This is why my blogging is slow.

Google has decided to compensate gay employees so that they can afford the same health benefits that straight couples enjoy. This has now angered the homophobes that created the inequality to begin with. Make no mistake, discrimination is their agenda.

Something to watch for inspiration.

I have made quite a few changes to the stylesheet, so reload if the website looks weird.

Richard Cohen:

The term “Islamic fascism” gets thrown around a lot. I initially recoiled from it because I prefer to reserve fascism for fascists. The term is too loosely employed—New York City cops were called fascists by Vietnam-era peace demonstrators—but Paul Berman, in his new book “The Flight of the Intellectuals,” makes a solid case that it can, with justice, be applied to Hamas.

Yes, and the fight against Hamas I equal to the fight against all other fascist organisations.

On this day, ten years ago, the bridge that links Malmö to Copenhagen was opened. People disagree on its impact on the region, but I know for sure that I would not have moved here had it not been for the bridge and the transformation of the region into a large metropolitan area. Nowadays, Malmö is the most exciting city in Sweden, and the Øresund Region the most dynamic in Scandinavia. It is not all down to the bridge, but its plays a leading role in an ongoing progress.

There are still problems, though. The language barrier is perhaps the biggest one. The Danish and Swedish languages are very similar with about ninety per cent of the vocabulary in common. But grammar and pronunciation makes it difficult to communicate freely, so many people choose to speak English. This is a problem, but it is a very common problem in many parts of the world. Countries like India and South Africa manage well despite language barriers—and there, too, English has become the language people have in common.

A few months ago, The Economist wrote about Globish, which is the name the newspaper gave to English spoken by people who are not native speakers. It is a simpler form of English, free from idioms and difficult words. Globish is increasingly popular in all parts of the world. People of the Øresund Region are part of this trend, and Globish is now one of our everyday languages.

I welcome this trend and encourage everyone to be fluent in Globish.

Ever wondered what this lifestyle is about. Here’s an example of this decadent lifestyle I found on a website devoted to it:

• Get up in the morning, moaning at the alarm clock.
• Shower, dress, eat breakfast.
• Go to work.
• Complain about traffic.
• Work. Worry about the job getting outsourced to India.
• Go home. Worry about gas prices.
• Stop for groceries on the way once or twice a week.
• Cook dinner. Realise there’s no butter.
• Eat dinner. Worry about blood pressure and cholesterol.
• Do laundry. Try to figure out how to get that tomato stain out of that t-shirt.
• Clean the house. Realise that a sock didn’t make it into the laundry.
• Pay bills. Worry about saving for retirement.
• Watch a little TV, spend time with any family members in the house, talk with friends on the Internet.
• Go to sleep.
• Repeat.

It’s really upsetting, isn’t it? We can’t have children exposed to this! Thank God, there are still some good folks left in Sweden who are willing to do something about it.

Political tests are meaningless, but it’s a fun way to kill time. Today I made a test to see what Swedish political party is should vote for. It turns out that the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) is the party for me. However, I’m a candidate for the Moderate Party (Moderaterna), which came in second in the test.

Here is a commercial targeting the paranoid, an often neglected consumer group. I will buy two packs of Survival Seed for my balcony. If a nuclear bomb falls over southern Scandinavia, I will have fresh tomatoes.

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Apparently, Thomas Jefferson changed the word “subjects” to “citizens” in the Declaration of Independence. The words have similar meaning, but the former is restricted for citizens who are subjects to a monarch. In other words, a Briton, Swede, or Dutchman can be both a citizen and a subject since Britain, Sweden, and the Netherlands are kingdoms; whereas a German, Italian, or Frenchman can only be a citizen since Germany, Italy, and France are republics. Jefferson’s move makes one think about how different the worlds might have been if the United States chose the same path as Canada and kept the British monarch as its head of state. (Yes, Canadians are subjects to Queen Elizabeth II.)

