Sweden’s Most Notorious Cannibal To Marry Vampire Murderess
The world’s most evil matrimony? MSNBC writes:
Two infamous Swedish murderers, the “Skara Cannibal” and the “Vampire Woman,” hope to get married, according to Expressen, a Swedish newspaper. The couple met at their high-security psychiatric ward in eastern Sweden, the paper said, and flirted over Internet chat rooms.
Isakin Jonsson, known as the ”Skara Cannibal,” was convicted in March 2011 of killing of his girlfriend, Helle Christensen, a mother of five, Expressen said. After stabbing her to death and cutting off body parts, he ate some of them.
Gustafsson was convicted in 2010 of the stabbing death of a father of four in Stockholm, the paper said. She wrote chilling lyrics on her blog about killing people and posted pictures of herself dressed as a vampire with bloody lips.
File Sharing Is A Recognized Religion In Sweden
I kid you not! From the Hollywood Reporter:
Sweden has recognized file sharing as a religion, granting official church status to the country’s Missionary Church of Kopimism, which boasts some 3,000 members.
It might sound like an early April Fool’s joke but Kopimism has been around in Sweden since 2010, when it was founded by members of the Young Pirates, the youth movement of Sweden’s controversial Pirate Party.
The Kopimi (pronounced “copy me”) movement has tried twice before to get official recognition, but had been rejected. The Swedish government finally recognized the Church of Kopimism after if formalized its mode of prayer and meditation.
According to the group’s website, Kopimism sees information as holy and copying and file sharing as a sacred acts akin to prayer. The website has been unavailable since it broke the news of its religious status. A message urged those interested in joining to “come back in a couple of…
Pirate Party Rep. Becomes Youngest Ever Member Of European Parliament
TorrentFreak talks to Amelia Andersdotter of Sweden’s fantastic Pirate Party. If only they had a U.S. presence:
In a few weeks Amelia Andersdotter will be the second Pirate Party member to take a seat at the European Parliament in Brussels. The 24-year-old Swede was voted in more than two years ago, but due to bureaucratic quibbles her official appointment was delayed.
When elected Andersdotter was only 21, but the now 24-year-old will still be the youngest member to hold a seat in the current parliament.
For the remainder of her term as MEP, which end in 2014, Andersdotter will focus on issues like competition in the telecommunication area. “European approaches to competition law need to be changed, at least a bit. Better sector adaptation, for instance. The lack of real control over vertical integration creates the situation where telcos (or media enterprises) own everything from the backbone cables to the music streaming service –…
Mysterious Man Bursts Into Flames At Swedish Train Station
Photo: Matthew McPherson (CC)
Via the Herald Sun:
A man suffered severe burns after he seemingly burst into flames outside a Swedish railway station, the Goteborgs-Posten newspaper reported.
A streetcar driver returning from his break yesterday evening saw the man suddenly covered in fire while he was standing outside a vinyl record store at the station. After a while the man, believed to be in his early 40s, started to yell, but shocked passersby just stood and stared, the report said.
The streetcar driver then ran up, ripped his coat off and managed to put the fire out with the help of another man. An ambulance arrived within minutes and took the man to the hospital.
“All we know is that it is a man. We have no knowledge of his identity, his age, any motive or even the circumstances of the incident,” police officer Asa Andersson said. “He is sedated and will probably remain…
Swede Arrested After Attempting To Build Nuclear Reactor In His Kitchen
31-year-old Richard Handl tried to engage in nuclear fission at home using radioactive materials purchased on eBay. He blogged charmingly about his exploits via the site Richard’s Reactor before being detained by authorities. (At right is a “tiny nuclear meltdown” which occurred on his stove top.) The New York Times reports:
A Swedish man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen said Wednesday he was only doing it as a hobby.
Richard Handl told The Associated Press that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorized possession of nuclear material.
The 31-year-old Handl said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.
Only later did he realize it might not be legal…
Sweden Debuts Gender-Neutral Preschool
At best, a school model for the more-enlightened future, and at worst, an intriguing social experiment. Via Yahoo News:
At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.
