01:44 - SERIAL EXAGGERATOR:  Michael Moore often pretends to be censored by big media, and recently he claimed that Bill O’Reilly and Jay Leno have banned him from their shows. In Los Angeles Times, Patrick Goldstein shows that this is far from the truth. Goldstein happens to be a political friend of Moore, but his conclusion is that Moore seems like a ”serial exaggerator”, and that ”the problem with Moore is that if you judge him as a documentary filmmaker, his work is undermined by too many shaded facts and slippery conclusions”.

19:57 - HAYEK AND GAY MARRIAGE:  One of the last blatant forms of discrimination in the Western world is the prohibition against gay marriage. A discriminatory ghost from prejustices’ past – just as it was illegal for blacks to marry whites in some parts of America not long ago. The only real argument that I have heard against gay marriage (no, God’s views doesn’t count, I think he can take care of the universe without the help from statist politicians) is that marriage is an ancient and important institution, and we shouldn’t tinker with such traditions. The same of course could be said in favour of the prohibition against inter-racial marriage. But there is some vague Hayekian plausibility to this argument – we shouldn’t try to re-arrange the world too much, too fast. But in an excellent article in Reason, Jonathan Rauch shows why Hayek would not agree.

The only thing I would add is that some observers make Hayek more conservative than he is, because they tend to think of all traditions as equally worthy of a defence from a spontaneous order-point of view (sometimes Hayek made the same mistake). A rational Hayekian does not agree – some institutions and traditions stand in the way of new piecemal experiments, and new spontaneous developments which can show us what works and what doesn’t (for example specific voluntary relationships between adults). Traditions like that should be thrown out before they get too old.

16:49 - TO GIVE YOU TIME TO READ SOMETHING ELSE:  Why waste your time reading Bill Clinton’s memoirs when Slate has made a condensed version? Here are some great excerpts:

Clinton´s Life Not Lived:

Page 172: "I had fantasized from time to time about being a doorman at New York´s Plaza Hotel, at the south end of Central Park. Plaza doormen had nice uniforms and met interesting people from all over the world. I imagined garnering large tips from guests who thought that, despite my strange southern accent, I made good conversation.

On the 1992 Presidential Campaign:

Page 368: In 1991, Roger Porter calls from the Bush White House to say that if Clinton decides to run, the Bush campaign will try to destroy him personally. "We´ll spend whatever we have to spend to get whoever we have to get to say whatever they have to say to take you out. And we´ll do it early."

On "I Didn´t Inhale":

Page 405: "Maybe I thought I was being funny."

Clinton´s Unlikely Sources of Inspiration and Guidance:

Page 343: Chevy Chase.

Page 347: Tina Turner.

Page 410: Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn.

16:21 - SINCE MANY ASK:  No, I am not going to the small city of Norberg, to beat the record in the category how many people with the same name as the city are there at the same time (for the Guinness Book of Records). I don’t think it’s the role of politicians to use our money to put cities on the map. This project is actually financed by EU subsidies ("Objective 2" money). And the politicians still don’t understand why the voters think that EU is silly…

09:51 - STATSIDEOLOGINS BLINDA FLÄCK:  En ung invandrad kvinna vittnar mot sin släkt i ett känsligt hedersrelaterat brott, men får inget beskydd av svensk polis, och mördas under en resa till det gamla hemlandet i Asien. Hur kan svensk polis göra en sådan tabbe? Det är faktiskt inte konstigt, med tanke på de besked som kommer från högsta ort. Det finns nämligen inget sådant som hedersmord, faktum är att det inte ens finns några kulturskillnader i världen, det har integrationsminister Mona Sahlins nye gunstling, den nye integrationsutredaren Masoud Kamali slagit fast. Allt handlar om klasskillnader och ”strukturell rasism”. Som jag förstår den nya statsideologin kan det alltså inte ha funnits någon specifik hotbild mot kvinnan om det inte rörde sig om ekonomiska maktrelationer.

16:11 - REQUIRED READING:  Christopher Hitchens is one of the world’s best left-wing journalists – independent, intellectually honest and always well prepared. Now he has written the most insightful and devastating critique of Michael Moore and his distortions that I have ever read. His conclusion is that “To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability.” As for Moore’s statement that he won’t appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning, and that he will take critics to court, Hitchens replies:

”I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let´s redo Telluride [where they once debated]. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let´s see what you´re made of.”

If Moore dares to accept the challenge, I will eat my hat.

15:49 - SYSTEMBOJKOTT:  Nu är det lätt att bojkotta systemet. Det finns ju privata alternativ.

09:32 - MOORE´S NEW TACTIC:  Interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC News, Michael Moore has given us a first taste of his new “war room" tactic, supposed to counter “lies” about his film with instant “facts”. Let’s see how he does this by looking at this excerpt about the Saudi flights:

STEPHANOPOULOS: [I]t says here in the 9/11 commission report that these flights didn´t take off until after the airspace reopened. That is true, correct?

