Alexander Linklater of Prospect magazine portrays one of the world’s most interesting intellectuals.

Every year, Foreign Policy publishes a list of the world’s most failed states. Here’s this year’s top ten:

1. Somalia
2. Sudan
3. Zimbabwe
4. Chad
5. Iraq
6. Congo
7. Afghanistan
8. Ivory Coast
9. Pakistan
10. Central African Republic

Click on image to read the chart in full.

A back alley in Shanghai.

A few hours ago, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced that Robert Mugabe won 85 per cent of the vote in last week’s farcical election.

It’s ridiculous.

I think Desmond Tutu is right: it’s about time to do away with the Mugabe regime. The people of Zimbabwe need an intervention.

In a near future, every government in Europe and America will know which websites you visit, where your travel, and what you buy with your credit card. From the New York Time:

The United States and the European Union are nearing completion of an agreement allowing law enforcement and security agencies to obtain private information—like credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits—about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The potential agreement, as outlined in an internal report obtained by The New York Times, would represent a diplomatic breakthrough for American counterterrorism officials, who have clashed with the European Union over demands for personal data. Europe generally has more stringent laws restricting how governments and businesses can collect and transfer such information.

Negotiators, who have been meeting since February 2007, have largely agreed on draft language for 12 major issues central to a “binding international agreement,” the report said. The pact would make clear that it is lawful for European governments and companies to transfer personal information to the United States, and vice versa.

Two headlines from the website of Christian daily Dagen. One tells the story about a Bulgarian gay-rights rally being attacked with petrol bombs, the other reports that the Swedish Christian Democrats are debating lowering the tax on petrol.

This is the annual inflation for Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Command economy has proven a success once again. Interestingly, in their opposition to independent central banks, leftist politicians in Europe still claim a link between low inflation and high unemployment. But I think their theory is easily refuted by Zimbabwe’s 80% unemployment rate.

At this moment, one Zimbabwean dollar buys 0.00005 euros or 0.00056 Swedish kronor.

(Via Johan Norberg.)

“Barack believes that we must fight for the world as it should be, a world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws,” Michelle Obama said at a fundraiser event in New York on 26 June. “We are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in the pursuit of a more perfect union,” she said, making a connection between the struggles for gay rights and civil rights.

Think condoms are difficult to put on? Soon there might be a solution to your problems. A German firm is about to launch a spray-on condom.

I know it’s silly, but Mr Paparazzi’s headline has to be one of the funniest in the blogosphere this week.

Jerusalem Post reports:

Despite a backdrop of counterprotests and memories of the violence of years past, rainbow-colored flags and a crowd of a few thousand people made their way through the central streets of Jerusalem on Thursday as the annual Gay Pride Parade went off without a hitch.

Marches in previous years have seen livid protests by haredi and right-wing groups, which have sometimes escalated into violent confrontations and even stabbings. Thursday’s march, however, was relatively subdued, with small counterprotests taking place away from the parade route, and the parade itself purposely avoiding residential areas.

Still, some bystanders seemed irked - less by the parade itself than by its location, Jerusalem, which is heavily religious and politically conservative.

“It doesn’t fit the city,” one man said as he gawked at the participants making their way down Rehov Agron. “They’re just provoking people for no reason.”

But marchers categorically rejected that sentiment, saying it was more important to march in Jerusalem than in liberal Tel Aviv or other cities with less opposition to the parade’s message.

“To make real progress, you march in places that aren’t necessarily receptive,” said Jason Edelstein, a student from America who is in Israel for the year. “I think about the civil rights movement in the states, and the way they marched for their rights - not just in California, but in Alabama.”

The student from America is right. The very idea that certain public places should be no-go areas for gay people is preposterous.

The North Pole is doomed:

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic—and worrying—examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

“From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water,” said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

First thought: But if the polar ice has melted and we’re still here, what happened to Al Gore’s talk about sea levels rising by several metres?

Second thought: Gee, more oil must mean cheaper fuel for my car!

EMCDDA, the European Union’s drug agency, has released an in-depth monograph on cannabis. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks very interesting.

It’s available here.

South Africa has long been Mugabe’s most important friend, so Mandela’s opinion means a lot.

In short, this is the conclusion of Helmut Nyborg and Richard Lynn’s new study on human intelligence. The two psychology professors say that the more devoutly religious a person is, the lower his or her intelligence quotient.

More in Swedish here. Read the original article in Danish here.

Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of the New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, is a creative theologian and a devout homophobe. To validate the claim that God hates gay people, he has rewritten Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. The result is quite interesting. The Roman is now a Jew, the servant is a son, and the part about Jesus finding faith in Gentiles was fabricated. In short, God’s divine inspiration got it wrong.

Matthew 8:5-13:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”

Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

Luke 7:1-10:

When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

Now read Dr Gagnon’s analysis of these biblical texts.

