“Sweden could see a return to compulsory military service, this time for men and women, less than a decade after the policy was scrapped,” The Local reports.

I’m watching a televised speech by Donald Trump and I’m feeling sick about the way he links a number of horrific crimes to the perpetrators’ immigration status. Instead of debating the alarming gun violence in America, the Trump campaign is all about blaming foreigners.

Police say the 25-year-old man who shot three people in Copenhagen on Wednesday night has alleged ties to the Islamic State terrorist group, The Local reports.

Extreme-right MEP, Mogens Camre, suggests that Denmark follow the Philippines and have the police kill all drug dealers, Berlingske reports.

David Rooney gives Tom Ford’s new film a good review in the Hollywood Reporter.

At Pink News, Luke Beck, lecturer in Constitutional Law at Western Sydney University, explains why Australia’s ban on same-sex marriage is the true threat to religious liberty. And he’s absolutely right. Marriage equality doesn’t deprive anyone of any freedom.

The Rolling Stone magazine has provided us all with a list.

“A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to ten years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter,” Felix Allen of the Sun reports. “The 28-year-old reportedly refused to repent, insisting what he wrote reflected his beliefs and that he had the right to express them.”

A despicable violation of human rights!

“A Swedish pediatrician is sparking debate after saying some refugees claiming to be unaccompanied minors are lying about their age,” The Local reports. “He even deems some of them to be as old as 40.”

“The United States and China, the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have announced they will formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement in a move campaigners immediately hailed as a significant advance in the battle against global warming,” Tom Phillips, Fiona Harvey, and Alan Yuhas of the Guardian report.

“Forty-five percent of Americans have gotten into a fight over the election with a friend, a family member or a co-worker this year,” Ariel Edwards-Levy of the Huffington Post reports.

“The mayor of Melania Trump’s hometown is embarrassed,” Alex Duval Smith of the Guardian writes.

“A study by two Italian economists has shown that despite huge political and social changes in Florence over the past 600 years, one thing has barely changed at all: the surnames of the city’s richest inhabitants,” The Local reports.

It’s thin and beautiful.

“The beauty of the headphone cable is just like the beauty of a tampon string: it is there to help you keep track of a very important item, and help you fish it out of whatever nook and cranny it might have fallen into,” Julia Carrie Wong of the Guardian writes.

“A new campaign launched in southern Swedish city Malmö hopes to fight anti-Semitism by encouraging thousands of school students to talk about the issue,” The Local reports. “The project, a combined effort between the Jewish Community of Malmö and the City of Malmö, will focus on creating dialogue about anti-Semitism by exploring the shared experiences between the city’s Jews and many of its young people.”

“When socialist party leaders meet, most of the time, nothing intelligent comes out of it,” Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble says.

I took a drive with my parents and husband today, and among other things, we visited Glimmingehus, the best preserved medieval stronghold in Scandinavia. Construction began in 1499 by the Danish knight Jens Holgersen Ulfstand and German architect Adam van Düren. Construction was completed in 1506.

The European Commission withdrew a draft proposal on roaming because its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, doesn’t think it was good enough, Eric Maurice of EU Observer reports. Commission spokesperson Alexander Winterstein promises that roaming charges are going to disappear on 1 June 2017.

I’m torn. On the one hand, I don’t think politicians should decided what private companies charge their customers. On the other hand, it’s about time roaming charges in the EU became history. We share a common market and it’s ridiculous that mobile use should be restricted to old national borders. I realise that I’m not consistent, but hey, I’m human.

Alanna Vagianos of the Huffington Post has listed twelve responses to “Hillary Clinton being a human and getting sick”. Among them, Chase Mitchell’s tweet is my favourite: “This is the first time Republicans have cared about a woman’s health.”

Silly and incorrect, I’m sure, but funny nonetheless.

