Saturday, 31 March 2007, 19:08 GMT

The Israel Factor

Shmuel Rosner of Ha'aretz has put together a panel of experts that follows the American presidential election closely from an Israeli perspective. Every week the panellists rank the candidates. This week's "Top Ten" reads:

1. Rudy Giuliani
2. Newt Gingrich
3. Hillary Clinton
4. John McCain
5. Al Gore
6. Bill Richardson
7. Sam Brownback
8. John Edwards
9. Mitt Romney
10. Joseph Biden

Could be interesting to follow in the months to come.

Saturday, 31 March 2007, 18:18 GMT

Simon Heffer on War with Iran

The capricious, and indeed downright wicked, behaviour of the Iranians towards our sailors confirms one other thing: that the civilised world cannot let the Ahmadinejad regime develop nuclear weapons. It is not just his oft-repeated enthusiasm for wiping Israel off the face of the earth that should worry us: it is what this madman might decide he wants to do to anyone else within range.

– Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph

Saturday, 31 March 2007, 07:09 GMT

Social Democrats Could Learn from Nelson

The Simpson character Nelson is the ultimate bully. His behaviour has been explained with an episode in his early boyhood when his father went to the shop to buy some cigarettes never to return. Being abandoned by his father and left stranded with his poor and half-witted mother created emotional scars in little Nelson. Therefore, he began to fill the void of his soul by making others feel as bad as him. That is how the unruly bully was born.

On 29 March, the Swedish Social Democratic Party presented an analysis of its election defeat (pdf). It's a dull and predictable read. However, an interesting thing is the way ridicule and name-calling is used when other political parties are mentioned. The liberal-conservative Alliance is systematically put in inverted commas, as if to say that the socialist opposition do not recognize the official name of the government parties. Truly jejune in my opinion. Furthermore, the Moderate Party is described as a party of the Extreme Right, insinuating that more than one quarter of the electorate supports semi-Nazis. This is childish and ridiculous, but it's also funny in that the Social Democrats are the ones who have supported nearly every fascist dictator the past century. In fact, during the Second World War, the Social Democrats had close ties with Hitler and helped him to catch Jews and occupy Norway. During the Cold War, the Social Democrats refused to side with the democratic West against commie-fascist Soviet Union. They said the acted like this because they wanted Sweden to remain neutral, but this wish has never stopped them from siding with terrorist organizations and undemocratic regimes.

To label the Moderate Part "Extreme Right" is a silly attempt to mask the fact that the Social Democrats lost the election because they lack ideas on how to solve the most pressing problems in Swedish society. As Nelson, they are left stranded with nothing to fill the void with except the satisfaction of bullying others. Unlike Nelson, they are not good at it.

(Via Henrik Sjöholm and Jörgen Modin.)

Friday, 30 March 2007, 16:13 GMT

Is Marijuana Kosher?

Sheera Claire Frenkel, the Jerusalem Post, and a growing number of Jews want to know if it's OK to get stoned at Passover. Reason Magazine's Jacob Sullum says yes and elaborates his answer in a blog entry.

Perhaps the wisdom of my Jamaican friend in Amsterdam can be of some help: "It's why God made the plant."

Friday, 30 March 2007, 14:53 GMT

The Popularity of the Sweden Democrats

If there were a general election today, the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) would get 4,3% of the votes according to a new poll by research agency Sentio. With more than the required 4% of votes, this would allow the party to enter the Swedish Parliament for the first time. The prospect of this new party holding seats in parliament is something that makes the established parties nervous and uneasy. To an extent, I share this discomfort. The Sweden Democrats is a semi-fascist, anti-liberal, xenophobic, and homophobic party. In short, it's everything I'm not. But I cannot see what new threats to liberal values the Sweden Democrats would bring to Parliament. If anything, the party is a dull mix of the least appealing ideas of the existing parliamentarian parties. Few of their core ideas are uniquely theirs. The only thing that distinguishes the Sweden Democrats is the inordinate attention to Islam-related problems.

Friday, 30 March 2007, 13:21 GMT

The Latest on Iran's Kidnapping

From the Breitbart.com website:

One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared Friday on the government's Arabic-language TV and apologized for entering Iranian waters "without permission." The Iranians meanwhile released a third letter allegedly by captured sailor Faye Turney, in which she said she has been "sacrificed" to the policies of the British and U.S. governments.

The Iranian Embassy in London criticized both Britain and the U.N. Security Council on Friday for becoming involved in the crisis.

Prior to the release of the third letter, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government has insisted that its navy personnel were captured in Iraqi waters, immediately denounced the broadcast and said it would only lead to further isolation for Iran. The standoff has added to tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions and over allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq.

"I don't know why the Iranian regime keeps doing this, all it does it heightens people's sense of disgust. Captured personel being paraded and manipulated in this way, it doesn't fool anyone," he said in a brief statement.

Well, threats of "continued isolation" only works on democracies where people are accustomed civil liberties and free movement. In a country where people need permission to travel and have to seek approval for any text the wish to publish, "continued isolation" means nothing more than status quo. That's why democratization and human rights are vital for the future of the Middle East.

Thursday, 29 March 2007, 08:34 GMT

A Lesson in Swedish

If the YouTube-clip isn't showing or working properly, you should be able to find it here.

Thursday, 29 March 2007, 04:16 GMT

Put a Stop to Ahmadinejad's Regime

Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a fascist. He is keeping the world hostage with his threats of nuclear attacks. The latest developments should make it obvious to everyone that it is time to strike Iran before the despotic leader gets even more powerful.

I second what I wrote on 12 February.

Thursday, 29 March 2007, 02:38 GMT

Why They Hate Liberals

One of Sweden's best leftist journalists, Magnus Linton, blogs from South America where he now lives. In his latest entry, he writes about how the ideas of liberalism have been distorted and badly portrayed in Latin America with the help of the Catholic Church. The church felt threatened by the atheism of early liberal activists, which made it take side with conservatives and others who wished to fight of liberals and liberal ideas. The Vatican sanctioned the killings of liberals because the liberals did not believe in God. As a result, few true liberals can be found in the South America today. Most liberal parties are de facto conservative.

Unfortunately, this is not a development unfamiliar to Europe. In most countries, liberals have been forced to side with either conservatives or socialists for a long time. By this, conservatives and socialists have been able to blame all of their shortcomings on the ideology of liberty and individualism—when collectivism and control fail, individualism and freedom get the blame. Few are those who dare to see the full picture and acknowledge that the most horrific atrocities in history have been the result of antonyms of liberalism.

Wednesday, 28 March 2007, 11:19 GMT

Carl Bildt Must Address Japanese Atrocities

The Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, is visiting Japan and praises the country on his blog. The minister does not mention that the Japanese government has failed to acknowledge responsibility for more than 200,000 women from China, Thailand, and Korea being forced into prostitution during the Second World War. This makes blogger Niklas "Blogge" Dougherty furious. Therefore he has posted an entry with many gruesome pictures of Japanese atrocities. If Mr Bildt sees this, he should act accordingly.

Wednesday, 28 March 2007, 10:19 GMT

On Chesil Beach

The novels I like the best tend to fall into the suspense-fiction category. I do enjoy other types of fiction as well, but no reading intrigues me more than novels by writers able to combine literary artistry with a smart plot. And few contemporary novelists do this better than Ian McEwan does.

Today I learned that McEwan's new novel, entitled On Chesil Beach, was available in British bookshops on 23 March. The publisher describes it as "a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken". The New Yorker published an excerpt from the novel in December last year that made me long for more. Now I don't have to wait for much longer, the book is on its way.

Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 22:03 GMT

Picture of a Lobbyist

Gudrun Schyman, leader of the Feminist Initiative, talks to principal owner Peter Wallenberg about female representation at the annual general meeting of Investor, Sweden's largest industrial holding company.

Photo by Sven-Erik Sjöberg.

Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 08:02 GMT

Pro-Choice Catholicism

From an article in the Los Angeles Times:

A liberal Latin American Roman Catholic group published a paid ad defending abortion in national Mexican newspapers today, a day after several thousand people summoned by Mexico's Catholic Church protested against a proposal to legalize the procedure.

