This is funny. Anti-gay jihadist Joseph Massad has written that the movie Exodus "tells the story of the Zionist hijacking of a ship from Cyprus to Palestine by a Zionist Haganah commander", which, according to David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy, is analogous to saying that Schindler's List is "a movie about Jews taking a working vacation in Poland". Spot on.

(Photo of the ship Exodus in 1947.)

Larry Derfner of the Jerusalem Post has written an interesting article about Nazis in Israel.

AFP reports that about a Saudi man who will divorce his wife for watching a television programme presented by a male, an act he deemed immoral.

And I thought the Polish sensitivity over gay Teletubbies was stupid.

Den socialdemokratiske riksdagsledamoten Hans Hoff vill förbjuda politiska vildar eftersom väljarna blir lurade när valda politiker lämnar sina partier men behåller sina uppdrag. Jag tycker man borde göra tvärtom. Inför strikt personval och låt de förtroendevalda bilda vilka samarbetskonstellationer de vill. Personliga mandat är mer demokratiska eftersom de skapar en lojalitet gentemot väljarna snarare än partiorganisationen.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urges Burma to seek stability in a peaceful manner and work towards democracy. That's good news. But it seems strange to me that China wants democracy in Burma considering its own record.

Naomi Klein has written a new column on the same subject as always. In short, free markets are bad and libertarians are evil. The column is as dull as everything else this professional underdog multimillionaire from Canada produces, but the reader comments are fascinating. Someone called Baat writes my favourite:

As an anarchist, I find libertarians to be very offensive—the word seems to mean [according to their mewlings] 'anarchist capitalist', but this is clearly oxymoronic as 'capitalist' is a synonym for slave-owner. And then there's added Republican, which is a polite way of saying PIG. So, licentious, narcissistic, slave owning pig.

Of course, Baat is right. An anarchist society without legal protection of self-ownership would be so much better than the libertarian hell produced by property rights being upheld. Imagine how great it would be if anyone could steal from anyone else at any given time. You wake up after a day of doing nothing and see that your neighbour has built a new garage. If you feel jealous, you could just kick his head in and use the garage for the car you nicked from your other neighbour the day before. La propriété, c'est le vol! A perfect utopia, don't you think?

Nah, I prefer being a libertarian pig.

Postscript: Please note the ironic tone in my comment on anarchism. I'm not saying that it would be a good thing to allow stealing and violence. At least one reader seems to have misunderstood my sarcasm.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ambitions for Iran. Illustration by Kevin Kallaugher.

About two thousand years ago, a man known to us as Jesus Christ walked from village to village in Israel and preached the word of God. His message to humankind was that everyone who wishes to enter heaven should try to humiliate and ridicule as many fellow humans as possible. Paul the Apostle's wrote a famous and often quoted passage about this in his letter to the Romans (13: 8-10):

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to scorn one another, for he who despises his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Hate your neighbour as much as you pride yourself." Hostility does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore hate is the fulfilment of the law.

Now, this is bogus to everyone with the slightest knowledge of Christ and the Bible. Right? It's obvious that I distorted the words of the Bible. Nonetheless, this is how I believe J. Matt Barber (picture) of Concerned Women for America understands the core message of Christianity. A Christian man who actually cared about Christ's message of love would not write about others so maliciously. But hey, it's cool to be an ignorant twat.

It was a sad day for British academics and other Jew-haters yesterday when the University and College Union announced that a planned boycott of Israel would be unlawful. The UCU must now settle for boring debates on the pros and cons of Israeli policies. What has the world come to when you cannot initiate a good old-fashioned pogrom? Damn those human-right lawyers!

Yes, I'm sarcastic. I was insulted by the very idea of an academic boycott of Israel. The world is full of countries that conduct brutal violations against human rights without British academia even noticing.

(News found via Al Hamatzav.)

