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.
Turkish Islamists have hacked the website of Swedish MP Henrik von Sydow. Why? Because as Islamofascists they can't stand the fact that Sweden has freedom of speech.
(Picture and information via Per Gudmundson.)
The anti-Bush activists that protested in Washington yesterday are their own worse enemy. Don't they know anything about public relations?
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi's death threat against Lars Vilks in the original Arabic. I'm not familiar with Arabic, but from what I understand after reading several newspapers about the matter, the message reads, "We announce a reward of $100,000 to anyone who kills this infidel criminal. This reward will be raised to $150,000 if his throat is slit."
Background: "Al-Qaida Wants Swedish Caricaturist Dead"
The demands are tough, but President Bush gives it his best shot.
I have made a few minor adjustments to my templates and style sheets. This should no cause any problems for visitors, but if you are a regular reader and this web page looks strange or parts are missing, you might have to reload a couple of times to get rid of the cached CSS-file.
Yahoo News and Associated Press report from Iran:
Speaking to thousands of worshippers during the first Friday prayer of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Bush will be called to account for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq."A day will come that the current U.S. president and officials will be tried in an international supreme court for the catastrophes they caused in Iraq," he said.
"Americans will have to answer for why they don't end occupation of Iraq and why waves of terrorism and insurgency have overwhelmed the country," he added. "It will not be like this forever and some day they will be stopped as happened to Hitler, Saddam and certain other European leaders."
Two comments:
1. It is noteworthy that Iran's leadership now acknowledge that Hitler is a true historic figure. Until know, they have denied both the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.
2. I note that Iran's supreme leader recognizes international law. This is truly breaking news. Can we assume that Khamenei now intends to make sure his country obeys the International Atomic Energy Agency's legally bounding resolutions?
Swedish media reports that al-Qaida has put a $100,000 price on the heads of artist Lars Vilks and chief editor Ulf Johansson of Nerikes Allehanda, which was one of the first newspapers to publish Vilks's Muhammad caricatures.
Funny and fascinating documentary with plenty of bad man-on-the-street acting. I especially like Toby Nixon's Santa advertisement. Hilarious.
Conservative philosophers seem obsessed with the thought of body parts having one exclusive purpose. I have previously mentioned David Bradshaw's idea that unpurposeful use of human sex organs is a "violation of the body's moral space". Today I found a similar defence of this idea on a blog entitled Right Reason. Alexander Pruss, Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, wants to explain what "sexual activity is to an alien coming from a race that reproduces asexually" and concludes that we cannot do that unless we give our sexual organs a purpose beyond love and pleasure. Dr Pruss excludes the possibility that aliens too know what pleasure is. I can guess why, but to speculate on that might seem unfriendly. Anyhow, Pruss's idea is basically the same as Bradshaw's—the objective purpose of sex is reproduction, everything else is ruled out as "the spasmodic secretion of a little bit of slime". However, he does allow a small opening towards the very end of his article:
Seeing the sexual organs as reproductive organs does not in and of itself imply that other purposes cannot be served by them, or even that other purposes ought not be served by them. But it does tell us what these organs are, and suggests that an account of the activity to which a connection with these organs is essential must focus on the organs' reproductive role. Otherwise, all we would have is the bits of gut rubbing together and making slime, or maybe the social, emotional or spiritual consequences of this, but the act in and of itself at a fleshly level would fail to be seen as objectively meaningful.
I can see how this line of thinking appeals to some, but this doesn't imply that I think it's right. To say that sex organs are reproductive organs is like saying the hands can grab things. These are true statements. However, few would say that hands that stroke or clap are in any way diverging from their natural function. Neither would anyone suggest that a hand wearing a wedding ring is used wrongly. However, this is precisely what I sense many conservative philosophers aim to do in respect to sex organs. They wish to prove that sex acts for any other intention than reproduction are unpurposeful.
The situation for gay people is getting worse in Uganda after the Sunday tabloid Red Pepper published the names and whereabouts of forty homosexuals. Doug Ireland reports:
A new chapter opened this week in a vicious, media-led witch-hunt that is outing gays in Uganda, when a daily newspaper unveiled the latest instalment of what it bills as its "Weird Sex Investigation," publishing the names and detailed descriptions of 40 men it claimed are gay.Under the shock headline "HOMO TERROR! We Name and Shame Top Gays in the City," Red Pepper's Sunday, September 9 issue provided details so precise—physical descriptions, residences, places of employment, and the kind of cars they drive—that those targeted, almost all from the capital city of Kampala or its environs, were easily identifiable to their neighbours and co-workers.