"The decision to interrupt a pregnancy is a serious ethical dilemma," the non-governmental organization, Catholics for the Right to Choose, wrote in the ad. "Women who resort to this option don't do it with joy in their hearts; they do it as a last resort after considering all of the consequences, and they make the decision responsibly, according to their conscience."

Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 07:30 GMT

Federley Makes Me Happy

I cannot think of any Swedish politician that makes me as happy as Fredrick Federley. He is one of few MPs that speak out for true liberal values. In today's Svenska Dagbladet, Lova Olsson portrays him in an excellent article.

Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 06:26 GMT

Human Rights Practices

One of the best sources of information on abuse of human rights is the US State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices". GLAA has put together excerpts pertaining to gay-related incidents. It's sad reading mostly, but it does provide a few glimpses of hope:

• In Brazil, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, "The Secretariat of State Security in Rio de Janeiro State in partnership with NGOs operated a hot line and offered professional counseling services to victims of antihomosexual crimes."
• In Bulgaria, the gay rights group Gemini won three gay-related discrimination cases.
• In the Czech Republic, "parliament passed registered domestic partnership legislation."
• In Israel, "the High Court issued a ruling requiring the government to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in foreign jurisdictions."
• In Mexico, Mexico City passed a civil unions bill.
• In Mozambique, "a major newspaper published, for the first time, an article arguing in favor of homosexual rights."
• In Singapore, "the government approved a gay and lesbian festival that included movie showings, book signings, and theater performances."
• South Africa legalized same-sex marriage.

Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 02:42 GMT

Poo for Peace

We are used to pictures of demonstrators with no control of themselves. Burning the American flag is a cliché at socialist and Islamist rallies in Europe and the Arab world. The young people seen in this picture take it one step further by defecating on the flag. The picture was taken at a "peace rally" in Portland recently. Now I expect it's only a matter of weeks until some of Sweden's brat communists do the same.

(Via Michelle Malkin and Victoria Taft.)

Monday, 26 March 2007, 01:58 GMT

Conspiratorial Loon

Just now, I listened to an interview (mp3) with Maria-Pia Boëthius in Swedish public radio. I knew she was a conspiratorial leftist goof, but I had no idea how far gone her madness has taken her. Apparently, she has written a new book on "corporate media" in which the main plot evolves around a woman who has seen through organized indoctrination by the media. It's obvious that Boëthius thinks of herself as some sort of missionary who knows the absolute truth about the world today. The only people who share her knowledge of the truth are the far-left stone-throwers that burn cars and demolish cities whenever they get the opportunity.

Sunday, 25 March 2007, 04:17 GMT

More on the Dangers of Drugs

Robert S. Gable of the American Scientist has written a readworthy article on the new drug study published by the Lancet. I quote:

Despite the health risks and social costs, consciousness-altering chemicals have been used for centuries in almost all cultures. So it would be unrealistic to expect that all types of recreational drug use will suddenly cease. Self-management of these substances is extremely difficult, yet modern Western societies have not, in general, developed positive, socially sanctioned rituals as a means of regulating the use of some of the less hazardous recreational drugs. I would argue that we need to do that. The science of toxicology may provide one step in that direction, by helping to teach members of our society what a lot of tribal people already know.

I second that.

Friday, 23 March 2007, 22:17 GMT

The True Dangers of Drugs

From an article published by Reuters:

In a study published in the medical weekly the Lancet, the experts said the split of drugs into classes A, B or C was based on "prejudice and assumptions" and did not match the harm the substances cause.

The authors, led by Bristol University Professor of Psychopharmacology David Nutt, said tobacco and alcohol together accounted for 90 percent of all drug-related deaths in the UK.

"Our results … emphasise that the exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary," they wrote.

They said if the three-category classification was retained, alcohol should be ranked with heroin and cocaine in a revised class A—the most serious category.

Tobacco would be a class B drug, while cannabis would remain in the lowest class C category, alongside LSD and ecstasy—both currently ranked as class A narcotics.

The graph is taken from an article published on BBC's website. The Lancet study can be found here. James Randerson, the Guardian's science correspondent, comments on the study here. In August 2006, I posted an entry on a similar study. You find it here.

Friday, 23 March 2007, 08:26 GMT

Palestinian Unity

Dutch cartoonist Joep Bertrams's take on Palestinian unity, relevant now when Fatah and Hamas are in government together.

Friday, 23 March 2007, 06:33 GMT

Great Steps Forward Make Me Busy

My online journal is suffering because I'm very busy writing at the moment. With deadline Monday, I must finish one essay on the cause and effect of oppression and an article on gay marriage and theology. I'm also working on a brief libertarian analysis of marriage legislation to be published on this blog.

The reason for all this activity is that great steps forward have been taken on marriage equality in Sweden the past two weeks. Firstly, leaders of the Church of Sweden have said that they are willing to allow gay people to marry in church on the same basis as heterosexual couples. Secondly, an official inquiry has concluded that gay couples should be able to wed and to be legally regarded as spouses while the current law permitting registered partnerships for same-sex couples should be revoked.

Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 22:24 GMT

Neofascist Poland

Human-rights campaigners are worried about Poland, and for good reasons. Recent actions taken by the anti-Semitic and extremely homophobic Kaczynski government and its neofascist supporters are truly worrying. Robert Biedron, chairman of the Polish Campaign against Homophobia, says, "More and more gay people are victims of physical abuse, so I'm very much concerned that Poland will become the Cuba or North Korea of Europe."

Read Doug Ireland's disturbing article on the latest developments in contemporary Poland.

Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 14:08 GMT

The War on Drug Addicts

Birgitta Rydberg, a Stockholm County Commissioner, has decided to strip the Swedish Users Union of all public funding because some of its members want to decriminalize the use of soft drugs. The result of this decision may be that many heroin addicts will no longer get the treatment they need to stay clean. Rydberg is well-known advocate of Sweden's repressive legislation, which is said to aim for a drug-free society by refusing drug takers any civil liberties. The result, however, has been one of the highest death rates for drug takers in the EU. Compared to liberal Holland, twice as many people die from drug overdoses in Sweden.

In today's Expressen, Johannes Forssberg writes an excellent article about Rydberg's decision and the failure of Sweden's utopian drug policy.

Tuesday, 20 March 2007, 17:11 GMT

Without Sanctuary

This postcard—postmarked in Dallas, Texas, on 11 June 1910, addressed to Dr J. W. F. Williams, LaFayette, Christian County, Kentucky—documents the sentiments of one lunchtime spectator:

"Well John – This is a token of a great day we had in Dallas, March 3, a negro was hung for an assault on a three year old girl. I saw this on my noon hour. I was very much in the bunch. You can see the negro hanging on a telephone pole."

"Without Sanctuary" is the name on an online exhibition documenting lynching photography in America. It reveals the most brutal expression of collectivism. Don't let the racial aspect blind you, collectivism is always about ripping people off their human dignity. The practice of giving a group priority over each individual in it is rarely as brutal as it were in the segregated American South, but every form of collectivism holds the seed to similar brutality. When people are judged not on their individual merits but on those of whatever group he or she belongs to, lynching is not far-off. This is the biggest challenge to civilized societies today, how to fight off collectivist ideas and stand up for individualism.

This photo exhibition shows the face of racism, which according to Ayn Rand and others is "the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism". I quote the introdiction from the exhibition website:

Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America. With essays by Hilton Als, Leon Litwack, Congressman John Lewis and James Allen, these photographs have been published as a book "Without Sanctuary" by Twin Palms Publishers. Features will be added to this site over time and it will evolve into an educational tool. Please be aware before entering the site that much of the material is very disturbing. We welcome your comments and input through the forum section.

Tuesday, 20 March 2007, 03:57 GMT

Torekull and Bringert's Rush Job

When I was a boy struggling with unruly questions about the world I often turned to my parents for guidance because I assumed that adults knew the answers. I was about ten when it first hit me that adults were as clueless and confused as I was—they were just better at hiding it.

