It has been a mad day in Malmö City Court. Nearly twelve hours of non-stop proceedings can make anyone regret ever saying yes when asked to serve on a jury. Tonight I'm beat and need to go to bed early. Tomorrow afternoon, I will have a few hours kill on the train to Stockholm. And what better way to kill time than to blog.

Could the new Airbus A380 make all other aeroplanes too dull? Australian Qantas Airways thinks it might. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Qantas is about to give itself the sort of problem that most airlines dream about: a new product aboard a new aeroplane that makes all its other aeroplanes, if not obsolete, then second-rate, as far as its customers are concerned.

Who will want to fly on a Qantas 747 jumbo again after flying on one of its Airbus A380 super-jumbos from next year?

In terms of comfort and in-flight facilities, the A380 unveiled by Qantas this week is likely to cause a mini-revolution. Up and down the cabin, from economy to first class, it will be a better offering than anything that has gone before it.

The article goes on the list some of the new facilities:

• Wide-screen monitors in all cabins with digital picture and sound quality
• Audio and video on demand with more than 100 on-demand movies, 350 television selections, 500 audio CDs, 30 PC style games, as well as a selection of audio books and radio channels
• Language tutorials
• Deloitte Leadership Academy
• Online duty free shopping
• Moving maps, text news and weather
• An intuitive graphics system allowing users to navigate through entertainment options or in-seat communications easily
• Wireless connectivity throughout the aircraft
• In-seat access to email and the Internet, telephone and SMS
• USB and RJ45 ports as well as PC power for all seats
• An external camera giving a pilot's eye view of take-off, landing, and cruising

I can't wait to get aboard.

I have seen enough films and plays directed by Ingmar Bergman to know that the man would appreciate some comedy following the announcement of his death. Here is French & Saunders's Bergman parody.

Nashi, a cult-like organization of Russian youths loyal to the stone-faced President Putin, are encouraging their members to have sex and procreate at camp. From an article the Daily Mail:

Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".

Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.

With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult. But this organisation—known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours"—is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.

What do you know about Ingmar Bergman? Take the Guardian's online quiz to find out.

Tomas Hemstad beskriver vad jag känner inför varje pridefestival jag besöker:

I Sverige har vi på papperet väldigt lite kvar att göra när det gäller grundläggande rättigheter för homosexuella – för transpersoner finns det en hel del arbete kvar. Men under Pride kommer jag ibland på mig med att tappa bort självmedvetenheten. Jag kan lägga en arm om en pojkvän eller en flört utan att ett av mina ögon registrerar vad som händer runt omkring mig. Jag kan med hög röst diskutera hivlagstiftning eller vilket cruisingområde som har bäst raggningspotential utan att behöva känna att varje ord jag yttrar registreras av omgivningen. Jag kan, på ett plan, vara mig själv för en liten stund. Trycket att censurera sig eller ändra sitt beteende kommer både inifrån och utifrån hbt-samhället.

Jag har märkt att även mycket liberala heterosexuella inte förstår hur knepigt det faktiskt är att leva som homosexuell i Sverige. Ständigt får man höra att allt är så likställt och tolerant, men ändå är det så att man riskerar glåpord och våld så fort man visar minsta tecken på "bögighet" i offentligheten. Jag och min man har helt slutat försöka vara det minsta avslappnade utanför hemmet. Det går helt enkelt inte att kramas, kyssas eller hålla hand utan att någon kommer fram och vill slåss. Så är det. Inte bara i Malmö, utan i Stockholm, Göteborg och Köpenhamn också. Små saker som mina heterosexuella vänner aldrig behöver tänka på är för mig omöjliga att göra i offentlig miljö.

