Here are some of the things that caught my attention this morning.

As part of an egocentric four-day marathon television programme devoted entirely to himself, Venezuelan de facto dictator Hugo Chávez challenged liberal author Mario Vargas Llosa to a live debate. My friend in Caracas tells me that rumours has it that the “president” decided to cancel the final day of programming to avoid humiliation. I’m not surprised—Chávez is a big-mouthed coward who only manages monologues.

(Leaving South American politics for Arianna Huffington’s cyber empire.)

Rob Thomas says, “straight people must stand up and be a voice for gay people”. I like that and think he is right. He also says that if he believed in the devil, Pat Robertson might be it. I think Thomas might be right on this one, too. Mr Robertson is as evil as he is stupid. His hostility and hatred of humankind is well documented. But as a satirist of Christian conservatism, he has some proven qualities, as this example shows:

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”

Not exactly fair and balanced.

Speaking of religious men who lack even the slightest conception of what homosexuality is about, here’s the latest deep thought from Rabbi Norman Lamm:

“But I am opposed to saying publicly that homosexuals are welcome or accepting people who are openly gay and who campaign for a gay lifestyle, just as I would oppose someone who openly campaigns to desecrate Shabbat or to speak slanderously.”

That is like comparing blindness to laziness.

(Moving on to Swedish politics.)

The latest polls suggest the Moderate Party is losing support. With only a week to election day, 22.6 per cent of Swedes say they will vote for a Moderate candidate to the European Parliament. I really shouldn’t say this, but I understand why people don’t feel very enthusiastic about the Moderate Party in this election. I don’t like it, but I completely understand if people concerned about our civil liberties vote for the Pirate Party.

I begin a new full-time job on Monday. For the next three months, I will be an employee of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (RFSL). I will spend my days teaching gay men how to practise safe sex. I have done this type of work for RFSL in the past, but this is the first time I am employed on a full-time basis.

The new job involves a lot of car travel, and I am not sure how much time I have for writing. So, I have been thinking about this journal and decided to try a new style of blogging. Instead of many short entries every day, I will try to post only once a day and include all news, links, photographs, and comments in that single entry. I have seen a few bloggers do that, and in a time when the Internet consists of many millions of blog and twitter feeds, I think a minimalist approach would work well for my readership.

Update: I gave it a try for nearly two weeks, but short and pithy is my style.

• The Supreme Court in California has ruled to uphold the ban on same-sex marriage. Couples married before the referendum on Proposition 8 in November last year will remain married under the law. People are angry and frustrated.
• The Church of Sweden has elected openly lesbian Eva Brunne as its new Bishop of Stockholm. Good!
• The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (RFSL) has conducted an impressive survey of Sweden’s candidates for the European Parliament.

I have a lot of work that needs to be done in the days to come. Among other things, I have to finish a seminar paper on ethical egoism and Jennifer Trusted’s arguments against altruism. My online writing will suffer, and this journal will most likely go quiet for about a week.

Here is a list of Sweden’s openly gay candidates for the European Parliament. Pick one of them if you wish. Personally, I will not vote for any of them. Christofer Fjellner is my choice. I pick him because I appreciate his firm commitment to civil liberties and capitalism.

On 7 June, EU nationals will elect a new European Parliament. I know whom I will vote for, but if you cannot pick one of the real politicians; why not consider Miguel Angel Sosa Vásquez and his Project 666? The man is nuts, but his entertainment value is great.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu refuses to give in to Barack Obama’s demands, neither on new settlements nor on Jerusalem. “United Jerusalem is Israel's capital,” he says. “Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided.”

Woody Allen: “Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.”

(Seen in the picture is a simulated view of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. That’s where it all ends one day. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to renew the wardrobe before then.)

No man is more associated with religious homophobia than full-time propagandist Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church. He is best known for picketing funerals and harassing mourning families. The man claims to preach the Bible, but after I noticed the reference to Romans 9:13 in the picture above, I think any such claim can be refuted.

