Wednesday, 11 July 2007, 20:27 GMT

Important Meta Announcement

On 7 March, I began to use Feedburner, an external feed provider, because I was thinking about moving my blog to a new server. Now the move is about to happen. To most of my regular readers—and everybody using online feed readers like Bloglines, My Yahoo, Netvibes, Google Reader, etcetera—nothing will change. The RSS feed and web address will be the same. But those of you who still use the pre-March feed must make a change in your RSS reader now. I know there are still about 30 of you. Please, make sure you use the following RSS address:

http://feedproxy.google.com/aqurette

Wednesday, 11 July 2007, 09:38 GMT

Holiday and Zimbabwe

I have decided to take a few days off. I have a million things to do, and family and friends to attend to. I will be back soon. A final thought before I turn off the computer:

Yesterday I read a newspaper article about Zimbabwe under president Robert Mugabe. The paper listed some facts about the country. After decades of socialist "reforms", Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation rate in the world (4,500%), and nowhere are there as many unemployed people (80%). Astonishing figures, don't you think? It makes me think. I have really tried hard do find one, but it seems to me that socialism cannot produce a single successful example. Ironically, despite evidence of the contrary, the Socialist Left in Sweden and Europe still think height-inflation politics would combat unemployment.

Some people simply refuse to learn. Irritating as this stubborn stupidity is, in a liberal society we have to live with that.

Sunday, 8 July 2007, 17:18 GMT

Nazister planerar attackera pridefestivalen

Med slogans som "Ge fan i min anus" och "Pedofili? Nej!" planerar svenska nationalsocialister och högerkristna att hetsa mot deltagarna i Stockholm Pride som börjar om tre veckor. Tor Billgren rapporterar om förberedelserna.

Sunday, 8 July 2007, 04:19 GMT

Revenge Is Sweet

The Swedish police want to blacklist file-sharing website The Pirate Bay over child pornography:

"After complaints from the public we have been able to establish that there is child pornography on Pirate Bay," wrote the head of the National Criminal Investigation Department's IT crimes unit Stefan Kronkvist in a statement.

He said that The Pirate Bay would be placed on the National Police Board's blacklist if the material was still in place next week, but no formal decision has yet been taken. The blacklist means that Sweden's internet operators, of which there are 15 including Telia, Tele 2 and Bredbandsbolaget, could block access to the site.

Instead of arriving at the site, visitors would be redirected to a page where they would be informed that the site was used for distributing child pornography.

What is worrying is that the police did not bother to contact the website owners, which suggest that the whole operation is a revenge on Pirate Bay for a much-publicized police raid last year that caused much embarrassment to then Justice Minister Thomas Bodström (picture). Mr Bodström is now heading ECPAT, an organization working to eliminate child pornography.

Sunday, 8 July 2007, 02:36 GMT

Make Your Own iPhone

This is cool. The blog Daddy Types explains how to knit an iPhone. If I ran a large-scale retailer like IKEA or Wal-Mart, I would start mass production immediately. Nerds have kids too.

Saturday, 7 July 2007, 13:51 GMT

Most Israelis Would Accept Gay Child

A new Ynet-Gesher survey suggests that most Israelis would accept their son or daughter's homosexuality:

In answer to the question, "How would you respond if your son or daughter informed you that they have homosexual tendencies?" 43 percent stated that they would be very sorry but would accept their child and the child's partner as they are, while 30 percent stated that "if this is what is good for him, I have no problem with it," making a total of 73 percent who said they would accept their child's homosexual tendencies.

In contrast, 15 percent said they would be very angry with the child but would maintain the minimal contact necessary, and 12 percent stated that homosexual relations are in the category of "be killed rather than transgress" and that therefore they would cut off contact with a gay child.

Saturday, 7 July 2007, 05:24 GMT

Books I Read This Summer

One thing I do when I'm not blogging is reading books. Here is what I'm reading this summer, for entertainment and studies. A book I consider one of the most important in the history of the philosophy of religion is William Paley's Natural Theology. The title is somewhat misleading. It is a book about theology, but it is primarily a book about the teleological argument for the existence of God and what is now known as creationism. When philosophers and other academics discuss creation versus evolution today, they tend to trivialize the debate by making it an issue for or against the ideas held by the Christian Rights. That is an altogether different debate.

Simultaneously, I'm reading Charles Darwin's classic The Origin of Species. When Darwin wrote this book, he was both inspired and unsatisfied by Paley's argument from design. Unlike many of those debating creationism today, Darwin was humble to the idea.

I recently bought M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's new Oxford translation of the Koran (Qur'an). I have read the Koran in both English and Swedish before, and after skimming through this book, I second the eulogistic reviews in the British academic press.

