The past year ended with the sad news of Betty White’s death. She was only a few weeks from celebrating he 100th birthday.

The Guardian has made a gallery of photos of celebration from around the world.

A future with little or no fossil fuel came a step closer today. I love progress and welcome a break from alarmism.

Holidays are supposed to make you feel energised. I can’t say that I feel that way at all.

Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty of fraud. Her now-defunct blood testing startup was scrutinised in the HBO documentary The Inventor, which I recommend.

Nuclear power cannot be considered green or sustainable a technology in EU regulations, regardless of the possibility of making continued investments in both, Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition says in a statement.

I remember the headlines when the “Grindr killer” targeted young men in London. BBC has now made a three-part drama series about it, and Pink News has made a brief portraits of Port’s four victims. True crime is a popular genre, but it’s always harder when you have names and faces of the victims.

In Christian tradition, 6 January, Epiphany, marks the manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi. It’s a public holiday in many countries, Sweden being one of them.

Hungary, France, or Brazil? Michael Meyer-Resende is not much of an optimist in his latest EU Observer column.

Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev is only the latest post-Soviet figure to face significant street protests in recent years. But as the enemy of all decency that he is, Putin has rushed in Russian paratroopers. In Putin’s Kremlin, Soviet imperialism is still alive.

Gay Times reports that the maricoin, a play on words taken from a homophobic slur in Spanish, was launched involving ten businesses in Chueca, known as the LGBTQ+ neighbourhood of Madrid.

“The rich are irrational when it comes to work,” Jonathan Malesic writes in the Guardian. “Out of everyone in our society, they have the least need to earn more money, but they work the most.”

“By the early 20th century, tyranny was no longer championed by monarchs and their hangers-on; it had become a creed of the intellectuals,” Robert Tracinski writes.

Nine out of Sweden’s thirteen public holidays have their history in traditional Christian celebrations, Chiara Milford writes in The Local.

Swedes are far less secular than most would ever admit. Secularism is more of a thing all cool kids must embrace in public. In private, traditions are quite nice.

What sadist decided that the light on commuter trains should be this bright?

If there’s one word the captures winter in Southern Sweden, it’s “rain”. Thankfully, it’s only a week until I go back to my Spanish island, where the word is “sun”.

Dozens have died and public buildings across Kazakhstan have been ransacked and torched in the worst violence experienced by the former Soviet republic. Dictator Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has ordered his troops to use lethal force.

It’s the highest level in nearly three decades, and it’s bad news for everyone.

The Catholic Church and the northern Italian city of Ferrara made peace with Antonio Vivaldi nearly 300 years after a local archbishop effectively cancelled the staging of his opera Il Farnace.

We have to talk more about men’s mental health. Suicide is the number one killer in young men.

The Swedish government just announced new rules from Wednesday. Bars and restaurants must close at 11pm. Will it ever end?

It’s absurd, but 39% of Italians want this 85-year-old fool to be their president.

The findings of a new study from the University of Bristol emphasises the importance of physical distancing and mask wearing.

Greece’s Ministry of Culture has launched an investigation following the online release of a short film showing two men having sex at the ancient Acropolis in Athens.

A well-known trans-rights activist has been shot dead in Honduras. The local community is in shock after the murder. Since 2009, more than 400 gay and trans people have been killed.

The Swedish government today announced that it will give people a sum of money to help them pay for the record-high tax on electricity. It took a while before I could comprehend the absurdity.

A team of researchers from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary have found that dogs are able to differentiate languages.

The study was published in Neuroimage.

Woof! 🐕

The pure madness of it all!

The sculpture, depicting Ariel and Prospero from the Shakespeare play The Tempest, was created by Eric Gill, who in his diaries revealed that he sexually abused his daughters and the family dog.

Producer prices in the United States increased by nearly 10% for the year ending in December. This follows an international trend after years of central banks printing cheap money. Bad news!

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has condemned [Russia’s] cyber attacks on the Ukrainian government, where main pages of several ministerial websites were defaced with a provocative message.

In twenty-four hours, I’m on a plane heading to Spain. I can’t wait to get away from the Swedish winter. Brrr…

The plane to Gran Canaria had some technical problem, so we had to leave it, and now we’re waiting for a new aircraft. I’m hungry. 😡

I was hoping for warm weather and sun, but on my fist day Gran Canaria is experiencing strong winds and rain today.

I was hoping for three weeks of sun, but so far Gran Canaria has offered nothing but cold, rain, and wind. Thank God for Netflix.

“Partygate” could be his downfall. It’s absurd that a compulsive liar will be punished for this and not for the many lies he told the British people about the EU.

The weather is somewhat better in Gran Canaria today. The sun is back and the temperature has gone up. ♥️☀️

Another 49 internet satellites have been launched into space. This is the nightmare of dictators who need to control information in order to suppress citizens.

Facebook makes the case for always carrying sunglasses. Adam Smith writes:

Facebook has patented a new technology for an “authentic” robot eye.

The idea, granted in December, would let the social media company build a "high performing and realistic" eyeball that would be like an "animatronic device" to track humans’ eye movements.

Tracking eye movements is used in digital ads to detect what people look at, as well as by its parent company Meta’s virtual reality applications. This could make it easier to load virtual items in a VR environment—only generating items that the user is looking at.

