run school. Not the best place for these kinds of meetings.

After the tour, we were served a dinner and some wine. All in all, it was a good day. Not much time for blogging, though.

A Norwegian-American feels ashamed.

A 16-year-old boy who tried to assault controversial artist Lars Vilks—best known for his drawings of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog—has been sentenced to twenty days of community service for hitting a police officer.

For the past few summers, I have been working with a project for the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (RFSL). Basically, I spend my days driving to various destinations—mostly in the countryside in southern Sweden—and talk to people about HIV, safe sex, and gay issues generally. Since I’m on the road most of the day and my normal routine at the university is disrupted, I’m not always updated on the latest news. The blogging suffers consequently. So, for the time being, you will see some entries entitled “My Day in Pictures” instead. To most of you, this is nonsense. But I know that some readers like my pictures and the glimpses of Sweden they show. Enjoy or ignore, it’s up to you. Here are today’s pictures.

On my way to work, I snapped a picture of one of Malmö’s canals.

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Bored to death with dumb rural radio talk shows, I snapped this picture while driving.

I found a very remote rest area, hidden in a small forest. Perfect for a break when you don’t want to hear or speak to anyone.

Back in Malmö, I snapped a picture of the sunset seen against some buildings.

Baptist officials have told a lesbian coach that her sexual orientation disqualifies her entire team from competing in a Christian softball league in Tennessee. Where does the Bible say that softball teams may not have lesbian coaches?

This is an insult to many families in California. To insult these families and strip them of legal recognition is also what motivates the homophobes. To them, gay people are not human beings—only sinners.

Fredrik Reinfeldt is David Cameron’s new BFF.

Yossi Sarid writes about the growing conflict between the ultra-Orthodox and the secular state, a conflict that threatens to destroy basic democratic values.

At the moment, Sweden has no room for anything but the Crown Princess’s wedding. The royals are already celebrating with their international guests, but the actual wedding is not until tomorrow. I might live-blog the event, but here is some detailed information for all you royalists out there.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to The Local’s live blogging of the royal wedding in Stockholm. I will probably post something about it, too.

I have noticed that most libertarians are overly eager to manifest their republicanism today. Personally, I think the debate about the monarchy can wait to another day.

Bjørn Lomborg makes a disturbing observation:

Unfortunately, it seems as if Europe has decided that if it can’t lead the world in prosperity, it should try to lead the world in decline. By stubbornly pursuing an approach that has failed spectacularly in the past, Europe seems likely to consign itself to an ever-dwindling economic position in the world, with fewer jobs and less prosperity. Even the most optimistic-minded would struggle to find a silver lining in that outlook.

So says the Daily Telegraph.

On Wednesday, Turkish army penetrated Kurdish areas several kilometres inside Iraq, which resulted in twenty deaths. On Friday, the Turkish prime minister says Israel is to blame for piracy.

The opening chapter in David Boaz’s book The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao Tzu to Milton Friedman (1997) begins with 1 Samuel 8 from the Hebrew Bible, which deals with the Israelites who ask their ageing leader for a new king to rule over them:

When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”

Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”

Is God having Samuel argue in favour of political libertarianism?

Sweden’s two major tabloid newspapers are officially republican. Both socialist Aftonbladet and liberal Expressen say they want to replace the monarch with a president elected by parliamentarians. That is the official rhetoric. In reality, these newspapers have developed a symbiotic relationship with the royals, and today this is more obvious then ever. The thing about the monarchy in this country is that most people love it but few have the courage to say it. The journalists are no different.

President Shimon Peres makes Israel’s policy towards Gaza really simple.

I spent the day at the Baltic Sea.

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From the latest update of the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Swedish Dockworkers Union, one of Sweden’s smallest and most hardcore communist unions, has decided to order its members to block Israeli ships. In the official mumbo-jumbo, the union claims that its action is aimed at Israel because of the Jewish state’s alleged violation on international law. Sending thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians is apparently in compliance with international law as no action is taken against Iranian ships.

Sweets for the children in Gaza is a human right whereas life in peace and security for the children in Israel is not.

A real-life nightmare causing many sleepless nights. It’s like a Shabbat with no wine.

In an interview for the New York Times Magazine, rap-star Eminem says he supports same-sex marriage. “I think if two people love each other, then what the hell?” he says. “I think that everyone should have the chance to be equally miserable, if they want.”

From The Economist: “In a pluralistic society, you can’t claim to have been harmed when the state declines to impose your religious norms on those who don’t share them.”

Kent Persson och Johan Westerholm, two of the Swedish blogosphare’s most aggressive political bloggers—whose speciality is ad hominem arguments—, has written an article urging fellow bloggers and politicians not to engage in negative campaigning and personal attacks. I laugh out load. It’s like watching Ann Coulter sob about being attacked by liberals who object to being described as fascists.

I note that Kent Persson has cleansed his blog comments of the many xenophobic remarks that used to be there. Perhaps he’s born again?

Normally, this is a blog about politics and religion. But when the summer comes, I try to get away from my computer and enjoy the sun in the outdoors. Living in Scandinavia means spending nine months a year indoors, so I need this.

Today I spent at the beach. The water is still too cold for a proper swim, but I dared to dip my foot.

The Swedish dockworkers have no problem with China, India, Morocco, Burma, Pakistan, Turkey, or any of the other nations thriving on “occupied land”. Only Israel is singled out—again! To suggest that it has to do with it being the world’s only Jewish state would only be dismissed as the “anti-Semitism card”, used by evil Zionists with the intention to silence criticism of Israel—the only nation ever criticised.

Her very informative article is written in Swedish. If you can read it, you should.