Det finns ett stort problem med den utveckling som Stockholms pridefestival tagit de senaste tio åren. Festivalen har heterosexualiserats. Förr, i början och mitten av 1990-talet, då jag var ung bög i Stockholm, var media och den politiska eliten tämligen ointresserade av veckan (som då hette Frigörelseveckan). Paraden var ganska liten och många med mig tyckte att det var en ganska pinsam tillställning. Det roliga var dock att de fester och jippon som arrangerades var homo till hundra procent. Numera springer det heterosexuella par och riksdagsmän överallt. Det är naturligtvis bra sett ur sett politiskt perspektiv. Men personligen tycker jag det var lite roligare när man kunde suga av killar i bajamajorna utan att behöva tänka på att Mona Sahlin och ett gäng från tidningen Vi Föräldrar kanske står och väntar i kisskön utanför. Det är sådana mentala bilder som gör sexlivet svårt för en queer bög som jag.

Men jag tycker det ska bli kul att åka till Stockholm Pride och återse gamla bekanta. Det var flera år sedan jag var där senast. Jag sticker på onsdag. Räkna med mycket bilder på bloggen i slutet av veckan.

PS! Rubriken borde locka läsare. Särskilt om jag pingar Intressant.

Ingmar Bergman, Sweden's most famous stage and film director, has died at the age of 89 at his home on the island of Fårö.

(Photo by Magnus Skoglöf.)

Update: From the New York Times's obituary:

Through more than 50 films, Bergman's vision encompassed all the extremes of his beloved Sweden: the claustrophobic gloom of unending winter nights, the gentle merriment of glowing summer evenings and the bleak magnificence of the island where he spent his last years.

Bergman, who approached difficult subjects such as plague and madness with inventive technique and carefully honed writing, became one of the towering figures of serious filmmaking.

He was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Woody Allen said in a 70th birthday tribute in 1988.

Bergman first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."

"The Seventh Seal," released in 1957, riveted critics and audiences. An allegorical tale of the medieval Black Plague years, it contains one of cinema's most famous scenes—a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death.

"I was terribly scared of death," Bergman said of his state of mind when making the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the best picture category.

The film distilled the essence of Bergman's work—high seriousness, flashes of unexpected humor and striking images.

On the opening day of Stockholm Pride, the newspaper Dagens Nyheter publishes the result of a new survey by gay-rights activist Bengt Held. It found that a vast majority of Swedish MPs are in favour of same-sex marriage. Only the Christian Democrats, which is one of the smallest parties in Parliament, are overwhelmingly against giving same-sex couples the possibility to marry. When asked if they were in favour of same-sex marriage, 66% of the MPs representing the Moderate Party answered yes. A further 20% said maybe. Only 14% rejected a marriage reform. My party has truly changed in the past decade. Ten years ago, only the party's libertarian minority was outspoken friends of gays and lesbians. It is nice to see how some of the more hostile homophobes from the past now come out in favour of equal rights.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but the tone in an article published by the Los Angeles Times bothers me. It's about Cairo-based, Muslim sex therapist Heba Kotb. She has become quite a celebrity since she began her late-night show on Egyptian television. I suppose it's groundbreaking and a positive thing. What bothers me though is that the Times completely disregard the fact the Ms Kotb is an outspoken homophobe. A few weeks ago, I listened to an interview with Kotb on a Swedish radio programme about religion, and it wasn't pleasant. Her opinions are not as liberal as suggested in the Times article.

You can download the Swedish radio programme here (mp3).

(Photo by Asmaa Waguih.)

According to an article in the New York Post, Madonna is considering leaving the Warner Music Group in favour of life without a traditional record contract. I think this is cool. And it's not only Madonna. Artists, novelists, musicians, and other creative people are going independent. It used to be that you were dependent on a contract with a big publisher or recording company to make your stuff available to a larger audience. Nowadays, the Internet has made it possible for just about anyone with great talent to get an audience.

This development is probably what I like best about the time we live in now. I am old enough to remember a time without Internet and online publishing, and I know how many were burned in the struggle to get a few talent agents' attention. Often people with great artistic skills gave up because they had nowhere to expose their work. Nowadays, they build a website, write a blog, publish video clips on YouTube, and sell their stuff through Amazon and iTunes.