For pure pleasure, I read Giles Foden's two African novels The Last King of Scotland and Zanzibar. Foden is one of Britain's best writers. When he is not writing suspense novels, he works for the Guardian.

And finally, Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology, edited by Robin O. Andreasen and Ann E. Cudd. Although feminism is interesting, I must admit that the reading of this book has more to do with an essay I must finish before August. It is, however, a very good collection of essays and articles by many of the most prominent feminist thinkers.

(Click on the cover picture if you want to read more about the book.)

Saturday, 7 July 2007, 00:00 GMT

The Link between Islamism and Communism

Islamist terrorists have more in common with the sectarian communists that terrorized Europe in the 1970s than with ordinary Muslims of today. In fact, the analyses done by communists and Islamists are nearly identical. Unfortunately, the Western response to terrorism appears to confirm the terrorists' dualistic worldview, which is why it is important not to give in to totalitarian temptation. This, in short, is—I think—what Islamology professor Jan Hjärpe says in an interview broadcast on Swedish public-service radio yesterday.

The link between the extreme segments of the Socialist Left and the Islamist movement is apparent to anyone who studies contemporary terrorism. Both groups loathe Western capitalism and liberty. The radio programme was interesting, and I recommend it to anyone able to understand Swedish. You can listen to it here (mp3).

Update 2:58 GMT: The programme is not available online yet. I linked to last week's programme by mistake. Sorry about that.

Friday, 6 July 2007, 23:58 GMT

Orakelpolisen

Från Kvällsposten:

– Vi ger aldrig tillstånd till något party där det misstänks förekomma knark. Under min tid som polis har en ravefest aldrig beviljats, säger Tommy Hallgren vid Malmöpolisens tillståndsgrupp.

De har aldrig gett tillstånd till en ravefest, men ändå vet de att det skulle vara mycket narkotika på festerna om de tilläts. Svensk polis behöver inte bugga folk, de är telepatiska siare. Nåväl. Tur är att ingen tycks bry sig om de där polistillstånden. Det dansas vilt ute på åkrarna.

Friday, 6 July 2007, 09:09 GMT

Call for Safer Cigarettes

This just in—cigarettes are dangerous. They might even kill us:

The European Commissions is expected to propose before the end of this year that all cigarettes sold across the EU should be self-extinguishing to help prevent smoke-related domestic fires that kill around 2,000 Europeans each year.

And if you think it's only another example of madness created by overpaid Brussels bureaucrats with too much time on their well-manicured hands, think again:

New York State in the US was the first place to legislate on fire-safe cigarettes, while Canada and eight other US states have already followed suit. Australia is considering passing a similar law.

Thank God we live in a nanny-state culture! What would we do without it? (We could buy better ashtrays or stop smoking altogether, but that stinks of effort. Nah, let the legislators have their fun.)

Friday, 6 July 2007, 05:09 GMT

Make Artificial Insemination Accessible to All

Sweden's current legislation on artificial insemination enables married women to get hospital treatment on the taxpayers' expense. In an article published in Dagens Nyheter, utilitarian philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö argues in favour of the law being changed to allow unmarried women the same treatment if they wish to become single parents. Dr Tännsjö says that the social norm of two parents living together cannot be justified unless it is provable that the lives of the children born to single parents are disagreeable to the extent that it could be argued better if they had not been born.

I think Dr Tännsjö is on to something important. I do not like the system of state-financed insemination for all, but I do think it is important to let go of the idea that parenthood should be restricted to certain social circumstances. The only limitation nature puts on parenthood is the initial need for male and female gametes to meet. The rest is culture—values, norms, and tradition.

The concept of family has been hijacked by people who advocate traditional heterosexual marriages. This restriction is not based on nature. A quality of humankind is the ability to look past genetics and biology. The best example of this is the widespread tradition of adoption. Throughout human history, children and adults with no biological connection have formed successful families. The popularized expression that blood is thicker than water has been proved invalid repeatedly. Blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker still. And love has nothing to do with methods of conception. A good parent is one who is able to love a child unconditionally. And I see no reason why a single woman (or man) would be incapable to do that.

Thursday, 5 July 2007, 14:12 GMT

Terrorism Stems from Islamic Quarrel

Magnus Norell, an expert on global terrorism at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, has written an excellent article published in today's Dagens Nyheter. He concludes that Islamist terrorism is not a result of American, Israeli, and European foreign and security policies, but rather a sign of an intra-Islamic conflict. Competing terrorist groups pick their targets by the effect it will have on their potential followers.