MOORE: No, they were on charter flights. Once the airspace opened for commercial flights, they hadn´t opened for the charter flights. And so the charter flights that picked up the bin Ladens around the country, that went to the various cities — this was all assisted by the White House, which really should be the real focus of this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but Richard Clarke, who´s probably at the top of the White House enemy list, says that it was his decision, he takes responsibility for it. He doesn´t think it was a mistake.

MOORE: Right. And he said that he´s made mistakes, and he apologized to the 9/11 families for those mistakes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that wasn´t one of the mistakes.

MOORE: Well, I happen to think it was a mistake.

In other words, when confronted, Moore changes his old allegation, from having been that this happened before commercial air space opened, to saying that this was among the first chartered flights that were allowed. When confronted with the fact that the former White House terrorist expert Richard Clarke took responsibility for the decision, Moore answers that Clarke has acknowledged mistakes, and pretends that this was one of those mistakes, which it wasn’t. But Stephanopoulos knows this and comes back again. Then Moore simply replies that he thinks it was a mistake personally! So that is what is left of Moore´s huge conspiracy theory and accusations of systematic lies, when it meets research and tough questions – I think it was a mistake.

This is a tactic of replying out of context, hoping that your journalist does not have specific information about the case, so that he is unable to see when you evade the question and talk about something else. Unfortunately for Mr Moore, Stephanopoulos is too knowledgeable to fall for the trick. In that case, the only way out is to switch to another subject immediately. (Another example is here when Moore lies about what a Congressman Kennedy has told him in an interview, assuming that Stephanopoulos won´t check his story against the transcript, which he does here.) But just wait and see, Moore’s tactic will work against many other less knowledgeable journalists in the months ahead.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Moore has another new defence against accusations of inaccuracies? His first one was “How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?”. His second one was “I don´t want to get lost in the forest because of a single tree”. His new one is:

“Well, it´s an op-ed piece. It´s my opinion about the last four years of the Bush administration. And that´s what I call it. I´m not trying to pretend that this is some sort of, you know, fair and balanced work of journalism […] Did I mention it´s a comedy too?”

23:41 - MR COUNTERBALANCE:  Say you are Swedish and get your news on USA, Iraq and foreign policy generally from the Swedish media - often uninformed, always anti-American. What do you do if you want some balance, to get the facts they never report, to be able to judge for yourselves? You could follow a good American newspaper like Washington Post or Wall Street Journal. But what if you don´t have the time? In that case, you should read Dick Erixon´s blog on a regular basis. I don´t always share his hawkish perspectives, but he thinks for himself, and is critical, witty and actually interested in the rest of the world. Traits you rarely find in the Swedish media. Recently he has written about how Swedish journalists systematically refuse to report on the cruelty of Saudi and Iraqi terrorists - for example the beheading of a Swede in Khobar.

17:26 - THE FINAL FRONTIER:  I just saw history being made. The television just brought me the pictures of the succesful landing of the first privately funded and organised human spaceflight, SpaceShipOne. This is fantastic. Now we know that space flight is possible without a massive bureaucarcy forcing people to pay for it. And with succesful space entrepreneurs, at last we will see a commercial space race to make space accesible to people in general. I for one hope to celebrate my 50th birthday in orbit.

16:55 - MOORE MEETS CRITICS WITH FORCE:  Michael Moore is so worried about criticism of his film Fahrenheit 911 that he has created a “war room” to offer instant responses to attacks on the film. Moore has hired Chris Lehane - according to the New York Times a “Democratic Party strategist known as a master of the black art of ‘oppo,’ or opposition research, used to discredit detractors” - and a team of fact-checkers, led by two men from the magazine New Yorker. And if people persist in criticising the film, “he has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation”. "Any attempts to libel me will be met by force", he added.

This says it all. When I work – for example when I wrote my book In Defence of Global Capitalism, and made my documentary Globalisation is Good – I spent a lot of time doing research before I produced them. Afterwards, when people criticised me, I presented my case and my facts to discuss the issues, not my opponents. Michael Moore does things the other way around. First he makes the film. When he is criticised for glaring inaccuracies, he starts doing some research to defend his case. And he tries to dig up dirt on his opponents, and if that doesn’t succeed in discrediting them, he threatens to sue those of us who persist in criticising him!

Oh, did I forget to mention that Moore has a new defence against accusations of inaccuracies? His old one was “How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?”. His new one is “I don´t want to get lost in the forest because of a single tree”.

14:32 - NOTHING LIKE 1787:  Back from a trip to Gotland, I see that the EU leaders agreed on a constitution. And we should all be grateful for Tony Blair’s staunch defence of the British vetoes. Otherwise we would soon see harmonisation of taxes and other domestic policies. I am glad at least one European has the guts to rebuke president Chirac. But the major points of this constitution is that no power is transferred back to countries or individuals (it’s the other way around); that it will be easier to make new decisions despite resistance from a big minority; and the fact that it includes a bill of rights, which calls almost every aspect of the welfare state a “right” (labour market regulations, social security, and so on). In other words, the EU constitution talks about human rights to things that the EU is not entitled to legislate about. A classical way of increasing EU power silently, step-by-step, through the back door. Is there nothing good to be said about this constitution? Oh yes: It will probably not be implemented, due to the voters’ resistance at the polls.