Click on the photocopies below to enlarge.
By the way, if you want an insight into the everyday life of a gay man in homophobic Africa, I highly recommend the Gay Uganda blog. As it's hosted by Google in the United States, it's one of very few websites the Ugandan government has not been able to shut down.
The sign reads, "Pirating and counterfeiting is a bad sport: no rules, many fouls, only losers."
I have always mistrusted this type of billboard campaigning. The rebel in me wants to do the opposite. I remember the big safe-sex campaigns in the early 1990s and what effect they had on me. Every time I saw a big sign telling me to use a condom, the only thing I could think about was how nice it would be to have sex without one.
(Via Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber.)
Niklas "Blogge" Dougherty produces another must-read for every libertarian able to read Swedish. He explains how democracy and free speech are closely linked to one another, and how seemingly small and justified limitations to the freedom of expression make way for totalitarianism. A society that stands up for its citizens' right to express even the most horrific opinions can nip fascism in the bud.
Poland will join Britain in opting out from the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Brussels-based EU Observer reports. The conservative Polish government dislikes the charter for its supposed liberalism on moral issues. Personally, I wish Sweden and other member states would also reject the charter, but with the exact opposite motivation. The charter is simply not liberal enough, but rather a semi-socialist document giving more powers to the bureaucracy.
Of course, Poland's half-witted government fears gay rights. They keep quiet about it when they discuss EU's human-rights charter with the foreign press, but everyone who knows the domestic debate on the issue knows that homophobia and opposition to abortion are the primary reasons behind the Polish stand. It's the fear of Tinky Winky all over again. But this is beside the point. Opposing the charter can be right even when the arguments for doing it are wrong.
This blogger's take on the appointment of Ewa Björling as Minister for Foreign Trade is as funny as it is wicked. In Swedish, I'm afraid.
"Austria was not under threat of an attack at any time," Austrian Interior Minister Günther Platter said on Wednesday after the arrest of three people with links to al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a new report suggests that terrorism is once again the main challenge to Europe:
In a sign that Europeans are increasingly nervous about their vulnerability to terrorism, a recent survey by the German Marshall Fund of the United States showed a sharp increase in the number of Germans who fear international terrorism.The survey said that 70 percent of Germans felt they might suffer a terror attack, a 32 percent increase over 2005. That brings the fear of terror among Germans close to the level of fear among Americans, which stood at 74 percent in a similar survey.
On Wednesday, a report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) gave further cause for concern.
The growth of international terrorism will remain one of the main challenges for 2008 after the recent discovery of terrorism plots in Europe, the report said. The plots showed that "core" al Qaeda was "adaptable and resilient," it added.
The last time Europe had to deal with organized cross-border terrorism on this scale was in the 1970s when numerous Marxist groups tried to bring about a revolution by attacks on the bourgeoisie. As more people recognize that al-Qaida-style Islamism copies Marxist rhetoric, I'm not sure the differences are that great. I know many Israeli experts on terrorism have pointed out that most terrorists posing as jihadists are in fact far-left socialists. I think this is correct. While the Koran can be said to legitimize violence under certain conditions, we must not forget that violence is at the very core of Marxist teaching.
Just now, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt announced that he has appointed Ewa Björling as Minister for Foreign Trade.
Update at 14:09: Swedish newspapers on the appointment:
From Dylan Vox's article on the blog My So Called Gay Life:
South America has an impressive history when it comes to the sport of soccer, and this year it will be adding another great moment as gay soccer teams meet for the 2007 Lesbian-Gay World Soccer Championship. Supported by the Federation of International Football, Buenos Aires, Argentina will host gay and lesbian teams from across the globe at the event later this month.Gay and lesbian soccer teams began to pop up almost three decades ago and the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association was formed to act as a governing body for the sport. There goal of the organization is to "engender respect and understanding from the non-gay world, through the medium of football (soccer)." they want to change perceptions and stereotypes of gay people in sports and have organized this event to help further that goal.
The event will be played in Buenos Aires' Sarmiento Park. And supported by the Argentina Soccer Association (AFA) and Argentine Homosexuality Community (CHA)., along with FIFA.
I have always considered football to be very gay. Team sport is the perfect excuse for men who like to fumble about with fit men.
