Last night it looked as if Swedish blogger Henrik Alexandersson could be taken in for questioning when he arrived at Arlanda Airport. He wasn’t. He’s free and blogging like never before. But the rumours caused quite a stir in the Swedish blogosphere.

This was just an update on previous entry. I’m back to normal blogging pace by the end of next week.

On the day when I announce my first blog holiday in months, I learn that prominent Swedish blogger Henrik Alexandersson might be arrested and questioned on suspicion of publishing classified information. The rumour of an imminent arrest came about after the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) reported the blogger to the Chancellor of Justice.

As an act of solidarity, I publish the single-page document that might result in legal problems for Mr Alexandersson. I do it because it’s obvious to me that revenge is what motivates the government authorities to act. Henrik Alexandersson is one of the fiercest critics of Sweden’s new snoop law, which will allow FRA to read all emails, listen to all mobile conversations, and monitor the Internet habits of ordinary citizens.

Click to enlarge document.

I will take some time off blogging. I’m back in a week or so.

Last night, two gay men were stabbed and robbed of their mobile telephones at EuroPride. Police say it’s a hate crime since the sexual orientation was the motive for the crime.

Hate crimes like this happens all the time, but this one shows how dangerous it is to let down guard even during a big event like EuroPride. Even though most people have a decent or good attitude towards gay people, there are quite many who harbour outright hate and hostility. Gay men can’t afford to be naïve about that.

“The Rome-based Hands Off Cain, which campaigns to stop the death penalty, said last week that at least 355 people were put to death in Iran last year,” Huffington Post reports. “The 355 executions placed Iran second only to China as the world’s biggest executioner.”

The annual moose hunting is a popular Swedish tradition. Once a year, tens of thousands of men (and a few women) enter the woodlands with their dogs searching for the wild animal. When the dogs sniff a moose out, the hunters cock their rifles and begin to shoot. Since most moose hunters are lousy amateurs, few bullets kill the animal instantly. Instead, the moose runs bleeding in pain and agony through the forest with the dogs and hunters following close behind. When the animal finally collapses, one of the proud hunters picks up his knife and slits its throat.

In an article published by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, two women—Jeanette Thelander and Katarina Lingehag-Ekholm—are demonising slaughter procedures that follow Jewish and Islamic law by describing them as cruel and undignified. The two Swedish women are upset because religious minorities are joining forced with liberals who wish to see the legalization of ritual slaughter. The Jewish shechita and Muslim dhabihah—which are the rules for ritual slaughter—both prescribe that an animal should be killed by allowing its blood to drain out. This should be done by a deep cut with a sharp knife across the animal’s throat. In other words, it’s done precisely the same way most Swedish moose hunters kill their prey—which is also a ritual killing, although not one based on religious scriptures.

I have discussed this issue many times, and what bothers me the most is that Swedes tend to get very emotional over animal welfare only when minority cultures or foreign countries are involved. The Swedish majority culture, with its savage hunting tradition, is never called into question. Thelander and Lingehag-Ekholm are no different. They argue the same xenophobic case as always.

According to media reports, the people attending EuroPride in Stockholm seem to enjoy themselves. A reader sent me an email asking what it’s like. Sorry, I can’t say. I’m in Malmö, which is located 650 kilometres (400 miles) south of Stockholm.

Doug Ireland has an interesting article on the subject in the latest issue of Gay City News.

I think he is overstating the libertarian influences on Swedish socialism, but I guess that is what it looks like from an American perspective. The truth of the matter is that Sweden did not have anything even resembling a libertarian attitude towards gays until very recently. Swedish Communists did not embrace a gay-friendly agenda until the late 1970s, and the Social Democrats did everything in their power to humiliate gays and lesbians well into the 1990s.

Oklahoma commissioner Brent Rinehart has been rightfully mocked for the self-made anti-gay comic book he recently sent to voters in his constituency. But using cartoons to illustrate Christian homophobia and religious anti-gay myths is nothing new. In fact, it’s big business. Chick Publications is a company that specializes in this kind of material. Their idea is to use cartoons and caricatures to establish religious ideas in the minds of children and teenagers. Here is an example, taken from a cartoon tract based on Genesis, made to strengthen anti-gay sentiments:

“As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya,” Barack Obama said in his Berlin speech this afternoon. “Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.”

With such a cheerful message, no wonder 200,000 Berliners gathered to see him address Europe on his mini-world tour.