I came to think about this when I read Bertil Torekull and Lars Bringert's latest contribution to the debate on journalism and whether the written word is best suited for computer screens or paper. The debaters are two prominent men, both former chief editors of large newspapers, and yet so completely confused about the world. I have read their article twice, but it is so unfocused that I still cannot see what they object to. It's as if they are fumbling in the dark.

In short, what they say is that the written words is under threat from online journalists and bloggers because the carefully thought-out article demands time. Internet, the debaters suggest, is a threat because newspapers feel the need to compete with online media, which in turn result in stress and rush jobs because writers are not given the time they need. In other words, the quality is suffering.

Now, this could be an interesting argument if it were not for the debaters' own assessment of profits and readerships related to online publishing. According to Torekull and Bringert, the traditional Swedish newspapers have more readers and greater earnings now than before they began publishing online. Yet, for some strange and unknown reason, they say that traditional journalism is faced by its biggest challenge in nearly two hundred years.

Nothing in this article makes sense to me. Traditional mainstream media is thriving when in competition with online journalism and bloggers; the publishers make more money than ever before; and the written word stands stronger now than before Internet. If anything, this should be writers' utopia. When I was a teenager in the early 1990s, my friends barely read anything. I was seen as something of a nerd for reading the local newspaper. Nowadays teenagers read online all the time.

To sum up, I think Torekull and Bringert's article is a rush job.

Tuesday, 20 March 2007, 00:10 GMT

The Return of Katrine Kielos

Katrine Kielos used to be one of Sweden's top socialist bloggers until she quit due to a self-proclaimed lack of self-confidence. Considering the hype around her, I don't know if I buy that explanation, but who am I to tell her how she feels. Anyhow, yesterday she made a guest appearance on Jonas Morian's blog. In her blog post, she writes about Mona Sahlin's speech and how the new party leader neglects class struggle in favour of identity and social structures.

In a short passage, Kielos mentions the gay community and how criticism of its lack of class-consciousness is considered reactionary. In a comment, I question her knowledge of the Swedish gay community since class struggle and Marxist rhetoric is all over it. The "gay elite" at RFSL cannot talk about anything but this. In fact, the only places not infected by Marxism are the gay fetish clubs where the working-class man is king. Here is my comment in Swedish:

Vad gäller detta med gaykulturen så förstår jag inte riktigt vem eller vad du syftar på. Den politiskt korrekta eliten inom RFSL snackar inte om annat än klasskamp och samhällsstrukturer. Samma sak gäller queerteoretikerna i de akademiska världen. Och tittar man på den lesbiska subkulturen så får den vänsterpartiet att framstå som en nyliberal rörelse. Egentligen är det nog bara bara i SLM-kulturen man slipper tjatet om klass och struktur, vilket sannolikt beror på att arbetaren redan är kung i denna subkultur. (Vem bryr sig om rikedom när arbetarkillarna har stora, svettiga muskler?) Så nej, du har nog fel. Jag tror att det är precis tvärtom. Det mest radikala man kan göra idag är att ge blanka fan i marxistiska klasskampsteorier och satsa helhjärtat på individualism och friheten i att själv välja identitet. Jag är född i ett arbetarhem och uppvuxen med föräldrar som jobbat hårt för allt de har; jag är stolt över detta men tänker inte reducera mig till någon klasstillhörighet. Människan är mer än status och pengar på banken.

Monday, 19 March 2007, 12:11 GMT

Commissioners' Oath

In yesterday's entry on Mona Sahlin's speech, I wrote that Margot Wallström is obligated by an oath to work exclusively for the interest of the EU. An emailer has asked for a reference, so here is the oath.

Monday, 19 March 2007, 00:02 GMT

New RSS Feed: A Reminder

As from 7 March 2007, this blog has a new RSS feed. If you are a subscriber to the old feed you will have to change feed URL to: http://feeds.feedburner.com/aqurette. Just put this into your RSS reader application.

Note: If you subscribe to this blog via Bloglines you have already been transferred on my request.

Sunday, 18 March 2007, 20:24 GMT

The Quiet Girl

In the early 1990s, Danish novelist Peter Høeg wrote Smilla's Sense of Snow, which is probably the best suspense fiction I have ever read. (I have quoted the novel on the blog once.) Høeg's latest novel, The Quiet Girl, was published in Denmark late last year. I had plans to buy and read it when it first came out, but I never got around to do it. In today's Dagens Nyheter, I found a review of the novel, which will be published in Swedish shortly. (Read first chapter here.) I look forward to a good read. The novel will be published in English in October.

Sunday, 18 March 2007, 15:36 GMT

A Conformist Blogger

I followed a link on Jonas Morian's blog and came across the blog by Social Democrat Ann Catrin Brockman. In the header, beneath the masthead, I read her "motto":

"The only thing you can win by adapting is to be liked by others than yourself."

I suppose it's meant to be funny, but rarely has the idea of conformism been so obviously expressed on a political blog. Seeking likeability by adapting to others is the root of many of the most severe problems in the Swedish society. That is what makes Arabs change their surnames, gay people hide in the closet, and women accept sexist treatment. As I wrote in the previous entry: socialism is irreconcilable with freedom. Can it be more obvious?

Postscript: The idea of conformism is often portrayed by neoconservatives as one of the things that distinguish them from libertarians. That has always been a reason for me to feel uncomfortable with the neocons. It's interesting how the Socialist Left and the Conservative Right are so difficult to tell apart sometimes. It really was no coincident that Hegel was Marx's favourite philosopher.

Sunday, 18 March 2007, 13:04 GMT

Mona Sahlin's Speech Made Me Jump

This morning Mona Sahlin delivered her first speech as party leader to the assembled at the Social Democratic conference in Stockholm. Socialist bloggers are ecstatic, but in fact, nothing new came from the speech. It was the same warmed-over rhetoric of class struggle that socialists have used since the dawn of Marxism. In short, this rhetoric holds that everything that is wrong in our society is the result of individualism and the private sector, and everything good is the result of government and red-tape legislation. In fairness, I must admit that Sahlin's speech was a light and modern version of the classics, but it was a speech for the anti-progressive "party grassroots". She is not nearly as hostile to business and individual liberty as most of her fellow social democrats. In fact, she did say some good things about entrepreneurship, and unlike most socialist, she did recognize that people choose to be self-employed for other purposes than making money. Sadly, the speech only mentioned this positive note on business briefly before moving on to class struggle again.

There were two things in the speech that made me jump a bit. At one point, Sahlin said that she wanted to take the concept of freedom away from the liberals and conservatives and make it an issue for the Social Democrats. Well, it sound nice, but somebody ought to explain to Sahlin why socialism in all its forms is irreconcilable with freedom. Unfortunately, I do not think any of the government ministers she will debate with are able to since they seem very eager not to be "ideological". Too bad, because liberty is the Social Democrats's Achilles heel. However, far too many of the Swedish Right fear to be seen as ideologues, which I think could result in a win for the socialist parties in the next general election. The electorate wants to know where politicians stand on ideological issues such as liberty.

The second ting that made me jump came when Sahlin announced that the Vice President of the European Commissioner, Margot Wallström, will help the Social Democrats form the party's new policies on international issues. This might seem a minor thing considering that Wallström is a known Social Democrat and a former minister, but it disturbs me greatly that on of the European Commissioners will work against the government of a European Union member state. The EU is a political union of twenty-seven nations and their governments. A Commissioner is obligated by an oath to work exclusively for the interest of the EU. I believe that Wallström's decision to undermine one country's government is a violation of EU legislation. If so, she should be removed from her position.

Saturday, 17 March 2007, 19:33 GMT

Meanwhile in Egypt

A crackdown on the Egyptian opposition continues its second day with the warrant for the arrest of 19 activists including every single Kefayah leader (the Egyptian secular opposition group), and three of Egypt's most prominent bloggers: Wael Abbas, Mohamed Sharqawi, and Alaa seif el-Islam. The charges they are being accused of include:

1. "Instigating against the constitutional reforms."
2. "Engaging in a demonstration of more than 5 people, which leads to the disruption of traffic and endangering public safety."
3. Broadcasting insidious claims and news that could lead to civil unrest and hurt the public welfare."