From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.
Egalia doesn’t deny the biological differences between boys and girls — the dolls the children play with are anatomically correct. What matters is that children understand that their biological differences “don’t mean boys and girls have different interests and abilities.”
The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden’s efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward. Breaking down gender roles is…
United States Becomes Sweden’s Third-World Outsourcing Destination
“It’s ironic that IKEA looks on the U.S. and Danville the way that most people in the U.S. look at Mexico,” Street said.
When a large multinational corporation is looking to cut costs, what does it do? Send jobs overseas to a less modernized country — one where salaries are a fraction of those at home and the law provides few rights or protections for workers — and watch the profits roll in. We are speaking, of course, of Sweden’s IKEA, and Virginia, USA. Is this our economic future? Current reports:
Here we are, folks. Sweden’s third-world sweatshop. IKEA takes advantage of the destruction to our economy caused by outsourcing jobs by outsourcing their own jobs to the U.S. — and paying less than the workers in Sweden get ($8 in the U.S., $19 + better benefits in Sweden, for making the same products), about 50% of what the median income is in…
Julian Assange To Be Extradited To Sweden
Julian Assange. Photo: Espen Moe (CC)
Any bets on how long it takes the United States to persuade the Swedes to turn him over to American prosecutors?
Esther Addley and Alexandra Topping report on his extradition to Sweden for the Guardian:
The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange will appeal, his legal team has confirmed. If they lose he will be sent to Sweden in 10 days.
Delivering his ruling at a hearing at Belmarsh magistrates court in London, the chief magistrate, Howard Riddle, dismissed each of the defence’s arguments against Assange’s extradition.
Assange’s legal team had argued that the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny did not have the authority to issue a European arrest warrant. The magistrate ruled that she did possess this authority and the warrant was valid.
Ny’s credibility had been questioned by the defence team but Riddle said those doubts…
WikiRebels: The WikiLeaks Documentary (Video)
Could Swedish public service TV network SVT’s new documentary film about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have been released at a more timely moment? It’s bang up to date and for anyone intrigued by Assange and co., essential viewing. Thanks to tipster Ken V, who correctly describes the film as “thorough and very informative.”
Stockholm Terrorist Bombs May Have Been Allowed To Explode
Drottninggatan, Stockholm
Sweden’s English-language newspaper The Local is reporting what could perhaps be a False Flag-type of event intended to bolster fading public support for far-away wars in Muslim countries that no one wants to pay for any longer:
A Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten) employee warned an acquaintance to stay clear of an area in central Stockholm on Saturday where, several hours later, two explosions went off in what is being called a terrorist attack.
“If you can, avoid Drottninggatan today. A lot can happen there…just so you know,” the message said, according to the TT news agency.
Armed Forces spokesperson Jonas Svensson told TT on Sunday he was unaware of the message. “I haven’t heard about this at all. Now I’m going to check out the information,” he told TT when confronted with the news. Later the Swedish military said it was now “preparing how the issue will be dealt with”.
“The Swedish Armed Forces…
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange In Jail For Failure To Use Condom
I can’t imagine the late Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson would have dared have Lisbeth Salander kick a hornet’s nest as hard as Julian Assange has with his death-defying (so far) revelations of the U.S. government’s foreign “diplomacy.” Neither can I imagine Larsson coming up with such a ridiculous plot element as Assange’s arrest for failure to use a condom. This is definitely in the “truth is stranger than fiction” category, and it has captured the world’s attention just as The Millennium Trilogy did. The latest from the Guardian, which seems to have become the leading authority on all things WikiLeaks:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was today refused bail and remanded in custody until 14 December over claims he committed sex offences in Sweden.
Assange told City of Westminster magistrates court today that he intended to fight his extradition, setting up what could be a long legal battle.