Thursday, 5 July 2007, 02:44 GMT

Know-It-Alls in Solitude

Syrran, a Swedish socialist blogger, finds it difficult to socialize with people who hold political beliefs that differ from her own. I recognize this from the time I spent with various leftist organizations in my youth. I remember reading about Karl Marx's struggle with the imperfection of people who did not see the class structures fabricated through his "philosophical materialism", which resulted in his followers' eagerness for educating the masses by force. Allowing people to decide for themselves how they wished to lead their lives were seen as bourgeois. Freedom was only possible when people no longer sought for anything that diverged from the party line.

To me it's obvious that Marxists share many of the characteristics of regenerated Christians and others with strong religious beliefs. I was once like that myself, so I know the feeling. It's not easy being open to other people if you cannot lay off preaching.

Thursday, 5 July 2007, 02:03 GMT

Why Do You Hate America?

Matthew Yglesias and the people commenting on his blog were in a humorous mood yesterday.

Wednesday, 4 July 2007, 07:13 GMT

Independence Day

The opening of the Declaration of Independence reads:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

On this day in 1776, Britain lost its greatest colony to independence because the mad King George III refused to treat his American subjects with courtesy. The rebellion against the tyranny of the monarch resulted in one of the finest literary examples of Enlightenment philosophy and liberal politics:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain Inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

The King of England lost something valuable that day, but many people of the world gained something even more precious—no longer could the utopian vision of a nation built on liberty and equality be dismissed as an unrealistic dream. Change is possible; history is not predetermined.

Wednesday, 4 July 2007, 01:44 GMT

Breaking News: Alan Johnston Is Free

This news alert just came from BBC News in London:

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been freed from kidnappers in Gaza after almost four months in captivity.

Television pictures showed Mr Johnston, 45, leaving a building and entering a white car, accompanied by armed men. He said he was tired but in good health.

During his time as a hostage, three videos were released featuring images of Mr Johnston or of his belongings.

Calls were made for his release in rallies worldwide and in an online petition signed by some 200,000 people.

Mr Johnston was handed over to officials of the Hamas administration, reports say.

Finally, some good news for the British after days of grimness following the terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow. I hope the other hostages kept by militant Islamists in the Gaza Strip will be freed presently.

Update at 4:11 GMT:

Media around the world cover the story. Here are what some of the major newspapers' first reports:

• New York Times quotes Johnson after the release:

  "Sixteen weeks kidnapped." It was "sometimes terrifying," he said, describing how "countless times I dreamed of being free and then woke up in the same place."

• The Times writes:

  Amid mounting concern over the safety of Johnston, shooting broke out yesterday at a checkpoint manned by Hamas when two men from the clan behind the kidnapping ran through the cordon to break into the besieged area. "You should be warned that in the next couple of days, we want to finish it," Abu Subhi, a member of Executive Force, the Hamas police, said. "We have decided to cut the electricity and water and there are roadblocks all around. Anyone who comes out, we arrest them."

• Daily Telegraph quotes Johnson's first phone call to the BBC:

  "I am hugely grateful to all the people, an amazing number of people, that worked on the Palestinian side, the British government, the BBC from top to bottom, and the huge amount of support from BBC listeners."

• Jersusalem Post writes:

  Asked if he would return to Gaza, which he had covered for three years, Johnston replied, "After many months of kidnapping, I think I need a break."

I say he deserves a break—a nice long holiday as far away from the Gaza Strip as possible.

Wednesday, 4 July 2007, 01:31 GMT

When Life Imitates Art

When I read Christopher Hitchens's review of Ian McEwan's novel On Chesil Beach last night, I came across a moving article about my favourite novelist published by The Times in March. McEwan's life appears to be almost as intriguing as his fiction.

Wednesday, 4 July 2007, 01:11 GMT

A Picturesque Family

This is a picture of a gay family participating in the festivities at Europride in Madrid on Sunday. The T-shirts read: son, father, father, son. Photo by Kim Rytoft for QX.se.

Tuesday, 3 July 2007, 00:44 GMT

The Axis of Oil-Fuelled Bigotry

Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both ruthless totalitarian rulers known for their bigoted ideas and brutal methods, met yesterday:

The two presidents—whose countries are members of the OPEC oil producing cartel—earlier attended the ceremony to start building a methanol facility with an annual capacity of 1.65 million tons on the Islamic Republic's Gulf coast.

"Iran and Venezuela—the axis of unity," read one of many official posters at the site near the port town of Assalouyeh, showing the two leaders hugging each other and shaking hands.