I looked up Romans 9:13 and found this:

Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Where is the proof of God’s hate of gay people in that sentence? I understand that Paul refers to the story of Jacob and his older brother Esau, but where does that include homosexuality? I know some modern theologians say that Jacob’s nightlong wrestle with God and God’s subsequent blessing of Jacob could be understood as a blessing of the unique love between men. But somehow, I doubt Phelps thought of that. So I search the Internet for information on Esau, and found this:

Esau was the eldest son of Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob's older twin brother. As firstborn Esau had a birthright to a double share of inheritance, but he sold this birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. Esau was a skillful hunter and Isaac's favorite son. When Isaac was near death he asked Esau to bring him a meal of wild game and then Isaac would bless him. While Esau hunted, Jacob disguised himself as Esau, brought food, and received a blessing. Esau was angry and Jacob departed to live with his uncle Laban. When Jacob returned, many years later, the two brothers were reconciled.

How exactly does this tells us that God hates gays? I can’t see it. So I continued my search and found this:

Phelps considers himself a Christian pastor, and heads a church whose congregation primarily consists of his own family, and whose primary mission in life seems to be to show up at homosexual gatherings, or where people gather who have given their support to the GLBT community, and places where the focus is on people with AIDS, including funerals of those who have succumbed to the disease. Known particularly for carrying mean-spirited signs, such as Queer = Death and Got AIDS Yet?, Phelps caught my attention with one sign in particular, because it contained a scripture reference. The sign read God Hates Fags, and carried the reference: Romans 9:13.

Sometimes our blessings come from the strangest places! Romans 9:13 reads: Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” I had to chuckle when I read the passage. Paul was actually quoting from the book of Malachi 1:2 & 3: “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” God says. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

I laughed out loud when I realized that Phelps had gotten his analogy a little backwards. If we apply historically stereotypical images of heterosexuals and homosexuals, Esau was the manly, macho man, the hairy hunter, the epitome of heterosexuality. Jacob, on the other hand, was gentle and quiet. He hung around the tents with the women and cooked. He was a momma’s boy. While Esau was hairy, Jacob’s skin was smooth-a trait one might call effeminate—Jacob was a poster-boy for homosexuality. In spite of the fact of Jacob’s stereotypically homosexual demeanor, it is through Jacob’s line that the Biblical story of Israel continued, not “manly” Esau’s.

Someone ought to tell Fred Phelps.

The ruling socialist politicians in Malmö decided to hold the Sweden-Israel Davis Cup match in March behind closed doors. Officially, the reason was security concerns, but everyone knows it was an act of support for Hamas. Malmö mayor Ilmar Reepalu and his comrades are known for their hostile attitude towards Israel and the Jewish people.

Now the bill for this political spectacle is passed on to the taxpayers. The International Tennis Federation wants 15,000 dollars to compensate for lost income, and the Swedish Tennis Association wants even more.

The Simpsons’ take on Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.

(Via Johan Norberg.)

Update: I must include Maggie Simpson’s speech:

Throughout the ages, the finger painter, the Play-Doh sculptor, the Lincoln Logger stood alone against the day-care teacher of her time. She did not live to earn approval stamps. She lived for herself, that she might achieve things that are the glory of all humanity. These are my terms; I do not care to play by any others. And now, if the court will allow me, it’s naptime.

In an article published by The Local, Lydia Parafianowicz praises the “ethical undertaking” of Alf Svensson, former leader of the Swedish Christian Democrats. This is ludicrous. Mr Svensson has never missed an opportunity humiliate gay people and single mothers. By any ethics—including the Christian ethics Svensson’s party subscribes to—the deliberate attempt to hurt people is a vice, and no Swedish politician is more associated with this vice than Alf Svensson and his entourage.

The Middle East Media Research Institute has translated some excerpts from a report on swine flu broadcast on Iranian television on 6 May 2009.

(Via Al Hamatzav.)

Jeanne Rudbeck says no to nature:

Nature provides no benches for resting on when you’re ready to collapse after hours of tramping about in a semi-crouch to find 12 wild strawberries.

Nature does not provide running hot water. Country life means preserving the breakfast dishwater as though it’s liquid gold. You go to the stream to rinse off your dirty lunch dishes in order not to contaminate the breakfast dishwater.

Nature does, however, provide pollen that makes you sneeze and bugs that make you itch.

Worst of all, in Nature you can’t get a latte.

I don’t care much for lattes, but I get Ms Rudbecks’s point. I like the urban landscape, too. Not that I mind spend a few hours in nature once in a while, but I prefer to spend my time in the city among human beings.