Some readers might be fed up with me babbling on about gays, but there is just so much homophobic silliness to report that I can't stop myself. Just now I read another bigoted article about hate crimes on World Net Daily, a news website of the Christian Right. I admit they have a point when they object to criminalizing hate speech, but their arguments are not serious. The same applies to their reporting. The WND article leaves out vital parts of the story to fit a religious anti-gay crusade. For one thing, the author links to a website entitled "Stop Hate Crimes Now" (intentionally ironic, I'm sure) with testimonies from people who were arrested after harassing gays. Why, if not to make the haters underdogs? Wouldn't it be better to stick to defending free speech? It would, naturally, but they can't since WND opposes free speech. Read the website regularly, and it becomes obvious that the writers want pornographers, gay-rights activists, radical Muslims, and feminists silenced. Only radical Christians should be able enjoy freedom of expression—and even force their ideas upon others.

The mentioned article contains a sob story about Anglican Bishop Peter Forster, who caused a row in Britain after suggesting that homosexuals should consider psychiatric therapy to get reoriented. If you only read the WND article, you will get the impression that it happened recently and that the bishop was fined or imprisoned, but the truth is that it happened in 2003 and that the bishop was only reported to the police. That's it. Nothing happened. But for false apostles on an anti-gay jihad the truth is irrelevant.

Anyhow, after reading this I searched the Internet and came about an interesting BBC article dealing with the curing of homosexuals. Most people nowadays know that homosexuality is not a curable illness, but I think many of those that do are completely unaware of how much research has been put into it over the years. I knew about aversion therapy, testosterone injections, electric shock treatments, and various brainwashing techniques, but testicle implants was new to me:

According to consultant psychiatrist Michael Knight, who is about to publish a paper on the subject, "biological treatments for homosexuality" dominated the early part of the 20th Century.

In the 1920s, mainstream medical researchers in Germany implanted testicles from corpses into the bodies of homosexual men, usually without their knowledge. The idea was to boost testosterone levels.

"They were told they were going to have an operation, but not what was going to be done to them. These experiments were written up in the German equivalent of the BMJ or The Lancet, although they were later discredited after the Second World War."

Needless to say, it didn't work. Once a poof, always a poof. It's programmed into the genes.

The Christian Right is entitled to their opinion, even if it's proven untrue. Bigotry should not be illegal. However, there is nothing to say that minority groups should have to accept being targeted with scornful comments and physical attacks in the streets. Hate-crime legislation ought to be about putting a stop to this. Everyone is free to speak their mind, but no one has the right to force their opinions on anyone else. After listening to the testimonies on the "Stop Hate Crimes Now" website, I understand that this is exactly what crusading homophobes want to do.

There's something special about Madonna. I don't know what it is, but I know I'm only one of many thousands of gay men of my generation to think so. For those of us that can't get enough of the woman, the Sydney Morning Herald publishes an edited extract from Lucy O'Brien's new Madonna biography entitled Like an Icon.

By the way, the director David Fincher who made Madonna's video to "Vogue" (seen above) is perhaps best known for his films Se7en and Fight Club. Earlier this week I saw his new film Zodiac, which is about the serial killer known by that name. I recommend the film to anyone into suspense drama—or Jake Gyllenhaal.

A poster for the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco has sparked some controversy. I can't see what is so upsetting about it, but apparently it's due to the resemblance to the Last Supper. Still, as Dan Savage of The Stranger points out, there are many Last Suppers around to get upset about. If zombies can do a Last Supper, surely some "sick perverts" should be able to?

Some students in Colorado were discontent with the existing pledge and made a new one. Michelle Malkin hates it, but I think it's cute:

I pledge allegiance to the flag and my constitutional rights with which it comes. And to the diversity, in which our nation stands, one nation, part of one planet, with liberty, freedom, choice and justice for all.

Chocken efter Johanna Parikka Altenstedts hot har lagt sig och Isabella Lund vågar åter blogga. Utmärkt.

Jag tycker dock att Isabella visar lite väl stor sympati med kvinnan som hotar henne. Naturligtvis är det fel att försöka misskreditera henne, men i egenskap av debattör och statlig tjänsteman är Parikka Altenstedts förehavanden faktiskt värda att granskas. Det är av allmänintresse.

British weekly The Economist runs a series of articles on civil liberties. Today they published part two, which deals with surveillance and privacy.