Ahmadinejad—who came to power two years ago pledging to revive the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution—hailed the event as a step towards boosting "brotherly" ties of the two "revolutionary" nations. Iran is embroiled in a worsening nuclear standoff with Western powers.

Chavez, who last week pushed two U.S. oil giants out of his country as part of his self-styled socialist revolution, said: "This is the unity of the Persian Gulf and the Caribbean Sea."

The despots are advancing. I suppose the Socialist Left will celebrate with champagne and strawberries.

Tuesday, 3 July 2007, 00:42 GMT

An Eyewitness Account from Iraq

Embedded blogger Michael Yon reports from the killing fields in Iraq:

As we passed through the village, Captain Combs pointed out the nice houses, saying the people had been simple farmers with comfortable homes and lives. Until al Qaeda came.

Horrific as the report is, it's still nice to read someone who doesn't act apologetic for al-Qaeda by blaming the United States.

Monday, 2 July 2007, 21:07 GMT

In the Media: Britain's Terrorist Hunt

Mohammad Asha—a 26-year-old medical doctor qualified in Jordan and working in the North Staffordshire hospital in Stoke-on-Trent—is one those arrested in connection with the series of failed terrorist attacks in England and Scotland the past couple of days. Several newspapers report on the arrests:

• Daily Mail
• The Times
• Daily Telegraph
• The Economist
• New York Times
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Washington Post

Meanwhile the New Zealand Herald reports that seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis were killed by a suspected al-Qaeda suicide car bomb attack in the province of Marib in Yemen yesterday. In my opinion, this kills the argument that global terrorism would go away by itself if Britain, the United States, and other democratic nations stopped trying to put an end to totalitarian regimes in the Middle East. Spain did just that after the socialists won the latest general election. It did them no good. The Islamist terrorists are still after Spanish blood.

Sunday, 1 July 2007, 19:12 GMT

Gay Households on the Increase

An article in The Economist suggests that gay life in America is becoming more suburban, contented, and dull:

Gary Gates, a Californian academic, has been mining census data to determine where gays live in America. He observes several trends. First, the number of openly gay households is growing five times faster than the population as a whole. The last full census, in 2000, counted nearly 600,000 same-sex couples. Five years later, the American Community Survey (in which the Census Bureau quizzes a statistically representative sample of 1.4m households) estimated that that number had increased by 30%, to 777,000. Mr Gates reckons the bulk of the increase is because as tolerance spreads, more gay couples are willing to be counted.

The increase was most pronounced in the Midwest, with Wisconsin showing an 81% jump in the number of same-sex couples and Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Indiana also among the ten fastest-growing states in this respect. What this means, perhaps, is that gay America is becoming more like Middle America. "Much of the stereotype around gays is a stereotype of urban white gay men," says Mr Gates. "The gay community is becoming less like that, and more like the population in general." Gay couples are still more likely than straight ones to live in cities, but the gap is smaller than popularly believed, and closing. In 1990, 92% of gay couples but only 77% of American households were in what the Census Bureau calls "urban clusters". By 2000, the gay figure had fallen to 84% while the proportion for households in general had risen to 80%, a striking convergence.

This must be troubling news for the Christian Right. How can they continue the scare of a "homosexual agenda" when all it means is that same-sex couples do the exact same things as their straight friends?

Sunday, 1 July 2007, 04:51 GMT

No One 17 and Under Admitted

According to Mingle², this blog is not for people under the age of eighteen. If you want a well-mannered Swedish libertarian, I can recommend Johan Norberg. His blog is considered safe for all ages. Now you know.

Sunday, 1 July 2007, 01:28 GMT

What Would Muhammad Do?

I must admit that the criticism of Islam seem a bit harsh, but the writers of the "What Would Muhammad Do?" website are on to something important nonetheless. However, we must remember that both Islam and Christianity are missionary religions that share much of the same theological justifications for violent methods. Unlike some of Islam's critics, I believe that Islam can adapt to peaceful and democratic methods just as Christianity did during the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. We must not forget that Europe only a few hundred years ago held many of the values now associated with Muslim countries. Our development from savagery to modernity began with the Enlightenment and its intellectual challenges to religious superstition. Many of the qualities most of us associate with contemporary Christianity did not play any significant role to Christian people prior to the Enlightenment. When mocking Muslims that call Islam the religion of peace, we should be fair and acknowledge that tyrannical Christians once did the exact same thing.

Now, with this said, I still want to stress that the historic facts mentioned here offer no excuse to Islamists who wish to pervert Islam by reducing it to savagery. There is no rule stating that every religious movement must go through the same mistakes before it matures enough to accept liberty and universal human rights.

(Picture and link found via Erik Svansbo.)