Statistics Sweden lists the top birth countries among foreign-born residents:

Country	Women	Men
Finland	94,077	61,968
Iraq	61,073	70,815
Syria	41,515	56,701
Poland	46,907	38,610
Iran	33,126	35,941
Serbia & Montenegro	33,382	33,808
Somalia	30,329	30,294
Bosnia & Herzegovina	29,172	28,533
Germany	26,174	23,412
Turkey	20,853	25,520
Norway	23,387	18,687
Denmark	19,653	22,217
Thailand	30,349	8,443
Afghanistan	12,558	18,709
Eritrea	12,724	15,892

I love living in a multicultural society with all these different nationalities melting together to form a new whole.

“EU missions should in future be commanded out of an EU military HQ with joint medical and logistical support,” Andrew Rettman and Aleksandra Eriksson of the EU Observer report.

Brexit just might create more European integration. People who only read British tabloids will surely be surprised as they’ve been told for months that EU is about to implode.

“A woman is suing her dildo manufacturer for knowing too much about when and how she uses it,” Sara Morrison of Vocativ reports.

I didn’t know such a thing as a smart dildo existed until now. But why buy one if you don’t like the idea of being monitored? That’s what all smart devices do to learn about our individual needs.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, says Hungary should be excluded from the EU, Eric Maurice of the EU Observer reports.

Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, has dismissed the remarks, Daily News Hungary reports.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf insisted that continued support for the European Union was necessary as he reopened parliament today, The Local reports.

“Rhode Island GOP Chairman Brandon Bell called Clinton ‘subhuman’ during a radio interview,” Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times reports.

Politics brings out the worst in people.

A 36-year-old Scottish tourist wearing traditional Muslim dress had her blouse set on fire in New York City’s Fifth Avenue, Rocco Parascandola of the New York Daily News reports.

Far too often, I hear people deny the very existence of Islamophobia.

“Pete Burns has opened up about his obsession with plastic surgery, admitting he’s had over 300 operations over the years to fix botched procedures—but is still in love with his appearance,” Zoe Shenton of the Daily Record writes.

The European Commission’s Brexit negotiator says the British vote to leave the EU is a consequence of Europe’s ‘ultra-liberal drift’, Eric Maurice of the EU Observer reports.

That’s just nuts!

The first photograph ever taken by a camera. From 1826 or 1827. Photography has since developed somewhat.

My husband is travelling in southern Spain and sent me this picture of the Rock.

“British defence minister Michael Fallon has said the UK would veto the creation of EU military capabilities so long as it remained a member of the bloc,” Andrew Rettman of the EU Observer reports.

In a new column for the Telegraph, madwoman Janet Daley seconds Marine Le Pen’s mantra about the EU being the root of totalitarianism. Ms Daley was born in America, so I assume she thinks of the former home as an evil empire, too, since it’s federal laws are forcing individual states to comply with the “generous liberality” she hates so, so much.

In a Telegraph article by Tim Ross, I read about a new group of Europhobic fanatics in Britain who want a “hard Brexit”. To make their case they say that the European Single Market is “the world’s least successful economic zone” and that a trade deal for Britain therefor is unnecessary. A simple table showing the 2013 trade in goods and commercial services will tell you how deluded these Europhobes are. The data comes from Eurostats and the World Trade Organisation.

Region	Imports	Exports
EU	€2188bn	€2415bn
United States	€2079bn	€1688bn
China	€1716bn	€1817bn
Japan	€750bn	€648bn
South Korea	€468bn	€506bn

The table would be different without Britain in the EU, but to say that the Single Market is a failure is absurd and rooted in something altogether different from facts.

This early Sunday morning has been a hectic one the emergency services here in Malmö. During the night, at least fifteen cars have been set on fire by criminals, local newspaper Kvällsposten reports. It’s a worrying trend. Cars have burned in this city almost every night for quite some time now. When I read this, I realise that this has become the new normal.

So-called safe spaces at the Californian university is no-go areas for Jews, Anthony Berteaux of the Washington Post reports. At Berkeley, a campus of the University of California, one can read such things as “Hitler did nothing wrong” written on tables in a student cafe. There you have it, progressive leftists gone the full circle and becoming what the extreme right has always been—full-blown Nazi scum. I’m disgusted!