Ann Coulter is at it again. OK, I admit her column is witty and funny, but what's her compulsion to link gays to anal sex about? Yes, many homosexuals enjoy anal intercourse, but so do many heterosexuals.

Coulter may think she is cool, but I think she behaves like a silly idiot when she writes that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "failed to endorse sodomy" in his speech at Columbia University. The question Ahmadinejad answered dealt with the executions of gay people in Iran. Coulter makes it a question about attitudes towards anal sex. (Is she deaf?)

This is not the first time a conservative columnist reduce same-sex love to a matter of anal sex. I don't know why, but my guess is that it's a mixture of disrespect, strategy, and stupidity. But it's politically understandable. Most people tend to think love is a good thing, so it has to be easier for anti-gay conservatives to turn people against same-sex love if it's associated with a sexual practice many find repulsive. Why discuss romance when we can talk about the anus?

This is what everyone suspected would happen. Still, when it does, it's upsetting. After days of Buddhist monks marching for democracy, the illegitimate military junta raids monasteries. The soldiers smashed windows and doors and beat the sleeping monks, witnesses report. In other words: not only are they fascists, they are cowards too.

New research suggests poverty is good for a nation:

Cuba's economic crisis of 1989–2000 resulted in reduced energy intake, increased physical activity, and sustained population-wide weight loss. The authors evaluated the possible association of these factors with mortality trends. Data on per capita daily energy intake, physical activity, weight loss, and smoking were systematically retrieved from national and local surveys. National vital statistics from 1980–2005 were used to assess trends in mortality from diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and all causes. The crisis reduced per capita daily energy intake from 2,899 calories to 1,863 calories. During the crisis period, the proportion of physically active adults increased from 30% to 67%, and a 1.5-unit shift in the body mass index distribution was observed, along with a change in the distribution of body mass index categories. The prevalence of obesity declined from 14% to 7%, the prevalence of overweight increased 1%, and the prevalence of normal weight increased 4%. During 1997–2002, there were declines in deaths attributed to diabetes (51%), coronary heart disease (35%), stroke (20%), and all causes (18%). An outbreak of neuropathy and a modest increase in the all-cause death rate among the elderly were also observed. These results suggest that population-wide measures designed to reduce energy stores, without affecting nutritional sufficiency, may lead to declines in diabetes and cardiovascular disease prevalence and mortality.

There you have it. Communism keeps you slim—and very, very hungry.

I knew that man-on-woman action was all about casual sex. Here's proof. Remember not to pity their so-called sexual orientation. It's a lifestyle choice.

(Just kidding, by the way.)

The rifles of the military junta have not yet been able to stop them. Burma's Buddhist monks are still marching for liberty and an end to dictatorship. They are true heroes.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the cheering leftist students were not the only idiots at Columbia University on Monday. Joseph Massad, an Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at the university, has written a book entitled Desiring Arabs. In it, he presents one of the silliest conspiracy theories I have come across. Dr Massad claims that there is an international campaign organization with the aim to make people gay. He writes, "It is the very discourse of the Gay International which produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist."

Now, even if a "Gay International" existed it would be stupid to assume it to have these powers. But then again, conspiracy theories have a certain appeal to many people. And conspiracies involving gays, Jews, and political opponents seem the most popular.

In a book review, Brian Whitaker describes Chapter 3 of Desiring Arabs:

Massad talks of a "missionary" campaign orchestrated by what he calls the "Gay International." Its inspiration, he writes, came partly from "the white Western women's movement, which had sought to universalize its issues through imposing its own colonial feminism on the women's movements in the non-Western world," but he also links its origins to the Carter administration's use of human rights to "campaign against the Soviet Union and Third World enemies."

Massad writes, "Like the major US- and European-based human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) and following the line taken up by white Western women's organizations and publications, the Gay International was to reserve a special place for the Muslim countries in its discourse as well as its advocacy. The orientalist impulse... continues to guide all branches of the human rights community" (p. 161).

At least to one man at Columbia, Mr Ahmadinejad's denial of gay people in Iran seemed a fair assumption.

Read more about Dr Massad's "gay conspiracy" here.