Those are apparently actual crimes in Egypt, and more than 21 people were arrested for them yesterday.

– Sandmonkey

Saturday, 17 March 2007, 15:32 GMT

Greet the Opposition Leader

As expected, the Swedish Social Democratic Party elected Mona Sahlin as new party leader earlier today. She will now head the Opposition. The English-language Swedish online newspaper The Local has profiled the new party leader. Personally I like Sahlin, she has often been an advocate of gay rights and fresh ideas. However, the party she is now heading is hopelessly stuck-up. I look forward to an entertaining battle between the new, progressive leadership and the traditional socialist values of party members and trade unionists.

(Photo by Magnus Jönsson/Expressen.)

Saturday, 17 March 2007, 15:04 GMT

Reader Comment on Islam

The day before yesterday, I published an entry on Islam. The same day I received a reader comment in Swedish relating to this. The reader—obviously a libertarian—wonders if it is at all possible to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. I think it is. It is true that Islam, like most other religions, considers itself to hold the truth of morality and world order. Therefore, most followers of Islam take the Koran and its teachings for true. However, what Islamist do is that they politicize the faith and say that everybody must obey by their interpretation of the Koran. The problem is that most of what these Islamists tech is not found in the Koran itself but in various exegeses made by people during different stages of Islamic history.

I don't like Islam for the reason that the Koran claims to be the word of God. Unlike the Christian Bible, where all books are written by humans and can be analysed as such, the Koran states that the scriptures were dictated to the Prophet Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to discuss the teachings of the Koran. However, it does not follow from this that Muslims should have any problems with adapting to a secular society with a libertarian framework made up by tolerance and minimalist government interference. And this is vital in my view of Islam and all other religions and conformist ideologies. What makes libertarianism superior to all other ideologies is that it doesn't demand anything from the citizenry except respect for individualism, i.e. the idea that freedom of thought and action for each person is the most important quality of a society, rather than shared effort and responsibility. In other words, libertarianism has no problem with people choosing to live by the rules of communism, Christianity, or Islam as long as they accept the individuals who choose not to participate. Here lies the problem of Islamism. While ordinary Muslims normally have no problem with non-believers, the Islamists have.

I enclose the reader comment:

I ditt senaste inlägg om islam skrev du: "I have the deepest respect for Islam and its followers, but I'm in fierce opposition to the politicized Islamist ideology." Samt: "To me, any belief system that requires submission and stamp out criticism is despicable."

Jag ska direkt erkänna att inte är särskilt beläst på ämnet islam eller någon annan världsreligion. Men jag kan helt enkelt inte förstå hur man med liberala och etisk-egoistiska värderingar kan känna djup respekt för en religion som, där den haft makten, undantagslöst lett till det grymmaste förtryck i alla dess tänkbara former?

Finns det verklign god islam och ond islam? Goda muslimer och onda muslimer? För mig är religion och religiösa människor en kvantitativ fråga – det finns mer eller mindre religiösa människor. I regel tycker de flesta av oss mycket bättre om de mindre troende, eftersom de har kastat av sig merparten av alla ondskefulla uppfattningar som deras tro ursprungligen praktiserat. För mig är en soft svensk prälle inte en "godare" kristen än en fradgetuggande inkvisitionsdomare från 1300-talet. Vederbörande är bara mindre kristen! På samma sätt tycker jag sekulära muslimer bör betraktas – som människor som av sociala och kulturella skäl fått för sig att de måste underkasta sig en mystisk tro, men som i varje fall varit vettiga nog att strunta i de värsta reglerna och idiotierna. Detta kan man väl respektera, kanske.

Thursday, 15 March 2007, 23:30 GMT

Soul Mates

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Zimbabwean Movement for Democratic Change, is still in hospital after being attacked by Robert Mugabe's government forces. Meanwhile, Mugabe tells the democratic world to "go hang":

"It's the West as usual … when they criticize the government trying to prevent violence and punish the perpetrators of that violence, we take the position that they can go hang."

Seen in picture are the socialist dictators Mugabe and Chávez, like two despotic comrades sharing ideas on how to harass their democratic opposition.

Thursday, 15 March 2007, 14:37 GMT

Not Ordinary Muslims

Every time I write something about Islamists, some emailer or fellow university student says that I am an Islamophobe. This is plain silly. I have the deepest respect for Islam and its followers, but I'm in fierce opposition to the politicized Islamist ideology. I'm opposed to this ideology for the same reason I'm opposed to any other ideology of the sort. To me, any belief system that requires submission and stamp out criticism is despicable. The Islamist jihadists are not advocating some free, democratic system that can coexist with other interests, they want to force all of us to live according to their perverted misinterpretation of Islam. It was no coincidence that the terrorists who flew aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre were Islamists and not ordinary Muslims.

Thursday, 15 March 2007, 10:35 GMT

Peace Activists Marching for Hate

One of the things that embarrass me about being a Swede and a European is the widespread anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. I know the same things occur in America, but the European Left is worse since they refuse to learn by history. The same socialist thinking that welcomed Hitler and Stalin now hail the Islamists in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine.

On Saturday, socialist groups will march in the streets with banners that demand that the United States hand over power to Islamist groups in Iraq. The fight for democracy means nothing to those marching, only the hatred of America.

Just now, I paid a visit to the organizers website, and as I expected, theses so-called peace activists do not mention any wars but those fought by the United States and Israel. It's obvious that these people do not care one bit about peace, the only thing on their mind is hate.

Wednesday, 14 March 2007, 21:13 GMT

What Men and Women Look At

From an article published by the Online Journalism Review:

When one of world's best-known usability experts, Jakob Nielsen, conducts eyetracking research to test what his usability work has shown, the results generate some beneficial tips for online editors. This is what happened in late 2005, when Nielsen and Tara Pernice Coyne, the Nielsen/Norman Group's director of research, conducted an eyetracking test with 255 people in New York City.

[…]

When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.

This image of George Brett was part of a larger page with his biographical information. All users tested looked the image, but there was a distinct difference in focus between men and women.

Coyne adds that this difference doesn't just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

Wednesday, 14 March 2007, 17:55 GMT

Inappropriate Discussions

From WorldNetDaily:

Officials at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Ill., have ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar, after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.

"This is unbelievable," said Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues for Concerned Women for America. "It's not enough that students at Deerfield High are being exposed to improper and offensive material relative to unhealthy and high-risk homosexual behavior, but they've essentially been told by teachers to lie to their parents about it."

In what CWA called a "shocking and brazen act of government abuse of parental rights," the school's officials required the 14-year-olds to attend a "Gay Straight Alliance Network" panel discussion led by "gay" and "lesbian" upperclassmen during a "freshman advisory" class which "secretively featured inappropriate discussions of a sexual nature in promotion of high-risk homosexual behaviors."

"This goes to the heart of the homosexual agenda," Barber said. "The professional propagandists in the 'gay-rights' lobby know the method all too well. If you can maintain control of undeveloped and impressionable youth and spoon-feed them misinformation, lies and half-truths about dangerous, disordered and extremely risky behaviors, then you can control the future and ensure that those behaviors are not only fully accepted, but celebrated."

It makes you wonder, does it not? What kind of "inappropriate discussions of a sexual nature in promotion of high-risk homosexual behaviours" is the Gay-Straight Alliance Network spoon-feeding these innocent kids? What are they talking about? Is it barebacking, BDSM, or maybe intercourse without a lubricant? Well, not really. I have scrutinized the GSA website, and this is about as exiting as it gets:

Our overall strategy for fighting homophobia and transphobia in schools is to work with grassroots, youth-led groups, and GSAs, empowering them to educate their school communities, advocate for just policies that protect lgbtq youth from harassment and violence, and organize in coalition with other youth groups across identity lines to address broader issues of oppression.

In other words, what Matt Barber considers "inappropriate discussions" is in fact a discussion on how to protect gay teenagers from cruelty and harassment.

