pods.swedesforobama.com

must read december: death of saddam bush doesn't care about blair kid stands up to fundamentalist teacher '08 odds swede in space step away from the bible feds rate travelers

- - 2006-12-31 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Terror, the draft and Jesus

For 25% of the US population 2007 will be a bad year.

"Poll: Americans see gloom, doom in 2007" Yahoo (AP)

Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of another terrorist attack next year

Slightly more than one-third, or 35 percent, of Americans predict the military draft will be reinstated.

One in four, 25 percent, anticipates the second coming of Jesus Christ.

- - 2006-12-30 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Same people who bitched when Saddam killed and tortured his own people are bitching again. Damn you Amnesty International for not flip-flopping on this one.

"Amnesty International "deplores" Saddam's execution" Raw Story

"We oppose the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is especially abhorrent when this most extreme penalty is imposed after an unfair trial," Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme, said in a statement.

"Juan Cole - Saddam: The death of a dictator" Salon.com

The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare.

Former "Best Friend Forever" Tony Blair pretends nothing happened.

"PM silent on death of Saddam Hussein" The Telegraph

The Prime Minister was criticised last night for staying silent on the death of Saddam Hussein despite having played such a leading role in the downfall of the former Iraqi president.

- - 2006-12-20 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Melting Pot" in the making

The latest immigration stats from SCB show that Sweden this year have taken in more immigrants than ever before (at least since first stats - 1875).

About 100.000 new immigrants in 2006, most of those came from Iraq (about 10.000) and Poland (6.500). The Swedish population come 2007 will be 9.100.000.

According to Numbersusa.com, who exist solely to stop the "overpopulation" of the US (hmmm), the United States have about 1.000.000 immigrants every year.

- - 2006-12-19 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A friend in need is a friend indeed

Not really best friends forever

Tony Blair sold out British foreign policy to help George W. Bush and he got nothing back from his great friend.
Poor Tony now has to start over and kiss French and German ass.

"Blair has failed to influence U.S.: report" Reuters

Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy has failed because of his inability to influence Washington and his successor must carve out a leading role for Britain within Europe instead, a report said on Tuesday.

- - 2006-12-19 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Napoleon Ellis Bush

Word on the street is that Neb Bush won't make a run for the White House in '08.

- - 2006-12-18 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The giant Christmas Goat (Yule Goat) in Gavle makes it to the NY Times.

"The Lede: Is That a Bow on the Christmas Goat, or a Bullseye?" NY Times

In keeping with the holiday spirit, a good-news story (so far, at least) from Gävle, Sweden, where the town’s giant Christmas goat (a 40-year tradition) survived its first attack by arsonists (also a 40-year tradition) and remains standing today in Castle Square.

Guess an equivalent tradition of burning down the giant goat would be someone cutting down the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center every year.
...except the person who did that would go to prison.

Watch the web cam and see if the goat is still there.

Find out more about the Swedish (Scandinavian) "Jul" ("Yule") where that goat and the "tomte" (sorta like Santa) plays a big part.

Tried to find the clip of Will Ferrell talking to Jay Leno about when he played "tomten" on christmas (Ferrell is married to a Swede), but no luck.

- - 2006-12-18 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Our Hero!!

Matthew LaClair questions fundamentalist teacher

"Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate on Rights" NY Times

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

Since we know they love to report this kinda thing we have to assume that Limbaugh, hannity&COLMES, O'Reilly and the Drudge Report will pick up this story about a boy standing up against his activist teacher.

Maybe we should nominate Matthew LaClair for the presidential Medal of Freedom... oh, look at that, we just did.

- - 2006-12-16 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Online Betting Odds

The new odds are in for who will be the next president (from bet365 and betfair). Compared to the old ones from November we note a few things.
Overall the field is being divided into serious bids and "no chance" bids. Clinton, Edwards, Gore and Obama for the Dems and McCain, Romney and Giuliani for the Cons are looking like they have a shot. Obama moves from 7.5 to 5.5 (yaaay!). George Allen goes from 12 to 30 (why is he still on this list?) and lets not even get into John Kerry.

DEMS
Hillary Clinton 2.10
Al Gore 4.75
John Edwards 5.50
Barack Obama 5.50
Evan Bayh 15.00
Bill Richardson 15.00
Tom Vilsack 15.00
John Kerry 25.00
Russ Feingold 25.00

CONS
John McCain 2.20
Mitt Romney 3.75
Rudy Giuliani 4.50
Mike Huckabee 10.00
Condoleeza Rice 15.00
Sam Brownback 18.00
Chuck Hagel 18.00
Jeb Bush 25.00
George Pataki 25.00
George Allen 30.00

- - 2006-12-14 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Swede of the day

Hans "Dolph" Lundgren

IMDB.com - "After graduating high school, Dolph spent considerable time studying in the United States and abroad on various academic scholarships. He attended Washington State University and Clemson University in South Carolina. In 1982, he received a scholarship to complete his Masters degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney, Australia and in 1983 was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, one of the world's top engineering schools."

...oh, and he was Drago in Rocky 4

"Hasse" kicking it at the premeire of Rocky 18

We really love Dolph. He's like Chuck Norris, but not so 2002.

- - 2006-12-13 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Picture of the week

Al Ghasara, of Bahrain, win the 200m at the Asian Games wearing a NIKE Hijab.

- - 2006-12-13 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Democracy in the Middle East

"You get the cool purple finger"

- - 2006-12-12 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

O'Reilly "Dakota Fanning is evil"

A band makes a promo video for YouTube featuring a little girl talking about Bill O'Reilly. He, of course, doesn't like it one bit and goes on a rampage about something else (same old, same old).

