European Constitutional Treaty referendums

Knickers all in twists now that France said non and the Dutch are expected to do the same. But you have to ask: what were they [the referendum promoters] thinking? Everybody knows the Irish and the Danes always say no to everything, and now that a few others have done the same, all hell breaks loose. Did you expect any other outcome?
So you got to ask: who benefits by a "no" vote?
There are the usual suspects: French nationalists mourning the passing of La Grande Patrie and French commies thinking they can stave off economic realities and cheap t-shirts (now there's a horrifying picture of bedfellows), Catholics berating there's no mention of their spook in the treaty and peasants fearing they will lose their subsidy lollies.

The point is that a constitutional treaty like the one on offer - and it's wrong to call it a constitution - should be drawn up and voted on by the European parliament, like any well-functioning democracy would. And please none of that nonsense that it's all an Anglo-saxon plot to do down workers/farmers or a Gallic plot to do down free enterprise.
How about a better constitution? Let's start:

"We, the people of Europe, regard it as our inalienable right to live, work and play in any part of Europe without being a burden on the local population and we respect all human rights laws, including freedom from religion."

What do you look for here?

10,000th visitor to this blog, at least since I changed counters. Welcome all, hope you got something out of it.
- Alex Behan's penis is still a perennial favourite in your searches.
- You also seem to be interested in Darryl Tuffy's sex video, hazing practices, naked rugby and the sex lives of various personalities such as Daniel Carter and Monaco's Prince Albert.
I didn't know I was providing such good public information services.
BTW I loved the search entry "gay guy with mussels". Must have been after a Belgian.

Beats playing strip poker!

From Queerclick, usually not a worksafe site, but this was a wonderful exception.

The horsey set rides in to the rescue

Apparently New Zealand horses tremble, foam and generally become lame when they see a windmill, unlike Don Quixote's old trusted companions! Equestrian champs Mark Todd and Blyth Tait are now campaigning against a wind farm planned for south Auckland. If only horsey set leader Don Brash would call their baloney. But no, windmills are too environmentally friendly, too communistic (since they will be state-owned) and make us less dependent on the private sector for our energy provision - a mortal sin in capitalism.
And in this case, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde's hunting quip, it's "the unspeakable atop the inedible in hot pursuit of the unbeatable".

Politically correct party animals on redneck cocaine

I'm a firm believer in looking after your own health, prevention being better than a cure and all that jazz, but now I'm a bit taken aback that this attitude is regarded as somehow disrespectful of people with HIV.
In a nutshell the question is: can I be as celebratory proud of being HIV negative as we have been celebrating and supporting HIV positive people?
A very thoughtful and quite scary article by Michael Specter on AIDS, speed and gay men cruising online covers a lot of ground, from age issues, loneliness of older unattached gay males, drug use, AIDS fatigue, the medicalisation of US society to all night sex marathons and a lot more.
Highly recommended reading, and I'm unsure whether to feel pity for all those partying souls, or angry at the denial and self-denial going on or sad about prevention messages for HIV negative men being labelled as un-PC.
Here's a short extract:

"[Bay Area psychologist named Walt] Odets said the gay community split in 1985, the moment a reliable H.I.V. test was available. “Before that day, everyone was in it together,” he said. “Nobody knew who had it and everyone acknowledged that it was a horror. And then, in April of 1985, we started protecting people who had H.I.V. And we did that by normalizing infection - and we have done that all along. It has completely compromised prevention work, to the extent that when the aids Health Project, in San Francisco, put up a banner outside its facility that said ‘Stay Healthy Stay Negative’ the gay public was incensed. Men wrote in and said, ‘I have H.I.V. and I am perfectly healthy. How dare you imply that I am not?’
While it has always been important to protect and support H.I.V.-infected men in the gay community, Odets argues that it has become difficult to teach men who test negative how essential it is for them to remain uninfected. “This is not about making positive men feel good about themselves,” Odets said. “It’s about protecting H.I.V.-negative men.” He told me that he had even conducted workshops where it was nearly impossible to shift the primary prevention message from supporting positive men to remaining uninfected. “There is just way too much guilt. Too much discomfort because what you are saying to a positive man is ‘I don’t want to be like you.’ ”
Daniel Carlson agrees. “There is some level of guilt about not living with the disease,” he said. “About staying negative. People will say, ‘Oh, look at you going around and glorifying your negative status.’ I don’t go around and say, ‘Hey, I tested negative today, joy to the world.’ And, believe me, when people test positive they do talk about it and they get support. People like me - we keep our mouths shut.”

