A simple solution

Money, freedom and easy access to girls in Western Europe have all been a long time magnet for boys from sexually repressive areas such as North Africa and the Middle East. Unfortunately, they do not often know how to handle that freedom and fall back on their original culture when they are confronted with locals who express their sexual freedoms too, such as gay men.
Lately this has often led to violence against gay men by Moroccan young men in The Netherlands, with the latest incident in Eindhoven where a gay man was pelted with eggs.

There is only one effective and simple solution for people who cannot abide by the standards of civilised living in Europe, and that is a one-way ticket on a cheap airline back to where they feel at home.

And regards the discussion in France on the "right" of Islamic women to wear a burqa, my response would be: when Saudi Arabia allows bikini on its beaches, France should allow burqas.

Auckland Council Bill

Submissions on the Auckland Governance Bill have to be in by this Friday, so get your skates on if you haven't already. How to do this is explained here.
The text of the Bill is here, but you can only comment on the sections, not propose any new or radical ideas (such as abolishing property taxes and rates).

My submission is largely the same as the one I made for the Royal Commission last year:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission as a private citizen.
I have no particular expertise in local government - apart from paying rates - but as a Waiheke Islander, I am concerned that the future governance structure in Auckland will take insufficient stock of the needs and wants of small geographically distinct entities such as Waiheke Island and the other Hauraki Gulf islands.
It's a pity we can't have our County Council back unless we have 10,000 residents (at the last census we barely made it to 8,000) which would be my preference. So for the time being we have to deal with Babylon-Across-The-Sea that is Auckland City.

My submission concerns the future governance structure.

1 Auckland Council

Section 7: The new Auckland Council should become a geographical entity that will be known as Auckland around the world. The current city and district councils should be abolished and their current competences, such as planning, environment, dealing with central Government, transferred upwards to the new Council.
The non-urban areas of Rodney and Franklin should not be included.
The Council should run and own the regional entities responsible for water, sewage, transport, roads, infrastructure, culture and regional well-being.

Section 8: The Auckland Council should have 50 elected members from a proportional region-wide list system (the city as one ward) where your party list gets a seat for every 2% it polls in the election.
The leader of the faction who can form a workable majority on the Council should become leader - in effect a mini version of parliamentary democracy but with stricter proportionality.

Section 9: The leader of the faction who can form a workable majority on the Council should become Mayor - in effect a mini version of parliamentary democracy but with stricter proportionality.
No separate Maori seats are needed under this system as all votes will have equitable weighting under the proportional system.

2 Community Boards

Section 13: All localised issues such as district and local planning should be devolved downwards to the beefed-up community boards who should become responsible for local planning issues and all localised matters (following the subsidiarity principle that policies should be determined and carried out at the lowest possible level) and be properly funded for their allocated tasks.
Community boards should cover natural geographical entities within the region, but do not need to be of the same size or population.
They should be approved by a popular vote after their design.
Their number and boundaries should be determined by local demand.

I do not wish to make my submission in person. Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Greenland granted self-rule

From euronews:

The Queen of Denmark has handed over a new law on self-rule to the head of Greenland’s parliament. The nation has today been celebrating what it has declared Self Government Day. Many believe the new status will pave the way for total independence from Denmark. People voted for greater autonomy in a referendum last November.
Greenland authorities will now have control over many areas of government, including justice and police matters. However, Copenhagen will still have the finl say on defence and foreign policy. The country of 57,000 people is also being given rights to lucrative Arctic resources.

Fantastic news to have another small country join the world. It's a pity Greenland has no plans to re-join the European Union, despite Denmark keeping on having a say over their external affairs and providing a large dollop of aid.
The Economist has its doubts it will soon be an economically viable independent state, but gives it points for trying to.
Now if only they would stop whaling (and Iceland and Norway too)

Making waves

This is a hilarious story, in the good natured spirit of World Naked Day. And I'm glad the judge thought so too.
Again, an appropriate sentence would have been the picture publication of their bath time antics on the internet.

Three Balclutha rugby players yesterday admitted their roles in a naked bath romp which led to substantial damage to a Balclutha Hotel earlier this month.
Appearing in the Balclutha District Court David Turnbull, 19, builder, Michael Craig Souness, 22, truck driver, and Andrew Sam Anderson, 22, plumber, each admitted a charge of wilful damage following an incident at the Hotel South Otago, the Otago Daily Times reported.
Prosecutor Sergeant Amelia Steel told the paper that the trio went to the hotel on June 6 after a rugby game to drink with team-mates. They then headed upstairs to the area reserved for guests.
"The trio then entered a female bathroom area... got naked and had a bath together," she said.
The rugby players splashed so much water on the floor that it seeped down an internal wall which later needed structural renovation, she said.
Counsel Brigid Clinton said the trio had been drinking and thought a bath was a good idea at the time.
Judge Moran said the "drunken hijinks" did not warrant a conviction and discharged the men without conviction. Each was ordered to pay $200 reparation to the Clutha Licensing Trust.

Having a bath with your rugby mates is *always* a good idea.
And how good a scenario would it be for a porn movie: a builder, a truck driver and a plumber walk into hotel and ask for a bath...