(Bible quotations from the New International Version.)

The homophobic lobby’s celebrity invitation list offers a good laugh:

So what if we told you that we are going to host an event, and at said event, there’s a possibility that Jon Stewart, Rosie O’Donnell, Barack Obama, Chelsea Clinton, and the reincarnation of Harvey Milk will be in attendance. That might pique your interest, right? And it might prompt you to fork over some cash for our soiree, yes?

But what if the only basis we had for telling you that these people might be in attendance is that we had sent them an invite? Would that change your opinion just a bit? And would you consider us a little disingenuous for implying that the aforementioned people were going to show up, when reasonable expectations tell us otherwise? Probably, right?

Well, that is exactly what the anti-gay Family Research Council is doing in the promotional materials for their annual Values Voters Summit. In order to drum up sales, the group is running a promo page of pics featuring 24 named speakers. Only problem? Only 10 of these names—ones that mostly make up the lesser-known, more conservative contingent—have actually confirmed that they’ll be in attendance.

I just realized my blog showed signs of dying while I was rebuilding my website a few months ago. David Hayes explains:

There are two general signs that a blog is heading toward extinction. The first is a declining frequency of posting, and the second is a proportional rise in the number of posts about the blog itself. These two don’t always go hand-in-hand; sometimes it’s just one or the other, sometimes you don’t get either warning sign. But when either of the two is spotted it’s reasonable to begin wondering how long that curious internet publication will continue to be updated.

Perhaps the sudden decline in readership earlier this year had something to do with people sensing an imminent blog death?

For reasons unknown to me, the statistics show two trends for this journal. Firstly, fewer people visit the actual website. Secondly, more and more people subscribe to its web feed. All in all, this journal still has a fairly large readership and will live on for the foreseeable future.

Oh no, now I did it again—blogged about my blog, that is!

“Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran. Jerusalem is a Jewish city,” said political scientist Dr Mordechai Kedar of the Bar Ilan University in a heated debate broadcast by Al Jazeera:

“Building in Jerusalem is another nail in the coffin in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority,” narrator Jimal Rian asserted. Dr. Kedar answered in fluent Arabic, “This was our capital 3,000 years ago, and we were here when your forefathers were drinking wine, burying girls alive and worshipping pre-Muslim idols. This is our city and it will be our city forever.”

His reference to Muslims drinking wine, which is forbidden in Islam, infuriated the host. Rian wagged his finger in the air and said excitedly, “If you want to talk about history, you cannot erase Jerusalem from the Koran, and don’t attack the Muslim religion if we want to continue talking.”

Dr. Kedar replied, “Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran. Jerusalem is a Jewish city.”

The Al Jazeera host responded by quoting a verse from the Koran in which he thought Jerusalem was mentioned by name, but stopped in the middle upon realizing that it only refers to “the farthest place.”

Dr. Kedar: “Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran even once. You can’t rewrite the Koran on air on Al Jazeera.”

The latest opinion poll from research institute Sifo Sentio offers some good news: the Christian Democrats has support of only 3% of the electorate and would lose all seats in the Swedish Parliament had it been a general election. The Christian Democrats is the only party in Parliament opposing same-sex marriage.

When I lived in Britain in the late 1980s, the Conservatives were outright hostile to gay people. Since then, the party has changed dramatically. Nowadays they are more concerned with gay right than the Labour government, which came to power partly due to Tony Blair’s social liberalism.

The latest proof of the Conservatives’ transformation came yesterday when Tory MP Stephen Crabb criticized the Home Secretary (interior minister) for arguing that Iran is safe for “discreet” homosexuals:

“Most fair-minded people will be appalled at the Home Secretary’s statement. The Iranian regime has a dreadful track-record when it comes to the treatment of homosexuals and other minority groups and is more than willing to use torture and the death sentence to punish offenders.

Asking minorities to live their lives discreetly is to give in to the tyrants and bullies who sustain their positions through fear and coerced conformity. It demonstrates both an unelevated view of the importance of human rights and cowardice in championing our own system of values.”

Niklas Wykman, leader of the Moderate Party’s youth organization, says he might leave the party if it does not rethink its support of Sweden’s new surveillance law. I will not follow him, but I surely share his frustration.

Eugène Jansson’s painting Flottans badhus from 1907 is part of the Nationalmuseum’s new exhibition Queer—Desire, Power and Identity. It opens tomorrow.

Finality, the world is beginning to condemn Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, the opposition leader has sought rescue in the Dutch embassy in Harare.

I have received a few emails about the picture of a tortured man I published yesterday. One reader wonders where I get the pictures when no press is allowed to operate in Zimbabwe.

Well, the Mugabe regime can stop foreign journalists from entering the country, but in the Internet era, he cannot stop pictures from exiting.