Yesterday, a peaceful protest against Islamization was brutally interrupted by the Brussels police. A number of Belgian politicians from far-right parties were arrested. The mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, banned the protest because he feared it would cause problems with the city's immigrant population; which ironically is precisely the kind of measures the protesters object to.
Although I'm no fan of Vlaams Belang and would never attend any of their rallies, I share their opposition to politicized religious fundamentalism. I don't fear Islam, only the fanatic Muslims who want to reshape democratic Europe into a totalitarian caliphate—and those willing to give in to their threats. The ideology of liberty and democracy is morally superior to oppression and tyranny. Therefore, Europe must not allow centuries of liberty struggle to slip away of fear from radicals.
Michelle Malkin has more.
An increasing number of Swedes are working in Denmark. Some 4,400 Swedes got a job there in the first eight months of the year. The recruitment of Swedes is a reflection of a labour shortage in Denmark. It is also a sign that a genuine cross-border labour market is being established across the Öresund strait, researchers say. I would like to add that the history of the region goes back many centuries before Scania (Skåne) became a part of Sweden. Historically, the cultural ties have always been stronger to Copenhagen than Stockholm. What we see now is the result of progressive normalization.
(The map shows the administrative division of Denmark in mediaeval times. The different colours indicate the division in shires in Jutland while the red lines indicate borders between county hundreds.)
I look to the future on this the sixth anniversary of Islamist terrorism's most successful attack on humanity. Seen in the picture is the future New York skyline with the Freedom Tower.
(Image from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation website.)
On 20 June, I wrote about the saints Sergius and Bacchus who are seen getting married with Jesus as best man on a seventh-century icon. Today I found this Robert Lentz icon of the two gay saints. With the icon I found this text:
Sergius and Bacchus are ancient Christian martyrs who were tortured to death in Syria because they refused to attend sacrifices in honor of Jupiter. Recent attention to early Greek manuscripts has also revealed that they were openly gay men and that they were erastai or lovers. These manuscripts are found in various libraries in Europe and indicate an earlier Christian acceptance of homosexuality.After their arrest, the two saints were paraded through city streets in women's clothing, treatment that was meant to humiliate them as officers in the Roman army. They were then separated and each was tortured. Bacchus died first and appeared that night to Sergius who was beginning to lose heart. According to the early manuscripts, Bacchus told Sergius to persevere, that the delights of heaven were greater than any suffering, and that part of their reward would be to be reunited in heaven as lovers.
The inscription at the bottom of the icon is their names in Arabic. The saints are particularly popular throughout the Mediterranean lands and in Latin America and among the Slavs. For nearly a thousand years they were the official patrons of the Byzantine armies and Arab nomads continue to revere them as their special patron saints.
What happened a thousand years after Sergius and Bacchus's martyrdom was that the Christian Church suddenly "discovered" that God hates gays and therefore needed to rewrite history.
A Swedish blogger criticized the handling of her unemployment insurance only to find that the fund administrator decided to punish her after reading her blog. I truly hope there's a special place in hell for bureaucrats that make life impossible for the people they are set to serve.
Many rhetoricians say that grand-scale lying is a recipe for successful propaganda. If a lie is big and complex enough, it will make people believe the unbelievable. Moreover, a grand and complex lie is impossible to refute. An example is the popular use of association fallacies, which is closely linked to collectivist ideas. If you, for example, are accused of thieving, you may be able to refute the lie. If you, on the other hand, are accused of sharing some quality with thieves, it's far more difficult for you to refute the lie. To some—especially those who already dislike you—your inability to prove your innocence makes you a guilty person. However, irrefutability doesn't make a lie true, but it's what makes it successful. Organized racists, homophobes, and totalitarians know this and use grand-scale lies to defame people they wish to stigmatize.
On 18 September, Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is released in Britain and America. On Saturday, the Guardian published an article by Klein that proves a perfect example of grand-scale lying. In it, the late economist Milton Friedman is linked to CIA torture, brutal wars, crazy dictators, and natural disasters. Fragments of Friedman's writings are brutally taken out of its context, only to be put into a context they never were intended for. And it is effective. I predict Klein's new book will be a big hit. People who already dislike Friedman's views on freedom and capitalism will love it. That the book is based on lies and fallacies rarely bother this bunch.
