A growing number of scientists say yes, according to this article in the Guardian. Personally, I don’t have a fixed opinion on global warming but think much of the alarmism is more harmful than useful.
In the new parliament’s vote on new Swedish prime minister, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Stefan Löfven, won with a record-low support.
| Should Stefan Löfven become Sweden’s new prime minister? | |
|---|---|
| Yes | 132 |
| No | 49 |
| Abstained | 154 |
| Absent | 14 |
One of the first thing Sweden’s new centre-left government did was to announce its support for a Palestinian state and thereby create a diplomatic crisis with Israel and America. Personally, I’m not surprised that the parties now in government do this. Ilmar Reepalu, the former mayor of Malmö and a prominent member of the now ruling Social Democratic Party, has made Sweden famous for its anti-Semitism and extreme views on Israel.
However, Ynetnews reports that the Swedish government now backtrack its recognition of Palestinian statehood.
“The Swedish Embassy in Israel has softened its position regarding the recognition of Palestinian statehood, saying it favors peace negotiation to unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, after an initial announcement by Sweden’s new prime minister led to a diplomatic crisis with Israel,” the Israeli newspaper writes.
Nobody is really sure what Pope Francis will do, according to Barbie Latza Nadeau of The Daily Beast.
This could be interesting.
In the election campaign that ended less than a month ago, the then centre-left opposition promised not to punish Swedish workers with even higher taxes. Now, when the opposition has become the government, the promise is broken and new taxes are being imposed on Swedish workers. That means more government and less freedom for ordinary people. Make no mistake, this elitism and systematic distrust in people’s ability to master their own earnings is what socialism is about.
“The United State Supreme Court won’t hear any of the seven cases regarding marriage equality in five states, which means lower court decisions ruling in favor of same-sex marriage will stand and could quickly spread to other states in their jurisdiction,” Advocate reports.
Jake Heppner of Distractify has published fifty-two colourised black-and-white photos that give a new look at the past. I never knew that Lee Harvey Oswald was this handsome.
“Catholic Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs made the comments in an interview with American Christian news website LifeSiteNews,” Pink News reports. The logic of hatemongers is faulty at best.
IS members are jihadists who adhere to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and consider themselves the only true believers. They hold that the rest of the world is made up of unbelievers who seek to destroy Islam, justifying attacks against other Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Beheadings, crucifixions and mass shootings have been used to terrorise their enemies. IS members have justified such atrocities by citing the Koranic verses that talk of “striking off the heads” of unbelievers, but Muslims have denounced them. Even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who disavowed IS in February over its actions in Syria, warned Zarqawi in 2005 that such brutality loses “Muslim hearts and minds”
In other words, it’s a group not that unlike other groups of fanatics who have consider themselves superior to others. There’s nothing more dangerous than people convinced of their own superior ideology.
The award was announced half an hour ago by Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.
The Local lists ten things about the French writer and winner of the 2014 Nobel prize for Literature:
Speculation about North Korea’s communist dictator intensifies. The world would be a better place would he be gone for good.
“Pope Francis is tipped to win this year’s Nobel Peace prize, according to some of the world’s leading bookmakers,” Religion News Service reports.
The winner of the Nobel Peace prize will be announced in Oslo in a few hours.
(Photo: Korea.net & Korean Culture and Information Service & Photographer Jeon Han)
The announcement was made in Oslo a few minutes ago. A good choice for once!
John Harris of the Guardian examines what would happen if Britain left the EU. Personally, I think it would be a mistake. It’s also a mistake to think this Euroscepticism is new. There is nothing new about the idea that European nations should consider each other with hostile scepticism. The problem is that this precise idea has resulted in numerous wars and millions of deaths. The EU is not perfect, but it’s our best hope for a prosperous and peaceful Europe where Europeans are seen as one and not defined by archaic ethnicity.
Seth Shostak writes about a philosophical idea that I find intriguing. Unlike many of those who label themselves sceptics because they don’t subscribe to some naïve idea about God, this is real scepticism. Real scepticism is not so much about questioning God as it is about questioning ourselves.
“A new Swedish study has found that xenophobia is decreasing around Europe, despite a rise in support for anti-immigrant political parties,” The Local reports.
The philosopher A.C. Grayling, who chaired the judges, called Flanagan’s book “an absolutely superb novel, a really outstanding work of literature”.
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
Thou mak’st faults graces, that to thee resort:
As on the finger of a throned queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed:
So are those errors that in thee are seen,
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
— Sonnet 96 by William Shakespeare. My favourite sonnet.
The painting is The Boxer (1933) by Konstantin Somov (1869–1939). I superb study of male beauty.
