-TSS-

There doesn't seem to be any one dominant country in winter-sports; In 2002 Norway topped the medal-table, in 2006 Germany, in 2010 Canada was the most successful country in their own games and similarly in 2014 Russia took most medals in their home-games..

They said in the news that all Finns will participate in the downhill ski-competition. I am wondering now should I inform the IOC that I really have no time to participate that competition as I have other things to do.

The NHL wants the world cup to take root as the most competitive international tournament and therefore they don't want any rival-tournament. Olympics with the biggest stars would make mockery of the world cup, after all, olympics is always olympics.

You do that already, don't you? I mean, Canada can pick anyone it wants as its GC and the Queen in London just signs in the approval. More relevant is the question how much power does the GC have. In Australia in 1975 their GC dismissed the PM after the PM failed to get the budget passed and the opposition-leader was appointed as PM. There was a deep crisis involving debate could the GC really do that but he did so he could.

I thought so too that it is part of the show. It seems that if somebody doesn't join the clapping that will be duly noted by the reporters.

I listened to Trump's state of the union speech and the most notable thing was that there was too much clapping. It really started to get annoying.

Turkey played a pivotal role in NATO during the cold war. Nowadays it is just an embarassment.

There have been made many comparisons to our age as compared to the times of the fall of the West-Roman Empire. There are a lot of similarities. One reason why the West-Roman Empire fell because it became soft and its real Romans became lazy but the main reason was, just like with the EU today, that the whole Empire had become a meaningless concoction towards which nobody felt any loyalty whatsoever unless they were paid handsomely.

If the British had never colonised anything most people on this board would have never even been born.

The African countries were destined to become failed states from the beginning as almost all of them are totally artificial creations with borders drawn on a map with a ruler without regard to natural circumstances or ethnic divisions. So the African countries should be dissolved and created on a more sustainable basis. However, that is impossible. If anyone ever tried to do that it would be a catastrophe. Another thing is that most Africans dont think in country-level. They think in tribal-level and most tribes are too small to be a population of a country.

When you take these failded states which President Trump called by a different definition, the reason why they are failed states are bit of both the imcompetence and corruption of the present population and regime on one hand and the colonial legacy and oppression by the colonial masters as well as unfair rules of world trade on the other. A bit of both. Too bad that when this issue is discussed people tend to point out only one side of the argument depending on their view of the world.

The former President of Iran said there are no gays in Iran, not a single one. If he said so it must be true. Why wouldn't we believe him?

It seems Trump enjoys stirring the pot. He sure must have known the reaction which would follow after the shithole-comment and he enjoys watching self-righteous snobs being so angry that their heads almost explode.

I guess the main-reaction to this news has been that if Americans have actually elected Trump there is no way of saying that they would never elect another celebrity. Speaks volumes about the American career-politicians.

A work-mate of mine wooed me to try bitcoin or not bitcoin but the virtual-currencies. I'm on two minds about this. Either we are on the verge of a new era where virtual currencies will take over or we are witnessing a classic pyramid-scheme where people are attracted into a system in hope of big cash as the rates of the virtual currencies have shown insane growth-rates; something has become 10 times the original value in ridicously short time. I think I'll try it with 100-200 euros at first.

That was quite an interesting episode in the history of canadian politics as when your perhaps the most famous PM Pierre Trudeau resigned and handed over power to John Turner who became PM for less than three months and was then crushed in the Conservative-landslide in 1984. Yet, it seemed that Turner was not blamed for the defeat as he was allowed to go on as the party-leader and have another attempt at election four years later. Similarly, Mulroney escaped in 1993 and Kim Campbell became PM only for few months. She didn't stay on. Did she even want to. I don't know.

What I have checked through the history of Canadian politics it seems the closest thing to the PM being ousted by his own party was in 2003 when Chretien didn't seek re-election as party-leader but he was probably scared that he would lose to Paul Martin. Do you agree?

It is fundamentally the wrong analysis that only racists and xenophobes voted for Brexit. After all, surely people don't think that racists and xenophobes make the majority to win a referendum, do they? In my view the correct analysis is that instead of being shackled to a giant standing on feet of clay called the EU it is cleverer for a country like Britain to reach out to the whole wide world which exists out there beyond the boundaries of the EU.

People compare the political cultures of the USA and Canada but I think that is quite futile considering the nature of the two countries. It is more interesting to compare the political cultures of Canada and Australia as they are, despite the distance, very similar countries when the structure of the country is considered. One major difference between these otherwise similar countries is that there doesn't seem to be in Canada at all a phenomenon which happens very often in Australia. Namely, that the incumbent PM does not only have to worry about the next election and the opposition-party but in Australia the PM has been ousted many times as leader of the governing party and hence as PM. In the previous Labor-administration two party-leaders and PMs, Rudd and Gillard, both ousted each other. The current PM also became PM by ousting the previous PM in the middle of an electoral-term.

I've been led to believe that in countries such as Iran and Turkey the difference between big cities and the countryside is huge. In Tehran and Istanbul you can hardly see any difference compared to any Western-European city. In the countryside of both countries it is very strict adherence to muslim-values.

Is it really possible in the US, like it was claimed in some election-debate, that a multi-millionaire CEO pays less tax than his secretary who earns something like 1/100 compared to him?

My guess is that May will be out before the end of May(heh!). Who'll replace her? Hopefully not that Rees-Mogg guy.

If a non-white girl from certain countries agrees to date a white man she better start growing wings and learn how to fly because she is bound to have an accident and fall from the tenth floor of her tower-block house.

I don't think it is queastion of one old man like Soros. There is a bigger picture out there. I personally have decided not to vote ever again in Finnish parliamentary-elections. The Finnish government is a collection of puppets to the EU and the alternatives are not better. I know that creating apathy is just the goal of the euro-federalists but I don't really care any more, which is just what the euro-federalists hope for. That people stop caring.

I am onot as pessimistic as you apparently are. Namely, given how botched and fumbled the muslim-terrorist attacks seem to be I hold the view that muslims will be a menace but the idea of them carrying out a revolution and overthrowing regimes is just not plausible. On the other hand, the very fact that these clumsy terrorist-attacks are clearly allowed to happen even though they could be easily prevented speaks volumes about the true motives of the NWO-masters. The whole immigration-crisis into Europe could be stopped tomorrow if there was a political will to do so but somehow there isn't the political will to do so because of the NWO.