From The Economist:

There can be no surer way of averting a sexually transmitted infection such as AIDS than avoiding sex. That much is obvious. And it is also convenient for religious lobbyists who believe that premarital sex is a sin. But is it realistic? Those lobbyists argue that a popular alternative—known in the jargon as "abstinence-plus"—which recommends chastity but also explains how to use condoms, is likely to make things worse by encouraging earlier intercourse. "Abstinence-only" teaching, they reckon, should be more effective.

That, of course, is a possibility. But it is a testable possibility. And Kristen Underhill and her colleagues at the University of Oxford have, over the past few months, been testing it. Their conclusion is that it is wrong. Abstinence-only does not work. Abstinence-plus probably does.

I am not at all surprised. Humans are sexual by nature, which makes a "unnaturally" conservative moral standpoints hard to live by. Better than to acknowledge human needs and adopt a positive attitude towards sex. The best safe-sex advice is still to use condom every time you have sex with no intention of conceiving.

Robert Fulford of the National Post writes excellently about Naomi Klein and her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism:

Klein implies that the people brutally defeated in Chile, China and Russia were social democrats, all probably holding NDP-type opinions. Perhaps they were. Or perhaps the students in Tiananmen Square hoisted that home-made variant of the Statue of Liberty as a plea for emergency assistance from the U.S. Marines and Microsoft. Even now, as Klein said recently in a Maclean's interview, "I don't think we've even begun to come to terms with what's going on in China." Yet she knows what they were thinking 18 years ago.

If you can manage to read Klein, you need read no more. Learn her way of thinking and you'll not be required to think again. She delivers a packaged one-size-fits-all theory of history that shares just one attribute with Marxism: When you have absorbed Klein you will in future always know the answer before you know the question.

I commented Klein's new book on 10 September.

(Mr Fulford's article found via Neo.)

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in the United States where he has said that there were no homosexuals in Iran—not one —and that the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews should not be treated as fact, but theory, and therefore open to debate and more research. His comment on homosexuality got the most attention:

Perhaps he meant to say, "There will be no gays in Iran"? Anyhow, here is an informative video clip (with a horrible soundtrack) about the systematic slaughter of gays in the Islamic world:

One reason I never trust leftists' on gay rights is that they only care about human rights when it's convenient. I can't think of even one socialist with the guts to pick human rights above their anti-Americanism. Since Mr Ahmadinejad is against America, he must be one of the good guys in the eyes of nihilistic leftists. The blog Little Green Footballs makes a disturbing observation:

Here's the conclusion of mini-Hitler's speech at Columbia, in which he invites the students to visit Iran (applause, applause), then finishes with some "love, peace, and brotherhood" bunkum and gets a round of sustained applause, with cheers.

Watch at the end, as Columbia dean John Coatsworth walks over and shakes Ahmadinejad's hand, smiling.

Men anledning av detta vill jag veta mer om henne. Skicka information via epost. Min blogg är registrerad hos Radio- och TV-verket, vilket garanterar tipsares anonymitet. Meddelarskyddet innebär att svensk grundlag förbjuder privatpersoner och myndigheter att efterforska mina källor.

Jag befinner mig i Berlin till imorgon, vilket kan göra att ett svar dröjer. Men jag läser all epost även om jag inte hinner svara idag.

Sexarbetaren känd under pseudonymen Isabella Lund är en mycket viktig röst i den svenska sexualpolitiska debatten. Bland det sista jag gjorde innan jag akte till Berlin i förra veckan var att lyssna pa hennes radioutsända diskussion med bland annat europaparlamentarikern Maria Carlshamre - och det var en fröjd. Isabella kan sexarbetarnas fragor och talar med den auktoritet som bara den med egen erfarenhet har. Hennes kunnighet är nog det som främst provocerar dem som motsätter sig en liberal syn pa sexarbete och mänsklig sexualitet. Tidigare har Isabella blivit censurerad av Dagens Nyheter, nu gar en av de socialkonservativa steget längre och hotar avslöja Isabellas identitet om hon fortsätter diskutera sexarbetarnas villkor. Därför har Isabella beslutat att lägga ner sitt bloggande.