Märta Wennerström, a Swedish gallery owner, has censured artist Lars Vilks's drawings of the prophet Muhammad because she feared Muslim anger. Meanwhile, anonymous people are posting threats addressed to Mr Vilks and call for terror attacks against Sweden on the Muslim online community Sindbad.

I refuse to give in to Islamist bullies, so I publish the banned drawings here. If you have a blog of your own, I suggest you copy them.

Read more (in Swedish) on Ulf Pettersson's blog

A new study by the New Zealand Educational Institute found that removal of corporal punishment in schools causes rise in violence against teachers. The New Zealand Herald reports:

The study also found more than 50 per cent of teachers and more than 25 per cent of school support staff reported "aggressive verbal confrontations" with pupils.

Bob McCoskrie, national director of conservative family lobby group Family First, said a Justice Ministry report late last year showed serious youth violence had increased by 27 per cent since 1996.

"All of these young people have entered a system of education and society where discipline and responsibility are being replaced by the politically correct nonsense of childrens' rights," said says Mr McCoskrie.

"It is significant that as schools have removed corporal punishment, schools have become more dangerous. School yard bullying by pupils on other pupils and staff is now the new form of 'corporal punishment' in schools.

I do not agree with Mr McCoskrie's attitude towards children's rights. Of course, children have rights, and not being caned is one of them. However, children need to be disciplined. If not, they turn on each other and the victims of bullying will suffer even more. We see this problem in the Swedish schools, where children can do pretty much what they want without any reprimand whatsoever.

As part of his presidential campaign, John Edwards, the trial lawyer that made a fortune on lawsuits against hospitals, is playing the "I'm the underdog"-card and pretending he is a friend of poor Americans who cannot afford health care. Well, it might be worth pointing out that it was Mr Edwards and his colleagues that made health-care policies unaffordable to many. The money hospitals and insurance companies paid in out-of-court settlements do not only finance Mr Edwards's presidential campaign, but also his six million dollar estate in North Carolina.

How I loathe wealthy class-struggle agitators.

I was planning some furious commentary on the Christian Social Democrats' Pride Week advertisement in the Swedish gay press, but I got distracted by spontaneous, spiteful laughter after reading the English-language presentation on their website. I know, I should stick to lambasting the two-faced politics of this organization; and remind everyone wooed by their nice and open-minded image of the moral support the Christian Social Democrats give to Arab Islamists that routinely slaughter gays and lesbians. But hey, it's Saturday night, and what better way to humiliate a bunch of silly hypocrites than to quote them? This is how the Christian Social Democrats describe themselves:

Politcs is a tool to change the world. Nothing more or less. But if you want to change the world you have to know what you want. You have to be able to define and tell your visions.

This is why politics is also about telling stories. To tell the story of the past, present and the future. To tell the story of injustice that needs to change, the story of the heories and the good values that have to remain strong and be encouraged. The story of how beathiful the future could be.

One of our most important stories is the story of justice, and how justice can be achieved. "Carry eachothers pain" is one of our basic ideas. We believe that justice can come when people care for eachothers pain and well-being. Justice comes through cooperation and love for the other. Together we can make things better and easier for eachother.

The Christian social democrats wants to challange our biggest party in sweden, the Social Democrats to rethink, to have the courage to be radical in order to make better changes. We don't want the social party to be stuck in traditonal patterns of governance. This is why the Christian Social Democrats should offer alternative solution in swedish politics. We see ourselves as the critical voice in the society that questions mainstream politics in our own party, the Swedish Social Democrats.

May I suggest a qualified translator, a dictionary, and a zero-tolerance approach to punctuation?

It is the Sabbath, so what could be more suitable than a picture of Malmö's synagogue. I snapped this photo with my new camera when I walked through the city earlier this afternoon.

Do you remember the 2004 Lancet study that blamed the United States for at least a hundred thousand civilian deaths in Iraq? It sparked exhilarated feelings among anti-Americans and Saddam Hussein fans around the world. Finally, they had "scientific proof" that suggested that neo-conservative democratization was a deathly business. Hurrah!