A thorough investigation has found that Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland tortured, raped, and humiliated thousands of boys and girls for much of the nineteenth twentieth century. Meanwhile, this same church did everything in its power to portray gay people as the immoral villains of society.

Rabbi Yonah is constructively angry:

Ken Loach accuses Israel of state terrorism, massacres. He convinces the Edinburgh Film Festival to return 300 pounds that the Israeli’s had provided to the festival to support the festival bringing an Israeli filmmaker. The film’s subject matter? Love. Some up-and-coming Israeli filmmaker is the latest victim of the lunacy of Ken Loach.

Hollywood beware—Ken Loach is a raving anti-Israel maniac. Don’t buy his crappy films at Cannes.

Loach wants to Boycott Israel? Ok, Let’s boycott Ken Loach.

Yes, let’s!

By analysing samples from seventeen European countries, an international team of scientists tracked the movement of the virus around the continent, BBC News reports.

It’s Socrates’s birthday today. For nearly two and a half millennia, philosophers have considered him one of the best thinkers.

Robert Putnam of Harvard University and David Campbell of the University of Notre Dame have conducted studies that suggest religious people are nicer than atheists:

The scholars say their studies found that religious people are three to four times more likely to be involved in their community. They are more apt than nonreligious Americans to work on community projects, belong to voluntary associations, attend public meetings, vote in local elections, attend protest demonstrations and political rallies, and donate time and money to causes—including secular ones.

At the same time, Putnam and Campbell say their data show that religious people are just “nicer”: they carry packages for people, don’t mind folks cutting ahead in line and give money to panhandlers.

The scholars say the link between religion and civic activism is causal, since they observed that people who hadn’t attended church became more engaged after they did.

(Via Faith Central.)

“Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution,” Sky News reports.

Contrary to popular feminist belief, man is no pig.

The reason I include homophobic news websites like World Net Daily in my blogroll is their superb coverage of the gay subculture. Had it not been for them, I would miss out on some of the juiciest stories. Like this one about San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair. The homophobic take on the event poster is that leather and nudity mock traditional families. They read that from the poster seen above! Personally, I think the poster is only meant to be humorous. If the intention had been to mock traditional families, the photographer would have added some wife beating and child neglect into the picture.

Turns out, the answer is—nothing. Well, he did write that nice note to Sandy Tsao, who was sacked from the army for being open about her love for women. But that’s about it.

Swedish author P. C. Jersild and biologist Erik Svensson welcome a renaissance for biologism. I’m not as welcoming, which apparently makes me a biophobe.

In the early nineteenth century, biologism—the interpretation of human life from a strictly biological point of view—offered bigoted prejudgments a scientific pretext. Mediaeval ideas about ethnical superiority and gender hierarchy were legitimized by scientists who argued that entire groups of people were determined by their biology. Individualism was dismissed as unscientific by the advocates of biologism.

Although marketed as a new science, biologism was rarely new at all. Its core ideas had been around for centuries. An example I have studied is Thomas Aquinas’s survey of animals’ sexual preferences to trace evidence of a natural order set out in the Books of Moses.

In 1921, Sweden became the first country to create a state-funded research centre for racial biology. The methods used were identical to Aquinas’s: a large selection of specimens—in the latter case human beings of various backgrounds—were measured and scrutinized to establish a link between behaviour and appearance. The biologists managed to convince enough people to set about the largest industrialized genocide in modern history. The natural sciences had given the fascist movement right in assuming Europe was threatened by Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled.

The same thing can be seen today. Biological arguments are often used to deny minority groups human rights. Ideas about a single natural order stipulated by evolution are popular in political circles fond of totalitarianism.

Biology is not all bad. But I find it a bit disturbing that so many refuse to acknowledge the genuine fear some of us feel when biology is once again promising the scientific answers to human behaviour. History tells us that the human characteristics most likely to be examined and questioned are those that do not fit the idea of perfect man being a Caucasian heterosexual male with Christian upbringing. Nothing suggests a change of mindset this time around.

I fear the return of biofascism.

A video by Matthew Brown.

From an New York Times article by Jeffrey Goldberg:

[Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s] preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt. I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.”

“Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit.

If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think.

A new super search engine promises to have all the answers. It is called Wolfram|Alpha.

The Swedish police prioritize the most severe criminals. Why bother with Sweden’s many unsolved murders and burglaries when one can make a full-time job of combating urination?