This first-of-its-kind surgery is seen potentially leading to clinical trials of animal-to-human transplants. Wow! Science fiction is real.

In Asia Times, Mohammed Nosseir writes that social media have made politics more complicated by enabling millions of users, regardless of qualifications, to express their opinions and influence their peers.

Earlier today, a seminar on honour killing was interrupted by Nazis who played extreme-right music and showed swastikas. I’m disgusted, but, unfortunately, not too surprised.

One of the world’s best-selling singer has died. His 1977 album Bat Out of Hell sold in more than 40 million copies.

According to Fox News, the government is soon expected to encourage all Americans to begin leaving Ukraine by commercial flights.

The country’s government plans to send a letter to the United Nations asking for a name change. The autocratic president is tired of people getting images of dumb birds when they google “Turkey”. I think they should adopt my proposed flag instead.

One thing I never seem to learn is that here in Spain, most shops are closed on Sundays. The area I live in consists mostly of tourists and expats, so it’s different. But going to a regular shopping centre on a Sunday—forget it.

If this becomes the rusult in next year’s general election, the Green and Liberal parties will both lose their seats in the Swedish Parliament.

Source: Sifo.

Social Democrats	31.1%
Moderate Party	20.9%
Sweden Democrats	19.2%
Left Party	9.6%
Centre Party	7%
Christian Democrats	4.4%
Green Party	3%
Liberal Party	2.9%

Who said it’s easy being a puppet?

Gabriel Sherman writes in Vanity Fair about a Christian-right leader with a problem keeping it zipped.

This cave painting was found in 1953 in Mount Pellegrino in Sicily by archaeologist Jole Bovio Marconi after an explosion uncovered part of the site during the Second World War. Marconi’s interpretation of the depicted scene was that it’s homoerotic in nature due to the erect penises parallel to each other.

I’m not so sure, but Casey Hoke has written more about it at Queer Art History.

It’s a big hit in Ukraine.

This according to a new study published in Current Biology.

According to some estimates, the universe will die definitely in about 10²⁵⁰⁰ years. By then even the proton has decayed.

No time to waste. We better hurry.

The woman who hit a Nazi in the head with har handbag was seen as a hero in 1985. These Nazis founded the Sweden Democrats three years later. This party now has the support from ∼20% of Swedes.

I was supposed to write an article today. Deadline is the day after tomorrow. But I can’t get myself to do it. My brain is just not working. Too unfocused. So I listen to Leonard Cohen instead.

The exploding building scene is replaced with a black screen and a coda: “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding”, the Guardian reports.

Daily Mail reports that AirCar, a flying car that can reach heights of more than 2,4000m and speeds over 160km/h, is one step closer to going on sale.

The US has helped prepare for the diversion of natural gas supplies from around the world to Europe in the event that Putin cuts the flow from Russia.

No one can be surprised by this.

The survey was made by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International. It’s available here.

American officials believe Moscow could use Washington’s formal reply as a pretext to step up final military preparations.

Don’t give Putin anything! Europe had enough of Russian autocrats in the past century.

The last time temperatures in Miami dropped below 4°C was on 28 December 2010. Brrr…

In Swedish, “söt katt” means “cute cat”. And cats have nothing to do with what’s fore sale in this shop.

Apparently, her new, four-hour-long documentary has nothing but empty air. It’s sad because she has had a life like few others.

I can’t sleep, so I took a deeper look at the works of Samuel Hirszenberg and found some really nice paintings with a Jewish touch. The name of these three are “Excommunicated Spinoza” (1907), “Jewish Cemetary in Lodz” (1892), and “Dome of the Rock” (1908).

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First there was rain, now there is haze.

“You suggested you could put Tabasco sauce in the lube and bring it to me in prison, so I could be anally raped,” the plaintiff said to the defendant in court.

That gotta hurt. 🌶🌶🌶

I’m on the hunt for a new administrative job, preferably at a government agency in the Swedish judicial system. Have work experience from the Swedish Prosecution Authority (Åklagarmyndigheten), the Swedish Economic Crime Authority (Ekobrottsmyndigheten), and the Swedish Police (Polismyndigheten). I don’t want to leave Malmö, but I can travel. Please, send me a text if there’s something you think might suit me. #MyWork

Malmö’s harbour was hit hard. Thankfully, I’m in Spain—but here’s a toxic haze that makes my eyes sandy. 😡

Sweden–Spain, 27–26.

I’m updating my LinkedIn page in the hope this will boost my job hunting. Have had a profile there for years but never really used it for anything.

Today, it’s been two years since my mother died in a hospital bed next to me. We were alone and I held her hand when she left. I find comfort in that I repeatedly told her how much I loved her and how blessed I was to be her son.

To share the last moments in somebody’s life is perhaps the most important thing you can do to a loved one. In those hours everything else becomes meaningless.

I don’t know if there’s an afterlife. I think not. But regardless, my mother lives on in me. She won’t be gone until I am.

I took this photo of her in New York’s Battery Park on a freezing cold day in 2015. Hence, the earmuffs.

“Defying all odds, Portugal’s ruling centre-left Socialists won an outright parliamentary majority in Sunday’s snap general election,” the Guardian reports.