Jag hoppas hon kan komma tillbaka.

Läs mer hos Blogge och Deepedition.

From a leader in this week's The Economist:

If the war against terrorism is a war at all, it is like the cold war—one that will last for decades. Although a real threat exists, to let security trump liberty in every case would corrode the civilised world's sense of what it is and wants to be.

[...]

Human rights are part of what it means to be civilised. Locking up suspected terrorists—and why not potential murderers, rapists and paedophiles, too?—before they commit crimes would probably make society safer. Dozens of plots may have been foiled and thousands of lives saved as a result of some of the unsavoury practices now being employed in the name of fighting terrorism. Dropping such practices in order to preserve freedom may cost many lives. So be it.

Absolutely.

Domestic abuse no longer a problem, say bruised female researchers.

(From The Onion.)

The budget bill for 2008 dominates the Swedish online newspapers this afternoon. Snobbish as I am, I can't get past how silly "well again jobs" reads in the Ministry of Finance's English-language press release. Try to put that in a sentence!

- In Sweden we have "well again jobs" fore people who are well enough to work.

Eh?

Day three in Berlin. Today I had an interesting talk with a German historian who explained the history behind the term "Nazism". According to him, Hitler himself preferred the term "national socialism" because he considered his ideology the advancement of Marxist socialism. (A bit like the Islamists think of their ideas as advanced from Judeo-Christian beliefs.) The historian (whose name I can't remember when I write this) said that critics of socialism are right when they point to the similarities between Nazism and communism. Both are collectivist and radical forms of socialism. I was told that the reason national socialism was restyled had more to do with Hitler's relation to his former comrades in the revolutionary communist party than ideology.

Day two in Berlin has been far too busy to allow time for blogging. However, I just have to praise British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who has said he will boycott a EU-African summit in December if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe attends. That is the way to go about the tyrant Mugabe. The European Union must stand by its decision not to give Mr Mugabe permission to enter Europe.

I arrived in Berlin this evening and will stay here until Tuesday. Since I like to travel light, I left my laptop at home. So, for the next few days I rely on Internet cafés. Emails will not be answered until I get back to Sweden.

I don't have any student loans to pay back since I finance my university studies with part-time work, but if I had, it would be a good reason for considering emigrating to Britain or the United States. As it turns out, the Swedish National Board of Student Aid can no longer afford debt collection in these countries. So, if you want a gratis degree, then enrol at a Swedish university, apply for student aid, and spend your postgraduate life in either Britain or America. What could be better than de facto being paid for studying?

A comment to my entry on Norberg's appeal deserves some attention. A group called Muslims Against Sharia writes:

Muslims Against Sharia praise the courage of Lars Vilks, Ulf Johansson, Thorbjorn Larsson and the staff of Nerikes Allehanda and Dagens Nyheter and condemn threats issued by Abu Omar Al Baghdadi and the Islamic State of Iraq. Muslims Against Sharia will provide a payment of 100,000kr (about $15,000) for the information leading to capture or neutralization of Abu Omar Al Baghdadi.

I welcome Muslims who make clear that Islam is not as inhuman and brutal religion as some Islamists want us to believe.

I juli anmälde jag P1-morgon till granskningsnämnden eftersom jag ansåg att ett inslag om prostitution stred mot kravet på objektivitet. Idag fick jag veta att man beslutat fria programmet.

Johan Norberg, a prominent Swedish writer and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, urges friends of free speech everywhere to help fight Islamist boycotts. I quote his appeal in full:

About one hundred Swedish companies have been threatened on Islamist websites in the last few days. Jihadist websites call for Muslims to boycott companies like IKEA, H&M, Ericsson and Electrolux, and in several cases to attack them. This is evil times two. They attack people who have nothing to do with what they are fighting against, and they do it because they want to put pressure on the Swedish government to stop artists like Lars Vilks from mocking religion.

This has dangerous potential. When the Danish Mohammed cartoons were published Danish companies like Arla were hurt by boycotts. This probably didn't have an effect on the Danish government, but it did on other countries' governments. They could see that if they forcefully defended freedom of speech their companies would also be hurt. And since politicians often care more about industry interests than about democratic principles they started to appease opponents of free speech.