11:46 - MORE TRUE STORIES:  Do you want another example that socialism and rationing does not create the world´s best health care system? Hospitals in Malmö, Sweden´s third city, has started hiring security guards, to deal with patients who turn aggressive and violent when they don´t get help or treatement.

11:12 - SOCIALISM KILLS:  Here is another true story about socialised health care in Sweden: Jack gets a brain tumour. He is being sent around several different institutions, where he sits and waits for hours. He gets no diagnosis, and is simply told to wait. After two months he finally gets the diagnosis. It´s a big tumour, too difficult to remove surgically. Even though this is a highest priority case, and even though Jack has paid taxes all his life to get health care when he needs it, his waiting period for radiation treatment is more than a month. “Unacceptable, but not much to do about it”, the doctor concludes.

Jack begins to look for alternatives abroad, and is warned by his doctor about “unserious” foreign alternatives. But four days later, and by borrowing 250 000 SEK ($33 000), he gets surgery in a German hospital. It is successful. And it turns out that Jack wouldn’t have survived another month if it hadn’t been for the surgery.

(Here is another true story about Swedish health care.)

09:36 - SARA LIDMAN:  Just a week ago, many Swedish left-wing intellectuals and journalists said that it was awful to see everybody paying tribute to Ronald Reagan. Today they all embrace everything ever done by the Swedish author Sara Lidman, who just died. The difference of course, was that Lidman hated the US, liberalism and the free market. Since you will be hearing that she was full of love and solidarity for the whole mankind over the next few days, it´s worth mentioning that Sara Lidman adored the Vietnamese dictator Ho Chi Minh, whose communist regime murdered more than one million Vietamese (unrelated to the war). She found harsher words for western businessmen, whom she saw as a "junta", intent on killing the third world. She refused to protest against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the company of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan because they "help the right", but she had no problem with protesting against the American invasion of Afghanistan in the company of dogmatic communists.

08:35 - CANDID CANDIDATE:  Since the EU leaders cannot agree on a new head of the European Commission, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, is once again mentioned as a compromise candidate. Why not? He understands the EU system better than most, and he is honest about it. Just listen to his words to Der Spiegel 1999:

”We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don’t understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.”

23:34 - PERCEPTIONS:  I just got a nice e-mail from a reader, saying that he enjoyed what I am doing - and he also said with sympathy that I must be a minority in Sweden with my pro-capitalist message. The funny thing was that this was a reader in China! Apparently not a place where pro-capitalist views are in a minority any more.

By the way, just to set the record straight: I often complain about Swedish policies, and taxes and government spending here are internationally unique. But at the same time it must be said that we have less regulation and more open markets than in most other countries. In the Index of Economic Freedom, Sweden is the 12th economically freest country on earth, in the Economic Freedom of the World, Sweden is the 26th. In other words: Astonishingly, about 180-190 countries are even less capitalist than Sweden. You can begin to worry now.

21:04 - MAKE IT SO!:  Did you think that Star Trek was just fiction and no science? Think again. According to the journal Nature, two independent research teams have now performed successful teleportation. It is not atoms as such that are teleported, it is the properties of one particle that has been teleported to another particle in milliseconds - at the push of a button - without any physical link. Perhaps we will never teleport individuals (would you like to disappear and see your properties transported to other atoms?), but experts tell the BBC that ”This is a milestone”, which will make new ultra-fast computers with quantum wiring possible. And in four days, the first commercial manned flight beyond the atmosphere is taking place. That is a first step toward space-tourism that will make space open to everyone. “Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning.”

16:13 - SVT VILLE STOPPA JOSEFSSONKRITIK:  Kommer ni ihåg att jag tipsade om Jasenko Selimovics intervju med doku-propagandisten Janne Josefsson? Eftersom intervjun verkligen fick Josefsson ur balans är det föga förvånande att det nu visar sig att SVT:s samhällsredaktion i Göteborg ville stoppa sändningen av programmet. Det är maktens arrogans.

23:18 - AGE OF COERCION:  ”Monibiot believes in a better world". So says the headline to an interview with this British anti-capitalist in Svenska Dagbladet today. This is because George Monbiot proposes a ”global democracy” in his new book, ”The Age of Consent” (now in Swedish), by which he means a world government, where Chinese and Indian voters can rule our lives if they chose, and where it is impossible for the individual to make exit to any other type of system.

”Monbiot believes in a better world”. When did you last read such a statement about a free-marketeer like Milton Friedman or Thomas Sowell? Probably never. And the difference is that they really do believe in a better world for all, Monbiot doesn’t. He thinks the world is a zero-sum game. He believes in a better world for developing countries, but that this has to mean that ”I will get it worse, and England will definitely get it worse”. I wonder who had to get it worse from the start, for us to get from stone age to silicon age. Whom did we take all these cars and mobile phones from?

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