It’s hard to comprehend, but a new poll conducted by the University of Haifa suggests some 40.5 per cent of Israeli Arabs believe the Holocaust never occurred.

Here it is, the full list of Jewish superheroes.

European mainstream media is strongly biased against Israel. The everyday situation of Israeli Jews is rarely mentioned in the war reports seen on television. That is why I’m so happy to link to this truly fair and balanced programme from Norwegian television. It’s been a very long time since I saw a Middle East report not depicturing Jews as the evil racists who kill the good-hearted Palestinians.

The Russian authorities that refused gay activists the permission to march for human rights in Moscow tonight have approved a march organized by homophobic groups. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov says gays demanding human rights are “satanic”, but he has no problem with people advocating genocide in the streets.

Unfortunately, I think we can expect violent clashes later tonight. The fascists and the police both love to beat up gay people—and tonight belong to the people with the least respect for civil rights and human dignity.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, says atheists are not fully human, as they do not seek God’s transcendence. How very mediaeval of him.

(Via the Freethinker.)

The time has come to wage a full-scale war on the war on drugs.

Cartoon strip by Yaakov Kirschen.

• Finland is about to legalize circumcision of newborn boys. It is a good thing that Jews and Muslims no longer have to hide their pride.
• Gil Kerlikowske, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, calls for an end to the war on drugs. “We're not at war with people in this country,” he says. Good for him. I love brave politicians!
• Archaeologists have found new artful interpretations of ancient erotica. Turns out people had filthy sex long before cable television and the Internet.
• The Swedish Parliament has voted in favour of a bill allowing longer prison sentences for murder, kidnapping, arson, and other severe crimes. In a country where cannabis smugglers have to spend more time behind bars than baby killers, this is a good thing.

Media Matters has put together a compilation of homophobic statements made by conservative media personalities in the past week. It is astonishing that so many conservatives cannot tell humans from animals, adults from children, and monogamy from polygamy. It really says more about the conservatives than of the gay people they intend to smear.

(Via Towleroad.)

“Swedish art student Anna Odell has been charged by prosecutors in Stockholm for a faked suicide attempt,” The Local writes. “Odell’s alleged crimes took place on January 21st of this year when she was apprehended by police on Stockholm’s Liljeholm bridge following what looked like an attempt to commit suicide. She was then taken to the psychiatric ward at St. Göran’s Hospital for treatment, only revealing the following day that the whole episode had been faked as a part of her final art exam at Konstfack.”

In this case, I think a heavy fine could be considered a contribution to the arts.

After lawmakers in New Hampshire and Maine voted in favour of reform earlier today, Rhode Island is the only state in New England not to have legalized same-sex marriage.

Rumour has it that two openly lesbian women are among the candidates Barack Obama is considering most seriously for the Supreme Court vacancy that Justice David Souter’s resignation creates. In the best of worlds, a judge’s sexual orientation would not matter, but in our world it does. I am quite certain that the issue of marriage equality will one day be set by the Supreme Court, as it was when the court overruled the ban on interracial marriage in the 1970s.

I second the criticism. British Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s decision to ditch the centre-right block in the European Parliament is only a populist move that will hurt the issues he cares about. Europe’s mainstream conservative movement needs more free-marketers that are vocal. To isolate the British conservatives will only benefit those who consider corporatism and state control core conservative values.

Wanda Sykes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “I think Rush Limbaugh was the twentieth hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight.”

I think she might be right—on the Oxycontin part at least.

A document written in ancient Hebrew script—characteristic of the Second Temple period—was about to be sold on the black market when Israeli police intervened. “The document mentions various other people and places, and contains a clue to the date when it was written by way of the line ‘Year 4 to the destruction of Israel’,” Forward’s Nathan Jeffay writes. “This indicates it is either from 74 C.E., four years after Jerusalem was destroyed, or 139 C.E., four years after Judah was devastated at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.”

Fascinating.

John Gechter, also known as Vincent DeSalvo, says he may sue his school over its decision to suspend him for a year for appearing in a gay porn video. A naked man on the Cross is fine, a naked man on the Internet is not.

Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has an article about “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Read more in my previous entry.