Nu Zild: nil points

Living in the colonial outpost at the arse end of the world is fun, but it has one big disappointing disadvantage: no Eurovision Song Contest on local (or even satellite) TV. All we could do was watch online (with my dire dial up connection? I don't think so) or read witty commentaries on the main event in a Euro gayboy's calendar.

Pieta

The Pieta a Pope these days would be happy to commission from any budding Michelangelo:

Picture from Yadoge, who has a lot of excellent homo art on his blog. Ciao Italia!

Superannuated schoolboys come out of the closet to...

accuse their former German teacher, current Labour MP David Benson-Pope, of handling their classroom antics with a fitting diet of punishments. You know, throwing tennis balls at their pimply heads, and a general thrashing and caning, as schoolmasters have been wont to over the ages. Now twenty-odd years later they come running to fat "phat" daddy Rodney Hide ACT MP and favourite agony aunty Judith Collins National MP, crying the evil schoolmaster has given them some tough love.
The irony, of course, that those parties that are decrying Benson-Pope are full of tough love thugs baying for a return of CP to schools and demonise any suggestions to restrict parental rights to beat their children.
And it's good to see our good friend and fisking partner, Garth "Vader" George, reminisces longingly of schooldays past.

Her Majesty Summons Her Loyal Commons

Only the British do it so well. All that pomp and circumstance in the State Opening of Parliament: the coach, the livery boys, the ermine, the crown jewels, Black Rod, the Yeomen of the Guards.
Splendid, splendid, splendid.
And now the news that Prince William will be in New Zealand for the latter stages of the Lions' rugby tour. What an opportunity to have an early election and to have Prince William open the newly elected New Zealand Parliament while he is here. What great practice he could get at wearing the regalia and the uniform. Imagine the worldwide press coverage for such an irrelevant piece of theatre. More viewers than rugby, I bet. Should be a no brainer for Helen Clark passing up that photo op.

TXT-ing Rideline

On a late afternoon I was on K Road wanting to take a bus to downtown. You must be already familiar with one of the most public transport user-unfriendly bus stop configurations around: you basically have to gamble which will be the first bus to arrive and accordingly stand at the appropriate bus stop, either on K Road Bridge or at the turn-off into Pitt Street. As with quantum physics, once you have made your decision, it is final, no changes can be made: just make another punt and choose your bus stop.
Now I noticed a small note on the bus stop inviting you to txt your bus stop # to Rideline, so I decided to find out what I would get back from them. The return txt didn't take long and consisted of a list of bus route numbers, destinations and times of arrival. I was pleasantly surprised that the first bus on the list actually did arrive bang on time. (It was of course a Ritchie's bus, which I had to forgo because my Fullers/Stagecoach season ticket is not valid, integrated ticketing one of those concepts that have eluded Homo Bus Aucklandicus). The second bus on the list was scheduled one minute after, and hey, there it was. I was suitably impressed and surprised. Congratulations on that score! Now just add S or R (or B or whatever) to the TXT listings to indicate bus company and you're sweet.