It's easy to laugh at people with these narrow-minded ideas about homosexuality and equal human rights. What is sad about this is that they do harm in the name of Christ, they call themselves Christians and believe they will be rewarded in heaven. But Jesus never preached intolerance, violence, and harassment. In fact, he did the opposite. He spoke fondly of the sinners and prayed for tolerance. His message still carries much weight to all of us, perhaps especially to those harassed by so-called Christians. From the New English Bible:

Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully. When a man hits you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; when a man takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you; when a man takes what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. Again, if you do good only to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do as much. And if you lend only where you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to each other to be repaid in full. But you must love your enemies and do good; and lend without expecting any return; and you will have a rich reward: you will be sons of the Most High, because he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. (Luke 6:27-36)

Wednesday, 14 March 2007, 15:12 GMT

Duty and Neo-Liberalism

From professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen's essay "Diversity versus Difference: Neo-Liberalism in the Minority Debate":

Neo-liberalist ideology can be described as an unreformed (and unreflected) individualism where the only thing the individual owes his surroundings is self-realisation. This individualism carries with it conventional criteria of success—money, power, public visibility.

There are two things wrong in this short passage. Firstly, neo-liberalism does not hold a normative ethical duty of self-realization. What it says is that no one has a duty to realize other individuals. Secondly, most neo-liberalist thinkers oppose any normative definition of success. In fact, what is a successful life can only be defined by the individual.

Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 15:31 GMT

City Stroll and Saint Petri Church

Spring came to Malmö yesterday. The sun shone and the birds were acting crazy in search for trees to nest in. At first, I thought that it might be a one-off, that the gloomy winter weather would be back today. Fortunately, I was wrong. The spring has arrived for sure.

Although I have a million things to do, I could not resist the temptation to leave my books and my computer for a long city stroll. I don't regret it. I have had a wonderful afternoon. I ate lunch in a nice little restaurant I have never noticed before, and I drank coffee at some copycat version of Starbucks. On my way home, I paid one of my rare visits to church. I lit a candle for friends lo longer around, and then I snapped these photos.

The Saint Petri Church in Malmö was built in the early 14th century. However, it wasn't completed until the 1380s because of the Black Death. It has been renovated and rebuilt several times since, and only tiny bits of the oldest part are still intact. Like all other churches in Denmark, it was Catholic until the Reformation in 1536. Then it belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark until the Swedes occupied Malmö and Scania in 1658.

The Swedes destroyed the church by ripping out everything that reminded of Denmark. The mediaeval graves underneath and around the church building were dug up and the tombstones smashed. Nearly 300 years were demolished in a couple of days. What remain are a few frescoes in the ceiling, which were painted in the 1420s. The painting seen in the photo captures the legend of Saint Veronica. This painting from Catholic times has somehow survived several mediaeval wars, the Reformation, and Swedish destruction.

Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 06:52 GMT

Chávez the God

From The Economist:

"My comandante gives the order—we obey," said its leader, Lina Ron, without irony. "Who am I to question the second Liberator of the Republic, the messiah God sent to save the people?"

This is the voice of a Venezuelan parliamentarian, the leader of Unión Popular Venezolana and one of the 167 MPs that handed over all powers to Hugo Chávez in an open-air ceremony a few weeks ago. The quotation gives a hint of what's going on. Like Roman emperor Caligula, he has undergone a metamorphosis. Chávez is not only a dictator, he's a god. The socialists call it democracy.

Monday, 12 March 2007, 12:38 GMT

The Great Global Warming Swindle

A must-see from British Channel 4. (Via Attila.)

Monday, 12 March 2007, 08:50 GMT

Snoop Dogg Arrested in Stockholm

This is what the Swedish police do when they say they have no time to help you stop an ongoing burglary. One of the reasons why I think the Swedish policy on cannabis is ridiculous.

Here's an article in Swedish.

Monday, 12 March 2007, 07:23 GMT

Silly Man, Silly Article

I feel that I should write something about Erik Ullenhag's article on "neoliberalism" in today's Dagens Nyheter, but I cannot find the energy to reply to this so-called liberal and his attack on everything truly liberal. It's just silly. Instead, I link to Blogge Bloggelito, Mathias Sundin, and Björn Pedersen.

Monday, 12 March 2007, 06:31 GMT

What Ali Esbati Doesn't Understand

I mentioned Ali Esbati in one of my entries yesterday. He is one of the most prominent socialist debaters in Sweden and as such he runs an important blog.

One of Esbati's frequent topics is the Middle East and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. An annoying feature of his debating style is that he never recognizes any analyses based on other power structures than those favoured by heterosexuals. He's not alone. I would argue that even though the Left Party is defending gay rights in domestic politics, their international politics is the most harmful to gay people. Every possible homophobic fascist with a socialist alibi gets the party's approval. From Lenin and Stalin to Chávez and Ahmadinejad.

Gay people are killed and tortured in the Arab world every day. Yet all Esbati ever is conserned about is Israel's self-defence policies and how they make life tough for Palestinians. Never does he mention the fact that without Israel, hundreds of gay, lesbian and transgender Arabs would have faced a certain death. To these people, Israel is a sanctuary. Here is one testimony:

"I was arrested by the Palestinian Authority. They suspected my boyfriend was gay and they thought I was too. They held me for three weeks and tried to force me to admit that I'm gay."

"The police held me in a cell about 1 metre by 1 metre and only 2 metres high. I could sit but I couldn't really rest. I didn't have a bed, only a blanket. Sometimes, I had to wait for hours until they'd take me to the toilet. Several times, they threw me into the sewer and held me there for hours to make me confess."

[…]

"Two hours after I got home, people from Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, came to my house. They were wearing masks and said they needed to start an investigation. My mother and my uncle told them that I wasn't home. After that, my older brother said he'd give me money so I could go to Israel. He told me that if the Palestinian Authority picked me up again, I would probably get out alive. But if Hamas took me, I'd be dead. My younger brother is a Hamas activist and he told my family that he wants to deal with me. So my big brother gave me money and told me to leave."

As I wrote in the beginning, Esbati is important because he is read and admired by many on the political left. The issue is bigger than he is, but I think it might serve some purpose to address him specifically since many do not see what I and other libertarian gay-rights activists see when we object to his rambling about Israeli apartheid and his shallow analysis of social power in the Middle East.

Postscript: Later this month, Asawat, a Palestinian lesbian women's organization, will arrange a conference in Israel. It would not be possible to arrange the conference in any other country in the Middle East. (Via Svenska Dagbladet and Al Hamatzav.).

Seen in picture is a map of state homophobia from the International Lesbian and Gay Association. Click to enlarge.

By the way, I had better to remind Esbati and others that state homophobia equals apartheid.

Monday, 12 March 2007, 04:56 GMT

I'm Falling for a Blog

I don't think it's possible not to love a blog that describes itself and its authors like this:

A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous… lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

[…]

The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.

We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, libertarians, extropians, futurists, 'Porcupines', Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.

Monday, 12 March 2007, 03:21 GMT

Reader Comment on Nuclear Power

A reader in India comments on my entry entitled "Nuclear Power Is Not the Solution":

It is highly significant that a Europe (and a World) which thinks so correctly about the Nazi holocaust does not even recognise the existence of the specialist India holocaust due to nuclear activities! 29 million Indian infant mortalities from 1945–46 till 1989 and a comparable number of Indian stillbirths in the nuclear age.

I have heard about this but don't know much of it. In the email, the reader links to his blog devoted to the subject. I enclose the link here.

Sunday, 11 March 2007, 10:37 GMT

Conservatives Debating Marriage

If you are interested in gay rights and have an hour to kill, I can recommend a debate between David Blankenhorn and Andrew Sullivan on marriage. Blankenhorn is the founder and president of the Institute for American Values; Sullivan is a conservative writer and intellectual. The audio recording of the debate between the two is available here.

Sunday, 11 March 2007, 00:29 GMT

Racism in the Middle East

Ali Esbati, a former chairman of the communist Left Party Youth League, refused a comment I wrote on his blog. That's fine. It's his blog, and unlike him, I respect private ownership. However, this made me remember something I came across the other day on Cox & Forkum, my favourite cartoon blog.