Well, the scientific proof was based on some very unscientific methods. Not that the looniest left-wingers bothered about that, but it made the rest of us question the world's best-regarded medical journal. It simply doesn't matter how many Iraqi doors you knock on, you cannot make any scientific claims based only on estimates from people with nothing to go on except their guesses. That is a bit like asking the local hairdresser for her opinion on global warming and present what she says as meteorological evidence.

The cartoon comes from the Cox & Forkum blog. Read more about the death-toll survey on Michelle Malkin's blog.

In a country of sixty million people and over two million pot smokers, the researchers behind the latest cannabis study estimate that about 800 new cases of psychosis (i.e. temporary delusion, in most cases) could be prevented by reducing marijuana use.

It is not the first time the newspaper headlines following a new study on cannabis has turned out to be bogus. But who will know? Media is not likely to report that the dangers of cannabis use are minuscule compared to tobacco and alcohol.

Earlier today, I wrote about a new study that, according to Daily Mail, suggests that a single joint might trigger schizophrenia. Now I read about the same study in the Los Angeles Times. But the tone of the article is quite different. I quote:

"It's not as if you smoke a joint and you're going to go crazy," said Richard Rawson, who directs the Integrated Substance Abuse Program at UCLA and was not involved in the study.

But he cautioned: "It's definitely not a good idea to use heavy amounts of marijuana."

The researchers found that the risk for psychotic illnesses did appear to increase with dose, suggesting that stopping marijuana use would decrease risk, said coauthor Dr. Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol in Britain.

Psychotic illnesses include schizophrenia and disorders with such symptoms as hallucinations or delusions.

Well, I think everyone who ever lived through a night of heavy drinking has experienced moments of delusion. This is something altogether different from the grave and life-long mental illnesses the Mail wanted to link to a few drags on a spliff.

Enligt Politikerbloggen hotar socialdemokraten Jan-Anders Lindfors de anställda på ABB i Karlskrona som inte vill vara med i LO. Han motiverar detta på följande sätt:

"Jag vill bara vara tydlig och informera om konsekvenserna när man inte är med i facket. De ska inte tro att de kan göra som de vill, bryta mot övertidsregler och annat. De ska inte förvänta sig något."

Jag hatar LO. Länge har jag försökt vara pragmatisk och med stor ansträngning försökt intala mig att landets största fackföreningsrörelse nog ändå vill väl – men jag kan inte bärga mig längre. Jag känner en uppriktig avsky inför just LO. Detta ska inte blandas samman med min inställning till fackliga organisationer i allmänhet. Det är ofta både bra och rätt att löntagare liksom andra med gemensamma intressen organiserar sig. Likaså är systemet med kollektivavtal långt mycket bättre än många andra länders lagstiftningsmodell. Det som gör Lo till en äcklig organisation är att den inte längre bryr sig inte om löntagare. Det är en maktorganisation som finns till för dess egen skull och som livnär sig på främlingsfientlighet, protektionism och allmänt förakt för alla som inte håller käft och lydigt ställer ställer sig i kön. Sverige behöver inga brukspatroner som tvingar arbetarna på knä – vi har LO-pampar som Jan-Anders Lindfors.

A new OSCE report entitled Governing the Internet warns of online policing, calling it "a bitter reminder of the ease with which some regimes—democracies and dictatorships alike—seek to suppress speech that they disapprove of, dislike, or simply fear."

In the past, I never cared much for photography. But about a year ago, when I bought a new mobile phone with a built-in camera, I discovered how fun it could be to snap digital pictures and publish them online. Unfortunately, the camera was never good enough for those really nice things I wanted to capture. The resolution was mediocre at best. Hopefully this will change now, because today I bought myself a real camera: a Sony DSC-S700. It is not the best camera on the market, but compared to what I have now and considering I'm not a professional, it's a great improvement. Expect more of my own photos to be published in this journal.

Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother and Cuba’s acting president, delivered a speech yesterday. Among other things he said:

“No one, no individual or country, can afford to spend more than what they have. It seems elementary, but we do not always think and act in accordance with this inescapable reality.”

