buggery.org

Never mind about living in Sin (Column 8, August 13), says Adrian Holland, of Glebe. “I reckon Moderation is also up there as a place to be. It is recommended on the back of wine bottles as a place to drink the wine.” David Astin, of Bankstown, thinks a quaint country town named Buggery must also be a lovely place “considering the number who suggest that I go there”. — Column 8

Mars, from my backyard tonight, taken with an ordinary digital camera and no special lens.

Big, isn’t it?

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Mars is now closer to Earth than it has been in 60,000 years. It’s shining 85 times brighter than it did a year ago, and it will be the single most brilliant light in the night sky this week. Is the red planet therefore beaming an intensified dose of its charismatic, melodramatic Martian vibrations at us? Will our libidos feel as if they’ve been supercharged? I suspect so. Psychotherapists everywhere may be besieged by clients who don’t know how to handle the gift of wildly enhanced vitality. I doubt there’ll be many complaints from you Aries folks, though: Mars is your ruling planet. While other signs may be held hostage by lust, anger, competition, and blind ambition, you’ll know exactly what to do with that all that extra mojo. [Free Will Astrology]

Planet Out reports that a California state Senate committee has recommended that the Senate pass a gay relationships law which will “put California on par with Vermont regarding legal recognition of same-sex couples.”

TASMANIAN GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS GROUP

Media Release
Thursday August 28th 2003

TAS PARLIAMENT PASSES “WORLD’S BEST” RELATIONSHIPS LAW

Tasmania has the best relationships laws in Australia and some of the best in the world following the passage of the State Government’s Relationships Bill through the Legislative Council earlier this afternoon.

Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said that the new legislation, which gives virtual equality to a wide range of different relationships including same sex relationships and institutes a relationships registry, is one of the most important developments in Australian social policy and gay and lesbian human rights for many years. (more…)

“Sergio was blunt, charming, energetic, funny. He knew his business, minced no words, commanded the loyalty of his mission and the respect of the Timorese. They knew he was working for them — for the cause of a free and independent and self-governing East Timor. And so it should have been in Iraq. ”

James Galbraith remembers Sergio Vieira de Mello on Open Democracy. Sergio “intensely” disliked Alexander Downer, apparently.

The Cancun round of WTO shenanigans is just around the corner. It’s shaping up to be a crash-or-crash-through moment for the fair trade movement. This press release from the European AIDS Treatment Group explains some of the urgent issues affecting people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries: (more…)

Between moving to a new city, being unwell for a bit, having deadlines slipping all over the place (but Positive Living finally hit the street on Thursday) and now facing new deadlines in regard to Brent’s immigration process, I’m way behind. But catching up.

I’ll try to post at intervals throughout today as my thought process dictates.

My ADSL service is online. After a month wandering in the wilderness that is dialup internet access I am functioning again. After today I’ll have time to post, too, as the magazine will be bedded.

It’s the little things that count.

The New Zealand Health Minister has ordered the withdrawal of a poster showing a man apparently breastfeeding a baby at work, claiming the image is “too controversial” and will offend delicate Kiwi sensibilities.

The poster is a follow-up to one produced — without controversy — last year which showed Lucy “Xena, Warrior Princess” Lawless actually feeding an actual baby using one of her actual breasts. (If Xena were a real Amazon rather than a pale imitation, she’d only have the one breast to feed with, of course. But I digress.)

The star of this year’s effort, actor Michael Hurst, is Lawless’ co-star in Xena, apparently. (Apparently, the use of the present tense in that sentence suggests that Xena is still a going concern, which is news on this side of the Tasman. But again, I digress.)

The [NZ] National Business Review says the campaign “was designed to point out the possibility that workplace breastfeeding might be less controversial if men were engaged in the practice.”

The NBR’s terse conclusion: “Apparently not.”

Obviously the poor sods in the Land of the Long White Cloud need to get out more.