Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts

Sunday, June 10, 2018

G7 Summit

Mhmmmm my dear friend Angela posted picture this on her official Instagram yesterday. Which is in itself an example of when a picture tells us more than a thousand words.

The Guardian informs us:
"Donald Trump has left the G7 network of global cooperation in disarray after he pulled the US out of a previously agreed summit communique (my embolding), blaming the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau whom he derided as “dishonest and weak”.

The US president, who arrived at the summit in Canada late and left early to fly to Singapore to prepare for his summit with Kim Jong-un, shocked fellow leaders with a bellicose press conference on Saturday in which he attacked the trade policies of other countries."
 
Today Reuters published this.
PARIS (Reuters) - France and Europe are maintaining their support for the Group of Seven communique and anyone departing from the commitments made at the summit would be showing their “incoherence and inconsistency”, a French presidency official told Reuters.
The official was reacting after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he was backing out of the G7 communique drawn up at a summit in Canada.
“International cooperation cannot depend on being angry and on sound bites. Let’s be serious,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added.
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As I've said before, we live in exciting - if not downright scary - times! Then again, simply the thought of Trump, Putin, Xi and Kim in an unholy alliance is terrifying.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Bock & Urinals

I had no problems with urinals whatsoever until the summer when I was 22 years old. Up until then I thought of it as extremely convenient fixture. You go in, take a broad manly stance in front of the fixture (so as not to cramp the flow), pull down your zipper, haul out your tackle and just let it flow.

However, the summer I was 22 I was out backpacking through Europe for a month. On the evening before the last day of the trip I was at "Gare du Nord" in Paris and was going to take the night train to Copenhagen.

While waiting to board the train, I felt an insistent need to relieve myself and knew I wouldn't be able to wait until I got on the train, so I went looking for a restroom.

I soon found a huge "Gentlemen's" in the cellar of the railway station. The first part of the room consisted of two lines of 15 urinals on the opposing walls. Almost all the slots were filled, except one almost at the end to the right, so I went there and started doing my business.

Just as I had started, I felt a nudge on my right shoulder from the man standing next to me. I looked at him, wondering what he wanted. He looked me in the eyes, then looked downwards. As I followed his gaze I saw that he was masturbating. Not only that, but all the other occupants were also erect and playing with themselves and looking towards me. Not only that, but as I looked over my shoulder I noticed that the row of men behind us were also jacking off and looking at me.

To this day I'm not sure why, but my external urethral sphincter - which supposedly controls the voluntary peeing - immediately cramped shut and my body started shaking as I felt more than 25 men looking lustfully at me.

Although I was gay, by no means a virgin and in my best shape ever, 5'8" (172 cm), 132 lb (60 kg) and fit, my mind started screaming "Danger! Danger! Get your ass out of this place - NOW!"

Maybe I thought I was going to get gang-raped or otherwise molested, but whatever I rushed out of there, without even tucking in before. I did that outside the room, luckily before anyone had seen anything.

Anyway, since that evening I am not able to use the bloody contraptions without getting feelings of panic and my sphincter shutting off, except when I am very, very drunk or very certain that I will be alone.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Support the Open Internet


European Regulators are about to decide whether to give big telecoms corporations the power to influence what we can (and can’t) do online. Europe urgently needs clear net neutrality guidelines to protect our freedoms and rights online. We have until July to help Europe protect the open Internet.

Join the movement, take action now!

http://www.savetheinternet.eu

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Transcript of the video:

Corporations don't control the Internet. Yet.
You can visit Google, or Facebook, but they're not the Internet. Amazingly, these giant corporations exist right alongside smaller independent websites. Like those by Startups and activists, that are working to lessen their power and create something independent that allows more freedom and is less intrusive than the big corporations.
But now, that's changing. The telecom companies we use to access the internet are giving corporate giants like Facebook special treatment.
Sometimes it's a marketing trick. Other times it’s for profit: they sell special treatment to them.
Either way, the result is the same: A terrible new future where old Telecom giants and new Internet giants conspire to remain in control. Forever. A future where videos on corporate sites work. But on small sites, they break. A future where expensive phone calls work. But free calls over the Internet break.
A future where giant corporate sites are subsidized to appear free. But independent sites are so expensive or slow to access, that no one visits them. This future may be coming to Europe.
By August, EU regulators will make their final decision: They will either prohibit special treatment with strong net neutrality rules, or hand the Internet's future to the corporate giants of telecom and tech.
In the United States, Brazil, and India, net neutrality activists and small startups have been winning, with millions of messages to regulators, and protests in the streets.This summer, it's Europe's turn. And it depends on you.