Swedish left-wingers call this kind of reality-based politics “economism” and “neo-liberalism”. Maybe they will change their minds now that Cuba’s communist government has refuted one of Leninism’s core ideas by accepting the fact that people cannot spend money they don’t have.

It might seem insignificant, but what Raúl Castro said yesterday is truly groundbreaking coming from a communist.

(Photo by Jose Goitia.)

American police officers make the case for legalizing drugs.

Part One:

Part Two:

According to a new study published in The Lancet, smoking a single cannabis joint raises the danger of future mental illness by 40%. The Daily Mail writes:

The authors of the latest study, the most comprehensive of its kind and commissioned by the Department of Health, said: 'Policymakers need to provide the public with advice about this widely-used drug.

'We believe there is now enough evidence to inform people that using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life.'

The analysis does not look at the age at which schizophrenia is likely to develop. However, previous studies have shown that smoking the drug as a teenager raises the risk of developing schizophrenia in one's twenties or thirties.

The researchers, from four British universities, analysed the results of 35 studies into cannabis use from around the world. This suggested that trying cannabis only once was enough to raise the risk of schizophrenia by 41 per cent.

However:

Cardiff University researcher Dr Stanley Zammit added: 'Even if cannabis does cause an increased risk of developing psychosis, most people who use cannabis will not develop such an illness.

'Nevertheless, we would still advise people to avoid or limit their use of this drug, especially if they start to develop any mental health symptoms, or if they have relatives with psychotic illnesses.'

My experience of smoking cannabis tells me that it does affect one’s mind, and I do believe heavy consumption can cause mental illness. Still, I am very sceptical about studies like this since they tend to be exaggerated. Other studies have shown that people with mental problems tend to self-medicate by using alcohol, cannabis, and narcotic drugs. All studies I have read suggest that people in this group are the ones who develop psychosis and schizophrenia.

Communists and others who adore Hugo Chávez do their best to camouflage or trivialize Venezuela's move towards totalitarianism. When the Chávez regime decided to close the only independent television station earlier this year, I was called a liar and exaggerator after saying that this was an action taken by a mad dictator in order to silence every opposition. But recent developments have proven me right. Chávez's media politics is all about control and establishing a one-man state. From an article in The Economist:

It is not clear how depriving most of the poor, who lack cable and satellite, of what was their favourite channel amounts to "democratisation of the air-waves", as the government claims. TVes, the new state-run channel which now occupies RCTV's Channel 2 slot, has struggled to reach a tenth of its predecessor's rating. TVes is supposedly a public-service station. But it has swiftly scrapped the newscasts it had commissioned from an independent producer. They were of poor quality, but the reason given by Lil Rodríguez, the channel's director, was that: "The editorial line must be determined by the company."

Perhaps foreseeing increased take-up of cable and satellite, the information minister suggested that these channels may soon be obliged to carry the (frequent and interminable) speeches to the nation of Mr Chávez, which all free-to-air television and radio stations must broadcast.

Med anledning av gårdagens upprördhet har jag anmält Sveriges Radios reportage om prostitution till granskningsnämnden för radio och TV. Så här motiverar jag min begäran om prövning av programmet P1-Morgon:

På morgonen den 25 juli 2007 sände Sveriges Radios P1 ett mycket vinklat reportage om prostitution i Bryssel. I inslaget intervjuar Camilla Wahlman två personer som båda tagit mycket tydlig ställning för förbud i den europeiska debatten om sexköp. Först intervjuas Colette de Troy från European Women's Lobby, därefter den svenska EU-parlamentarikern Carl Schlyter. De båda får oemotsagda beskriva sina meningsmotståndare utan att dessa får komma till tals. Debatten trivialiseras sålunda, och radiolyssnare utan erfarenhet från belgisk och nederländsk samhällsdebatt får bilden av att en enig europeisk kvinnorörelse står mot en växande sex- och slavindustri. Detta är mycket missvisande. Faktum är att de som hårdast driver krav på legalisering i Europa är organiserade sexarbetare. I Sverige finns en gren av denna rörelse som heter SANS (www.sans.nu).

