Legally Insane

This morning two court appointed psychiatrists delivered their findings to the Oslo district court in the case of the Norwegian mass murderer A.B.B., who killed 77 people in July. 

In their report they have concluded that A.B.B.suffered from psychotic schizophrenia when he committed his crimes and that he is therefor legally insane. The psychiatric findings may mean A.B.B. cannot be sent to jail. 

The court will have the final decision on whether A.B.B. can be held responsible for the crimes, but it generally follows the recommendations of the experts. If the court upholds the conclusion A.B.B. will not be put on criminal trial but would instead face a court hearing to rule on his criminal insanity and the length of his commitment to a psychiatric institution.

It is reported that A.B.B. doesn't approve of the psychiatrists conclusions and that he "feels offended" by them.
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My first thought when I heard this news was that to those of us in the mainstream, the thoughts and actions of extremists must inevitably seem insane and bizarre. This in itself doesn't mean that extremists always are insane by definition, let alone criminally insane in a way that they should not be accountable for their actions.

The reality of an extremist is not the same as ours, neither are his remedies. But then again, I am not a psychiatrist...

It´s Time - Everywhere

This Australian video has had close to 1,8 million hits in only four days. Lets see if we can help to increase that!

Please share this with friends and loved ones.
Donate to put on Australian TV: http://tiny.cc/gkuwp
Sign petition: http://www.getup.org.au/marriagematters

Music: Oliver Tank "Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow Motion"

"GetUp! Action for Australia" is an independent movement to build a progressive Australia and bring participation back into our democracy.

Happy Blogoversary, Eddi Haskell´s Second Life!

Sunday was the third blogoversary of my buddy Eddi Haskell´s blog "Eddi Haskell´s Second Life" and I nearly missed it altogether. Thanks for the reminder to Avacar Bluestar at GWNews!

Another year down, Eddi, and many, many more to go!

Sorry for the belated greeting, you almost succeeded in sneaking it past me. If it hadn't been for Avacar you might have made it.

Southern Charm

The view we fell in love with at Southern Charm

Soon after Ars and I became a couple back in December of 2007, we started to look for somewhere to live together and spent all Ars free time sim-jumping to search for a place we both liked.

We had made a joint list of criteria for what we were looking for.

1. No boring beach property
2. Affordable
3. Big enough. i.e. with enough prims over after setting up the house.surroundings and furniture. to allow Ars to build without too many limitations
4. A reliable and secure landlord - we had both heard too many stories about the other kind

Usually Ars would have prepared a list of places to check out beforehand and pretty soon after I logged inworld we were off on our hunt. We had a good time doing this and enjoyed being in each others company.

After about a week or so we first came to the Southern Charm sim, which seemed to meet with all our criteria except the affordable. I was the stingy one, after all the relationship with Ars was so fresh and I did not want to commit to something that could be difficult to pull out from if things turned sour.

We both fell in love with the house straddling the waterfall at once, so after seeing that we just kept coming back. Finally I gave in and we started negotiations with the landlord.

The sim was at that time owned by Spyder Jewell, but was managed by his wife Jazzine, a smart, funny and wonderful American woman.

Jazzine took to me as soon as I had made Ars question her about the "no nudity" clause in the covenant. Finally we made an explicit agreement stating that I (and Ars) could run around on our property as naked as we wished as long as we did not tote a boner outdoors and wore clothes when visiting with the neighbors.

With that essential point settled we started negotiations on how many parcels we were going to rent, which parcels and what the total tier would be. I had complete confidence in leaving Ars to handle that when I logged off that night.

Next day when I logged in Ars told me triumphantly that we were now the proud tenants of two parcels on Southern Charm, including the one with the waterfall. We were jubilant and immediately started furnishing and decorating.

As time went by, we increased our land with a third, fourth and fifth parcel until we rented more than half the sim. At that point Spyder and Jazzine encountered financial difficulties (or perhaps just decided to move on from SecondLife) and offered us to take over the full sim so we would rent it directly from Linden Lab. (That´s called landowning in SecondLife.) Because I am a citizen of the European Union we decided to name Ars as the sim-owner so we wouldn't have to pay the additional VAT-tax on landowning fees that the EU forced on the Lab.

After Ars passed away in February 2010 there was some paperwork needed to transfer the sim from his estate to me. Luckily, I had the full cooperation and understanding of his father and family in doing so, everyone is not so fortunate.

In hindsight it is my firm recommendation to anyone who co-owns anything whatsoever in SecondLife, to see to it that you make a will bequeathing any joint - or for that matter personal - property to the survivor. It is actually also in accordance with Linden Labs rules to bequeath the avatar itself and all of it´s possessions to the surviving partner.

Ars and I were too happy together and probably thought nothing bad could happen to change it to do any of those things, it almost cost me the dearest memories I had of him and our time together. Do not make the same mistake!

不要诅咒黑暗 - 点燃蜡烛

As we are moving into the two darkest months of the year. before and after the winter solstice, here on the top-of-the-World, we Swedes are following the advice of the ancient Chinese proverb "Don't curse the darkness - light a candle". (I used the simplified Han Chinese in the title of this post in the vain hope that you illiterates would understand.)

In fact Swedes light millions of candles to combat the darkness, starting on the first Sunday of Advent (today) until the twentieth day after Christmas eve (January 13th).

During this period every decent Swede - and some not so decent Sweden Democrats also - places a lit candlestick or a star in almost every window of their homes to light up the darkness. It does help!

And we burn a lot of ordinary candles as well, but we never ever leave a burning candle in an empty room. (The last part was a paid public service announcement.)

Mr December 2012

Yesterday there was a contest at the Bunker club for Mr December in the Gay Archipelago Almanac 2012. As soon as I got the notice I hauled ass to get some good pictures of the hot men I knew would assemble for that.

I was not disappointed! In my previous post you saw the pictures of Torro Spyker and he alone was worth the trip, but here are a few more pictures.

Queen Edman was the DJ this evening, he is an experienced DJ with a sure taste for good club music.

Hurtfulsplash Solis won the title of Mr December 2012.

Mr December 2012, Hurtfulsplash Solis

Torro Caught In Action

SecondLife is never safe from paparazzi.

One would think that a man of the world like the very sexy British stud, club owner and blogger Torro Spyker would know that already. Nonetheless here he is caught in action checking out the men at The Bunker last night, in some cases the inspection was very close indeed.

Torro had to kneel to get a better look