-TSS-

Your country is really facing an uphill-struggle if it wants to retain its title in the olympic games in Sotsi. Russia seems like unbeatable at the moment.

Does the bolded bit refer to abortion?

As I have earlier pointed out, it is easy to understand why most Canadians have nothing against immigration as their immigration-system is based on the points-system which is a kind of cherry-picking the best immigrants on the grounds of age, education and skills.

No surprise that the public even in Quebec, not to mention the rest of Canada, have little or zero sympathy for these protestors.

There are news of the Greek withdrawing all their money from the banks as it seems that the country will leave the euro and revert to the drachma the value of which will be devalued to almost worthless. Therefore the concrete notes and coins of euro will be hard currency.

People fall time and time again into this trap of trying to downplay ethnicity by these "we are all humans" idealistic rhetoric but when the push comes to shove nations stand their own ground and keep others at bay. Just see what is happening in the EU which is supposed to be an expiriment of uniting the quarrelsome nations of Europe.

SYRIZA and Golden Dawn will increase their share of the vote. Since the latter is a party no other party wants to have anything to do with they are heading for another gridlock. The Golden Dawn party is playing on people's fears of immigrants. In some parts of Athens were elderly people are afraid to conduct their businesses like going to ATM's to withdraw money, the party has volunteered to give free "bodyguard-services" at request hoping that those people would remember the party at the polling booth as well.

I read an article on the Quebec student-riots on the Economist and as that paper is heavily biased one must take its writings with a pinch of salt. However, it said that the population in general in Quebec are turning against the students especially as giving up the student fee hikes would mean tax-hikes as the province has promised to cut its budget deficit.

I read about the stuff about the planned tuition-fees in Quebec today and I must say that I'm surprised.

1796! Wow, that is impressive! The first nations have been in Canada since...?

Interesting, I never knew that such "convenience Canadians" existed. Probably that is a loophole which needs to be filled.

The difference in the votes in the 1995 referendum was indeed some 50,000 or so votes. I wonder how much do the separatists point out that in the intervening 17 years many of the voters of that referendum have died and many who were too young to vote at the time are adults now.

I never thought about such a scenario. Indeed, what would happen if a nominee for presidential-election died before the election and at a stage he/she wouldn't have yet picked a running-mate? I think scenarios like this point out the weakness in a political system where you elect persons instead of parties. If a party-leader dies in the middle of an election-campaign there is always the deputy or the party has some procedure as to how to move on.

As in my country immigration is a relatively new phenomenon as immigration on a massive scale has only happened for few years and understandably there has been resentment among the population manifesting itself in the electoral success of the True Finns-party last year, many of those who oppose the opne doors-policy say that we should be like Canada which has a points based system of allowing immigrants into the country making sure that only people with skills enter the country and none whatsoever of the islamic radicals we in Europe get. Well, it is futile to tell those people that the number of immigrants entering Canada is multifold compared to my country and even though there is a points based system there is still a quota for humanitarian immigration.

I mentioned earlier Canada, Ireland and New Zealand living in the shadow of much better known and bigger neighbours. All three countries have in common that they are often viewed as what they are not rather than what they are.

I think Greece can only be saved by returning to the drachma and devaluing it. That would lead to a sharp fall in the living standards of the people and possibly to massive civil unrest and emigration but sticking with the euro seems to be worst of all the possibilities.

Is NHL available in your country on freeview-channels or do you need some expensive canal+ or other rip-off package?

Well, can it at least be said that if any immigrant's choice of destination is based on how important soccer is in that country Canada should be just about the last of the preferences?

Canada once again kicked Finland's arse! In the IIHF world championship-tournament here in Finland and in Sweden. The Canadian players are from teams eliminated from the current NHL-play offs. They have gained a reputation here being more interested in the night-life in Helsinki than the games. Yet they still beat us.

Do the Canadian soldiers returning from Afganistan get jeered by immigrants at home as the British soldiers do upon on their arrival at home?

Let's put it this way: It is not at all impossible that the USA could sometime in the future win the soccer world cup. If Argentina, Brazil or any European country wins that competition people in any of those countries would go wild and there would be streets full of jubilant people celebrating the victory. If the USA won the soccer world cup it would largely pass unnoticed in almost all of the major cities in the US.

Canada, Ireland and New Zealand all have one thing in common; they in the shadow of a bigger and better-known neighbour and all three are going out of their way to convince the outside world that they are different than the bigger neighbour they are overshadowed by.

I think that in all N-American professional sports they should abolish the system that the final of the league is some artificial East-West confrontation. They should organise it differently. If NY Rangers and NI Islanders ever get to be the best teams in the NHL they should be able to meet in the Stanley Cup finals. Or ditto Montral and Toronto.

Isn't it strange how people who make a big point about being 100% heteresexuals are so obsessively interested in all issues relating to homosexuals?

There is likely to be another election in Greece in a short time to come.