Några av de vanligaste argumenten för en legalisering nämns visserligen av reportern i inslaget, men i förbudsanhängarnas version. Därför menar jag att reportaget om prostitution i Bryssel strider mot kravet på objektivitet. Oavsett vad man tycker i enskilda sakfrågor bör man kunna kräva av Sveriges Radio att de försöker ge en objektiv bild av pågående samhällsdebatter inom EU.

Sitter i sommarstugan och lyssnar på P1 Morgon. Blev så arg. Är tvungen att mobilblogga trots att det är dyrt. I ett inslag om sexköp fick två förbudsförespråkare komma till tals men ingen kritiker. Det går inte att vara mer partisk än P1 i detta reportage. Som om inte detta vore nog så kör man ett nyhetsinslag om brittisk cannabispolitik i vilket man kallar kritikerna för drogliberaler. Detta ord används bara av dem som vill smutskasta förbudskritiker. P1 går de moralkonservativas ärenden.

I will spend the coming week at my family's country cottage. I need a few days in solitude to complete an essay on feminist theory. The place has neither phone nor Internet connection, which is part of its charm. It is a bit like travelling back in time. However, I might answer emails and do some blogging during my visits to the local library.

Larry and Jeff discuss women with big vaginas. From HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

The Burj Dubai building in the United Arab Emirates is what I call a true skyscraper. Barbara Surk reports:

Developers of a 1,680-foot [512 metres] skyscraper still under construction in oil-rich Dubai claimed Saturday that it has become the world's tallest building, surpassing Taiwan's Taipei 101 which has dominated the global skyline at 1,667 feet since 2004.

The Burj Dubai is expected to be finished by the end of 2008 and its planned final height has been kept secret. The state-owned development company Emaar Properties, one of the main builders in rapidly developing Dubai, said only that the tower would stop somewhere above 2,275 [694 metres] feet.

When completed, the skyscraper will feature more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, luxury apartments, boutiques, swimming pools, spas, exclusive corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani's first hotel, and a 124th floor observation platform.

Truly impressive.

Tor Billgren has the list.

Five years after the Venezuelan coup d'état against Hugo Chávez, the victims got their day in court. If they had succeeded, Venezuela would have been something very different today. But they failed, and now Chávez has metamorphosed from democratic president into despotic dictator.

To me it is completely evident that boys should not be circumcised. Now it seems that an increasing number of Jews agree with me. From Forward:

While the United States is one of the few industrialized countries in which a majority of newborn boys are circumcised, recent surveys show that the American circumcision rate, which was close to 90% in the 1960s, is now at only 57%. But even though the national rate has declined, circumcision remains the norm in all major Jewish denominations; most newborn Jewish boys have either a traditional brit milah or have the procedure performed at a hospital. Nevertheless, a small but vocal minority of Jewish activists have begun to question the importance, and even the morality, of circumcision. Some have even begun using alternative "bris-less" brisses to welcome their sons into the world.

Yes, let the boys keep their foreskin.

From an article in The Local:

Sweden's Catholic church has apologised for sex attacks against a child that were committed by a priest 50 years ago. The apology emerged in the form of an advertisement in the newspapers Göteborgs-Posten and Dagen.

The attacks are said to have taken place over a period of a couple of years at the end of the 1950s. When the victim tried to draw attention to what was happening the church protected the priest and the case was hushed up.

Andy gives Shane a masturbation lesson. From Showtime's "Weeds".

Breitbart.com reports that President Bush has "signed an executive order governing interrogation of terrorism suspects, prohibiting cruel and inhumane treatment, humiliation or denigration of prisoners' religious beliefs."

This is great new for those of us who support the global fight against terrorism and totalitarianism. The interrogation methods used by the United States have been one of the things that has made this stad difficult. To fight terrorists with terror is to give in to the enemy.