So what do we do to save our liberties from Jihadists and unprincipled politicians? It's easy. The opponents of freedom and democracy are fewer than the supporters and their purchasing power is smaller. The only thing that makes them influential is that they act in unison. But we can do that too.

Why don't we decide to try to buy goods from companies that find themselves in the middle of free speech conflicts like this? If we, thousands of bloggers and writers and our readers do that, the effect of every boycott will be diminished. Spread the word now, around the world, that we are buying Swedish if we need beer, food, furniture or phones this week. And then, if Canadian or Georgian companies are the next targets, we'll buy Canadian and Georgian goods next.

Perhaps we can institutionalise this as well, and turn it into a Break the boycott- and Buy for freedom-website and a movement that looks at what happens next and informs us on the next victims that need our help. I am sure that there is talent out there, who could do it. Perhaps you are the one? We need it, because this will happen again and again unless we do something about it.

I second that.

Swedish online newspaper The Local reports some good news today. First this:

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has condemned the death threats made at the weekend against artist Lars Vilks and newspaper editor Ulf Johansson by al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Then this:

The government has pledged to introduce income tax cuts worth 10.8 billion kronor ($1.6 billion) at the beginning of next year.

More on the tax cuts in Swedish here.

Nya Wermlands-Tidningen har lyckats producera den fjantigaste ledarartikeln jag läst på länge:

Att värna etik och moral, att hålla på ordning och reda och visa respekt för andra människor. Det är viktiga grundpelare i ett demokratiskt samhälle. Men det glöms ofta bort för alltför många tror att man kan få göra hur man vill. Men ett gemensamt rättesnöre krävs alltid!

Detta gemensamma rättesnöre handlar också om att få gemensamma värderingar som alla kan ställa upp på. Inom den borgerliga Alliansen är det numera inte så mycket moderaterna som kristdemokraterna som aktivt driver på i den riktningen. Visserligen har justitieminister Beatrice Ask (m) gjort betydelsefulla förändringar, som markerar vikten av att ha regler som alla följer. Men av partiledarna är det främst socialminister Göran Hägglund (kd) som lyfter fram diskussionen om detta. Det görs i och med att kristdemokraterna har en konservativ familjepolitik och vågar hålla fast vid den.

Den borgerliga regeringen i sin helhet borde göra det och våga värna om en politik där kärnfamiljens betydelse stärks. För vem ställer upp för dig när det blir riktigt kritiskt om inte de nära och kära?

Detta är både sublimt föraktfullt och illvilligt. Vad ledarskribenten är ute efter är att reducera somligas kärlek till något trivialt. Han vill ha sagt att medan homosexualitet bara handlar om att knulla så kräver riktig kärlek penis i slida. Så skriver han naturligtvis inte. Så rakt på sak uttrycker sig aldrig konservativa. De föredrar att prata om moral och etik.

Jag och min partner sedan tio år har överlevt fler kritiska situationer än många av de heterosexuella par som finns i vår närhet. Så de gnällkonservativa i Värmland må tro att kärnfamiljen är hotad av "nya modenycker" men i själva verket handlar reformkraven på att stärka skyddet för alla familjer. Det finns helt enkelt ingen anledning för staten att särskilt diskriminera familjer efter könstillhörighet.

Tillägg 18:19: Ni som minns parterskapsdebatten i Sveriges Riksdag kommer säkert ihåg John Bouvins gestikulerande och resonerande. Tänkte att det kunde vara relevant i sammanhanget. Jag citerar Riksdagens snabbprotokoll från den 7 juni 1994:

Herr talman! Kolleger! Vad är kärlek? Vad är normalt? Vad är naturligt? Vad är sexualitet? Det har vi diskuterat nu i fem sex timmar.