Sweden’s prime minister says there will not be any tax cuts in 2011. “The most important thing now is to block any tax increases,” he says. Well, he is right if the choice is between status quo and the opposition’s tax increases, but I want more than that. I want a transfer of power and would therefore like to see big tax cuts.

Swedes pay much more to the government than other Europeans do, and we get very little for that extra money. In fact, we often pay twice for the service we need. The reason we pay so much to the government is strictly political. Politicians want to tell people how to live and to be able to bribe important groups of voters with their own money.

The heavy tax burden makes many poor, and to ease their money problems, the politicians promise them ever more costly benefits. It is a vicious circle. People work and the government take their money and hand them back on the condition that the people behave as the elite wants them to. It is the classic whore-pimp relationship on a massive scale. The socialists call it justice and the conservatives, sadly, play along.

Louise Persson disses a new government report on prostitution. In English here, and in Swedish here.

Here’s some information you will never have any use for. Print and save for future reference.

An American passport costs more than twice that of a European passport in Sweden. The British have to pay more for their European passport, but not nearly as much as the Americans pay for their passport.

It’s a good thing Americans on average are paid more than Europeans. They need the extra money for their travel documents.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says Israel has no intention of meeting Turkey’s demand for an apology for the deaths of nine Turkish pro-Hamas activists. He is right. Turkey plays the good guy, but we all know that the Turkish army kills Kurds on a daily basis.

I don’t care about the sport, but I do love footballers.

Here’s a boycott the leftists won’t like.

This video is truly disturbing. Almost every word said in it is a lie. Prostitution in Sweden is at an all-time high, but the ban has moved it from the streets to the Internet. It is also disturbing in its heteronormativity. The smug women in the video all neglect that many people are not heterosexuals and that several studies have shown that male prostitution is more common than female prostitution. The reason theses women lie is ideological. Feminism is a state religion in this country, and one of its core beliefs is that there is such a thing as a gender-based power structure that makes men oppress women in all areas of society. In the debate on prostitution, all women sexworkers are assumed victims of male abuse. The idea that some people—male and female—do not hold traditional marriage and monogamous sexual relationships as norm threatens Swedish feminism.

The ban should be lifted as soon as possible. It is destructive and morally wrong.

Israeli soldiers dance in Hebron. Cute.

A new opinion poll suggests the ruling socialist bloc could win the local election in Malmö, Sweden’s third city. Nearly 10% of the electorate supports the racist Sweden Democrats. I don’t know how I feel about living in a city where most people are socialists who either hate Jews (Social Democrats and the communist Left Party) or Muslims (Sweden Democrats).

I just read an article in English written by a Swedish academic and ask myself why so many find it difficult to distinguish “who” from “whom”. Subject and object, it’s that easy. People who can’t see the difference should not be allowed access to the Internet.

The Dutch have made it through to the World Cup soccer final in South Africa.

In a few hours, the Hawaii governor will announce if she vetoes civil unions. If she believes in love and equality, she shouldn’t.

Her reason for vetoing is that civil unions would create too much equality. The next logical step is a law forcing gay people to wear the pink triangle. That way no one can mistake them for real people equal under the law.

It’s true. Reality triumphs fiction once again. The mad man of British politics is about ta make a musical about late singer Dusty Springfield. Poor woman.

A landmark ruling in Massachusetts could be the begin to an end of discrimination against gay people in America.

New science gives new hope. Researchers have found two key proteins that neutralise 91 per cent of the 190 strains of HIV.

Sending ships Gaza is the new trend amongst lunatics. In Qaddafi’s case, I suppose it makes perfect sense for a man who once blew up an aeroplane and hilled hundreds of civilians in Scotland to send support to Hamas.

I like this.

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As some of you know, I’m on the ballot in Sweden’s general election this autumn. I don’t harbour any illusions about winning a seat. There are plenty of far more prominent people above my name on the Moderate Party’s ballot paper.

Anyhow, Sveriges Radio and Sveriges Television (Sweden’s equivalent to the BBC) have made a profile of me, which is now public on their election website. If you’re interested, you’ll find it here.