“As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist. This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable,” British novelist Ian McEwan says in an interview. “And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on—we know it well.”

Of course, he’s right—and for that he is now faced with allegations of being a racist!

In this case, the saying could almost be taken literally.

“God is not making a mistake in creating an Adam and an Eve. He would have made two Adams if homosexuality were natural and not perverse,” Sudanese Archbishop Daniel Deng says in an article published by Religious Intelligence. He goes on to say that the Anglican Church in the US is the cause for deaths of African Christians because of its acceptance of gay people.

The Huffington Post has an interview with the senator responsible for this tacky attack.

That’s a headline I never expected to see in a non-fictional context. By the way, I had one of my first teenage crushes on Christian Bale. I watched Empire of the Sun many times only to see him.

“So Barack Obama, en fête around the world, will one day learn that there is no magical cure for the envy of others. What makes America the indispensable power (and even more indispensable in the era of the new China), is precisely what makes anti-Americanism inevitable,” David Aaronovitch writes in a Times column.

I think he’s absolutely right.

As a comment to an earlier entry, a reader emails me British MP Iris Robinson’s latest expression of Christian love:

“Let’s look at it. Can you think of anything more vile than man and man or woman and woman and sexually abusing children? What I say I base on biblical pronouncements, based on God’s word. I am amazed that people are surprised when I quote from scriptures. It shows the churches either aren’t preaching God’s word or are watering it down. … I cannot think of anything more sickening than a child being abused. It is comparable to the act of homosexuality. I think they are all comparable. I feel totally repulsed by both.”

And here’s more love, love, love:

“I am trying to reach out to people. I try to reach out and love them. That is what Christ teaches us. He wants us to help all people and give them an opportunity. We all have the opportunity to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything I say is out of love. I am not hate-mongering. I cannot leave my Christian values hanging at the door when I go into politics.”

More here.

An Israeli friend just told me he will spend a year in the United States and wants to sublet his flat in Tel Aviv. I’m tempted to call him and say, “I’ll take it.” It would be so nice to get away for a year. Ah, sweet daydreaming…

(Photo of sunset in Tel Aviv by Ron Almog.)

I’ve always suspected those cows were up to no good.

A sympathetic reader just sent me this cartoon. Thanks!

In 2001, the American director Sandi Simcha Dubowski made an acclaimed documentary about gay Orthodox Jews entitled Trembling Before G-d. It’s a moving tale about men caught between the desire to be frum and the longing for true love and affection. I would recommend anyone interested in either gay culture or Judaism to see it.

I just learned that Mr Simcha Dubowski is the producer of a new film by Indian director Parvez Sharma entitled A Jihad for Love. The film deals with the same complex of problems, but this time the subjects are gay Muslims. I haven’t seen the film yet, so I can’t say if it’s any good. But as soon as the new semester begins, I will try to arrange a showing at Lund University. Until then, 365gay.com has an interview with the director I think is well worth reading. I quote Mr Sharma in a passage I found particularly notable:

Islam is more diverse on the subject of homosexuality than a lot of non-Muslims realize. Because homosexuality has existed for as long as Islam has existed, in many of these cultures it has often been tolerated, and has sometimes been celebrated.

If you look at the history, you see examples of homosexuality being celebrated in the arts, in poetry, through the courts of the Ottoman in Turkey, through the courts of the Mughal in India, though different phases of the Persian empire as it developed.

A lot of the hatred, a lot of the homophobia that exists in the Muslim world today is inherited from Colonialism. Many of the laws that remain in countries like Egypt or India are laws that were enacted bythe British or the French. And those laws remain.

While on the subject of Islam and homosexuality, I would like to recommend Omar Nahas’s book Islam en homoseksualiteit (Amsterdam: Bulaaq, 2001). It’s in Dutch, so it’s lost to most people, which is a shame because it is the best book available. But if you’re able to read Dutch, I suggest a visit to the library.

Adam (cranky office employee) and Andy (cheerful muscle man) are the fictional characters of James Asal’s comic books. It’s a portrait of what many anti-gay Christians scornfully call “the homosexual lifestyle”, in this case two men living in a loving, long-term relationship.

Visit the Adam & Andy website here.