"O'Reilly demands script approval for all young actors" SJIHBO

During his lead-in, Bill talked about child
abuse and then cherry-picked a segment of the video talking about religion. Of course, Bill never mentioned that he himself was a subject of the video. We all know that this had little to do with "child protection" and more to do with his ego.

- - 2006-12-11 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Marriage - smarriage

"Time gave Dobson a platform to misrepresent -- again -- science on same-sex parenting" Media Matters

"Traditional marriage is God's design for the family and is rooted in biblical truth."

Really? What say you angry old greek guy?

"Hey, the only reason we sent marriage your way was so you could control the bitches"

- - 2006-12-11 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Nobel 2006

Winners with link to interview and their lecture Nobelprize.org

Old footage of John Steinbeck receiving the award and Toni Morrison almost being interviewed

There's also an Internet TV channel with interviews with old winners and much more.

- - 2006-12-10 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Swede and kick ass
liberal song in space

In the middle of the night (02:47 CET) Christer Fuglesang became the first Swede to go into space. Yeeey!!

"Discovery crew to help fix space station" Yahoo

Fugelsang carried some unusual food into orbit: several cans of moose sausage and moose pate.

Apparently the crew of the Discovery listened to Blur "Song 2" during lift off.

- - 2006-12-08 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Irony"

FOX News, home of the original Colbert, reports that the word of the year is "truthiness".

"Truthiness Is Named Word of the Year" FOX News

"Though I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me," he (Colbert) said in an e-mail to The Associated Press
...
Colbert first uttered "truthiness" during an October 2005 broadcast of "The Colbert Report," his parody of combative, conservative talk shows.

- - 2006-12-07 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Watch Banksy place his Guantanamo prisoner at Disneyland Video

- - 2006-12-07 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

No faith just hate

"Mixed reaction to Cheney's daughter's pregnancy" CNN

Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the pregnancy as unwise.
"Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea," Earll said. "Love can't replace a mother and a father."

Maybe Mary should move to Sweden, where she can be with other non-married parents (and still have legal rights).
...oh, and live in the best country in the world for a mother and a child.

"Mothers Index" CNN

"Damn you SP's and your non-hating family values"

UPDATE: The same people who bitched and moaned about Kerry talking about Mary Cheney in 2004 now bitching and moaning about Mary Cheney MM

- - 2006-12-06 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"American Orthodox"

Stephen Colbert teaches those new anti-poverty, pro-environment evangelicals a lesson.

- - 2006-12-05 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

One of these two is an out of touch, backstabbing, flipflopper who will do anything to be president.

To bad the lazy, lazy M$M confuse who it is.

"In "Eight for '08" series, Chris Matthews Show followed McCain gush-fest by bashing Hillary Clinton" Media Matters

Two weeks after gushing over John McCain's likely presidential bid, the host and panelists on The Chris Matthews Show concluded that some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's greatest perceived strengths as a presidential candidate were really weaknesses.

Click to listen to the Straight Talk Express leaving the station for good.

- - 2006-12-05 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

War on Terror™ fallout

oh, drama

Mohammed Alzery, one of the Egyptian men handed over by the Swedish Secret Police in 2001 to the CIA, is now suing the Swedish government.
Alzery was brought by the CIA to Egypt where he was imprisoned and tortured. He was later released and is now living in Egypt under the "supervision" of the Egyptian government.

The other man handed over to Egypt, Ahmed Agiza, was not convicted of terrorism but is in jail for being part of an "illegal group" (sorta why he wasn't living in human rights ~~retarded~~ challenged Egypt in the first place).

SVT.se (in Swedish)

- - 2006-12-04 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

New Rule

Don't talk about "the revolution" when you get re-elected with over 60% of the votes.

- - 2006-12-03 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

yo Nix, I got a great idea on how we
can bring freedom to South America

"Ex-Chilean dictator Pinochet suffers heart attack" CNN

Leftists have accused him of ordering the torture and death of thousands of leftists during his regime. But he had also been praised for having attracted foreign investment to the country.

....nice save there at the end.
Surely the 45.000 Swedish-Chileans living in "Region 14" agree.

- - 2006-12-02 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It's getting hot in herrre

50 degrees Fahrenheit in December in Stockholm, this after the warmest fall (sept-nov) ever recorded. Yeeey!!

"Yep, yeeey on you"

- - 2006-12-01 4 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Melting pot"

Right-wing nutjob (yes, "nutjob") will now try to pass new law that force everyone to join congress with one hand on the bible.

"Pundit Admits Forcing Congressman To Swear In With Bible ‘May Well Be’ Unconstitutional" ThinkProgress

“...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”

Thomas Jefferson is turning in his grave.

"I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"

....and no, that doesn't mean what Newt Gingrich wants you to think it means.

- - 2006-12-01 3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Swede (and Jesus) in Space

our favorite Jesus action figure

Christer Fuglesang is just days away from being the first Swede in space NASA

- - 2006-12-01 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We could be ~~heroes~~
terrorists just for one day

"Feds rate travelers for terrorism" Yahoo

The scores are assigned to people entering and leaving the United States after computers assess their travel records, including where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

Wonder what rate we will get when we go to DC over Christmas?

- Have called the US using "terrorist language". So what have you been up to lately, you bombmaker you

- Have sent e-mails to the US, also using language that could seem dangerous.

- Have been in the US many times over the last couple of years.

- Have taken pictures of possible terrorist targets (John Edwards Georgetown home)

Hmmm... Maybe we shouldn't go the states. Guantanamo is cold this time of the year.

- - 2006-12-01 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We're sorry but...

Sweden: 1
USA: 0

"Man Utd capture Larsson on loan" BBC

Meanwhile former wonderboy Freddy Adu is sent back to DC United. The choice to stay in the US and take the "NIKE-money" is looking more and more like a huge mistake.
But he's only... 17 years old (??), so a lot can still happen.