The entry I tried to comment on Esbati's blog deals with the so-called "wall" that Israel is building to stop suicide bombers from entering their country and kill civilians. Esbati and others of the Extreme Left want to use this protection barrier as proof of Israeli racism and apartheid. But, as I pointed out in the censured comment, the hardcore racists in the Middle East are not Jewish but Islamic. The Jew-bashing propaganda is widespread in all countries neighbouring Israel. Furthermore, the Palestinians living in Arab countries have been forced to live in camps for generations, deprived of all human rights. It's the racism and mistreatment of Arab countries and Islamist groups that provide the incentive for teenagers to slaughter Jews and Israelis, which in turn keeps the conflict alive and unwanted walls necessary. If you want to see apartheid in the Middle East, visit Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

The wall between Israel and Palestine is a result of actions carried out by frustrated youth, Islamist terrorists, and the Palestinian National Authority's refusal to put an end to the suicide attacks inside Israel. To suggest that Israeli security politics is anything like the apartheid system of racial segregation that was enforced in South Africa is silly.

So to the Cox & Forkum entry I came to think of when I noticed I had been censured by Esbati. It's the motif of a T-shirt they sell, and it reads: "Let's pretend that Islamofascists are not at war with us!" I think I might buy one for Ali.

Saturday, 10 March 2007, 09:57 GMT

Win Sex with Prostitute

I spent last night in Copenhagen. No big deal, it's only twenty minutes by local train. But even though it's close, some things are very different in Denmark. Like the attitude towards prostitution. The biggest discussion in Copenhagen yesterday had to do with a magazine for men. The magazine, called Super, has launched an advertising campaign where people are invited to competition by filling in a questionnaire. This in itself raises no eyebrows, but the first prize does: the winner gets to have anal intercourse with sex worker "Laura" from Slagelse. This has caused a minor moral outrage in Denmark, but not nearly as strong as one could expect. In Sweden, where prostitution is illegal and seen as immoral, the same thing would have been unthinkable. If any Swedish magazine ever did a thing like this, the chief editor would get a prison sentence.

Saturday, 10 March 2007, 08:56 GMT

Phone Sex with the Government

Oh my God, the government listened in to my teenage phone sex with foreign lovers! I'm in shock.

Saturday, 10 March 2007, 08:11 GMT

Nuclear Power Is Not the Solution

In an article in today's The Times I read that EU leaders have agreed to embrace nuclear option in battle to save the planet. Isn't that just splendid! Now we will produce more radioactive waste we know is lethal for thousand of years in order to avoid a doomsday scenario that probably won't happen anyway. Don't get me wrong, the goal to cut Europe's carbon-dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020 may be a good thing, but to build more state-financed nuclear plants that will produce lethal waste is not right.

By the way, note that The Times got the story wrong by writing about CO instead of CO2. The difference between carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide is quite big.

Read more in the EU Observer.

Friday, 9 March 2007, 20:42 GMT

Weekend Fun

Cartoonist Hassib Aljassem's take on mainstream media's ridiculous outburst on Carl Bildt. I mentioned the furious attacks on the minister's blogging in an entry published on 28 February. The cartoon is copied from newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning.

(Via Dick Erixon.)

Thursday, 8 March 2007, 17:44 GMT

Update Your RSS Feed for this Blog

Last night I changed my blog's web feed. From now on, my web syndication will be powered by Feedburner, a Chicago-based company that's been around since 2004. Their services have been very useful for other bloggers, and they provide some good bonus features. One of the things I like is that my feed will be available in both RSS and Atom formats, and so be compatible with all aggregators. To be honest, I don't think this has been a problem, but it's still a good thing. Another thing I like is the option for readers to subscribe to my blog by email. Readers signing up for this service will receive one email once a day with the all entries from the past twenty-four hours. If I haven't posted any blog entries that day, subscribers wont get any email. I will not spam your inbox. If you're interested in email subscription, you can click here or on the link entitled "Subscribe" at the bottom of the sidebar.

With all this said, I must confess that the main reason for using an external feed provider is that I might move by blog in a few months. Nothing is settled, no contracts are signed yet, but I want to be prepared just in case. If I move, my feed URL will remain the same. By changing feed now, I can afford a long transitional period. (The old feed will work for some time still.) Those of you who are feed subscribers will have to change feed URL. The new one is http://feedproxy.google.com/aqurette. Just put this into your RSS reader application instead of the old URL. If you use a browser with an incorporated feed reader, you just need to click on the RSS link in the sidebar menu and bookmark the URL. Safari users like me only need to click on the blue logo in the navigation bar.

Thursday, 8 March 2007, 17:40 GMT

Barack Obama Seen with a Fag

A few days ago, I read an article about Rob Reiner and other anti-smoking campaigners' attempt to smear Barack Obama because he is a "closet smoker". Apparently, these health freaks are planning some nasty advertising campaign against the presidential candidate. So, as a favour to Obama and everybody else, here is a photo of him with a fag (British slang for cigarette) in his mouth. Now he's been outed. Can we please move on to some serious issues now?

Thursday, 8 March 2007, 11:58 GMT

Slow on Blogging

I'm slow on blogging at the moment. I apologize for that. I'm busy writing an essay on partial-birth abortion and the ethics related to the issue. In case you don't know what partial-birth abortion is, here's the official legal definition according to US federal law:

An abortion in which the person performing the abortion, deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus.

Thursday, 8 March 2007, 11:30 GMT

A Reader Comment on a Reader Comment

I know, the headline is awful, but I couldn't think of anything wittier. Anyhow, a reader has sent me a comment on the email comment I published yesterday. This one is in Swedish as well, but in short it says that the European productivity figures the previous commenter mentioned are false and conceited since they do not calculate the productivity loss of unemployment caused by red-tape regulation, minimum wages, and welfare benefits. A vast many people have no jobs to go to because they are not productive enough for Europe's overly regulated labour market.

Såg kommentaren på ditt inlägg att "produktivitetsskillnaderna" mellan europa och USA försvinner om man tar vissa saker i hänsyn. Problemet med en produktivitetssyn är dock att den blåser upp europeiska siffror orealistiskt: Europeiska bidrag- och minimilöner (reglerade eller de facto via fack som i Sverige) innebär att lågproduktiva individer istället för att ha lågavlönade jobb är arbetslösa och går på bidrag. Med andra ord höjer Europa sina produktivitetssiffror på artificiell väg genom att stänga ute individer som inte är produktiva nog från arbetsmarknaden. I det perspektivet så är knappast europas produktivitet något att hänga i julgranen, om priset är hög arbetslöshet och bidragsberoende.

Wednesday, 7 March 2007, 08:53 GMT

Reader Comment on Europe and America

A Swedish reader comments on my previous entry. Europe is not lagging behind America if the comparison is fair. I quote the email without translating it. An explanation in English follows below.

Problemet med att bara titta på siffrorna är att det aldrig blir rättvisande (du vet lögn förbannad lögn och statistik).

Jag gick igenom en annan redovisning som jämförde olika länders produktivitet/capita. Och den konstaterade att för OECD länderna (har för mig det var dom) så försvann i princip alla produktivitetsskillnader om man tog hänsyn till föräldraledighet och semestrar.

Jag vet inte om Eurochambers har tagit hänsyn till det i sin rapport. För om inte så blir den väldigt missvisande.

The reader makes a valid point. In short, he says that we should not pay too much attention to economic figures because they may not reveal the full truth. He also claims to have read OECD reports that have shown that the gap between Europe and America is not that big when holiday weeks and parental leave are included in the comparison.

Tuesday, 6 March 2007, 22:12 GMT

Europe Twenty Years Behind America

From the EU Observer:

The EU is 22 years behind the US on economic growth according to a new study, with several other economic indicators showing further gaps despite Europe's ambitious reform agenda to be praised by leaders at this week's summit.

A report by Eurochambers, the Brussels-based business lobby, published on Monday (5 March) argues that the US reached the current EU rate of GDP per capita in 1985 and its levels in employment and research investment almost 30 years ago.

Economic growth, jobs and innovation feature as top priorities of the so-called Lisbon Agenda—agreed by EU leaders in 2000—with the original aim for Europe to become the most competitive economy by 2010 and with the US seen as its key competitor.