A picture I took last night.

Swedish blogger Niklas Dougherty has made a graph that labels nine out of ten Swedes a racist fascist. The only parties that are not fascists are the communist Left Party, the Green Party, and the politically irrelevant Pirate Party. These four parties gather no more than 15 per cent of the votes in the upcoming general election.

Mr Dougherty wants to force all Jews into exile in Greenland and considers hate crime a privilege, so he should know racist fascism. But he’s funny, I give him that.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a video with a very sublime homophobic message. The metaphors are many, but they all add up to one thing: men and women are like pieces of Lego—they fit. Gay people don’t fit (I guess it has something to do with penises and vaginas). The message is simple that straight couples have divine approval and confirm creation itself, whereas gay couples are deviant.

A Swedish minister has been forced to resign after a tabloid newspaper confronted him with details about his visit to a prostitute. In a country where prostitution is considered a severe crime, it is apparently morally shocking that a man can pay for sex. What should be shocking is that two adults are not allowed to decide for themselves whom to have sex with and under what conditions.

End the ban on prostitution!

It’s been a perfect day at the beach.

The view from my window at this moment. God shows off his gayness.

Few people deserve mocking as much as these two haters.

Southern Scandinavia experiences a heat wave at the moment, which is fine since nothing much happens anyway.

I spend my days enjoying the many men who wear close to nothing. The best thing about men is that they—unlike most women—don’t realise that they are being observed by other men. Women are complimented on their looks all the time, so they have grown accustomed to being the object of men’s interest. Men, on the other hand, are most often completely unaware of the fact that they, too, are objects of desire—which only makes them more attractive.

Who would have though?

A former fighter in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps predicts that the regime in Teheran will “commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history.”

A new survey suggests Swedish women consider jogging more important than social activities, sex, and family life. Perhaps this could help to explain why Sweden has transformed from the nation with the most liberal attitude towards sex to one of the most prudish and illiberal. If women get off by running about in solitude, than how can we expect them to understand why sex is so important to men that some are prepared to pay for it.

Israeli newspaper Haarez runs an article about anti-Semitism in Europe and quotes a Beate Kupper of the German Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence. She says, “Criticism of Israel is a great way to express your anti-Semitism in an indirect way.” This is exactly what is happening, and it is also why so many Europeans love to hate Israel but couldn’t care less about other nations involved in similar types of conflict. Hating Israel is a great way to express hatred of Jews and Judaism.

Carl Rudbeck makes the case for English—in Swedish. I agree completely. English is the global language and any Swede who wishes to be heard beyond the borders of Sweden should learn it well.

France is celebrating the anniversary of the 1789 storming of the Bastille, a prison in Paris where many political prisoners were held. At least this is what most people will tell you. The truth, however, is that this national holiday celebrates the Fête de la Fédération on 14 July 1790 (see picture), which marked the establishment of the short-lived constitutional monarchy in France. Ironic, isn’t it? The French celebrate their republic on a day originally declared a national holiday to celebrate the king.

There is something about identity politics that upsets people. Swedish writer Sakine Madon has written an entire essay blaming identity politics for Sweden’s bad record on integration of immigrants into mainstream society. I disagree with her. In my experience, identity politics is necessary to identify inequality and discrimination, and it is gives strength to people who belong to a marginalised minority.

Read Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”-speech here. Would the world really be better had he not demanded equality for black men and women?

Read Harvey Milk’s speech about hope here. What would the world look like for gay people had people like Milk not stood up for their beliefs?

Read David Ben-Gurion’s Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel here. Can anyone honestly say that the Jewish people had been better off without a fulfilled Zionist dream of a homeland and refuge?

I like identity politics. People who share a common history and culture can create miracles for themselves by challenging marginalisation and oppression. The opposite to identity politics is submissive victimhood.

(In the Twitter era, all people are one-name personalities—like Cher and Madonna, but with an @-symbol as prefix. The next step is to simply go without a name. Prince tried it for a while in the 1990s.)

