Assange Loses Extradition Appeal But...

Photograph: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images

guardian.co.uk today reports:

"Julian Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden at the supreme court.
By a majority of five to two, the justices decided that a public prosecutor was "judicial authority" and that therefore his arrest warrant had been lawfully issued.

But lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder submitted an urgent request to the supreme court asking for permission to challenge one of the points made in the judgment.

Assange, who is facing charges of sexual assault and rape, was not in court. There was no legal requirement for him to be present. According to his solicitor, Gareth Peirce, he was stuck in traffic

The court granted Assange's lawyers 14 days to present their arguments that crucial issues related to Article 31 of the Vienna convention, on which the majority of the justices based their decision, were not raised during the hearing.

Assange's lawyers can also, at the same time, begin the process of appealing against the judgment to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg."

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So we have another delay, even if this last emergency application hinges on a crucial legal point in all democracies. No one should be judged on grounds that the involved parties haven´t been able to discuss in the case. If it is true, it would be a bit tragicomic that such a fundamental mistake is made in a high-profile case by the finest judges, but shit does happen...

Pride Divided - Updated

The purpose of the LGBT Pride Festivals are several, but I would believe the main reasons are

• to manifest our existence and increase our visibility as a social group, 
• to promote the struggle for full and equal rights,
• to condemn discrimination and bullying and last but not least
• to build community and to celebrate our diversity together and with our straight allies.

I have heard that there are about 1,000,000 or less active users in SecondLife. With the varying time zones about 80,000 residents are in-world at the same time.

Let´s - for the sake of this discussion - assume that the residents belonging to the LGBT-group amounts to about 10 % of the total amount of residents, which would mean that there are about 100,000 active LGBT-users of which 8,000 are in-world at the same time.

The question I would like to ask is: "Do we really need more than one Pride Festival in SecondLife?"

Of course I realize that an argument could be made that the more Pride Festivals there are the prouder we are, but to me that argument is totally absurd.

One of the main reasons with celebrating a Pride Festival is to build community and to celebrate our diversity, to get to know each other across the national divisions, the language divisions and the time zone divisions, not to mention getting Lesbians and Gays to attend the same festival.

To me it seems totally absurd and counterproductive to the causes we claim we are promoting if we all have our own festivals with a few weeks in-between, Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transsexuals, Transgendered, Francophone, German speaking, Spanish speaking, English speaking, Americans, Euros, Australians and New Zealanders,  the Gay Archipelago and Second Pride.

ADDENDUMI have no objections to all these different subgroups celebrating their variety of Pride all year long if they wish, or leading up to one big main event. By all means go ahead and do that, but once a year we should all come together to one event, to show our strength in numbers and conviction, to show support for the greater causes and each others struggles and to rub shoulders, meet, discuss and talk and party

I get very sad and upset when such an important event for the gay community as celebrating Pride suffers because of petty rivalry between people who should know better. 

Either we have the same agenda or we don´t, and if we don´t we should stop pretending we have anything that unites us. Let´s get our act together and show we can unite for the good of us all! 

Operation Bock

I am happy to report that the Swedish healthcare system is still working smoothly and efficiently.

As some of you may remember, well it was only less than three months ago but I know that many of my readers have lots of more important stuff on their minds, I coughed up an umbilical hernia in the beginning of March this year.

The hernia became strangled later the same evening. It was not a pleasant condition, but I was well taken care of at the hospital emergency room and could come back home later the same night.

I have now been notified that they have scheduled me for operation on June 11, the time of day is not yet known. If everything goes well I will be sent home the same day.

Even if I know I need the operation and that it is a rather minor and undramatic procedure I still got a little worried. Luckily for me, when it comes to healthcare issues, I can consult with my dear friend Zigadena Gabardini. She can always answer the questions I have and that calms me down. This time I could also draw on the previous experience of her hubby Emarald Harvey. The poor man contracted an umbilical hernia lugging around Ziga´s extremely heavy luggage when they met the last time in first life.

So by June 12, 2012, I will hopefully no longer have the ugly little lump on my stomach which I constantly have to push back in. Bock with Brock will be gone again.

Good Business

"We don´t have to hire five thousand people to make and build contents for us, they´re all doing it all and they're paying us."

My blogger-buddy Apmel Goosson (My Avatar´s Name Is Apmel (url)), in a post today "Uncle Ib quotes (url)" quotes an anonymous developer at Linden Lab in an anthropological study of that company made by Thomas M..Malaby, "Making Virtual Worlds".

Bock Nails Winner

Source: SplashNewsOnline.com

For the first time ever the Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls manages to pick the winner of the European  Song Contest.

Winner Loreen from Sweden with Euphoria was awarded the highest points from 18 countries and got points by every country except Italy.

This of course may mean that Bock actually is just a stereotypical Euro-gay, although he denies being one himself.

Scoreboard of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012

My Predicted Winner of ESC 2012

I am such an unusual creature an a European gay man who has no interest whatsoever in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). However I predict this song to win in the finals taking place tonight in Baku, Azerbaijan.

It is the Swedish contribution with Loreen singing the song Euphoria. Enjoy! I am going to a first life event tonight that - thankfully - has nothing to do with the ESC.

Focus, Bloggers!

Quoted from TopherChris

Before going for my habitual nap today I read three great posts that bloggers on my blogroll had posted.

When I tried to go back to read them again after my nap they had vanished completely - although I still see them in my blogroll. Hey I am the first to understand that one can sometimes hit the wrong button, but three bloggers doing that on the same day. WTF!

Come on, blog-friends, lets focus on what we are doing so we do not upset me!