From The Times:
Israeli police have broken up a neo-Nazi cell that had been carrying out attacks on religious Jews, homosexuals, drug addicts and workers, in a case that has shocked the Jewish state.The youths, who had Nazi tattoos and allegedly celebrated Adolf Hitler's birthday, belonged to Soviet Jewish families who had migrated to Israel under its law of return, which allows people with at least one Jewish grandparent to become Israeli citizens.
Under strict religious rules, however, many of the former Soviet immigrants are not considered to be Jewish.
"It is difficult to believe that Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact," said Major Revital Almog, the police officer in charge of the year-long investigation that began when vandals daubed swastikas and Hitler's name on synagogues in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.
I missed this piece of news yesterday, but now I understand why the anti-Semitic segment of the Swedish blogsphere was in such a good mood. One of their arguments against Israel has always been that the Jewish State is fascist because it retaliates Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. Bizarre rhetoric, I know, but I am not making it up. A good Jew hates himself—that has been the radical European stand since the Third Council of the Lateran in 1179. In contemporary European politics, this idea is uphold by the extremes of the Left and the Right alike.
(The picture is taken from a Swedish far-left blogger who compares Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Adolf Hitler.)
Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that men should have at least three wives in order to reach eternal salvation. Therefore, the church's polygamous settlements in Utah and Arizona routinely expel boys. "Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been expelled or felt compelled to leave," Erik Eckholm of the New York Times writes in an interesting report:
State officials say efforts to help them with shelter, foster care or other services have been frustrated by the boys' distrust of government and fear of getting their parents into trouble.But help for the teenagers is improving. In St. George, a nearby city where many of them wind up, two private groups, with state aid, have opened the first residence and center for banished boys. It will offer psychological counseling and advice on things they never learned, like how to write a check or ask a girl out politely, as well as a transitional home for eight who will attend school and work part time.
Commenter Thom may be on to something:
Osama bin Laden may be on to something. He sounds like he would govern like a Republican (low taxes, no gay rights) but would sound like a Democrat (war is bad, Bush is a moron).
Background: On his latest videotape, terrorist leader Bin Laden said, "There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat totaling 2.5 per cent."
A new videotaped message from Osama bin Laden has emerged. After reading the reports, it is easy to understand why the Extreme Left act so apologetic to Islamism:
According to the transcript, bin Laden says there are two ways to end the war:"The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you."
The second is to do away with the American democratic system of government. "It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations."
The boldface is mine.
On 8 August, I wrote about the Booker jury's surprising longlist for Britain’s most prestigious literary prize. Earlier this week, the judges made the shortlist public. Ian McEwan is still in the run, and could be the third author to be awarded the prize twice.
Normally, at least some of the titles on the Booker shortlist are good reads I'm acquainted with beforehand. However, this year I know none of them, with the exception of McEwan's On Chesil Beach. On 6 September, the Guardian published short introductions to the shortlist novels:
Darkmans, by Nicola Barker
The despised past revenges itself on the concrete culture of superstores and motorways which has been hurled on top of it at Ashford, Kent. The language of mediaeval jesters leaks into the estuary English of a group of inhabitants who begin to be plagued by mysterious darkmen. Barker, who lives in east London, has won the lucrative Impac award. Her novel Clear was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker.On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan
McEwan's story, both lyrical and explicit, only 166 pages long, opens with a honeymoon dinner overlooking the sea in the early 1960s. The couple love one another, but she has never felt sexual passion, he is anxious about coming too soon, worries neither of them can discuss. Neither, fatally, has a sense of humour. McEwan, a pre-eminent British novelist, was first shortlisted for the Booker prize with The Comfort of Strangers in 1981, won it with Amsterdam in 1991 and was shortlisted again with his bestselling Atonement in 2001.Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones
The poor white is known as Pop Eye in his village on the south Pacific island of Bougainville. When civil war encroaches, he occupies the deserted schoolroom, teaching Matilda and her classmates from the only text available—Dickens' Great Expectations. Pip, Magwitch and Miss Havisham become legends to the villagers, keeping them company through atrocities. Lloyd Jones, a New Zealand author, has visted Papua New Guinea three times, once staying with the revoluitionary commnander of the real-life conflict in Bougainville.Animal's People, by Indra Sinha
The youth's nickname is because the horrific poisons leak in Khaufpur (a thinly disguised Bhopal) distorted his spine so badly that he has to go about on all fours, rump stuck in air. Yet he has a witty, rude tongue, still hopes for love and can—in his unorthodox way—help his stricken neighbours in their crusade for compensation. Sinha was born and raised on India. He became an award-winning advertising copywriter. This is his second novel.The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid
Academically, with strings of straight As, Chiangez is the best that Pakistan and Princeton can offer; and his job with a blue-chip valuation company is the foremost dream America can offer an immigrant—so he is puzzled to find himself half-glad about 9/11. Hamid's background at Princeton and in US management consultancy gives him an unusually acute take on US business and global policy. He now lives and writes in Britain.The Gathering, by Anne Enright
Liam, the bright, heavy-drinking one in the Hegarty family, has drowned himself, and his sister Veronica is home to mourn him. Her search for the key to Liam's stunted life takes her back to the sexual history of her grandparents and their suitors. Enright's third novel, What Are You Like?, was shortlisted for the Whitbread award. A winner of the Rooney short story prize, she lives in Dublin.