Mondriaan Museum

The "Gemeentemuseum Den Haag" (the Municipal Museum in The Hague) wants to change its name to Mondriaan Museum because it has the largest collections of Mondriaan paintings in the world. This is surely a good marketing idea because its current name is rather pedestrian and non-descript.
The museum has far more art (modern, fashion, music etc) than just Mondriaan, but having this focus is great.
Mondriaan is just brilliant: from evocative impressionist and pointilliste landscapes, cubist portraits to the instantly recognisable and most famous abstracts.
Here are a few of my favourite examples (all from the museum website, there are 158 works on display):

Political Views quiz

My Political Views: I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 4.25, Libertarian: 3.09


My Foreign Policy Views: Score: -3.19


My Culture War Stance: Score: -7.16

Wel, duh! Of course this is measured in the small dimensional world of American politics and issues (when was the last time New Zealand sent out an army and a navy to protect "our oil"?)

Check out your own scores at Political Spectrum Quiz

That time of year: nude rugby again

I bet more fun was had at the annual mid-winter nude rugby match in Dunedin at the weekend than at the actual (clothed in expensive sponsors' gear) test between the All Blacks and France.

Previous editions here and here.

Aussielicious has uncensored pictures here and here.

Nude news

From the Sydney Morning Herald / Stuff:

Australian police are looking for a chubby man in his 50s who posed as a male modelling agent and convinced a 19-year-old man to strip for him during an audition.
The scout interviewed the eager teen - who he met in Sydney - over an eight hour period, which included taking him to a bar and a restaurant and having his measurements taken.
But police believe it was never the intention of the man to hire the applicant as a model.

Are you amazed as I am that this is actually filed as a "news item"? No money changed hands, let alone bodily fluids, so I'm actually not quite sure why this had to be handled by the police. Casting couches have existed as long as visual media culture, so one can only hope that one of them is now a little wiser and the other a little satisfied.

A poil, citoyens!

Remember French champion pole vaulter Romain Mesnil, his naked run through Paris and his Ebay auction of himself to get a sponsor for his sports career?
Well, the auction was won (with a bid of 16,100 euros) by a French web hosting company and they have made an updated video to show off their acquisition running naked from Paris to Lille (including some lovely cobblestones, very Paris-Roubaix) and in the end they give him a T shirt, but thankfully no pants.

Video via Oh La La Mag.

Rubbish in, gold out

The Visy Mountain - For action: Go to www.waihekedoesitbetter.org.nz from Scott Ewing on Vimeo

It's a rare occasion when many sections and factions on Waiheke band together on an issue that affects everybody's quality of life on the island and, frankly, gives everybody a chance to express the very reason why they want to live on Waiheke. That reason is a sort of "green" and "sustainable" living, involving easy choices with the patina of "doing something right for the world" (and which costs you nothing personally, plus provides local employment). That's the context of the rubbish recycling issue and saw an assortment of greenies and suits march up Queen Street to the Council offices today where the Island overlords at the Auckland City Council will be deciding whether to award the rubbish collecting contract to an Australian multinational or keep it as it is with a local island recycling company.
The choice for islanders is an easy one, but sticks in the craw of the all-in-one city crowd at the Council, which prefers to privatise everything.
The outcome so far (13 June):

Auckland City Councils City Development Committee today disregarded and ignored the Waiheke community when considering a ten-year waste services contract. Citizens and Ratepayers (C&R) councillors voted to disqualify incumbent tenderer Clean Stream Waiheke Ltd and to recommend that tomorrows extraordinary Auckland City Council meeting grant Transpacific Industries Group Ltd a $22 million contract.

If the Council awards the 10 year contract to TPI, a future appeal to the Auckland Super City Transition Agency to cancel such a long running and expensive contract is the only course left.

Rural bachelor of the year 2009

It's that mid-Winter time again when one is looking for something to keep warm with and what better place than sitting next to one of those entrants of this year's Rural Bachelor of the Year edition.

My two nominations are Alex (left) and Michael (right):

Michael's idea of a perfect date ("involves a few bottles of wine, chips and dip, possibly fish and chips or a gourmet burger, sitting on the back of a ute on a cliff looking out to sea") sounds very appealing but it would have to be preceded by a trip to the barber shop to get rid of all those curls.
Alex's singlet and shorts look just the part too!

A profile of all entrants is here.

Previous years' coverage compiled here for comparison's sake.

UPDATE 15 June: Michael Short won.

The greening and righting of Europe

The European Parliamentary elections delivered some stunning results: UK Labour got hammered; the BNP got 2 seats (I have dealt to that party earlier), and Geert Wilders 4; The Swedish Pirate Party got in too.
But to my mind the biggest surprise was the stunning Green victory in France, almost overtaking the French Socialists. 14 French Green MEPs will now join the 14 German ones - a fitting tribute to tireless Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit (himself an icon of European integration being both French and German). The Green faction in the European Parliament is now 50 (including the 2 seats won by the Scottish National Party and one by Plaid Cymru).

As for my own voting "intentions": The Estonian Green Party didn't win a seat, but the Belgian Greens got 3 (with a stunning almost quarter of the vote in mainly the French speaking part, making it the third biggest party in Wallonia) and the Luxembourg Greens got one.

New Zealand is most peaceful country on earth

Oh how we love international rankings, especially when we come on top or in the top 10: least corrupt and one of the best cities to live in. And now most peaceful country on earth (up from #4 last year) in the Global Peace Index:
1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
3. Norway
4. Iceland
5. Austria
6. Sweden
7. Japan
8. Canada
9. Finland
9. Slovenia
10. Czech Republic

It's not difficult to draw some conclusions from this top 10 and post some theses:
- The more secular/atheist a country, the more peaceful it is
- The more religious a country, the more belligerent (and internally repressive and violent)
- The more respect for human rights, the more peaceful

And it's remarkable how respect for gay rights correlates highly with the peace: Compare the peace index map with the world gay rights map:
Love instead of war is something we queers are good at (irate drag queens notwithstanding).