The 39-year-old Australian turned himself in to…
Non-Surprise: Assange’s Accuser Linked To CIA
Anna Ardin
An interesting ‘coincidence’ in the still unfolding honey pot trap that has ensnared Julian Assange. From Kirk Murphy at Firedoglake.com:
Yesterday Alexander Cockburn reminded us of the news Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett broke at Counterpunch in September. Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he was involved in blowing up.
Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba. From Oslo, Professor Michael Seltzer points out that this periodical is the product of a well-financed anti-Castro organization in Sweden. He further notes…
Internet Savvy Swedes Launch ‘Angry Note 2.0′
Annoying or unruly neighbors? Instead of leaving angry post-its or banging on the walls when the music gets too loud, a group of Swedish apartments use their wireless internet names to speak for them. While this may take away from daily interaction with “angry neighbors,” it also takes away most other necessart interaction amongst neighbors. This would not fly in Mr. Rogers neighborhood. The Local from Sweden reports:
The angry note, such a common feature of neighbourly grievance in a shared block of flats in Sweden, is being supplemented by the adoption of provocative names for wireless internet networks, a new survey by broadband supplier Telia shows.
“Turn the noise down”, and “no trash in the stairwell, thanks” are two examples of wireless networks included in the Telia survey in what has been dubbed “Angry note 2.0″.
“Broadband names are starting to replace the angry note in the lift or in the communal laundry room,…
Government Charges Wikileaks Founder With Rape
[UPDATE, CNN now reports that the Swedish government has dropped charges.]
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has some serious criminal charges being leveled at him by the government of a major Western nation. After all, you can’t just go around spreading truth, can you? Report from CNN:
The founder and editor of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is wanted in Sweden after accusations of rape and molestation, a spokeswoman for the Swedish prosecutor’s office told CNN Saturday.
Spokeswoman Karin Rosander said Assange was arrested in absentia Friday night, and faces charges in relation to two separate instances…
Video Of Swedish $5 Million Bank Heist
Authorities in Sweden have released this video of a bank heist which occurred last September, now that several of the thieves are set to go on trial. This seems like something that should happen only in movies: the outlaws helicoptered onto the roof, broke through the ceiling and were out in minutes with $5 million in Swedish kronar. It’s hard not to applaud their efforts, just a little bit.
Fever Ray’s Disturbing Acceptance Speech
If you thought Lady Gaga was weird, check out what happens in Sweden. This is electro sensation Fever Ray, popular in indie music circles in the U.S., giving her acceptance speech after winning “best dance artist” at P3 Gold, a Swedish equivalent of the Grammys.
Sweden’s Bizarre Donald Duck Christmas Obsession
Slate has a report on Sweden’s bizarre Christmas tradition: watching Donald Duck cartoons.
Every December 25th, approximately half of the nation sits down in front of the television to watch Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul (”Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas”). The special has been aired on TV1, Sweden’s main public television channel, each Christmas Eve since 1959 without commercial interruption:
The show’s cultural significance cannot be [over]stated. You do not tape or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing. You do not eat or prepare dinner while watching Kalle Anka. Age does not matter—every member of the family is expected to sit quietly together and watch a program that generations of Swedes have been watching for 50 years. Most families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka.
Stockholm’s Bunnies Burned to Keep Swedes Warm
In the “you can’t make this stuff up” department, the latest idea for renewable “bioenergy” is going to make the PETA crowd truly insane. As reported in The Local:
The bodies of thousands of rabbits culled every year from the parks in Stockholm’s Kungsholmen neighbourhood are being used to fuel a heating plant in central Sweden.
The decision to use Stockholm’s rabbit cadavers as bioenergy to warm Swedes living in Värmland doesn’t sit well with Stockholm-based animal rights activists.
“Those who support the culling of rabbits surely think it’s good to use the bodies for a good cause. But it feels like they’re trying to turn the animals into an industry rather than look at the main problem,” Anna Johannesson of Vilda kaniners värn (‘Society for the Protection of Wild Rabbits’) told the local Vårt Kungsholmen newspaper.
Every year, the city of Stockholm kills off thousands of rabbits in an effort to protect trees…