“The EU group that bound seven Eurosceptic parties including the Sweden Democrats has collapsed,” The Local reports. Good riddance!
“The study from the OECD ranked the areas on nine factors: income, jobs, health, access to services, environment, education, safety, civic engagement and housing,” The Local reports.
It’s Friday night and the sunlight is about to disappear. That means it’s Shabbat. This sundown also marks the end of Simchat Torah.
“Sweden’s military has deployed planes and ships in the Stockholm Archipelago against what it says is a threat from foreign submarines,” The Local reports.
Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic writes about a growing trend amongst American teenagers. It’s one of those articles that make me happy about being childless.
“After two days of fighting between happy liberals and angry conservatives, the Vatican on Wednesday dispatched a leading moderate from the US church to tell both sides to temper their expectations about impending changes in church doctrine,” Josephine McKenna of Religion News Service reports. In another article, she writes that gay people are missing from final message from Vatican’s heated debate on the family: “Catholic bishops on Saturday celebrated the ‘love of a man and a woman’ in a message to mark the end of the global synod on the family but largely ignored hot-button issues like homosexuality and cohabitation.”
Chris Weller of the Raw Story explains:
While standing, the body goes to great lengths to keep an erect spine and maintain posture. This activates many of the discrete muscles near the hips and pelvis. But when people sit, these pelvic and hip muscles are relaxed, making urination easier.
“Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has said that he knows some ‘marvellous’ gays,” The Local reports. OK, this is not really newsworthy, but the headline is fabulous. I mean, he knows some marvellous gay men but still wants to discriminate against them. It’s the same mumbo-jumbo all intolerant people say when they want to make their bigotry seem compassionate—they love the man, they only hate the characteristics that defines him. It’s like the racist who loves black men on the condition that they are white.
Frank Strasburger meditates on this question in the Washington Post. The short answer is recognition.
“Catholic gay rights groups say they are disappointed after bishops rejected proposals for wider acceptance of gay people, which had the Pope’s backing,” BBC News reports.
“Mystery deepened Sunday over a Swedish military operation triggered by ‘foreign underwater activity’ off the coast of Stockholm, amid an unconfirmed report of a hunt for a damaged Russian submarine,” The Local reports. It seems the Cold War is back in force. First Russia occupies large parts of Eastern Ukraine, and now this.
“David Cameron has suffered a blow to his EU reform plans after the outgoing president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, said an arbitrary cap on free movement within the EU would be incompatible with European law,” the Guardian reports. “In a sign of the deep frustration with the Tories in Brussels, Barroso also dismissed the claim by the UK’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, that the party was ‘lighting a fire’ under the EU by pledging to hold an in/out referendum by 2017.”
Barroso is right. It would be sad to se Britain leaving the EU, but it would be sadder still to see an end to free movement within the union.
“A male passenger who landed at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport has been transferred to an isolation unit amid fears he may be suffering from the Ebola virus,” The Local reports.
“Hundreds of Hungarians took part in a ‘Roma Pride’ march in Budapest Sunday to celebrate the country’s largest ethnic minority,” The Times of Israel reports.
“God is not afraid of new things,” the Pope said in a speech today, Pink News reports. “That is why he is continuously surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways.”
“Neurosurgeon Dr Eben Alexander was convinced out-of-body experiences were hallucinations—until he went into a coma himself and had what he now believes was a glimpse of heaven,” Daily Mail reports.
| Sex | Gender | Sexuality |
|---|---|---|
| Male | Masculine | Likes women |
| Female | Feminine | Likes men |
Alter this chart in any way and you are queer.
The only thing missing for UKIP to be complete clown was a populist song with xenophobic lyrics. Now they have checked that box, too.
Sophie Karmasin, Austria’s Minister of Family Affairs, confirmed today that her ministry is developing a service that should help radicalised young Muslims and their families, The Local reports.
“Earth this year reached the hottest average temperature for September since record keeping began 135 years ago,” Deutsche Welle reports. “The planet is on course for the warmest year on record.”
“Nigel Farage’s eurosceptic group in the European Parliament has been saved by a Pole with unusual views on women,” EU Observer reports. The new gang member is Janusz Korwin-Mikke, known for casting doubt on the Holocaust and saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
“I want to make the hard-headed, patriotic case for both Britain in Europe and for change in Europe so that it works for working people,” Pat McFadden, Labour’s new shadow Europe minister, the Guardian reports. Sound very promising.
Rene Magritte’s (1898–1967) classic painting Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1928–1929). I love it.
