-TSS-

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.

It is a natural development in federal countries that power shifts to the central-government. Federalism was a more suitable form of government in the age of horse and cart and poor and slow communications.

In many Eastern-European countries more than half of the pregancies are terminated. Even in Poland but they must travel to Germany to do that. In my opinion 1/6 is quite an acceptable rate even though the most vehement pro-lifers think it must be zero.

Has banning abortions proved to be a very succesful policy anywhere in the civilised world and you can interpret the concept of a civilised world anyway you like?

I guess there are a lot of people who simultaneosly support this travel-restriction and make jokes about Americans never travelling abroad. Namely, a lot of people around the world make fun of Americans how only 1/3 of them even have a passport and how many Americans have never been abroad. Of course most of those people are Europeans for whom crossing the national borders is a piece of cake due to short distances and the Schengen-agreement.

What really puzzles me about this topic is how is it even possible in this day and age of contraceptives to have so many unwanted pregnancies that abortions are needed. For example in Finland, a country of 5.5 million people, the annual birth-rate is about 50,000 people and the annual abortion-rate is about 10,000 abortions, which means that 1/6 pregnancies are terminated. That is probably one of the best ratios in the world in the positive sense as in many eastern-European countries even half or more pregnancies are terminated. Probably 1/6-rate is the best one can hope for. However, unless we are talking about very young teenagers who may not understand consequences following actions I just can't understand how people have not noticed yet that contraceptives were invented in the 60's.

I think you Canadians should leave this fanatical rage about abortions to the Americans; They are much better at it and have more experience.

Today when I was travelling on the local-train which goes past the main Finnish international airport I came across a lady who was at lost where to go and where to buy tickets for the train. It turned out that she has not lived in Finland for 30 years and is now living in Turkey with her husband. I didn't ask but somehow I assumed that her husband must then be Turkish, otherwise that wouldn't make any sense living in Turkey, would it. However, I thought that it was very uplifting as earlier it has always been the case that if the husband is from a country like Turkey and the wife is from Western-Europe the couple lives in the wife's home-country. She said she lives in Istanbul which of course must be another universe from the rest of Turkey.