Partnerskap, äktenskap, tolerans, respekt för din nästa, lika värde – vi har pratat ganska länge om detta. Jag har varit i kammaren från och till och suttit på rummet och lyssnat. Jag är tvungen att gå upp i talarstolen och klargöra vad som i alla fall är min syn på saken. För mig handlar detta om normalt beteende och vad som är naturligt osv. Jag vill bara göra en liten liten kommentar och berätta vad en präst visade mig för ungefär ett och ett halvt år sedan.

Han sade: "Du John! Kan inte du på ett enkelt sätt försöka förklara vad det är frågan om när den här frågan kommer upp i riksdagen?" "Vad då?" undrade jag. Då gjorde han på följande sätt: "Du John, detta är icke normalt. Det går inte. Detta går inte heller. Men detta är normalt." Så enkelt är det.

(Anförandet illustreras med obscena gester.)

"When everybody lives on everybody else's expense, no one wants to be the first to try to quit," Johan Norberg writes on the Cato Institute's blog. And he's right. The problem of the Swedish welfare-state system resembles the classic prisoner's dilemma; we would all benefit from lower taxes and deregulation, but at an individual level, it's reasonable to assume one will lose out. The result is a harmful system kept intact by fear and mistrust.

Legislators across America are criminalizing the saggers. Needless to say, I love the cracks. If anything, ban the boxers. I want my eye candy.

Dagens intellektuella haveri står Zanyar Adami för. I en debattartikel publicerad i Expressen gör han tydligt att han inte begripit vad yttrandefrihet är. Dessutom för han ett egendomligt resonemang om hot. Först skriver han att rapparen Ken Rings uppmaning att våldta prinsessan Madeleine ska ses som en metafor. Senare skriver han om dödshoten mot Lars Vilks och Ulf Johansson "är av mer symbolisk karaktär". Hur då? Jo, enligt Adami är det så att om "al-Qaida verkligen ville mörda Lars Vilks och Ulf Johansson hade de gjort det för länge sen".

Detta är naturligtvis helt absurt. Vad han skriver är att allvarliga hot riktade mot nu levande personer ska ses som symboliska eftersom de inte verkställts. Översatt innebär detta resonemang att ingen behöver frukta att bli utsatt för våld om de ännu inte blivit det. Idioti.

Det är också uppenbart att Zanyar Adami inte har förstått att Jyllands-Postens publicering av Muhammedkarikatyrer handlade om att illustrera en artikel om det islamistiska hotet mot yttrandefrihet. Allt började med att en barnboksförfattare ville ha bilder till sin bok om Islam men inte hittade en illustratör som vågade ta uppdraget av rädsla för islamistiskt våld. Ironiskt nog bekräftade händelserna efter publiceringen det rationella i illustratörernas farhågor. Det stod klart att Europas frihetstradition är allvarligt hotad av religiösa fascister.

"Vi irrar bort oss i en ideologisk diskussion om yttrandefriheten", skriver Adami. "Att inte publicera material som hundratusentals svenskar tycker är kränkande anses vara ett hot mot yttrandefriheten. Allt handlar om vem som är avsändare och målgrupp."

Det är bara ett löjligt försök att blanda bort korten. Sakfrågan är mycket enkel och inte alls komplicerad. Det är så enkelt att sann yttrandefrihet måste gälla alla oavsett avsändare och målgrupp. Om man avstår från att framföra sina åsikter av rädsla för att få huvudet avskuret så finns det ingen yttrandefrihet. Så är det. En av statens få legitima uppgifter är att försvara denna frihet till varje pris.

(Bild från Cox & Forkum.)

The ever-ranting Sandmonkey makes the comparison:

Ramadan to me is like a social experiment in how Egypt would be like if we all smoked hash all the time and people were running around high. People look tired, droopy eyed, unable to concentrate, and unwilling to work. They are suddenly completely incapable of both driving and parking, and their ability to stay civil with each other is reduced by 70%. All they want to do is do nothing. They are always thinking about food, lots and lots of food, they get up in your face and look at you strangely with a mix of envy and contempt if you are eating something good, and they would be really happy if they could just go to sleep. When they eat, they eat various dishes of food in the most ravenous of ways, and they just sit afterwards watching TV and slouching on the couch.

Now, doesn't that sound like every single pothead you know?

Actually, it does.