Interesting stuff. Maybe I should re-evaluate my interest in football?

A disturbing video asks the question.

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A new Israeli conversion bill is threatening the unity of the Jewish people. It suggests that only converts accepted by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate of Israel will be recognised as Jews. It could potentially have big consequences not only for Jews in the Diaspora, but for Israel, too. The vast majority of religious Jews in the Diaspora are non-Orthodox. Many have family members who have gone through Conservative or Reform conversion to be full members of the Jewish people. If the Knesset makes the conversion bill into law, the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora could be tarnished, as many Jews might no longer feel welcome in the Jewish homeland.

Help stop the conversion bill. Sign the petition.

In a historic Senate vote, Argentina legalised same-sex marriage. Congratulations!

More here.

Women in France age with grace. This has often been commented upon, and most agree that it has something to do with the attitude towards ageing.

Fashion is not normally something is care very much about, but I found this article about the style of ageing Frenchwomen in the New York Times interesting.

It’s unethical to have these restrictions. It’s also counterproductive as people who suspect they might have HIV are less willing to get tested and seek treatment if they risk being deported or lose their ability to travel. These laws are based on the xenophobic assumption that foreigners are more likely to spread HIV.

The homophobic lobby seeks to re-write history. Events like the Spanish Inquisition never happened.

The leader of the Swedish Christian Democrats, Göran Hägglund, is the only leader of a major Swedish party to turn down Stockholm Pride.

An opinion article in Ynetnews express my own opinion well. This issue might seem irrelevant to most, but it’s vital for Israel.

That’s my opinion.

The Israeli conversion bill is making life difficult for people torn between loyalties. Now a debate about betrayed principles has begun.

The EuroPride Parade gathered about 10,000 people. The usual bunch of homophobes tried their best to disrupt, but the police kept them in their place.

By the way, God doesn’t hate gay people.

Michael Lame is not pleased—and he expresses his disapproval in Haaretz, of all places.

Copenhagen seen from Malmö.

A street in picturesque Simrishamn.

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Finally, three pictures taken when I visited Stenshuvud National Park.

No blockade in sight.

I can’t stress this enough—the conversion issue is a much bigger threat to the Jewish state than all of the boycotts and flotillas the anti-Israel activists organise. If the Knesset labels a large number of Jewish families in America non-Jewish, it will be much harder for American Zionists to justify strong support of Israel. And since Israel is dependent on American support, this could have devastating effects.

The New York Times puts it well in a leader:

Given that the conversion bill is the latest in a series of similarly motivated efforts, it seems almost useless to note that the stringent approach to Jewish law that the Israeli rabbinate promotes bears little connection to the historical experience and religious practice of the majority of Jewish people over the past two millenniums. It will do little good, too, to point out that it is well outside the consensus established by Hillel—arguably the greatest rabbi in all of rabbinic Judaism and whom, as Joseph Telushkin argues in a forthcoming book, was willing to convert a pagan on the spot, simply because he’d asked.

And it doesn’t help to argue that giving the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate total control over Jewish practice will destroy religious life in Israel just as surely as clerical control hurt the Church of England and the Catholic Church in Spain and France. Or that the Zionist founders, from Herzl to Jabotinsky to Ben-Gurion, all believed passionately in the unity of the Jewish people and the need for a secular state.

But perhaps a more practical rallying cry will work: If this bill passes, future historians will inevitably wonder why, at a critical moment in its history, Israel chose to tell 85 percent of the Jewish diaspora that their rabbis weren’t rabbis and their religious practices were a sham, the conversions of their parents and spouses were invalid, their marriages weren’t legal under Jewish law, and their progeny were a tribe of bastards unfit to marry other Jews.

Why, they will wonder, as Iran raced to build a nuclear bomb to wipe the Jewish state off the map, did the custodians of the 2,000-year-old national dream of the Jewish people choose such a perverse definition of Jewish peoplehood, seemingly calculated to alienate supporters outside its own borders?