However, according to the Eurochambers study, the EU time lag behind the US has expanded further since 2003 when the group published its first report comparing the economic indicators on both sides of the Atlantic.

[…]

"If income (GDP per capita) would grow in the US at 2 percent per year and in the EU at 3 percent per year, meaning a 1 percent higher growth of the EU, the EU would catch up with the US around 2045" the authors of the report concluded.

The figures speak for themselves. Only the completely unworldly idealists of the Left can argue that America should emulate Europe's economic policies.

Tuesday, 6 March 2007, 08:07 GMT

John Corvino's Lecture

Philosopher John Corvino is one of my favourite contributors to the Independent Gay Forum. Over the past decade, Dr Corvino has developed and presented a lecture entitled "What's morally wrong with homosexuality?" before audiences around the United States. Now Wayne State University in Detroit has made this lecture available online.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Tuesday, 6 March 2007, 04:37 GMT

Sane Conservatives III

If any of you aren't fed up with Ann Coulter's slur, here's more on the subject. Personally, I think Coulter makes a pretty good job at defending herself. She doesn't seem to get that "faggot" is an offensive word, but still… Well, I'm a forgiving guy.

Monday, 5 March 2007, 19:33 GMT

Bible vs God

Many monotheists—i.e. followers of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—face severe theological problems now when the natural sciences begin to produce evidence of biological homosexuality. It is a problem because the religious belief systems are based on the idea that a sole god created humankind in its image. If we are made the image of God, why are some of us given qualities God consider sinful?

Theologians have struggled with this problem the past millennium. Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas both wrote plenty about this dilemma, which in many ways resembles that of theodicy. In other words, the monotheists have a hard nut to crack when nature makes their religions' fundamentals irreconcilable with the moral teachings of the scriptures.

Today I found a related article on Albert Mohler's blog. Dr Mohler is heading the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In his article, he raises a number of questions: Is your baby gay? What if you could know? What if you could do something about it?

The article is quite interesting, but towards the end I find some odd contradictions. When Dr Mohler lists ten things "Christians who are committed to think in genuinely Christian terms should think carefully about", his sixth point reads:

The biblical basis for establishing the dignity of all persons—the fact that all humans are made in God's image—reminds us that this means all persons, including those who may be marked by a predisposition toward homosexuality. For the sake of clarity, we must insist at all times that all persons—whether identified as heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, transsexual, transgendered, bisexual, or whatever—are equally made in the image of God.

And then the eighth point:

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

What he says is that Christians shouldn't settle for God's creation but try to alter it. I think this I quite remarkable coming from a man like Dr Mohler. All of a sudden it's OK for man to play God.

The fourth point is interesting too. It reads:

The biblical condemnation of all homosexual behaviors would not be compromised or mitigated in the least by such a discovery. The discovery of a biological factor would not change the Bible's moral verdict on homosexual behavior.

That may be true depending on your reading of the Bible. However, the core issue here is not the Bible's moral verdict on homosexuality but rather that the discovery of a biological factor would imply that it's not God's moral verdict.

(Seen in picture is Jesus curing the sick. From a painting by Rembrandt.)

Update: Please forgive the typos. I think I have corrected them all now.

Monday, 5 March 2007, 05:23 GMT

Never Mind the . . . Baloney

Johnny Rosengren, my oldest friend, has published one of his rare blog posts. It's not often I have any disagreement with him, but in his latest piece, he writes something I find slightly disturbing. Johnny and I go back a long time. We were young anarchists when we first met; two odd characters in Stockholm's highly conformist gay community. Neither of us has ever settled for anything less than absolute freedom to do what we want, even if the years have made us more humble. The youthful anarchism springs to life when least expected, as in Johnny's latest blog entry. My translation:

I have followed the riots in Copenhagen, and this time I cheer them on. Well done! Blown the city to pieces I you have to. It's good that it hits the politicians in the eye. It should hit the in the eye. Not everybody can be in the same pen. Freethinkers of all sorts are needed. That is what makes the world progress. To close the youth centre and Christiania (so if some smoke pot there, what difference does it make to the world politics?) is only stupid and should be combated in every way.

I don't think my friend has followed the events that well. If he had, he would know that the squatters were offered another house but turned the offer down. Unlike the people of Christiania, the squatters refused constructive talks with any authority. Instead, they chose to make threats of violence.

I'm all in favour of both youth centres and alternative, self-governing neighbourhoods like Christiania, but I do not believe in violence as a workable method in politics. When Johnny writes about hitting politicians in the eye, he assumes that the squatters burning cars and throwing stones will do that. Nothing could be more wrong. When mobs use violence, the political elite gains more powers because ordinary people demand restored order. So, even if the anarchists and revolutionary socialists in the streets of Copenhagen thought that they could make political progress by violence, all they did was to help the authoritarians who only wish to give the police more powers.

In a democracy, the best way of fighting for a liberal society where everybody is free to do what he or she wants is to use non-violence methods. Rather than turning the streets into a war zone, minority groups of all kinds should negotiate and appeal to the majority's will to do right. It is a matter of fundaments morality; found not only in the Bible but also in the writings of most liberal thinkers—no one can ever expect to be respected unless one respects others.

(Photo taken at yesterday's peaceful "flower-power" demonstration in Copenhagen by Miriam Dalsgaard.)

Sunday, 4 March 2007, 22:33 GMT

Reader Comment on Ann Coulter's "Joke"

A reader writes:

I just wanted to tell you that there is a little background to that John Edwards "joke" that people from other countries might not understand. She seemed to be trying to weave together elements of several recent media incidents here, if not very successfully. First there was a recent incident where one TV star here from a TV show called "Grey's Anatomy", insulted someone, I think a co-star, by calling him a "faggot" and then after the outcry, said he was going into rehab (rehabilitation treatment) for his drinking problem, which he claimed was the reason he used that word. Then everyone made fun of the idea that it is popular now to try and fix insults and social blunders by going into "rehab", whether or not drinking has anything to do with it.

Then the joke has a another element of the situation where John Edwards hired some liberal political bloggers to help him out with his campaign, and two of them insulted Catholics (I believe Ann is a Catholic) and religious people in general in their blog, and John Edwards refused to disavow what they said for a time because he said they should have their "freedom of expression", even if it meant insulting people. Finally, there was a "joke" going around that John Edwards was gay because there had been a video of him fussing with his hair for a very long amount of time.

So that joke tried to combine all of these elements into one, and the joke has maybe a little context other than Ann just insulting someone, which of course, she does all the time anyway. However, of course I still think Ann botched the supposed joke John Kerry style, and it was highly inappropriate and offensive, and just plain old stupid to say in an event that was supposed to represent Conservatives. The event organizers should have known better than invite her to speak, as that's what Ann always does—controversy. We are almost used to it now, sadly.

Thanks for the reminder. I have read about the fuss relating to Isaiah Washington's anti-gay slur, but I didn't think about the connection when I heard about Ann Coulter's joke at the CPAC.

I'm torn when it come to Coulter. She is a bit like the leftist Michael Moore in that they both mix superficial analyses, offensive remarks, and splendid humour. Coulter's apology is an example of this mix:

C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.

Sunday, 4 March 2007, 14:29 GMT

Sane Conservatives II

From the New York Times:

Three of the leading Republican presidential candidates on Saturday denounced one of their party's best-known conservative commentators for using an antigay epithet when discussing a Democratic presidential contender at a gathering of conservatives here.