42

With my fabulous culture junkie friends Peter and Jaq, we went to the movies last night. Having lately been used to only that wonderful cinematic delight that is the Waiheke Island Cinema (ever tried watching Dancer in the Dark reclining comfortably in large divans, with your fish and chips snug in between? I rest my case) we were off to the corporate cinema village in Queen Street to go see Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I had never read the books, watched the BBC TV series or listened to the radio series, so I was completely unaware of what to expect, a HHGTTG-virgin as it were.
Stephen Fry's droll narration is always a delight, whatever the occasion - film, TV series, Royal Command Performance - so that was fun, especially the teasing bits of information that left you hanging for later in the film (If humans were the third most intelligent species on the planet, and dolphins were the second, who are the first? was a good example).
The sentimental love story was really cringing and they could have cut it all out, turning it into a much more cynical film. Just imagine what a Red Dwarf take on it would look and sound like.
On the other hand, something that also could have worked is a Wallace & Gromit surreality with a much more English flavour than the current compromise for an American market. That said, John Malkovitch was a truly scary character ("Bless You!") and some scenes had great clever gag appeal (you simply expected the caravan to take off, even if it didn't).
In all, just a few giggles, a few scares and a romp through the universe that starts and ends with a cup of tea. It certainly is inconceivable that it could have been an American film. Just think whether in a video game like Doom, or in any Vin Diesel film, one's fate would hinge on the colour of the form for a presidential reprieve.

Dual nationality

Since I am an expat European here in New Zealand, the issue of dual nationality has been bugging me for over a decade. In short, my country of birth, Belgium, does not allow its citizens to obtain foreign passports. If you do, you forfeit your right to a Belgian passport and citizenship.
For most Commonwealth countries this is a strange state of affairs. New Zealand, for instance, doesn't give a toss about how many other passports you hold, but the same cannot be said about Australia or the United States.
The issue is essentially one of fairness: if you go live abroad and you adopt your country as a new home, you lose your old passport (with the accompanying loss of voting rights and diplomatic protections), but if your partner lives with you in Belgium and eventually qualifies for a Belgian passport, he doesn't have to give up his old passport.
Now there are rumblings of trying to rectify this unsatisfactory situation, with various bills proposed in parliament and seminars held on the matter. You can listen (not in English) to the parliamentary debate. There is a webforum for reactions and opinions on the issue, and you can contribute in English.
It does seem strange that you lose your birthright by simply emigrating. Presumably if I ever were to go back to Belgium to live and got my nationality back, I don't have to give up my New Zealand passport. That is simply a Pythonesque situation.

Foot in mouth (so far)

Life is still pretty much as normal here on Waiheke despite the Foot and Mouth Disease "scare"/"hoax". There are controls in place to prevent the movement of cattle, pigs, deer, goats and hay off the island and vets are checking farm animals for any symptoms. Since the letter mentions Friday as a sort of D-Day with further releases, the Waiheke animals are expected to show FMD symptoms (if any) from Friday. So there's not much that can be done at the moment except keep searching for the idiot culprit who wrote the letter. There was a public meeting last night where MAF officials explained the measures in place and to be taken so everybody was quite reassured. No foot/shoe baths or washing tyres on cars at the ferry terminals are in place.
But quite a few strapping policemen caught my attention, as they would!

Where I could live

American Cities That Best Fit You:

80% Honolulu

65% Miami

60% Philadelphia

55% Atlanta

55% Chicago

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

I'm not surprised. I already live on an island but a city the size of Honolulu wouldn't really fit on it (yet).

Foot in Mouth (so far)

Our little island made it to the frontpages of all the New Zealand newspapers and on all electronic media today, and probably on to all the international news wires too.
A letter was sent to the Prime Minister's office claiming that Foot & Mouth Disease viruses have been released on Waiheke Island and the writer demands a change in tax policy and a sum of money. Officials say they have to treat it as serious, but at this stage, as they have not found any infected animals, it is treated as a hoax. So far it looks like a disgruntled anti-tax campaigner making a last stance for his party.
We can still freely move on and off the island but things will get trickier if a quarantine cordon is established around the island and no-one or anything can go on or off. But hopefully it won't come to that. The quarantine restrictions are currently in place for farm animals only.
There was a media scrum this morning at the main passenger wharf at Matiatia, with an especially inept TV One reporter on breakfast television (what do they teach these greenhorns at broadcasting school?). The Radio New Zealand Morning Report man, far better looking than his TV colleague and far better at his day job too, interviewed our friend Barratt.
Waiheke only has a few thousand sheep and cows, we specialise more in agricultural drugs like wine.