The winner will be announced on 16 October.
Bläddrade i Expressen och hittade en insändare som kritiserade centerpartiet för dess beslut att höja bensinskatten. Detta, menade skribenten, var ett tecken på att partiet blivit förblindat av nyliberalismen. Jag blir inte förvånad utan konstaterar bara att begreppet inte betyder någonting. Det är bara ett tomt skällsord, ungefär som "fascist" och "hora".
Earlier today I discussed social power with Åsa Andersson and Magnus Jiborn, both philosophers at Lund University. The discussion was recorded by Swedish Radio. The programme is called "Filosofiska rummet" and will be broadcast nationally on 30 September.
The subject was Andersson's brand new doctoral dissertation entitled Power and Social Ontology and her theory of collective intentionality. I'm no expert, but I have written about social ontology in my online journal a few times, which is why I was invited to participate today.
Andersson, and social theorist John R. Searle before her, suggests that society is based on the formula: X counts as Y in context C. Translated to a social phenomenon, this formula can explain how certain things and persons are given a status recognized by the people in a particular society. An example could be that George Bush (X) counts as president (Y) in the United States (C).
I don't really have any problem with this formula, but I'm not convinced of the collective intentionality. As I see it, the individuals in a society don't necessarily share a common idea that exists independently of the individual mind. What makes Andersson's theory difficult is that it does not deny the importance of the individual mind, which makes falsifiability difficult—if not impossible.
I don't know how well I did in the discussion. Afterwards it felt good, although I blame myself for not bringing up some of my best arguments in favour of the reductionist view.
Update on 25 September: I have just learned that the programme has been postponed and will not air until October.
If Belgium didn't already exist, would anyone take the trouble to invent it? Probably not. Sometimes it's right for a country to recognize that its job is done, says The Economist. I think they are right. Most Belgians I know couldn't care less about their nation. Let the Walloons and Flemings go their separate ways, and turn Brussels into a proper capital of the European Union:
Brussels can devote itself to becoming the bureaucratic capital of Europe. It no longer enjoys the heady atmosphere of liberty that swirled outside its opera house in 1830, intoxicating the demonstrators whose protests set the Belgians on the road to independence. The air today is more fetid. With freedom now taken for granted, the old animosities are ill suppressed. Rancour is ever-present and the country has become a freak of nature, a state in which power is so devolved that government is an abhorred vacuum. In short, Belgium has served its purpose. A praline divorce is in order.
Egyptian ambassador Mohamed Sotouhi and a group of fellow Muslim ambassadors have agreed on a list of "comprehensive measures" that Sweden need to take to secure a long-term solution to the Muhammad cartoon controversy. "Muslims need legal protection against the desecration of the Prophet Muhammad, maybe something similar to the protection enjoyed by Jews and homosexuals," he told the news agency TT.
These measures would be a gift to lurking racist politicians who are biding their time. Besides, Muslims already enjoy the same legal protection as Jews and homosexuals. What the Muslim ambassadors want is to give a historic person the same protection as the living. It's absurd.
The Local has more.
I just heard on the news that Luciano Pavarotti died only minutes ago. It was expected. I wrote about him here.
I'm staying up late to watch the Republican presidential candidates debate in New Hampshire on Fox News. Just now, Rudy Giuliani gave a brilliant defence of his public record and proved, I think, to everyone that his private life has nothing whatsoever to do with his qualities as a leader.
What has become apparent to me during the debate is my spontaneous aversion to Mitt Romney whenever he opens his mouth. There's something very uncomforting about this man.
Luciano Pavarotti, considered one of the greatest tenors of his generation, has lost consciousness. The family has gathered at his home in Italy.
