-TSS-

The welfare state as a system works in countries which are relatively small and have a homogenous population such as the Nordic countries have traditionally been prior to the recent waves of mass-immigration. The very fact that the welfare state is funded by ultra high taxation is only possible if there is a cohesiveness in society, a feeling of togetherness so that people in general don't think the government is forcing them to pay high taxes but they agree to do it because of common good. When that feeling of cohesiveness begins to erode for reasons such as high immigration making the population more heterogenous so that people don't think of large proportions of the population as "our people" the popularity of the welfare state goes down.

Does anyone else think it is rather worrying that even though the FBI had kept an eye on the older brother he was still able to carry out his act? Imagine how many people there must be who have not yet been noticed by the authorities but are harbouring very nasty ideas.

I think allowing him a status of an enemy combatant would flatter him and that is exactly why he should be treateda as nothing else than a criminal.

She was a very divisive figure indeed. Her attitude which some people considered as admirable relentlessnessand steadfastness was seen by other people as sheer ruthlessness. However, those people who hate her have so far failed to give an alternative as to what should have been done from 1979 onwards.

There were a lot of comments during the week when the identity of the perpetrators was still unknown that hopefully they are white so there would not be increased hate and prejudice. As we know, Americans call white people as Caucasians. Well, they got their wish. Chechens are just about as Caucasians as you can get.

Politically their act made absolutely no sense. It is important for the Chechens to maintain the impression that Russia is a cruel oppressor and all the Chechens want is an independent country of their own. Who could oppose that? After all, were it not for the Russia-Chechnya conflict few in the west would have ever heard of the place anyway. By carrying out a terrorist-act in the United States the brothers ruined whatever positive was left of the image of the Chechens outside Russia. I doubt it very much these guys are thought very highly of in Chechnya.

One thing really puzzles me: Were the brothers planning to carry out more attacks in Boston and thought they wouldn't be uncovered? Nothing else would explain that they were still in the city four days after the attacks. In four days you can get very far away if you want to especially as it was only yesterday that they were identified and the authorities knew who to look for.

I cant get my head around as to how is it possible to interpret my post that I would have been blaming Vladimir Putin for the Boston-bombs.

Not all terrorism carried out by muslims is motivated by spreading islam all over the world. Chechens are mostly sunni-muslims but very secular in their faith. The same can be said of Kosovon Albanians and even Kurds, most of those people muslims as well. It seems that this act of terrorism was neither politically not religiously motivated. After all, what could the Chechens hope to achieve by terrorism in the United States? It would only benefit Putin. It rather seems that there was no real motive other than enjoyment in causing death and destruction.

It seems that it must be a lone individual behind all this. Firstly, the bombs were very amateurish, secondly, no organisation has claimed responsibility.

People usually think the reason why she eventually had to resign as PM was because of differences with her coleagues over the EC, the predecessor of the EU. After all, she was a real eurosceptic who didn't trust at all the European project. That is partially true about her exit but I would say that a bigger reason was her inexcusable political blunder to push through the hugely unpopular poll-tax leading to riots and refusals to pay. The tax was grossly unfair and after Thatcher had gone the tax was quietly ditched.

Hahaa, that is funny that comment about her funeral to be privatised. That would be so much in line with her policies while she was alive.

It really beats the hell out of me how many Finnish youngsters, many of whom weren't even born before Nov 1990 when Maggie resigned, take such delight in her death. Just reading the facebook-profiles. After all, had it not been for people like her, we in Finland would be in a much more jeopardised position than we are now. The Soviet Union collapsed mainly because Reagan and Thatcher called its bluff.

I think her best quotes was something along the lines: Socialism is a great experiment until other people's money runs out.

Indeed, what an odious personality that muslim-apologist Galloway really is! However, nothing he does or says surprises me anymore.

There really has been a mixed reaction in Britain following her death. Such a reaction was totally to be expected. many people have eulogised the great leader when as simultaneously there are news-reports of people dancing in wild celebrations in the streets of Brixton and elsewhere in London. I wonder what the reaction has been in Buenos Aires. Having said all that, she surely stood out for her own country on the international stage, something which can not be said of the current leaders in Europe.

This is my humble concession that I agree whenever there is the case that something needs to be done in order to remove filthy dictators, unfortunately, it is the US who actually do the work of removing those dictators while us Europeans keep on moaning about what should be done.

I'm all in for the insane leadership of North-Korea to be wiped out. Any decent person would be of that opinion, don't you agree? People in North-Korea are eating grass just to survive while the Kim-Ils continue to live in luxury. If the west concocted an excuse of WMD*s to attack Iraq 10 years ago one should not be too hard to find another excuse to remove these filthy bastards of the government of North-Korea.

Turkey is the only predominantly islamic country that I would call a civilized country. Their people's attitudes towards the central tenets of islam differ drastically from most, if not all, other islamic countries including things like stoning adulterers or death sentence for apostasy.

Too bad that the two state-solution seems to be losing support on both sides as it would be in both sides' interest. After all, the demographic development is much slower within the Jewish community than in the Arabic community. So, if Israel insists on holding to the occupied territories they run the risk of one day being minority in Israel which is a designated Jewish country. At the same time, of course, the Arabs would become second class citizens; a situation not very far from apartheid. Unfortunately, both sides are dicated too much by the hotheads. Israel's existence is permanent despite what the Arab hotheads are preaching. The Palestinians are having a much higher birth-rate than the Jewish people are despite what Netanyahu and other hotheads in the Israeli government are saying.

When the euro was created I was wondering how can there be a single currency without any real political union. However, I trusted that when people wiser than me say that is possible then it is. Now it has turned out that there can not be a single currency without a political union. All the more appalling feature of all this seems to me that all this has been planned from the outset. Now the EU is pushing for more and more centralised control because they tell us that the present problems are not due to too much EU but rather the opposite.

Politically, it is impossible to come out of this very well. The alternatives are to let Cyprus fall and hence the risks to the euro-zone, or, bail Cyprus out and effectively make European tax-payers subsidise shady Russain oligarchs who have stashed away money in Cyprus.

Isn't the current arrangement the best of both world's for Canada's far-north and the territories don't even wish to be promoted to provincehood?

Please someone show me the exact passage in the Bible demanding that a human-being is elevated to a position of a semi-God. You can't show such a passage because it does not exist. Similarly, nowhere in the Bible is there any demand that people must build places of worship.

The current system must be frustrating if you live in a state which always goes to the same party but you support the other party. Let's say for example if you vote for the Republicans but live in Minnesota. I think that is the best example of a vote going to be wasted every time.