In the past few days, I have taken part in a long and tedious online discussion about religion. Normally I enjoy discussions of this sort, but this one was pointless and destructive from the start as a number of Christians ganged up on me and distorted everything I said. When I made the case that religion is no private matter since faith tends to affect the judgement, I was dismissed as arrogant. When I challenged the claim that prayer works by asking my opponents if they thought prayers meant to cause harm are as effective as those with good intentions, I was dismissed as meddlesome. Repeatedly, I tried to explain why religion is no private matter and why it affects me personally although I’m not a Christian myself. I shared some personal experiences involving religiously motivated hate crimes against gay friends. This was met by patronizing remarks. One of the Christians was even quick to disavow the link between Christianity and homophobia. It’s all in my head, apparently.

I don’t mind people being religious. In fact, I have been known to defend freedom of religion when many don’t: I’m opposed to any legal restriction on so-called hate speech, I defend the right of Jews and Muslims to circumcise their newborn sons, and I’m in favour of private-run confessional schools and home schooling. But my respect of religion-based cultures doesn’t stop me from criticizing the very basis of religious claims—the myths and the irrationalism. But instead of a sincere discussion, my overly sensitive opponents preferred to play the underdog card and reacted with hostility to every suggestion of religious ideas not being altogether sound. Even the established—and by most theologians recognized—distinction between religion and rationalism was interpreted as an offensive attack on the sacred inner life of Christians, as if questioning the scientific soundness of prayer and divine intervention had anything to do with the gratifying feeling faith can give a person.

I have said it on this blog before, and I will say it again: Of the three Abrahamic religions, only Judaism seems able to handle intellectual reasoning. My guess is that it has something to do with Jews actually having experienced real bigotry, arrogance, and vicious meddling. They can take a tough debate. Christians, on the other hand, have had no such experience since the Edict of Milan in 313. I think that is why Christianity is so badly equipped for secular challenges. The shock caused by the Enlightenment has not settled yet.

(Seen in the picture above is the definition of “rationalism” according to Oxford Dictionaries.)

Stockholm Pride will begin on Friday, and suddenly every straight man and woman wants to be friendly with the gays. Some of us are not buying it. Swedish blogger Micke Kazarnowicz has written an open letter to the heterosexuals I want to co-sign. It’s brilliant and right to the point.

Via Dick Erixon, I found The New Republic’s review of Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine. It’s excellent. I quote from the article:

The distinctive thing about Klein’s style was that it was very Old Left. She had a classic Marxist-materialist analysis, arguing that economic conditions, rather than bigotry or ideology, are what shape the world. Her interest in culture and in actually existing life under capitalism was somewhat derivative of the Frankfurt School, though not as intellectually sophisticated. Yet she managed to make the old notions feel new, and to capture the ethos of what was being called “the New New Left.” And her argument reflected the conviction of the new anti-globalization activists, the children of the “cultural left,” that they themselves—and not just workers in Nike factories abroad—were the victims of international corporations.

And:

Klein repeatedly implies that there is something immoral about using crises to advance the right-wing agenda without explaining why this is so. After all, Friedman wanted to overhaul the New Orleans public education system because he believed, rightly or wrongly, that vouchers would work better. If you thought your house was horribly designed, and a tornado flattened it, would you rebuild it exactly as before?

The notion that crises create fertile terrain for political change, far from being a ghoulish doctrine unique to free-market radicals, is a banal and ideologically universal fact. (Indeed, it began its dubious modern career in the orbit of Marxism, where it was known as “sharpening the contradictions.”) Entrenched interests and public opinion tend to run against sweeping reform, good or bad, during times of peace and prosperity. Liberals could not have enacted the New Deal without the Great Depression. Communist revolutions have generally come about in the wake of wars. The liberal economist Victor R. Fuchs once wrote that “national health insurance will probably come to the United States in the wake of a major change in the political climate, the kind of change that often accompanies a war, a depression, or large-scale civil unrest.”

Fuchs did not mean that the public would never accept universal health insurance unless they had been brutalized into doing so. Nor was his observation evidence that he longed for disaster to befall the United States. Most American liberals today would admit that the sorry state of the American economy, foreign policy, and political life has created a golden opportunity for progressive reform. There is nothing odious about this. Yet Klein takes analogous observations from conservatives as proof that the right “prays for crisis the way drought-stricken farmers pray for rain.”

A common argument against atheism among Christian apologists reads that secular regimes have caused as much harm as any religious one. Adolf Hitler’s Nazism is often used as an example of a secular ideology guilty of horrendous acts. The problem with this argument is that Hitler was no atheist, and that the Nazi movement was closely tied to Christian tradition. The truth is that Hitler—at least initially—was a devout believer whose actions were motivated by faith. I quote Hitler’s speech from 12 April 1922, translated by Norman H. Baynes:

My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian, I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

– The Speeches of Adolf Hitler April 1922-August 1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), i. 19-20.