Advocate General Juliane Kokott, an advisor to the EU's highest court, has said that Internet service providers are not obliged to hand over information about people suspected of illegally sharing copyrighted material online. From the EU Observer:

The case was brought by a Spanish music and audiovisual association—Promusicae—after telecoms and internet provider Telefonica refused to hand over names and addresses linked to computers, which the music association believed used peer-to-peer file sharing tool KaZaA to illegally distribute copyrighted songs.

Promusicae wanted the personal data so that it could start taking legal action against the file sharers, but Telefonica claimed that it could only turn over such information as part of a criminal prosecution or in matters of public security and national defence.

A Spanish court hearing the case referred the issue to the ECJ for guidance on how to interpret EU law on the subject and Ms Kokott's legal opinion is the advice for the ECJ judges who will eventually rule on a recommendation for the Spanish court to take.

The final court decision is expected later this year. Once it comes out, it could form the basis for similar decisions throughout the 27-member EU bloc.

Snus is many Swedes' drug of choice. It's supposedly a macho thing to many men. To others it's almost a patriotic stand since most of Europe is snus-free. The safety of snus consumption has been questioned repeatedly, and the National Institute of Public Health refuses to label snus safe. Today, Slate sums up a recent snus study published in the Lancet:

The researchers followed more than 125,000 Swedish construction workers, for 12 to 26 years, who were nonsmoking users of snus. They found no increase in oral or lung cancers, compared with nonsmokers who did not use any form of tobacco. But they did find an approximately double risk of developing pancreatic cancer, resulting in about 40 more cases of this disease in the 125,000 snus users. Other studies of snus users in Sweden show only tiny increases in heart disease and stroke, two conditions that are significantly higher in cigarette smokers. It would appear, then, that snus—though not risk-free—is safer than smoking.

Now you know. Snus on.

Politicians lose control when the debates move online.

From the Guardian:

The former French president Jacques Chirac was yesterday questioned by a judge over a party financing scandal dating back to his time as Paris mayor, the first time in modern France a former president has been quizzed in a corruption investigation.

Two months after he stepped down and his presidential immunity ended, Mr Chirac finally faced investigators who have been waiting for 12 years to question him over allegations that money was siphoned off the Paris city hall budget to pay workers for his own political party. It is the most serious of a string of potential legal problems facing the 74-year-old ex-president.

A couple of weeks ago, paranoid socialist dictator Robert Mugabe ordered Zimbabwean shops to lower their prices by half, saying businesses were part of a Western-sponsored conspiracy against his government. As a result, panic spread and shops were emptied of basic commodities. The economy is now on the brink of total collapse. But, as if this was not bad enough, Mr Mugabe yesterday decided to outlaw petrol purchases with foreign currency. Cris Chinaka of the Cape Times reports:

Zimbabwe has scrapped a scheme allowing fuel purchases with foreign currency, removing one of the few remaining ways for people to acquire petrol in a country struggling with a crumbling economy. The facility is also used by foreign diplomats and officials working for international aid organisations.

[...]

In a statement broadcast by state media yesterday, a committee enforcing the controversial price cuts said the government had banned foreign currency coupons allowing people to get scarce petrol from private oil companies or individual importers.

"The Task Force is giving all coupon holders two weeks from today, within which to acquit their coupons. No new fuel coupon sales should be made forthwith," it said. No reasons were given for the move, and both government and private oil companies were not available for comment.

From the Washington Post:

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said he will participate in a much-anticipated report due to Congress in mid-September but "to do a good assessment," he said, he would need 45 more days. Odierno cited "significant success" over the past four weeks in military operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq and in the training of the Iraqi security forces, and said there has been movement toward political reconciliation.

Asked why support at home continues to wane, Odierno said: "All I can do is tell you what is going on. I cannot make anyone listen."

Odierno, Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, appeared in separate videoconferences yesterday to deliver identical messages on behalf of President Bush's strategy: Progress is being made in Iraq, but the strategy needs more time than Congress and the American public appear willing to give.

Sir Humphry explains the British approach to the European Union. From BBC's "Yes, Minister".