The United States Army has fired Lieutenant Dan Choi for being openly gay despite its desperate need for his expertise. Choi is fluent in Arabic and something of an expert on the Middle East. As such, he possesses knowledge vital to the war against terrorism. Still, he is being dismissed for publicly revealing his homosexuality. Apparently, keeping the army a gay-free zone is more important than fighting al-Qaeda. An odd priority.

Eugene Volokh has more.

Update: Rush Holt:

Choi is an Arabic linguist—exactly the kind of critically-skilled soldier and leader his infantry platoon needs if they deploy to a country in which Arabic is the common language. Bluntly stated, his dismissal from the military—and the dismissal of other gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) servicemembers—will put lives at risk.

Our national security is heavily dependent on translators, specialists, and interpreters within the intelligence community, the diplomatic corps, and the military. Prior to September 11, 2001 our intelligence community was at only 30 percent readiness in languages critical to national security. The government revealed after the 9/11 attacks that it had a 123,000-hour backlog of Arabic language recordings waiting to be analyzed. The last thing we should be doing is telling Arabic linguists in the military that they are not needed.

Update: Andrew Sullivan has a video clip.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Facebook is allowing hundreds of hate groups, with tens of thousands of members, to target Israel via its Web site.

It is difficult to know exactly how many of these groups exist, as they can have many different names. There are more than 150 groups whose names are variations of “I hate Israel” and “We hate Israel,” and over 70 groups named “f--- Israel,” among others.

The largest of these groups, “How Many People Hate Israel?” has more than 68,000 members.

These groups, in their descriptions and posts, call for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews, advocate violence and deny the Holocaust (or else ask why Hitler did not finish his work).

Khandra al-Mubarak has founded the first ever beauty contest in Saudi Arabia. But it’s not the usual physical beauty the jurors will vote on. No, they will cast their votes on the woman who is the most committed to Islamic morals.

This is silly even by Sean Hannity’s standard, but I can’t stop myself from posting a link to it.

A new Swedish study suggests men who are obese as teenagers are far less likely to get married later in life. It is believed that the young men are stigmatized and therefore find it hard to socialize with women. These problems follow the men as they grow older.

I think this is correct. People are shallow and judge others by appearance. I am a big man myself, and I know people see me as a fat man. I gained a lot of weight when I stopped smoking fifteen years ago. One thing that I find odd about being big is that people somehow think it is OK to comment on it. When I smoked twenty cigarettes a day, no one ever suggested I had a weak character, but now it seems OK to say things like that.

So yes, people are shallow and mean. And it makes perfect sense to assume that stigmatization makes overweight men uncertain about how to win a woman’s heart. The sad thing is that nothing creates an excuse for excessive eating as much as undesired loneliness.

Olivier Roy:

When Pim Fortuyn in Holland decided to lead a campaign against the influence of Islam, it was not in defence of the traditional values of Christianity and Europe, but, on the contrary, in defence of the values of sexual freedom (defence of homosexuals). The Moroccan Imam, whose preaching on Dutch television had shocked Pim Fortuyn, adopted a conservative stance that could have been a Christian one (homosexuals are sick and in need of treatment rather than being acknowledged as a minority with rights). On subjects like family, sexual freedom, homosexuality, or abortion, religious Muslims in Europe side with conservative Christians. There is a clash of values, but it does not oppose East and West, the Orient and the Occident, or Islam and Christianity. The debate is an internal debate in Europe, questioning Europe’s values and identity.

I have had discussions with a number of people who refuse to acknowledge that Pim Fortuyn, Bruce Bawer, and other gay men like them develop Islamophobic ideas for a reason. It has nothing—or at least very little—to do with Muslims per se; instead, it is a genuine and legitimate fear of a comeback for widespread religious oppression in Europe. It is a fact that every gay man’s life depends on the fight against orthodox religion being successful—in politics as well as theology. History has taught gay men that we are among the first to be attacked when religion becomes intolerant and repressive. That’s why the rise of Islamism is so scary.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Maine today after the state governor signed it into law.

London police use their anti-terrorism powers to stop and search someone every three minutes!

“A Swedish couple from Åre in northern Sweden have taken their fight to name their son Q to the Supreme Administrative Court,” The Local reports.

If I had a son, I’d like to name him #1.

Centre Party leader Maud Olofsson says Swedish labour laws are outdated and in desperate need of reform. She’s absolutely right. Liberalization is long overdue. Too bad the two major parties—including my own Moderate Party—don’t have the courage to address this issue.