In the ongoing debate on how to handle the rise of neo-fascism, many seem puzzled by the fact that many extremist parties work hard to woo Christians. Some have suggested that this is a new strategy, that the focus on “family values” and Christian ethics has nothing to do with old-school fascism. I say they are wrong. There is nothing new about it. Twentieth-century fascism sprung from a mixture of socialist totalitarianism and Christian traditionalism.

(Seen in the picture is one of many similar Nazi pin badges with Christian motifs.)

Family day with Hamas.

“Italy’s highest criminal court has ruled that the fact Rastafarians consider marijuana use a religious sacrament should be taken into account if they are tried on trafficking charges,” writes Dosenation.com.

Why is religion always considered valid ground for special treatment? In Sweden, only religious people enjoy freedom of expression. Special laws allow them to engage in public hate speech while the courts will not hesitate to imprison anyone who directs the same speech towards them. It annoys me.

Christopher Hitchens underwent torture for an article and have this to say about waterboarding:

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Zimbabwe introduces 100 billion dollar banknote:

In a notice in the state-controlled Herald newspaper, central bank governor Gideon Gono said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would introduce the new notes - known as special agro-cheques - to help consumers.

“This new $100 billion special agro-cheque will go into circulation on Monday,” the notice said.

But Zimbabwe residents say the latest note is already worthless, and does not even cover their daily lunch.

“Nowadays, for my expenses a day, I need about Z$500 billion,” one resident said.

“So Z$100 billion can’t do anything because for me to go home I need Z$250 billion, so this [note] is worthless.”

Zimbabwe was once one of the richest countries in Africa.

It amazes me that socialists still say their command economy is better than the free market.

In this photo by Andrew Taylor, Pope Benedict XVI is being hailed by more than 200,000 of his loyal subjects at a mass meeting in Australia. It reminds me of pictures I have seen of Hitler’s close ties with the church, often manifested at similar mass meetings. Contemporary Christians are doing their best to hide the links, but the truth is that Nazism was a mixture of socialism and Christianity. It was no random coincidence that made Jews, gays, and gypsies the main targets of the Nazi killing machine—the church had been after them for centuries.

Of course! Only a fool would dress like that silly bat person at the world première of “The Dark Knight”.

John McCain has a hard time trying to please everybody:

He’ll say he’s against discrimination in any form and yet refuse to back any legislation to outlaw it. He’ll say gay marriage is wrong and back some efforts to ban it but not others. He’ll say children shouldn’t be adopted by gays but he’ll back only some efforts to block that.

It’s all one big muddle, which is unlikely to energize gay rights foes or win over many of us who care about the issue from the other side. So much for the maverick Arizona senator and his “straight talk express.”

According to Marxist rhetoric, violent crimes are caused by a free economy. If true, socialist Venezuela would be a haven. But then The Economist writes, “One of Hugo Chávez’s lesser-known feats since taking over as Venezuela’s leader in 1999 is to have presided over a tripling of the annual homicide rate.” Oops! Not surprisingly, the government blames the opposition.

In its latest issue, The Economist has a special report on al-Qaeda. It concludes that the terror organization faces an ideological backlash, but that young Muslims still volunteer to blow themselves up. I came to think of this Hadith:

The Prophet said, “Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world and whatever is in it, except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and be killed again.”

And people say I suffer from an ungrounded fear of religion…

Nicholas Birch of the Independent has written an interesting article on gay honour killing in Turkey. It’s well worth reading.

I think table-tennis star Matthew Syed has a healthy attitude to performance enhancers:

It is said that steroids are unsafe, but the truth is that moderate use can improve strength without any significant damaging side effects. Permitting safe steroid use would still require the authorities to test for overuse, but this would be more effective if testers focused on symptoms (such as liver damage) rather than searching for the elusive substances themselves.

“Regulated permissiveness” would also enable athletes to choose drugs under conditions of informed consent and provide incentives for pharmaceutical companies to create safe drugs: at present the pressure is to create undetectable drugs.

More news from California:

A measure seeking to commemorate President Bush’s years in office by slapping his name on a San Francisco sewage plant has qualified for the November ballot.