About thirteen years ago, I dated the son of a famous opera singer. For a couple of years, I got an insight into the world of classical music and learned that above everything else, singers and musicians love to gossip about each other. One favourite anecdote recycled in the European opera houses concerned Mr Pavarotti. I don't know if it's true, but apparently, he always ate pizzas at the same New York restaurant after his performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Note the plural form. Pizzas. The number varied, but the rumour said he could eat up to four normal-sized pizzas at one sitting. His appetite was said to be as extraordinary as his voice.
Things don't look good for Mr Pavarotti. His kidneys have failed him and he has lost contact with the outside world. However, he's not dead yet, and he might still awake. Miraculous recovers have happened before.
Update at 6:47: Pavarotti died only minutes ago.
This is a seven-year-old Israeli girl's drawing of a Palestinian rockets attack on her hometown Sderot. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have launched hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip in recent years. Only a handful of the attacks have been reported in mainstream European media.
Ted Kennedy's fall from grace:
Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism.In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him.
The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America's first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas.
Do as I say, not as I do. It reminds me of Johan Norberg's blog entry about the two socialists Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, who built big mansions right in the middle of a nature park.
Recent arrests in Denmark and Germany should remind us that al-Qaida's intention is to kill as many innocent civilians as possible—not only Israelis, Europeans, and Americans, but Arabs as well. The Islamist terrorists hate liberty and democracy. The religion is only an excuse. The motive is political.
Mikael Odenberg, Sweden's Minister for Defence, resigned in protest earlier today. He refuses to administer cuts in the defence budget. Good for him. I realize it may hurt the centre-right government, but I think it's a good sign when individual ministers have the courage to stand up for what they believe in. However, I'm not sure I agree with Odenberg on the issue of defence spending, but that is beside the point.
The "gay lifestyle" is often blamed for it, but research suggests that most of the people who do these things are actually heterosexual. I can't say I'm too surprised. In the mid-1990s, I was engaged in a safe-sex project targeting men who seek sex with other men in public places. I met and talked to many of the men that frequented Stockholm's toilets and parks in search for sex, and I soon realized that only a minority of these men were gay. Most of them were quite happily married with children. Few of them regarded their sexual encounters with men as homosexual. In fact, many were outright homophobic in their attitudes towards openly gay men. To these men, cruising was just a relief.
I know people rarely buy records nowadays, but if you're one of those dinosaurs that still do, you probably know the album labels warning you of explicit lyrics. The woman responsible for these silly tags is the wife of global-warming know-it-all and former US Vice President Al Gore. Here name is Tipper. According to Drudge Report, Tipper has told Vanity Fair that she would support her husband in next year's presidential election. This, I think, could be a hint of plans being made in the Gore house. I hope it's not so. I couldn't stand four years of Gore smugness in the White House. And I fear what Tipper might get up to if she ever became America's First Lady. Books might be burned and snogging classified as a health hazard...
The Venezuelan economy, under the direction of President Hugo Chávez, is starting to unravel in the currency market. "This has been the worst-managed oil boom in Venezuela's history," says a former government minister. "A devaluation is a foregone conclusion. The only question is when."
The Venezuelan inflation rate is now 16 per cent, the highest in South America. Inflation means that people's earnings are losing value. In other words: people are getting poorer and need to work more for less pay. It's that simple. If this is the meaning of Chávez's "twenty-first century socialism", I cannot see how it differs from the socialism we know from the twentieth century.
The International Herald Tribune has more.
A new measure to fight online piracy was made official yesterday when a government adviser suggested Internet service providers operating in Sweden should be forced to bar customers who download copyrighted material:
An official report published on Monday—'Music and Film on the Internet: Threat or Opportunity?—has called for internet providers to shoulder the burden of defending against breaches of copyright."I propose that internet providers should be required to contribute to bringing all copyright infringement to an end," wrote the author of the report, appeals court judge Cecilia Renfors.
Renfors rejected another idea put forward in the debate surrounding illegal file-sharing—the notion of introducing a supplementary broadband levy, the proceeds of which would be shared out among copyright holders. Such a fee, according to the report, would deny copyright holders the sole rights to their material in a controlled market.
"An internet provider should block the subscriptions of people who use the internet to share copyright-protected material on a large scale," said Renfors.