If you can stomach it, there are plenty more pictures of Mugabe’s torture here and here.

The Economist thinks it’s time to let the Lisbon treaty rest. I think so too.

I just read Hossein Alizadeh’s article about the lives of two gay Iranians who were forced to flee to escape execution. I’m thankful I belong to the minority of gay men who don’t have to fear for my life.

If you haven’t followed the events in Zimbabwe, then the Guardian has a timeline.

I know there’s noting I can do to really help the many victims of Robert Mugabe’s terror, but I hope public awareness can persuade democratic nations and international organizations to stop treating him as a legitimate leader. Less then a month ago, the United Nation invited this tyrant to Rome for a meeting on the current food crisis. And in December last year, European Union leaders invited Mr Mugabe to an Africa-Europe summit in Lisbon. On both occasions, Mugabe seized the opportunity to voice his socialist claptrap and blame others for the sufferings of Zimbabweans under his reign. This must stop. Robert Mugabe is the administrator of an ongoing genocide and he should be treated as such.

Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il endorse Barack Obama.

Robert Mugabe, Africa’s craziest communist despot, won by terrorism and torture:

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has pulled out of the presidential run-off against Robert Mugabe saying he will no longer participate in “this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process”.

Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, announced his decision at a news conference in Zimbabwe’s capital as ruling party militants blockaded the site of an opposition rally.

Citing political violence, he said a free and fair poll on Friday would be impossible and called on the United Nations and the African Union to intervene to stop “genocide” in the former British colony.

“We in the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” he told reporters in Harare.

“Conditions as of today do not permit the holding of a credible poll.

“Given the totality of these circumstances, we believe a credible election is impossible. We can’t ask the people to cast their vote on June 27 when that vote will cost their lives. We will no longer participate in this violent sham of an election.

“On June 27, Mugabe has declared war, and we will not be part of that war. Our victory is certain, but it can only be delayed.”

With the new Soviet-like surveillance law, a member of the Qruiser community thinks Sweden ought to replace its flag with a more suitable one.

The Local has published a new article by Pär Ström. “Despite some cosmetic changes, Sweden’s proposed surveillance law is still a monster,” he writes.

It has long been known that male rape victims rarely report the abuse to the police or seek help because they are ashamed. It has been assumed that it has a lot to do with straight men’s fear of being thought of as gay and ridiculed, and gay men’s fear of not being taken seriously. However, it seems a previously unknown group of victims are now being recognized as the Swedish Organization against Sexual Abuse reports a rise in sex abuse of males carried out by women.

Lena Forsman, director of communications at the Swedish Centre Party, is actively trying to get journalist Richard Slätt fired from his television job. She emailed Slätt’s boss after reading his harsh criticism of a controversial surveillance bill and the liberal MPs who voted in favour of it.

Forsman’s behaviour is despicable. Politicians who try to punish their critics this way should be fired.

Update at 18:18: Sweden’s largets newspaper has an article about Forsman’s attempt to silence Richard Slätt.

The Phoenix Mars Lander has found ice on the red planet:

“It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, during a Friday news briefing to announce the confirmation of water ice.

“The truth we’re looking for is not just looking at ice. It is in finding out the minerals, chemicals and hopefully the organic materials associated with these discoveries,” said Smith.

NASA’s description of the picture above:

These color images were acquired by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 19, 2008).

These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” over the course of four days.

In the lower left corner of the left image, a group of lumps is visible. In the right image, the lumps have disappeared, similar to the process of evaporation.

(Photo by NASA.)

The view from a watchtower at the Great Wall of China.

Michael Petrelis remembers the gay teenagers killed in Iran four years ago.

My husband is travelling in China. He just sent me a few pictures. Seen here is the Yonghe Temple in Beijing.

Love is in the Californian air these days. Former Marine Bob Lehman was the first to take advantage of the recently acquired possibility for gays to marry in the state.

But as always, hatemonger Christians cannot stay away and let the gay couples celebrate their new commitment in private. “It’s just not right for a man to marry a man, it’s just not normal,” says a nutjob picketer from the organization Bikers for Christ.

Speaking of normal, when exactly did the motorcycle become a part of God-given nature?

Socialism:
You have two cows. The state takes one and gives it to someone else.

Communism:
You have two cows. The state takes both of them and gives you the milk.

Fascism:
You have two cows. The state takes both of them and sells you the milk.

Military dictatorship:
You have two cows. The state takes both of them and shoots you.

Bureaucracy:
You have two cows. The state takes both of them, accidentally kills one, and spills the milk in the sewer.

Capitalism:
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Pure democracy:
You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

Representative democracy:
You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to decide who gets the milk.

American democracy:
The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair “Cowgate”.

Anarchy:
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbours kill you and take the cows.

More here.

“I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way,” said Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a newspaper interview last year.