Yes, if the bill becomes law, future historians will wonder what on earth the Israelis were thinking when they split the Jewish people in two.

BBC, too, has an article on the controversial bill.

It’s with sadness I remove Dick Haas from my blogroll. He was one of few sane voices in the insane Swedish journalism covering Israel and the Middle East. He published his last blog entry less then a week ago—and now he is gone.

And he is planning a visit to the Vatican.

Dilsa Demirbag-Sten continues her fight against freedom of religion in the name of liberalism.

It makes me sad to see a beautiful ideology distorted like this. Somebody should inform Demirbag-Sten about the importance of religious freedom in traditional liberalism. Her idea of a state that dictates how and when people practice their religion goes against everything liberalism stands for.

The one and only example of devastating European identity politics these so-called liberals can produce is a recent court case of a Muslim man who was denied social benefits because his religious beliefs prevented him form shacking a woman’s hand. The Swedish Public Employment Services—a government agency—lost and was forced to treat the Muslim man as any other citizen. The ruling was correct.

This has upset the anti-diversity liberals, and they are now actively distorting the court case to suggest that Muslims enjoy special treatment due to identity politics. It’s nonsense. This is what freedom of religion is about. If my religion prevents me from shacking hands, eat pork, visit churches, sunbath naked—or any other such activity that is common in mainstream Swedish culture—the freedom of religion gives me the right not to partake. Government agencies ought to respect that.

Demirbag-Sten is right about collectivism, though. It’s ridiculous to treat people primarily as groups. Individuals make up groups; not the other way around. However, the problem is not identity politics—which is about self-identified groups of people sharing common experiences—but rather that Europe consists of all-powerful governments determined to organise people’s lives. A truly liberal answer to the problems sprung from a multicultural society is not to force people to assimilate into the mainstream but to leave people be.

(Read earlier entry about Demirbag-Sten here.)

Something I picked up on Facebook:

Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving my home in the city for a long weekend at a gay summer camp in the countryside. About fifty gay men from several countries will attend the camp. It will be fun.

I’m back on Monday.

It’s so sad religious authorities treat gay rights as a threat to God and religion. The latest example is Argentine, where same-sex couples are now allowed to marry. Prominent Catholics interprets this as a threat to “God’s plan” and the church’s power in the region. This is nonsense. God is not a homophobe.

Four prominent Christian leaders have written an excellent article on the law that forces religious Jews and Muslims in Sweden to import their meat from abroad. I say, “Legalise!”

The sex toy was found at a settlement from the Stone Age on the banks of Göta Canal near Motala in southern Sweden.

Makes me think of an angry woman I once met who blamed televised pornography for the “culture of masturbation”. If prehistoric people made dildos, then there’s very little to support her theory.

A sad read about anti-Semitism and Sweden.

A new low for America’s number one fan of Castro, Chàvez, and Arafat. This time he re-launches the old myth about the Jews running the media.

Like so many communist despots before him, Venezuela’s de facto dictator Hugo Chávez has a thing for parading the dead. On 15 July, he ordered the body of Simón Bolívar be dug up, examined by scientist, and then resealed in a new coffin and placed for public display in a new mausoleum. It’s so very Leninesque—and so very, very sick.

Why is it that communists have this fetish for the dead? It’s not only that communists everywhere treat revolutionary figures as religious icons; communist states threat these men’s remains as religious relics. The Soviet Union had both Lenin and Stalin in a mausoleum, Cuba had a public reburial of Che Guevara a few years ago, and North Korea still consider a dead man its head of state.

Could it be that hardcore communism cannot do without traditional religious mysticism? I think so. People who claim to be all scientific and rational compensate for the lack of meaningfulness by turning to the most ancient religion known to man—the comfort and worship of ancestors.

A picture I took at the gay camp on Saturday.

I seriously think Wikileaks’s publication of secret war logs has caused the stupidest news frenzy ever. Yes, people die in warfare, and yes, Afghanistan in no exception. Why is mainstream media behaving like it’s big news?

