-TSS-

The Irish were lucky to become independent 100 years ago. If they hadn't done that then later on it wouldn't have been allowed and there would be nuclear weapons in Ireland today.

Far too often these asylum-seekers claim that they are apostates and sending them back would be a certain death but after they have received asylum all of a sudden their belief in islam takes a new turn.

The loss of Britain was a devastating blow for the EU; the EU would have needed Britain much more than the other way round. It was not only because Britain is a major important power that losing them hurts the EU like hell but also because the Brits actually going their own way sets a precedent that it is possible to secede from the EU. It was possible in theory to secede from the USSR as well but until 1991 any soviet-state which would have tried that would have found out the hard way that it is no allowed. Last but not least losing Britain is a blow as the EU itself has imperial ambitions and the British have easily the strongest army in the EU, the French can say whatever they want but it is true, and losing such fire-power makes the EU more of a paper-tiger.

Taqiyya Those who don't know what that word means just google it.

The Scottish Parliament granted the Scottish government an approval to seek another independence-referendum following Britain's EU-exit. I doubt such a referendum will be granted. The issue was settled three years ago and the margin of victory for those who wanted to remain in the UK was convincing. Clutching at straws springs to mind. Both the Scottish referendum and the Brexit-referendum showed that in a country where referenda are not the usual instrument, like in Ireland or Denmark, those who lose the referenda always refuse to acknowledge defeat and look for some "changed circumstances" which require another referendum.

Londoners who grew up in the 80's had a lot of experience of terror-alerts by the IRA. Hence the Londoners seem to be less hysterical about terrorism than Americans are.

I thought that trolling and baiting was against the forum-rules but apparently not. I'm not going to say who I mean by this and some may guess who but that person should understand it has reached beyond the point of being boring.

As the medieval map-makers were mostly Europeans it is easy to understand that they also made maps on a Euro-centric basis. Medieval maps are incredibly close to being accurate given the methods they had those days. I don't think modern people could come even close to being as accurate if they had to manage with the same methods. Besides, why would Europeans exaggerate the size of Europe and then go on colonising the rest of the world? Wouldn't the other way round be more logical? "Look, we are so little that we can't possibly all of us fit in here. Therefore we desperately need new land and you've got plenty of land to spare"

That decolonised map is still not accurate though. Australia, for example, is too little compared to its real size. So are most African countries.

The EU has spent this weekend its 60th birthday as the Treaty of Rome was signed on this date in 1957. It's a false celebration though as the EU emerged out of the EEC only after the Maastricht-treaty which was negotiated in 1991 and the due to the Danes rejecting it in the first referendum it was passed only in 1993.

Doesn't anyone think that this London-attack has been a bit blown out of proportion? I'm not saying that there were "only" four victims but I'm saying that almost anywhere else this would have barely made the news but as London is some sort of a centre of the world anything that happens there gets multiple attention.

There was a stroke of luck involved too or/and the perpetrator was a hopeless butterfinger because that place is in the middle of the day so full of people, both commuters and especially tourists, that the death-toll could have been much higher. Too bad that as London is such a major global-city it is a dream-target and attention is certain.

On the anniversary of last year's attacks in Belgium. I wonder if it was a co-incidence or is there something symbolic about March 22th?

Trump has been President for two months now and the world still hasn't ended! Chin up and towards new challenges. Future elections haven't been cancelled and Trump isn't President forever.

At the expense of the social democrats who fell from 25% to 6% and seatwise from 38 to 9. A total and utter humiliation and annihilation. They were the junior partners in the government the two parties and it seems that while the Liberals also lost popularity and seats but remained the largest party it was the social democrats who took the beating for unpopular policies. Only because Wilders failed to make such gains as expected it is a false analysis to state that the election was a victory for status quo. Far from it. The protest-votes were scattered more widely than to benefit Wilders alone.

No thanks. Bye bye Hillary!