“Towering up to 1,396 ft, the skyscraper offers 104 apartments at 30,000 sq ft each with 12.5 ft ceilings, 10x10 ft windows, and prices ranging from $16,95 million to $82,5 million,” Bored Panda reports. The images are spectacular!
His ten years as president of the European Commission is now all but over. In my opinion, he has done a good job.
The Local’s linguistic mystery tour will take you from the dark realms of Abba to what may or may not be the weirdest ever translation for an international superhero.
“Although Canadian police have not released the name of the Ottawa shooter, on Wednesday afternoon US sources leaked that the suspect’s name is Michael Zehaf Bibeau, a 32-year-old Canadian who was a recent convert to Islam,” Tristin Hopper and Meghan Hurley report.
BBC News lists some key points of event from yesterday’s shooting:
“[S]ome variation of that is almost definitely where the matter-antimatter asymmetry came from, and why every place in the Universe appears to have the same density of matter (and not antimatter) no matter where we look!” Ethan Siegel of Starts with a Bang writes. Read his article in full.
“He could have taken on Ukip and made the positive, if reformist, case for Europe,” Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes. “Instead, he has put party management first and the future of the country second.”
“Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has claimed British towns are being ‘swamped’ by immigrants and their residents are ‘under siege’, in an escalation of the emotive language being used by Tory ministers calling for a renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with Europe,” the Guardian reports.
I really hate this open hostility towards Europe’s free movement and open borders. If this xenophobia is what Britain wants, then yes, they should leave the EU and isolate on their island.
“Pro-European centrist parties look to have swept Ukraine’s first parliamentary vote since a revolution toppled Viktor Yanukovych’s government in February,” the Telegraph reports. “While the election leaves President Petro Poroshenko in a weaker position than expected, it cements the country’s pro-European course, with the three centrist pro-European parties between them in a dominant position.”
“The city—which has a population of just under 2 million—was named as the most “progressive, inclusive and accepting” place for LGBT people, by travel guide Lonely Planet,” Pink News reports.
Dieudonné? You might never have heard of him. Well, he’s a big name in France and has become known for being the poster boy of a far-right “anti-Zionist” party, for bringing Nazi salutes back in fashion, and for likening the Holocaust to a religion “no one dares to criticise”. He is an obvious old-school racist who camouflages as a rebel. Here is a taste of Dieudonné’s rethoric:
What I’m trying to say is that Zionism is dividing humanity. It is trying to rule by making us fight one another. They have organised all the wars and organised all the disorders on this planet. They were involved in the slave trade. We should know that 90% of the ships that relocated the Africans to the West Indies belonged to Jews, and the majority of slave traders were Jews. Obviously, Jews today are not responsible for what happened, but this is a reality, and this, for example, is something we are not allowed to talk about.
You really must read the interview in full. The man not only recycle just about every anti-Semitic idea there is, he also goes on to praise Iran and its former dictator-president as some kind of haven for free speech.
“Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s first press conference as the host of an international political summit made painful viewing as he stumbled over the name of one of his guests,” The Local reports.
“David Cameron suffered a double blow on Europe on Tuesday when a parliamentary bill to establish an EU membership referendum by the end of 2017 collapsed and a key UK ally told Britain to accept a demand from Brussels to pay an extra £1.7bn,” the Guardian reports.
In an article in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the new foreign minister writes that the Palestinian State her government is about to recognise will consist of Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Jews are once again expected to leave their property for others to take over.
Jews were forced to leave their homes in Europe after the Second World War. No state agreed to take them on. These European Jews had lived in Europe for two millennia, but were no longer welcome.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Arab countries decided to force more than a million Jews into exile. These Jews had lived in Arab land for many centuries, but were no longer welcome.
The solution for both Arab and European Jews was to seek refuge in the land of Israel, the only place on earth that Jews have ever truly been able to call their own. But this wasn’t enough. Now Sweden joins some of the world’s most evil regimes and demand that Jews be forced out of Israel, too. Shame!
Red the article in Swedish here.
Update: The Local has now posted an article in English about this.
“There is no evidence that tough enforcement of the drug laws on personal possession leads to lower levels of drug use, according to the government’s first evidence-based study,” the Guardian reports.
“Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery’,” Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic writes.
“It is a pity the Swedish government has chosen to adopt the measure that does a lot of damage and has no benefits,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman tells the Jerusalem Post.
“Speaking to the Huffington Post, the outspoken politician claimed the reform only matters to ‘some queen who wants to dress up in a bridal frock and dance up the aisle to the Village People’,” Pink News reports.
Keep this in mind the next time some bigot says he’s not a homophobe since he has gay friends. The homophobic gay man is as much a stereotype as the self-hating Jew.