UPDATE: Suspicions have been raised the letter bore a Manawatu postmark and may be linked to a capping stunt at Massey University. Those vet students need to be artificially inseminated to stop them shagging sheep.

White picket fences rule

A most preposterous magazine article appeared last weekend in the Sunday Star Times newspaper, sadly not online, about how Auckland gay males are leaving clubland life behind them to set up love nests with their beloved. I'm sure you get the picture abroad too. Witnesses for the prosecution's case were my good friend Mike Binis and his partner Grant, and gay Auckland gardening icons Geoff Marshall and John Hayward.
With all due respect and congratulations to them for finding someone to set up house with, white picket fence and all, but extrapolating their lifestyle changes and claiming it to be some sort of paradigm shift in what gay men in general get up to these days left me smiling wrily. It's all too easy, especially for white middle class Sunday newspaper magazine readers and their editors, to think that when you have become too old to strut your stuff at a bar or club every night, or even weekly, everybody must be tired of it.
The article claims this "trend" has caused several Auckland gay venues, bars and clubs to close due to lack of patronage and the flight to the suburbs. But it conveniently ignored to mention a thriving sex-on-site industry that shows no sign of recession. Mike, of all people, should have mentioned that. I'm sure he did, but information about what real men (gay or not) actually get up to does not make for comfortable, albeit photogenic, reading at Sunday brunch time.
It certainly made for depressing reading if you happen to be not of a certain age with that been-there-done-that-fucked-the-natives sort of experience. Young gay guys happily continue to club, drink and cruise, as they have always done. And some don't even aspire to the suburbs.
Oh, and lest any of you become a little smug behind your white picket fence, yes, it was your boyfriend I met at the sauna last night, because he told me. Men are men, after all, and it's good to be a guy.

My friend Peter (a happy heterosexual, no kidding!) sent me the link to another gay venue story in the same newspaper. But again, it doesn't deal with any venues where the majority of Auckland men looking for each other's company go.

Auckland bus strike

Halfway through the Stagecoach bus strike in Auckland and so far the sky hasn't fallen in, nor have any strikers' or management's heads rolled in this revolution. I guess Auckland is so used to having a shite public transport system that a few hundred fewer buses on the roads are not noticed, missed or their absence even positively welcomed. It's a perverse town we live in.
Getting to work has been for me, fortunately, a rather smooth affair: a non-striking Ritchie company bus was ready and waiting and got me to work even faster than normal. The only snag was my season ticket wasn't valid on their network. As we can't have a well-run public transport system then we certainly cannot have sophisticated innovations such as integrated ticketing!

What's the male for bitch?

The toss-pot, smarmy, arsehole (no PC talk here about "front-bums", we're into the real thing!) Dangling Member of Parliament John Tamihere is now outed as a heartless cruel son of a female dog.

Sweet 16

It does make you wonder that at age 16 you are old enough to drive a car, get a job, pay tax, run a company, join the army, die on a battlefield, marry, have hetero and homo sex.
In New Zealand there are a few things you can't do at age 16 such as watching a porn movie (presumably you don't need to get into the mood at that age, or what?), smoking cigarettes or joints, having a beer, or voting. Now in the UK, what with all the election campaigning going on, there are demands to reduce the voting age to 16. A good idea, methinks, and while you're at it, make those other activities R16 too - perhaps with the exception of driving, which should be restricted to IQ 100+ rather than to a particular age.