The remarks by Ann Coulter, an author who regularly speaks at conservative events, were sharply denounced by the candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

This is great, but we mustn't forget that the conservatives at the conference were thrilled and cheered when Coulter said, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I—so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

Sunday, 4 March 2007, 01:58 GMT

Philosophy of Science

A quotation for philosophy geeks:

It is now generally accepted that all theories, including scientific ones, are underdetermined by the data. That is, for any set of data, there are an indefinite number of theories that would explain those data. Astronomy provides an example. Before Copernicus, the observed relative movements of the stars and planets were explained by the theory that the earth was stationary and that the planets and stars moved round it in circles at constant velocity. However, in their observed track across the heavens the planets sometimes went faster, sometimes slower and even appeared to go backwards for short periods. These retrogressions and changes in speed were explained by postulating that, while each planet moved in a basically circular orbit, each also moved in smaller circles (called epi-cycles) within that overall circular orbit. Their motion as seen from the earth was the product of more than one circular motion and this theory thus fitted, and explained, the observational data. After Copernicus the preferred picture had the sun as the fixed point around which the planets, including the earth, moved in elliptical orbit. Since both theories fit what we see when we look at the heavens there is no observational test that will be decisive in determining which of them is correct. Our reason for preferring the heliocentric theory proposed by Copernicus and others must lie elsewhere.

– David McNaughton, Moral Vision (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 87.

(Seen in picture is painting "Copernicus" by Judith Anton.)

Saturday, 3 March 2007, 19:16 GMT

Site Meter

As some of you might have noticed, I have added "Site Meter" to my blog. Many bloggers use their free service to monitor traffic to their website. For some unknown reason, most Swedish bloggers are very secretive about their statistics and choose to hide their figures. I decided that openness is preferred. So, if anyone of you is curious about who reads this blog, click on the icon at the bottom of the sidebar to the right.

One cool thing about Site Meter is the listings of recent visitors. Click on "By Location" and "By World Map" and see where the latest visitors are. However, from the information email I get that visitors must have cookies and JavaScript enabled on their browsers in order to be counted. Other visitors are invisible.

As I said, I have decided to be open about my statistics. My blog is not one of the most visited, and I don't nourish some dream about topping the charts, so I have no sensitive ego to protect. However, I want you to observe that the meter began counting only a few hours ago. The statistics doesn't really reveal a true picture of my blog's traffic yet.

Saturday, 3 March 2007, 18:12 GMT

Sane Conservatives

Ann Coulter's "faggot joke" at the CPAC did not seem to go down that well after all. Thank God for sane conservatives!

Saturday, 3 March 2007, 17:03 GMT

Will Global Cooling Be Hot Again?

The temperature is falling in New Zealand. Scientists express worries, just as they did in the mid-1970s when the scare of an imminent global cooling was launched the first time. From an article in today's New Zealand Herald:

Summer was the coldest in 14 years. The average mean summer temperature was 15.7C, 0.9C below normal—the lowest for summer since 1992/93.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research says summer temperatures were as much as 1.5C below average in eastern areas from coastal Wairarapa to North Canterbury, as well as parts of King Country and Wellington. However, summer temperatures were near average in Nelson.

It's a bit like saying hello to a childhood friend you haven't met in ages.

Saturday, 3 March 2007, 15:24 GMT

Spoiled Brat Warfare

The streets of Copenhagen have been tormented by riots after the police evicted some socialist teenagers that squatted a house in the Nørrebro district. The teenagers like to think of themselves as struggling poor, but the truth is that most of them are spoiled middle-class brats from suburbia who like to throw stones at the police and burn people's cars for political reasons. From an article in the Copenhagen Post:

With the smell of burnt plastic, wood and other refuse still hanging over the streets of the Nørrebro district, residents and shop keepers are beginning to clean up after a day of violent protests by supporters of the Ungdomshuset youth collective.

The main Nørrebrogade thoroughfare was still closed to cars Friday morning, but cyclists were able to weave their way past melted rubbish bins and charred bike frames set alight by the young people as they reacted to an early morning police action to evict the squatters.

After what police called a "quiet" afternoon, the riot broke out in earnest when a rally held by supporters moved in against the police, casting cobblestones and erecting baracades across Nørrebrogade and other side streets.

Police arrested 219 people in conjunction with the riots. Another Ungdomshuset rally has been called for this afternoon, and police have called in reinforcements from throughout the country in expectation of a new wave clashes.

(Photo by Tariq Mikkel Khan)

Saturday, 3 March 2007, 00:13 GMT

Scornful Conservatism

Liberals have always had a thing about eliminating humans. Stalin wanted to eliminate the kulaks and Ukranians, vegetarian atheist Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate poor blacks, DDT opponent Rachel Carson wanted to eliminate Africans (introduction to her book "Silent Spring" written by … Al Gore!), and population-control guru Paul Ehrlich wants to eliminate all humans.

If it were translated from Swedish, it could have been a quote by Kerstin Berminge, Jan-Inge Flücht, or Ali Esbati. It's the kind of slander these hardcore communist bloggers normally use. But no, this is a quote from the 28 February column by the American Christian Right's number one favourite, writer Ann Coulter.

I am aware that the American political terminology is different from the European, but this is silly by any standards. Liberalism and Stalinism mix like oil and water regardless of political culture.

Earlier today, Miss Coulter spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. The audience cheered when she made some homophobic joke on John Edwards. In her world, using words like "faggot" is cool.

This silliness, I think, is one of the biggest problems with conservatism today. Too much effort is put into fighting political correctness in a mindless way. The criticism must be about defending an open debate on controversial subject; not slander and scorn for the sake of it. The conservative movement deserves better—therefore it needs more libertarians.

Friday, 2 March 2007, 15:25 GMT

Disqualified Anti-Terrorism

Israel's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest has provoked the Finnish arrangers. "It's obvious that this kind of message is inappropriate for the competition," says organizer Kjell Ekholm to the Associated Press according to an article in Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

And what is the message? Well, that a despotic dictator's threat of nuclear terror is wrong.

Mr Ekholm won't have that since this could be interpreted as criticism of Iran's anti-Semitic leadership. Therefore, he wants the European Broadcasting Union to disqualify Israel from this year's song contest.

The message of peace and anti-terrorism is not new to the contest. In 1982, German singer Nicole won with the song Ein Bisschen Frieden on the same topic. She wasn't Jewish though—and the threat did not come from Muslim fanatics.

Friday, 2 March 2007, 00:24 GMT

On Language and Post-Snow Malmö

One of the advantages of blogging in English is that web-surfers from around the world can read what I write. I now have quite a few frequent readers in far-off places. Some of them send me emails regularly with curious questions about Sweden, Europe, homosexuality, politics, and other topics dealt with on this blog. The downside of the matter is that some Swedes that I would like to reach avoid blogs in English; some have even suggested that the choice of language is a sign of snobbism. I really want to stress that it's not. I just want to be able to communicate with friends and strangers both in Sweden and in other countries.

Anyhow, a reader in Bolivia emailed me yesterday. He read my entry on the snow-in situation in Malmö and worried about it. "Is the snow still keeping the shops closed?" he asked.

I was touched by his concern, so I emailed him and explained that the bad weather only closed the city for a day. The snow is gone now, and things are back to normal. When I took a walk outdoors a few hours ago, I snapped a photo as proof. Seen in the picture is the same street as in my previous entry. The cars are back. The ghastly stillness is gone.

Thursday, 1 March 2007, 23:34 GMT

I, Bob Kelso

Inspired by Wille, I took an online personality test to figure out which of the characters in the TV series Scrubs I resemble the most. Apparently, I'm Dr Bob Kelso. The test result reads:

Who likes you? Practically no one. Do you care? Not one bit. You don't relish social situations, even if your daily life forces you to tolerate them. You're known to make the best of things, even if it's at the expense of others. On the bright side, in making yourself happy, you are sure to live a long, healthy life…that is if no one kills you first.

I know of at least one antagonist who would say that this is spot-on.

Thursday, 1 March 2007, 19:40 GMT

My First Eurovision Televote

I don't care much for the annual Eurovision Song Contest, but this year I might actually pick up the phone and cast a vote. If I do, I do it for political reasons. Israel's entry in this year's contest sounds horrible, but their lyrics are far better than those of any other participants. From Teapacks's song "Push the Button":

The world is full of terror,
if someone makes an error,
he's gonna blow us up to kingdom come.

There are some crazy rulers,
they hide and try to fool us,
with demonic, technologic willingness to harm.

Thursday, 1 March 2007, 10:41 GMT

Spam Quote

"It's more virtual than real and in reality it does virtually nothing."

– Chris Auchinvole MP on New Zealand's new anti-spam law.