-TSS-

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.

Europe is still safe compared to places like gangland-Chicago or similar neighbourhoods in Detroit. Please come and visit our continent! We need your money!

Many Brits who were old enough to vote already in the 1975-referendum and voted to stay in the then EEC have said that they were fooled to think it is just a trade-agreement between independent nations. The same people voted in large numbers for Brexit last year.

The question I would like to ask the pro-lifers is that as they obviously would ban abortion if it were up to them how would they deal with women who have travelled abroad to get an abortion? In Europe there are three countries where abortion is either totally banned or very restricted: Ireland, Malta and Poland. The Polish women travel to Germany to get an abortion, the Maltese women travel to Italy and the Irish travel to Britain. I read somewhere that as recently as the 70's the Irish women who returned to Ireland after having an abortion in Britain could face very serious legal consequences. That's why many of them didn't return.

Present-day Germans invade economically rather than militarily.

It has been a gradual development in all federal countries that more and more power slips to the central-government. I also believe there is a lot of "grey are" where it is not clearly defined whether the federal-government or the states are responsible as it has not been clearly defined.

Four years is the length of our parliamentary-term. Even though early elections are constitutionally possible they are very rare. We are a republic but nowadays our President is vested with very limited powers but there was a time before when the President was a really powerful figure. We had President Kekkonen who was something of a semi-authoritarian leader of Finland for 25 years in the years 1956-1981. His power was entirely excused because of the threat of the Soviets and he managed to maintain cordial relations with the Soviets but he became somewhat obsessive and started to think of himself as indispensable. He remained President until 1981 when his apparent dementia was so far developed that it could not be hidden any longer. That was a shameful period in our history how a sick man was kept in front while some civil servants were scheming behind the closed doors. After Kekkonen we had Koivisto for 12 years and the UN-laureate Ahtisaari and after him our first female President Tarja Halonen. Then the constitution was changed to make the head of government the real political leader and nowadays Parliamentary-elections are the really serious elections. The President still has some powers regarding foreign policy and he/she is directly elected but nowadays the Prime Minister is the undisputed political leader of the country.

I disagree with you there. It has been mentioned many times that the US-presidential term at four years is too short and should be extended to five if not even six years. Note the term-limits and only eight years: First year:You are a novice and don't know what to do Second year: You have to worry about the mid-term elections Third year: This time you can make some real decisions Fourth year: You have to worry about getting re-elected Fifth year: This time you can make some real decisions Sixth year: Mid-term elections again. It won't bother you anymore but your party will be angry if you do as you please Seventh year: Real decisions, maybe, maybe not Eighth year: Nobody is interested in you anymore as you are out soon. You can make some decisions but your successor will overturn them anyway.

Isnt there constant talk about extending the presidential-term to five years as four years is considered too short? However, no worry about such a change happening as long as Trump is President.

That's how it should be in the future as well.

The central government has obtained more and more power over the years than was ever originally designed in the constitution. On the other hand, many US-states still have more say in their own affairs than can be said of EU-member states which are nominally independent countries but in reality are just regions of the evolving EU super-state.

The best option would be that a country like China colonised Africa and imposed strict one child-rules. The Chinese are immune to be being called fascists or racists.

Does that O'Leary guy have a real chance of becoming a party-leader? Having watched some youtube-clips about him he comes across as a real snake oil salesman.

Londoners got used to the IRA in the 80's, therefore they don't view the present threat any differently and unfortunately people seem to think that terror-alerts is a part and parcel of living in a major global city.

I hate to say but since the internet became available to everyone it seems, at least for me, that reading actual books has become a rare event.

To Europeans it seems absurd that in some parts of a country there can be death penalty while in others there can't. It's either/or rather than both/and for our frame of mind.

The French intelligence-services have had an embarassing time lately as they have been surprised three times within two years. It seems the Brits are much better at these things.

I would say that is an exaggeration; after all the likelihood of being exactly in the same bus or metro-train the nutjobs want to blow up is almost like a negative lottery-win. Having said that, people don't like Western-European capitals any more, especially London and Paris, because apart from their historical sights they don't feel like English or French any more. They are global cities and the real England and the real France lie somewhere outside the boundaries of those cities.

I have never been on your side of the Atlantic but I have heard that travelling to the USA can be very tedious; on top of the long flight it can take a really long time at the JFK where the authorities ask you stupid questions like how much money have you got, where are you planning to go, please show your return ticket etc.