This might seem reasonable to those who want to prevent online piracy, and to an extent I buy the argument that ISPs have a responsibility for how their network is used, but the idea that private correspondence should be monitored worries me. Imagine if Cecilia Renfors's proposals were used in the fight against bootleg products. Then it could be used to legitimize legislation that would make the postal workers responsible for the content of the mail they deliver and subsequently allow them to open letters and packages. I do not think anyone would like that. And rightfully so. When we discuss copyright legislation and online privacy must take notice of the risk for human-rights violations. Article 12 of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Lebanon's army has taken control of Nahr el-Bared, a refugee camp that has been a hideout for Islamist militants. Well done. However, it would be better still if the Lebanese authorities granted citizenship to the law-obeying refugees born in Lebanon. The apartheid policy of many Arab countries is one of the main causes behind the seemingly eternal conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. Extremists will be able to recruit new followers as long as new generations of Palestinians are refused citizenship and work permits in the countries where they were born. Statelessness makes young refugees vulnerable to terrorist ideologies, which is precisely why many countries in the Middle East like the status quo.
From the New York Times:
A lawyer who stabbed his neighbor in Fairfield, Conn., to death because he thought the man had molested his 2-year-old daughter was sentenced on Friday to 12 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter."It's a Shakespearean tragedy brought into the real world," Judge Richard F. Comerford Jr. said at the sentencing. "Something was set into motion in this man's mind—real or perceived. It was very real to him."
And:
The judge issued a 20-year sentence, but suspended eight years of that, leaving Mr. Edington to serve 12, plus 5 years' probation.
I fully understand what the judge is getting at. I think most people can imagine the wrath of a father who just learned about a child molester abusing his daughter. However, rage for whatever reason cannot excuse the intentional killing of another person. Therefore, I find the judge's attitude disturbing. An innocent man was murdered because his misinformed neighbour chose to act without checking the facts. This crime deserves the maximum penalty available.
Two Swedish ministers visited Baghdad for talks with the Iraqi government yesterday. According to an entry on his blog, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt met with his counterpart Hoshyar Zebari. Apparently, they held a joint televised press conference.
To some it might seem odd that two high-ranking members of the Swedish Government travel to Iraq. To others, it might seem odder still that a nation at war with domestic terrorism would care about the opinions of a small country in northern Europe. Well, a look at the bar graph from ABC News gives a hint to why. Sweden, a country of about nine million people, hosts more than 21,000 Iraqi refugees. This figure could be compared to the mere 6,000 for the United States, a nation of about 300,000,000 people. According to some calculations, the cost of this massive influx of refugees is comparable to those of warfare. And politically, the increasing number of unemployable victims of war and terrorism causes problems with racist groups seeking to benefit from the widespread discontent. Considering these facts, I don't think bilateral talks between Sweden and Iraq appear odd at all.
On 27 August, I promised a series of entries on my thought about God. I'm still working on it. It's been taking so long because I got distracted by too many other things and couldn't concentrate enough to get them right. I will get around to finish them in a couple of days.
Update on 18 September: Unfortunately, I don't have the time to complete the articles I promised. I apologize to any journal reader who awaits them.
British Member of Parliament Clare Short is attending the UN conference of Israel-haters I wrote about on 22 August. In her speech yesterday, she said that Israel was not interested in a two-state solution, and blasted the EU for "allowing" Israel to build "an apartheid wall". She wanted an international boycott of Israel and compared Israeli democracy to South African apartheid.
This is pure slander. Israel's separation wall is raised for a reason. The Israeli people want to keep Palestinian suicide bombers out after decades of attacks on civilians. The wall is a desperate attempt to gain a sense of security in a hostile environment. If she made an effort, I don't think Clare Short would find this so difficult to understand. Unfortunately, discrediting Israel has become politically correct. Ironically, people that talk about "Israeli apartheid" are often the same people that deny this one specific nation the security they themselves take for granted.
From the National Review:
The Washington Post scorned President Truman as a "spoilsman" who "underestimated the people's intelligence." New York Times columnist James Reston wrote off President Eisenhower as "a tired man in a period of turbulence." At the end of President Reagan's second term, the New York Times dismissed him as "simplistic" and a "lazy and inattentive man."These harsh judgments, made in the moment, have not weathered well over time. Fortunately, while contemporary observers have a habit of getting presidents wrong, history tends to be more accurate.
So how might history view the 43rd president? I can hardly be considered an objective observer, but in this highly polarized period, who is?
However, I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president's leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest.
President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.
He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.