Two stories caught my attention this evening, both in the Telegraph. Firstly, a new survey conducted by Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security has found that among unmarried people aged 18 to 34, about 42% of the men and 44.2% of the women had never had sex. Secondly, someone who has managed to find both love and—I presume—sex is the British Queen’s cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten. He found his new love in a man he met in Switzerland.

I think I have found the common root in all the political ideologies I deplore. It’s the idea that people are not inherently free but need to be taught by government how to become free.

“Partial results showed Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party heading to a comfortable victory with 49.8 percent of the vote after 20 percent of ballots had been counted, a result that would cement the Kremlin’s grip on parliament ahead of crucial presidential elections in 2018,” the Telegraph reports. Big surprise—not!

But you have to give Putin some credit. Unlike most de facto dictators, he didn’t give himself 99.9% of the vote. That demands some restraint.

“Sweden's military has urged staff to stay alert as more and more incidents that could be linked to suspected espionage are emerging across the country,” The Local reports.

The spies are said to be Russian, working for the regime that recently bombed a UN aid convoy in Syria.

As always is the case with the Telegraph, Peter Foster has a negative view of Europe and wants to see us weak and torn apart. However, unlike most article on Brexit in this conservative newspaper, he acknowledge the fundamental fact that the EU has the upper hand when in the forthcoming negotiations—EU sends 8% of its exports to Britain, but Britain sends 45% to the EU.

“After the request for membership in the European Union got submitted in February this year and after all the requirements of the European agenda that are necessary for the consideration of the application got done, the Council of the European Union today formally requested the European Commission to submit its opinion on the application for membership of BiH in the European Union,” Sarajevo Times reports.

Image: The flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Mona Sahlin was once the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. She was, according to many on the Left, destined to become prime minister. Today, The Local writes that she was questioned for two hours on criminal suspicion of providing false certifications. I realise that this is a sign as good as any of Sweden becoming a country like others. For far too long we believed the lie that we were more righteous.

“The melting Greenland ice sheet is already a major contributor to rising sea level and if it was eventually lost entirely, the oceans would rise by six metres around the world, flooding many of the world’s largest cities,” Damian Carrington of the Guardian reports.

“The head of the delegation, Portuguese Socialist Ana Gomes, said border checks were an exception to EU rules and must be a temporary solution,” Aleksandra Eriksson of the EU Observer reports.

“Although the limit of 140 characters per tweet will not go away, attachments such as images and videos along with quoted tweets will no longer count towards the total,” The Economist reports. “It is unlikely that the change will affect the firm’s growth, which has slowed down markedly.”

I stopped tweeting some time ago and now only use Twitter for direct messages and automated posting of this diary. The bullying and trolling boreded me, so I quit.

Swedish police will be able to raid companies to catch illegal migrant workers under new proposals announced by the centre-left government’s clampdown on asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected, Daniel Dickson and Johan Ahlander report. “Sweden made an abrupt U-turn last year on decades of generous immigration policies, introducing border controls and tighter rules after 163,000 people applied for asylum in 2015,” Simon Johnson of Reuters writes.

“German populist party AfD was caught in a new storm Thursday after it emerged that a recently elected Berlin deputy had called refugees ‘disgusting worms’ while another key member reportedly sold Nazi paraphernalia,” The Local reports.

“Warsaw Will” blogs about English spelling of words such as organise and organise. This is the type of nerdy stuff I love to read. On the subject, I recently shifted from -ize to -ise in this diary. It’s easier and the letter Z is ugly. But also, the European Union and trusted British publications—The Economist, the Telegraph, the Guardian, et cetera—prefer this spelling.

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

— David Bowie

“It was a mess from top to bottom, and I don’t like messy bottoms.”

“Flyers warning of ‘hundreds of no-go areas in European cities’, which highlighted Stockholm along with London, Brussels, Marseille, Berlin and the Copenhagen-Malmö area, were this month sent to millions of households in Hungary ahead of its referendum next month on EU refugee quotas,” The Local reports.