[Green = marriage; Yellow = needs Governor signature]

Timothy Kincaid’s map shows how—in some places—things are slowly progressing in the right direction. It’s a good thing to remind ourselves that the situation for gay people is not always grim, despite the bad news of organized homophobia and cruelty in Africa, Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere.

This video is brilliant.

The body of a gay man has been dug up from a Muslim cemetery in Senegal:

The man, in his 30s, was first buried on Saturday before residents of the western town of Thies dug up his body and left it near his grave, police say.

His family then reburied him, but he was once more exhumed by people who did not want him buried there. His body was dumped outside the family house.

Senegal outlaws homosexual acts but there is a tradition of effeminate men.

A police officer told the AFP news agency that the body was eventually buried away from the cemetery.

The state-owned Le Soleil newspaper reports that it was buried within the grounds of the family home.

“Goor-jiggen” (men-women) dress up as women, socialise with females and have long been tolerated in Senegal, a majority Muslim country. However, attitudes seem to be changing.

The AFP news agency reports that local imams, as well as some newspapers and radio stations, have denounced homosexuals after an appeals court last month.

Amnesty International and the United Nations urge Sweden to do much more to clamp down on rapists. Something must be done about the disparity between high incidence of rape and its low conviction rate. An Amnesty report blames “deeply rooted patriarchal gender norms” of Swedish family life and sexual relationships. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know that accusations like these are chokingly insulting to a country that considers itself a role model of gender equality.

A T-shirt motif I found here.

A suitable toy to cuddle with while swine flu spreads.

From here.

Thank God for global warming!

More Kim Wilde. A song with a message. Well, sort of.

British Midland Airways has removed Israel from its map. Instead, they put “Palestine” in its place, a nation that never existed in its own right.

Perhaps the airline is adjusting to a world where Ahmadinejad has set his plans in motion.

For the first time since Christianity came to Sweden, same-sex couples can get legally married. I wrote about the first couple to tie the knot yesterday, but here is an article in English for my international readers (and there are many of you).

I had a quick chat with God after the Sabbath meal in my synagogue yesterday, and He was very pleased about the development. The order is restored. The blessing of same-sex love introduced in Genesis 32 is liberated from heteronormative theology.

Now I’m off to the pub for some beer with friends.

Seeing Kim Wilde perform her hit song “Cambodia” brings back memories. It was 1982, I was ten, and I loved this song.

The funny thing about Joseph Farah’s ultra-conservative petition is that it could have been written by a Swedish communist. Change “United Nation” to “European Union”, “Americans” to “comrades” and “United States” to “Sweden” and a Swedish communist could be excused for thinking it was written by some prominent party official.

Personally, I think national independence is an illusion in this time and age. What I do believe, however, is that the political extremes are very similar. That is why the far right and the far left share the same worldview—everything is black or white, good or bad, friendly or hostile, domestic or foreign.

We have had civil unions for many years, but yesterday was the first day gay men and women could get truly married. The very fist couple to take advantage of the new marriage law was Alf Karlsson and Johan Lundqvist from Uppsala.

Update: QX has more.

Swedish gay-rights activist Tor Billgren writes an excellent article about professional homophobe Åke Green and his campaign against civil rights in Ethiopia. Read it here.

A 38-year-old “solitary man” attacked a Queen’s Day parade in Apeldoorn yesterday. Six people died, including the attacker himself.

This is good news:

At its low, in 2004, just 32 percent of Americans favored gay marriage, with 62 percent opposed. Now 49 percent support it versus 46 percent opposed—the first time in ABC/Post polls that supporters have outnumbered opponents.

More than half, moreover—53 percent—say gay marriages held legally in another state should be recognized as legal in their states.

The surprise is that the shift has occurred across ideological groups. While conservatives are least apt to favor gay marriage, they’ve gone from 10 percent support in 2004 to 19 percent in 2006 and 30 percent now—overall a 20-point, threefold increase, alongside a 13-point gain among liberals and 14 points among moderates.

A change on the White House website suggests this might be the case.

It’s almost too much to comprehend, but a new survey by the Pew Research Centre suggests more than half of Americans who attend Christian services at least once a week think the use of torture against suspected terrorists is justified.