The measure certified Thursday would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Supporters say the idea is to commemorate the mess they claim Bush has left behind by actions such as the war in Iraq.

Rude but funny.

“California opposition to gay marriage has dropped 20 points in eight years,” Reason reports.

Reuters has more on the latest poll:

Californians are likely to uphold the right to gay marriage in the state by voting against a ballot measure that seeks to override a court ruling allowing same-sex unions, poll results showed on Friday.

The Field Poll survey firm found 51 percent of voters oppose the measure, which proposes an amendment to the state’s constitution recognizing marriage as only between a man and woman, while 42 percent were in favor.

Californians will vote on the initiative, which requires a simple majority to become law, while casting ballots in November’s U.S. presidential and congressional elections.

The survey results follow a decision on Wednesday by the state’s high court to permit the measure, Proposition 8, to appear on the ballot.

A great initiative to tackle Islamism in Europe:

Muslim children will be taught British citizenship in mosque schools as part of a Government attempt to keep them away from the influence of Islamist extremism.

A trial of the new lessons will begin in several cities at the start of the new school year in September, according to Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary.

The initiative, designed to show young Muslims that there is no conflict between their religion and being British, is part of a package of measures being published today.

It also includes a new independent board of academic and theological experts, and a group of community leaders to advise on local responses to tackling extremism.

Once again we see a religious person go berserk:

Some Oklahoma County voters can expect to receive comic books in the mail soon, but the subject matter will have a serious tone.

The 16-page publication prepared by Commissioner Brent Rinehart’s re-election campaign lampoons gays and criticizes Rinehart’s political opponents. It also features an angel who supports the embattled commissioner and Satan, who supports his critics.

“It’s more or less a story of my experiences of the last four years of being the county commissioner of District 2,” Rinehart told The Oklahoman, which obtained the comic on Wednesday.

Toga-wearing gays, political figures, trench coat-clad henchmen, concerned residents and Rinehart make up the rest of the comic’s characters.

In one sequence, Satan says: “If I can get the kids to believe homosexuality is normal!”

The angel replies: “Hey Satan, not with Brent around you won’t!”

I find no words. The man is crazy—but quite an artist, too. Here are two sample pages from his comic book:

Download Brent Rinehart’s comic book in full here.

(Via Towleroad and Reason.)

A know quite a few people who will celebrate the decision. Since the 1990s, the United States has been officially closed for people with HIV. Andrew Sullivan is “speechless” but manages to write down his thoughts:

I’m not usually speechless but I’m ecstatic to report that the Senate just passed PEPFAR without the Sessions amendment, and Senator Biden, who managed the bill, just said they will probably avoid a conference with the House and send the bill forthwith to the president’s desk. Barring some unforeseen event, the HIV Travel Ban—a relic of the days when HIV was a source of fear and stigma and terror—is finally over.

Obviously, the bigger achievement in PEPFAR is the funding for continued help for those with HIV and AIDS in the developing world—people whose plight is unimaginably worse than mine or so many others trapped by this HIV law. Bush’s legacy in this is one for which he is rightly proud. But for those of us who have long dreamed of becoming Americans, and have been prevented by 1993 law from even being able to enter or leave the US without waivers or fear or humiliation, this is a massive burden lifted.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s one of the happiest days of my whole life. For two and a half decades, I have longed to be a citizen of the country I love and have made my home. I now can. There is no greater feeling.

Somebody ought to tell John McCain:

For the second time in two days, John McCain has referred to current events in “Czechoslovakia”—a country that officially ceased to exist in January of 1993.

“And I regret some of the recent behavior Russia that has exhibited, and I’ll be glad to talk about that later on including reduction in oil supplies to Czechoslovakia after they agreed with us on a missile defense system, etcetera,” said the presumptive Republican nominee at a New Mexico town hall Tuesday.

No biggie, perhaps. But nothing makes Europeans smugger than Americans appearing uneducated. Europe wants to think of itself as more erudite and sophisticated than America. Of course, this is pure self-deception.

I’m not suggesting McCain should care too much about how Europeans see him, but I think it would hurt his presidency if the world think of him as ignorant.

A few weeks ago, the Iranian defence department published pictures of their new long-distance missiles being tested. It soon turned out the pictures were manipulated by some armature using Photoshop like a nine-year-old (see picture above). This sparked an informal contest among Photoshop-users worldwide: Who could make the funniest missile-launch picture? Below are a few examples I think are quite successful.