Click here to send your message to European regulators, share this video, and find a protest near you.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Fall Back in Europe 2014

Last night Daylight Savings Time (DST) ended in Europe, at 3 AM Sunday morning we had "fall back"and the hour we lost in spring was returned to us.

This as usual heralds a period of biannual confusion in a global community like SecondLife.

Australia and New Zealand have already gone "spring forward" on October 5, 2014, but SecondLife, the U.S.A and Canada do not "fall back" until Sunday November 2, 2014.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

...And The Winners Will Be...

It's the annual high point in many gay European men's year tonight, the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm staying away from those parties because I don't like the music one bit and everything gets a bit over-the-top and "gala" for me to feel happy and comfortable.

If there was any justice whatsoever in the world this song would be allowed to compete again this year and would win this time around (mostly because of the song but a little because of the cute guitarist and, to be quite honest, the singer/composer too).


...but as I am not expecting miracles in this unfair and unjust world, my second favorite for winning tonight is this one.

I want the Russians and the other homophobes and transphobes out there to get a wake-up call and have their bigotry rubbed in their faces, so I will vote for it ten times although I don't like the song that much.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Acquiring a Habit

I know exactly when, where and why I started smoking and whom I was with at the time.

For a long time I was the only non-smoker in my immediate family. My parents, both my two sisters and their boyfriends (later husbands) were all smokers. When they lit up their cigarettes after dinners I used to run around frantically, open up windows and complain loudly about the smoke and the smell and how I couldn't breathe.

The summer when I was 26 years old, I decided to travel a month around Europe on Interrail. I was studying law at the university at the time and had suddenly discovered that I had an opening of four weeks after the term ended and my summer job started. As a young man with an overprotective father, I knew I could not tell my parents my decision too long in advance because that would give my father too much time to launch a campaign of trying to persuade me to travel in a "safer" way.

I broke the news to my parents the evening before I was going to leave. All hell temporarily broke lose and I was fed with images of myself laying murdered, slaughtered, violated, raped, maimed, brutalized etc. in every street, town square or hotel room in Europe by my poor father. When he calmed down, I promised to phone at least once a week and "if ever anything bad happened, however minor I may think it was". After making this deal with my devil father, I was graciously "allowed" to travel.

The morning after I left started with a short trip to Copenhagen to catch the "North Express" at one o'clock in the afternoon. The Nord Express is (or was) a daily railway connection  between Copenhagen and Paris and viceversa.

I was early, so I could choose where to sit and found a nice compartment with eight seats and settled in before the other passengers started arriving. The last one to arrive just before the train departed, was a tall and husky blond guy with trembling hands, amazing blue eyes and a dazzling smile. He sat down opposite me.

At first there was this usual awkward silence in the compartment but after awhile we all started talking a little and introducing ourselves and sharing our travel plans. The guy said his name was Andrew and that he was a Canadian from Newfoundland on vacation in Europe. He was on his way to Paris for a few days before he was joining an archeological excavation at some place outside the city.

Andy was a smoker, he smoked Marlboro's. I didn't mind a bit when he lit up a cigarette, strangely enough. When we had travelled together a while, he offered me to come with him for a cigarette in the corridor. I gladly went along with him and accepted the cigarette and puffed on it, carefully at first so as not to reveal that I was a beginner. We had a great time together and the smoke pauses repeated themselves during the trip until we settled in for the night. Andy stretched out his unshod feet towards my side and I did the same and in that way we went to sleep resting our heads on the others feet.

When we arrived in Paris we decided to get a room at a hotel together, until it was time for him to continue to his damn excavation. We had four wonderful days together in Paris. I had fallen in love and was sad to part. We stayed in touch the first six months after, but then with time and distance and other men the letters and cards swindled and finally ended. The only thing I was left with was my newly acquired habit of smoking.

To this day I still smoke Marlboro's and I think of Andy when I see a man with more than usual tremor in his hands.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Berlusconi´s Europe

Hopefully we will soon see the last of this criminal. male-chauvinistic pig and scoundrel, albeit democratically elected, if his promises mean anything at all.


For more European maps from different ethnic points-of-views please visit the Bulgarian artist Yanko Tsvetskov´s site "Mapping Stereotypes Project. The Ultimate Bigot's Calendar of the World"