Was he talking about the torture at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib? No. He was talking about gay men serving in the army.

“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Pace said.

However, forcing Iraqi prisoners to simulate homosexual acts in a demeaning manner is OK. I suppose homosexual acts are only immoral if there’s love involved.

Hypocrisy pays off, now George Bush is honouring Pace with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Apparently, elder porn is the new trend in Japan.

In yesterday’s parliamentary vote, Camilla Lindberg was the only liberal MP with courage enough to challenge the Swedish Government’s new Orwellian surveillance law.

Shame on everyone who voted in favour of this totalitarian bill!

The irony is that Sweden’s most antidemocratic legislation ever was realized by naïve MPs in an effort to protect democracy from terrorism and criminality. It is ironic because the only winners are those who wish for nothing more than to scrap liberal democracy.

From now on, every Swede must live with the fact that the Government makes copies of every email and phone call.

More in Swedish here, here, here, and here.

While the surveillance bill is being partly rewritten, protesters are gathering before tonight vote:

Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors is believed to have hammered out a compromise with internal critics of the bill after Tuesday evening’s emotional parliamentary debate.

Amendments to the bill would strengthen its civil liberty protections, said the minister at a hastily convened press conference on Tuesday evening.

But while the coalition partners now seem certain to vote the bill into law, critics of the signal surveillance law are not convinced by the last minute alterations. The law would enable Sweden’s National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt - FRA) to monitor all outgoing and incoming communications crossing Sweden’s borders.

A group of protesters including journalists and bloggers began gathering outside the parliament building early on Wednesday morning. Parliamentarians arriving at their place of work were greeted with placards bearing messages such as ‘Block the FRA law’ and ‘FRA threatens your civil liberties’.

Agneta Lindblom Hulthén, chairwoman of the Swedish Union of Journalists (Journalistförbundet), said all privacy safeguards would vanish with the new law.

“There is a limit to what a democracy can do to protect democracy without itself becoming undemocratic,” she told news agency TT.

Hulthén added that as a journalist she was most concerned about a source’s right to anonymity.

“The compromise proposal does nothing to protect sources or source anonymity,” she said.

Hulthén is right. If the bill is passed tonight, the right to privacy and anonymity dies .

Haqq (truth) in Arabic calligraphy by London-based artist Samir Malik.

I love the wet feel and pulsing rhythm of Massive Attack’s Teardrop. This is one of the best music videos ever.

Karl Sigfrid, MP for Stockholm County: “Mass surveillance of Swedish citizens is a measure that is not proportionate to the problems Swedish authorities are expected to solve.”

I second that.

The Swedish Parliament has debated a new big-brother surveillance bill all day. Many liberal MPs are torn between party loyalty and their concerns for citizens’ right to privacy. The new bill, if passed, will enable government authorities to store all emails, text messages, telephone calls, and Internet communication crossing Sweden’s national border—which is just about every piece of electronic data imaginable.

Fredrick Federley, perhaps Sweden’s most prominent libertarian parliamentarian, was speaking only moments ago. I watched him live on television and could feel his pain and anxiety through the screen. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At one point, I thought he would burst into tears. He is clearly under immense pressure from everybody.

So what did he say? Well, it seems he is not completely giving in to government pressure, which most likely means the bill will be sent back for reconsideration. I would have preferred a clear no to the bill, but this will do for now. Hopefully, Mr Federley and other friends of civil liberties will be able to make sufficient changes to any future surveillance legislation.

The Parliament will vote tomorrow.

Swedish readers can follow the developments on Henrik Alexandersson’s blog. He is reporting live. International, non-Swedish readers of this blog can read The Local.

“There are few, if any, supportive voices in the mainstream Swedish press when it comes to the controversial surveillance bill set to be debated in the Riksdag on June 17th,” writes David Landes in an article published by The Local. “Every major newspaper addressing the issue this week on their opinion pages condemns the measure, and urges politicians to vote against it when the time comes.”

Read article here.

This might be the most important article Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has ever published.

Two favourite bloggers have articles in today’s Expessen. Both well worth reading:

• Jonathan Leman examines how the Social Democrats support anti-Semite extremists.
• Richard Slätt writes about five liberal MPs who might turn illiberal by voting in favour of new totalitarian-style surveillance legislation on Wednesday.

My brain is female. Well, sort of. A new Swedish study reported by New Scientist suggests the brains of homosexuals are partly structured as those of opposite-sex heterosexuals. “This is the most robust measure so far of cerebral differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects,” says Ivanka Savic, who conducted the study.

(Via Tor Billgren.)

In an article published in gay magazine QX, Oscar Swartz criticizes the Swedish Government’s new surveillance bill.

A new poll by research agency Sifo suggests the neo-fascist Sweden Democrats have enough support to claim seats in the parliament were a general election to be held today.

The Local has more.