It seems Israeli politicians are listening to the complaints from non-Orthodox Jewish leaders in regards to a new conversion law that could threaten Jewish unity. On 21 June, there was a meeting in Jerusalem, and about a week earlier, Knesset Member David Rotem said he would like to add a new passage to the law that would make it clear that it only applies to conversion in Israel.

She may be progressive in terms of abortion and in comparison to her conservative opponents, but Julia Gillard is no friend of gay people.

Midsummer Eve, the day before Midsummer Day, is a major holiday in Sweden. In the Swedish calendar, that day is today. Therefore, my husband and I will travel to my parents’ summer residence and celebrate Midsummer with my family. Thanks to modern mobile technology, I’m able to do some sporadic blogging over the holiday weekend, but I will not answer emails until Monday.

Seen in the picture is the 1897 painting “Midsummer Dance” by Swedish artist Anders Zorn. A classic.

The headline I picked up from the comments section of this Sun article about Paul McCartney comparing global-warming scepticism to Holocaust denying. I never liked McCartney, and I like him even less after this stupid remark. The trend is to bully sceptics, but what the global-warming alarmists refuse to get into their smug heads is that argumentum ad populum is a classic fallacious argument. Scepticism is good. To make a case for a theory based on its popularity is simply silly.

If the Swedes were forced into exile, this would be their Seder plate.

Why does the National Museum of American History hide gay American history in its basement?

Fascists and communists of the world unite in crusade against Jews, gays, human rights, and democracy.

It has become a Russian tradition to arrest gay people who demonstrate for equal treatment under the law. Homophobes are always granted the right to manifest their hatred in public. This time it happened in Saint Petersburg, where five gay-rights activists were arrested in a Pride parade.

Update: More in English here.

Ever wondered why so many heterosexuals died of syphilis in the twentieth century? It was God showing his rage over the heterosexual lifestyle.

Nah, this is crazy talk. But extreme-right Christians in America are still making the case that AIDS is God’s way of punishing gay men for being born gay. The Christian God is apparently very discontent with his creation.

Dilsa Demirbag-Sten makes the case for cultural communism in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Diversity is bad. The government should force the majority culture on people. Parents should no longer be allowed to pick the school best suited for their children. Religious and cultural identities should be kept strictly private and hidden not to disturb the Christian secularists.

It’s all bullshit. Demirbag-Sten is wrong. People are not collective slaves to one national culture. We are individuals who belong to various groups of people—some identities we pick ourselves, others we inherit from our parents. Being “Swedish” is hopefully just one of many identities. Personally, I’m Swedish, Jewish, European, male, and gay. It’s insulting to suggest that only one of these identities is legit when the truth is that I have more in common with a gay Jew in Cork than with a straight Swede in Stockholm. And I don’t think it’s at all strange that Swedish Muslims feel the same way about Muslim brothers and sisters in other countries.

Dilsa Demirbag-Sten doesn’t like the way Swedish authorities organise our multicultural society. That is why she wants the government to work against diversity. I have a better and far more radical solution. The government should stop trying to organise people’s lives. Let people do what they want. If the result is a Sweden of several religious and cultural groups living parallel lives in isolated communities, so be it. As long as individuals are free to leave their group, I see no problem with such a multicultural society.

It all began on this day in 1969. Had it not been for those brave queers at the Stonewall Inn, the situation for gay people in the Western world might still have been like it is in Russia, where the authorities discriminate openly and the police beat our sisters and brothers into submission. Gay people who live in Western Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and liberal America sometimes forget how privileged we are. Many of us still struggle with discrimination, hate crime, and unjust laws. But we must not forget that the majority of gay people still lack the most basic human rights. In the Muslim world, the death penalty is still a real threat to people who fall in love with someone of the same sex. And in Christian Africa, legislators try to please an increasingly homophobic church by adding ever-tougher sentences to already harsh anti-gay laws. Even in countries that officially recognise gay rights, people are treated with contempt and become victims of brutality merely for being gay. Organisations devoted to homophobia are mushrooming in many parts of the world—often with active support from the Vatican and other powerful Christian institutions.

It’s easy to become depressed. Therefore, it is important to remember the Stonewall Riots and the extraordinary progress that gay people in the West have experienced in the past forty-one years. If we keep it up, we might live in a near-perfect world in the next century. China is showing a willingness to embrace gay rights, India is slowly ridding itself from the homophobic legislation it inherited from Britain, and many countries are debating marriage equality. I would not be surprised if both China and India have same-sex marriage within a few decades.

We should celebrate our achievements, but we are not done until all people are free to love whomever their heart desires.

My colleagues were attacked on Thursday. Today, Swedish newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet writes about the incident.

Swedish theologian Gunnar Samuelsson says Jesus may not have been crucified, as there is no evidence to indicate that the Romans crucified prisoners 2,000 years ago. There is, however, evidence of heavy wine consumption. I think Jesus might have been extremely drunk after eights days of Passover festivities. That would explain the Resurrection: Jesus was drunk, passed out at Golgotha, slept for two days, and then woke up hungry and confused in a cave on the outskirt of Jerusalem. Mystery solved. Let’s move on.

Honestly, what is the difference between these Republicans in Montana and the Islamists in Afghanistan?

A friend texted me earlier today. He is puzzled about his son’s sexuality. When asked what he wanted to be when he grown up, the son replied, “I want to be Lady Gaga.” My friends wonders if this perhaps is a sign that his son is gay. I told my friend that many straight eight-year-olds love Gaga, but that his son’s wish to be her probably means that he, regardless of sexual orientation, will one day be a fabulous man. Boring loser boys want to be Justin Bieber.