“The new ideal look, the evolution of men’s fashion and the current focus on gender have blurred the lines between men and women,” Thomas Urbain reports.

“The Kremlin-backed broadcaster formerly known as Russia Today has offered Nigel Farage his own television show,” Patrick Foster of the Telegraph reported on 7 September.

It’s very obvious that the Putin regime wants a weak Europe and that it therefore considers Europhobes friends in the cause for a stronger Russia. I don’t think Farage wants Europe to live under Russian rule, he’s just stupid and too fuelled by hatred towards the EU to grasp the severity of his actions.

Russia woos Europe’s Extreme Right. The far-right group in the European Parliament is known for backing Russia against Europe, and leading figures, such as France’s Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands’s Geert Wilders, are seeking financial support from Putin. And it’s not tiny sums we’re talking about. In February, it became known that Le Pen’s National Front has asked Russia for a €27 million loan to help it fight presidential and parliamentary elections in 2017.

Add to this the prospect of a Putin-friendly president in America and the future looks very worrying indeed. The free world won the Cold War, but Moscow seems to winning the lukewarm one.

The far-right Sweden Democrats has hired the exclusive Grand Hotel in Stockholm for an alternative Nobel prize called the European Freedom Awards, Niklas Svensson of Swedish newspaper Expressen reports. Politicians from a dozen countries are expected to participate as a former European head of state is awarded the “freedom prize”. Among those who will give a speech is former UKIP leader Nigel Farage from Britain.

The Sweden Democrats has done much in recent years to appear democratic, but the party has its roots in European fascism and Nordic neo-Nazism with many of its members responsible for violent crimes targeting immigrants, women, and gay people. The party’s new European Freedom Awards is the opposite of what it appears to be. It will be awarded to people opposing freedom for Europeans by promoting nationalism, disintegration, and xenophobia.

“The gunman who slaughtered 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub told a police negotiator the attack was a protest against US bombings of Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria,” Michael McLaughlin of the Huffington Post reports.

“After locking down Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and tearing down church crosses in eastern China, President Xi Jinping’s campaign against unapproved religion and foreign influence has turned to an unlikely adversary: a small group of Jews whose ancestors settled in this now faded imperial city near the banks of the Yellow River more than 1,000 years ago,” Chris Buckley of the New York Times writes in an informative article. “A few hundred residents had staged a lively, sometimes contentious rebirth of Kaifeng’s Jewish heritage in recent decades, with classes, services and proposals to rebuild the lost synagogue as a museum.”

“Police are appealing for witnesses to a shooting which killed a man and injured three in a residential street of Malmö,” The Local reports.

These shootings and the gang mentality that surrounds them are now a completely normalised in this city.

Shimon Peres, winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace prize and the last surviving member of Israel’s founding fathers has died. Peres was a former Israeli president, former Israeli prime minister, former Israeli defence minister, former Israeli foreign minister, and a former minister of eight other Israeli ministries.

“An inquiry launched by the Swedish government has suggested that compulsory military service should be reintroduced,” The Local reports.

Sign of the times.

“Since taking power in Manila, Duterte has made international headlines for all the wrong reasons” Emily Rauhala of the Washington Post reports. “His call to ‘kill all’ the country’s criminals has unleashed an extraordinary wave of violence, with police fatally shooting more than a thousand suspects and plainclothes assassins dumping an even greater number of bodies on the streets.”

No-nonsense authoritarianism is the new black in politics. Scary stuff!

“Ken Clarke has lashed out at Theresa May, saying she has ‘no idea’ how to pull Britain out of the EU,” Jeff Farrell of Daily Star reports.

“European diplomats are increasingly convinced the UK will sever economic ties with the continent when it leaves the European Union, as hopes of a special partnership languish,” Jennifer Rankin of the Guardian reports. “As the European commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, prepares to start work on Saturday, the dominant mood among senior diplomats is that the UK is on the path to ‘hard Brexit’, namely giving up membership of the EU single market, as well as the customs union that allows free circulation of goods.”