One of my favourite novelists has been awarded Austria’s State prize for European Literature.

According to new figures reported by The Local, the number of people reported to the police for buying sex has risen five-fold in Sweden in the past year. So much for the “successful” ban.

Stockholm Pride opens today. I will not visit the event this year either. Interesting to note is that people who claim to be tolerant do their annual routine and complain about the alleged immorality at Pride. Typically, they find one sordid thing in Pride’s programme and see it as a proof of gay people everywhere being depraved. I don’t know how many times I’ve told these critics that Stockholm Pride is merely a cultural event, a festival for the queer community. It’s not supposed to represent anyone but the people involved.

Personally, I prefer more outrages events—like the Folsom Street Fair.

Impressive e-book sales figures for late author Stieg Larsson.

Organisers of Jerusalem Pride hope tomorrow’s parade will be peaceful. Jerusalem has seen some of the ugliest expressions of homophobia in recent years. Some have suggested gay people should only parade in Tel Aviv, but that would to accept that the Jewish capital is reserved for some Jews only.

The trees outside my window are being cut down to leave room for a new large building. I will miss them.

New research suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are not written by the legendary Essenes in Qumran but rather the product of multiple Jewish groups fleeing Jerusalem as the Roman seized and destroyed the Second Temple.

From Ynetnews:

Dozens of Orthodox rabbis have signed a statement of principles saying that religious communities must accept those of its members who are “active homosexuals” and their biological or adopted children, and that they must not be encouraged to undergo “change therapies” or marry someone of the opposite sex.

I salute these rabbis!

Read the statement in full here.

According to the charge, the man partook in the murder of about 430,000 people in the Bełżec extermination camp in German-occupied Poland.

(Picture of the camp at Bełżec was taken by a German guard in 1942.)

Nora Caplan-Bricker has written a quite informative article with some answers to this rather odd question.

During a debate on same-sex marriage in November 2009, the priest Dag Sandahl began to talk about “arse fucking”. This foul language upset two woman priests, who filed a complaint to the bishop. (I wrote about it here.)

Now the church is considering a ban on such language. I’m not a member of the church, but in my opinion, it would be wrong to put a limit on free speech. If someone—a priest or otherwise—behaves badly, he or she should be asked to leave. But to make some kind of a list of prohibited words and expressions would be wrong. You cannot have an honest and open debate if people are not allowed to speak their mind freely.

I know it’s bad of me to use humour when commenting on such a horrific story as the one about the French woman who killed eight newborn children, but this is exactly what many of the most radical feminists do in Sweden on a daily basis. All men are being blamed for the crimes of a few.

The American branch of the second-largest movement in Judaism is struggling with its name. The adjective “conservative” does not properly describe it.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox movement in America is struggling with homosexuality. It’s a battle between the traditional we-must-not-read-the-Torah-with-modern-eyes camp and those who see that gay Jews bear not the slightest resemblance to the biblical Sodomites.

By the way, if I had anything to say on the matter, I would suggest that Conservative Judaism merge with Progressive Judaism. The old tiff between the two movements is passé. Let’s kiss and make up!

Last week, the Wikileak website published the names of hundreds of Afghans who had helped the Americans combat the Taliban terrorists. Now these people could be killed and tortured as a result of the publication.

Jews in Turkey no longer feel safe and prepare for the worst.

Read his article here.

Too bad it’s fake. The real police in Malmö are too macho (and homophobic) to do a dance like this.

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A law from 1972 that forces transsexuals to undergo sterilisation prior to their sex-change surgery must be abolished, all party leaders present at Stockholm Pride agreed in a debate yesterday. Good! The minister responsible for the law, Göran Hägglund of the Christian Democrats, was the only major party leader not present at the debate. The Christian Democrats has a long history of homophobia, but has grown more liberal in recent years.

The parade ended a couple of hours ago. See some pictures of the parade here.

“The arguments once used against Catholics and Mormons come out in force today when the topic is Islam,” Reason’s Jesse Walker writes in an excellent article.