-TSS-

It seems that in June and July people kind of forgot about the coronavirus and now as the second wave is coming we have been surprised pants down.

The mother of all recessions is coming. Won't make any difference who is the President other than that whoever is the President will get the blame.

May not be a very wise choice by Biden to pick her as a VP-candidate. Actually she could be a burden who will cost him precious votes because she is not very likeable at all and people realise that Biden can't last four years if elected. Bad VP-picks have previously played a role in elections. It was obvious in 2008 that Obama was going to win but McCain made his chances impossible by picking Sarah Palin. Similarly Bush Sr must have regretted picking Dan Quayle who turned out to be a common laughing stock.

She isn't even black so why does she claim to be black? That was a silly question I know but still she is not black. Unfortunately this American categorisation of people into whites, blacks etc is trying to break through here in Europe as well even though nobody here identifies oneself first and foremost as white or black but by one's nationalities.

Some people are taking Trump's defeat so granted that if Trump still manages to win expect a huge sound of blood vessels bursting in many people's heads simply because people being so pissed off. Imagine the disappointment they had in 2016 and mulitply that by a zillion and you get the level of their disappointment if Trump still wins.

I bought a package of masks today. I think the masks are bollocks but if they will become compulsory for going into shops at least I'll have them. Wearing masks outdoors in the open air is just silly. In some countries even that is compulsory.

In 1975 in Australia the GG dismissed the PM when the PM no longer had a majority to pass the budget. That sparked a constitutional crisis about could the GG really do that. The GG is the representative of the Queen.

I wonder would American democracy work better if they had like in Europe 10 parties in their legislature and therefore multi-party coalition-governments. There are pros and cons.

Now that it seems not only possible but even likely that Trump might actually lose the election there must be a lot of Democrats kicking themselves for not having thrown their hat in the ring. The old demented goofy is actually going to win the election. That was all due to pre-corona times. It was only some time ago it seemed certain that Trump is going to be easily re-elected and therefore many Democrats thought not to bother and instead come in 2024 when it was supposed to certain that a Democrat-candidate was going to win after 8 years of Trump-Presidency. Now all this speculation has turned upsidedown as Trump may lose and Biden's VP will eventually take over as President some time after early 2023.

I wonder how much of an effect can Kanye West have on the elction. Will he snatch some black votes away from Biden. I don't think so. This presidential-campaign is just a way to sell records.

This is all so confusing. There is Trump who is the most hated President ever and the Democrats want to get rid of him whatever it takes so they unite their clever minds and they come up with Biden. They want to get rid of Trump like nothing else and Biden is the best they've got to offer as an alternative? On the other hand, unless you are a true socialist and therefore a Bernie-supporter none of the primaries candidates were any better than Biden.

If Biden wins he won't last four years but he will last over two years. He will be forced to last that long. Expect him to step down on Jan 21, 2023 citing health reasons. Namely, when he has served more than half of his term his VP who becomes President will be eligible herself to be elected twice. Examples from the past include LBJ who became President in 1963 well in the second half of Kennedy's term and he was elected a year later and could have run for another term in 1968 but he didn't want to. If Gerald Ford had won in 1976 he wouldn't have been eligible for another term in 1980.

They probably wouldn't agree between themselves as to which name they should adopt.

The Democrats would keep on trying new tricks in attempts to remove Trump from office. Like all two-term Presidents he will lose heavily the mid-term elections and spend the latter half of his second term being very restricted as to what he can do governing by executive orders instead of laws.

Dual citizenship maybe not so harmful if we talk about countries such as Canada and the UK or Finland and Sweden etc. It becomes a problem when we talk about countries such as Canada and Afghanistan. Or the UK and Pakistan. Or Germany and Turkey. The Turks in Germany who have the German citizenship vote in the German elections for the greens who allow more Turks to enter Germany and in the Turkish elections they vote for Erdogan's hard line islamist party.

Dual citizenships should be banned the world over. Nothing to do with xenophobia but sheer practicality.

There is this fantasy about thinking that Latinos will start voting for the Republicans because the Latinos are conservatives by nature. First of all, the Republicans have become labelled as a party for old white men to the extent that it takes some doing to attract voters from elsewhere. Secondly, are the Latinos really that conservative? Perhaps that was the case in the 70's but now? I don't think so. Christianity has gone downhill and especially Catholicism. When as in the 70's the word from the pope really meant something these days it means nothing. Namely, the birth-rate of the Latinos is below the replacement-rate, which would be impossible if they took their Catholicism seriously as their religion forbids not only abortion but also contraceptives. (Btw I have no idea where they have had this thing from in the first place that abortion and contraceptives are wrong as I guess when the Bible was written neither abortion nor contraceptives were were known).

I often jocularly tease one of my Russian work-mates by asking shouldn't there be more black people in Russia. No way is his answer. I try to say that there are about 150 million people in Russia so something like 5-10 million black people would make no difference. Not going to happen is the answer of my work-mate. If anyone in Russia ever tried to push such an agenda it would lead to a civil-war. On a serious note, there may be no black people in Russia but there are millions of Caucasians(not meaning the American definition for white people) and they are a real PITA for Russia.

Does anyone think there is anything good about Biden other than that his not Trump?

It is absolutely annoying how the woke-crowd are trying to push the American identity-politics into the European countries as well even though the context and the circumstances couldn't be more different. In Europe we just don't categorize ourselves by things like white, black, latino, asian etc. In Euriope we categorize ourselves based on our nations and the people from those nations.

Currently looks good for Biden. The big question is that do people hate Trump more than dislike the idea of electing a senile goofy. 4 years ago people hated Trump less than could stomach the idea of another Clinton in the White House. Elections are always a question of picking lesser evils.

I'm glad that here in Europe nobody really cares about abortion. It just isn't an issue over here. That would only needlessly divide the nationalistic lines.

It looks like the disease has been suppressed here in Finland. There are less than 20 people in hospital-treatment for the disease and people are acting like the virus is just a bad memory. My main fear is that people will fetch the disease back by travelling as tourism begins to open up. Unfortunately many Finns are such oikophobic people that the idea of spending an entire year in our home-country is just too much to ask for.

I was reading some posts of this thread and I was wondering how they seemed somehow strange and then I looked at the date when the thread was started.

A mask protects you from the virus like barbed wire protects you from mosquitos.