I like the bit about fixed-term elections. It gives predictability. I don't like the European constitutions which give the possibility of dissolving Parliament before its term is out and call new elections. Having said that, the British changed their law that 5 years is 5 years unless something really exceptional happens like a vote of no confidence for the government but early elections called just on the whim of the PM based on the opinion polls looking good is history. Unless I'm mistaken something of a similar change happened in Canada too, didn't it? No more early elections unless necessary. My memory is hazy but I seem to recall one Canadian election which was critisized for being called far too early and for no other reason than to improve the position of the government of the day. There was no political crisis or whatsoever which would have required an early dissolution of the parliament.

Namibia demands a 30bn dollars compensation from Germany for the genocide of the Herero and Nama-tribe people in 1904-08. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/15/germany-comes-to-terms-with-forgotten-death-camps

As the EU want to eradicate all nationalism therefore they strongly discourage any secessions. That's why both Scotland and Catalonia and perhaps some other prospective new countries are told by the EU that they are not automatically EU-members but have to go through years of membership-negotiations. There's not going to be another referendum in Scotland and the Spanish government will never allow a referendum in Catalonia.

It gives me great pleasure to think how the Nordic Social Democratic Parties, the traditional governing parties in the Nordic countries, must be watching in horror what happened to the Dutch Social Democratic Party, also a strong party and often the leading party in the Netherlands. They were absolutely annihilated and reduced to insignificance. In terms of influence and importance they were relegated to the same category as the funny fringe-parties in the Dutch parliament such as the animal rights party or that religious nutjobs party which wants to ban women from the public life and abolish their right to vote.

The second chamber of the Dutch parliament has 150 members elected from a single nationwide constituency using proportional representation without any thresholds. Seems to me like the most democratic election-system thinkable, don't you agree? As 1/150 of the votes is enough to gain representation, all kinds of single-issue parties have easy access to parliament. For example the aforementioned animal rights party. There is also another party, a Calvinist-party, which campaigns on the platform of disenfrancising all women. As for the election-result, prior to the election there was a coalition of Liberals and the Social Democrats which gained 5 years ago 41 seats with 26% of the votes for the Liberals and 38 seats with 25% of the votesfor the Social Democrats. This time the Liberals gained 33 seats with 21% of the votes and the Social Democrtas were hammered into oblivion with 9 seats with 6% of the votes. The big news of the election was not how Wilders's partry didn't do as well as expected when they still made progress. The news was how the government was totally and utterly rejected. Building a new coalition could take quite a while.

A xenophobic anti-EU party received 13% of the votes. Therefore 87% of the voters are in favour of the EU and mass-immigration. A party for animals rights received 3% of the votes. Therefore 97% of the voters support cruelty on animals. If you follow that logic follow in all instances.

Theresa May herself supported remain but is now leading Brexit-negotiations as she respects the outcome of the referendum. Good on her. Besides, a remainer leading the negotiations could lead to a better negotiation-outcome as there is less antagonism between the negotiating parties. I'm optimistic about the outcome as both Britain and the EU need each other too much in order to afford a total fall-out of relations not to mention even a trade-war. If there is anyone the Brexiteers can thank for the victory of Brexit then that person is Barack Obama. Namely, certainly millions of people decided to vote for Brexit and probably turned the outcome around as a reaction to a foreign president coming to lecture to the Brits how they should vote in their referendum. Well, having said that, a lot of Europeans didn't hide their view which candidate Americans should have voted for in the US-elections.

I hope the EU won't get dismantled like the former Soviet Union but it needs to return being solely a union concerned mainly with trade between the member-states and those outside the union. There would never have been Brexit and the rise of anti-EU parties across Europe had the EU not sought a close political union.

Why is the House of Representatives-term so ridiculously short? Only two years and I guess it must cost a fortune to get elected and if you have to do it two years later again you are going bankcrupt. The HOR is not any junior-chamber nor is the Senate any senior-chamber though they are often presented exactly that way. They are of equal value. Neither can override the other.