-TSS-

Both sides of the argument hope that this is going to be an electoral asset in the mid-terms in November. They will be disappointed. The cost of living-crisis will dominate the election. You are always primarily interested in issues which directly affect you personally.

Petrol is yet much cheaper in America than in Europe and the salaries in America are much higher but in America the people will vote the Democrats out in the mid-terms when as in every country in Europe we re-elect the same socialists who whip us to death with taxes. Yet we in Europe think that Americans are stupid.

Trends move in cycles. The pendulum is swinging the other way. When fuel, food and energy cost too much all of a sudden things like the correct pronouns or multiple genders don't seem so important at all any more.

There really is some sort of a cultural difference here. Poland is just about the only country in Europe these days that gets riled up about abortion. Even Ireland legalised abortion some years ago. Elsewhere in Europe it a non-issue. Btw, people who support Russia against Ukraine saying that Russia is based and supports traditional values seem to forget that Russia has probably the highest abortion-rate in the world. More than half of pregnancies are terminated.

Perhaps travelling is not the issue but some states are very reluctant to offer medical services to people who don't live in those states and therefore people would have to resort to private medical services which are absolutely out of the range of affordability for many people.

I can only imagine how much they must have regretted selling off Alaska.

People say that this doesn't really change anything. You can still travel to another state to have an abortion if your state doesn't allow it. Other people say that not all people have this option. It is a vast country and not all people can afford to travel. I know America is big but Is this really a common problem that it's not possible to travel? When Ireland was still very anti-abortion and when young girls went to England to get an abortion that could get them in trouble with the law when they returned. Therefore many of them didn't return.

Some people have a very romanticized view of the justice system. Even though in theory it is supposed to be politically neutral one must be very naive to believe it realy is. Actually, if you are a very ideologically driven person you try to enter politics but if you lack the charisma what it takes to become a successful politician then the justice system is another choice where you can advance your agenda.

Has there been any statistical analysis how large a proportion of votes are so-called wasted votes? Those are votes for the unsuccessful candidates but also as the winning candidate needs 1+ more votse than the second best candidate therefore every vote above that 1+ is a kind of wasted vote. Or not exactly wasted but doesn't affect to the outcome of the election.

It's useless to calculate how the election result would look like had there been PR as people would vote differntly based on the electoral system.

Countries like Norway and Denmark never have a majority-government. They haven't done badly though. Perhaps we overestimate the importance of having a majority-government. Perhaps we overestimate the importance of having any government. Just ask the Belgians who can have government-negotiations lasting for a year after any election while in the meantime the country is governed by a caretaker-administration.

There is a noticeable difference how the American MSM treats Biden. No longer with kid gloves. Are they preparing us for the news that the old fool will be thrown under the bus?

If I have calculated correctly the difference between the litre and the gallon and the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar I come to the outcome that the average price of petrol in the USA is 1.70 euros/litre and that is unprecedented and considered outrageously expensive and likely to lead to a crushing defeat for the Democrats in the mid-terms. In Finland the price of petrol is laready above 2.50/litre and our salaries are much lower. Everything is relative.

30 years ago New Zealand ditched the FPTP-system and had one referendum since whether to bring it back but that proposal was rejected. They introduced a German-style mixed system whereby half of the seats are still from single-member constituencies but the outcome of the parliament is based on PR in the whole country with a threshold of 5% Not sure whether NZ as a much smaller country is comparable to Canada but just pointing out that there is a precedent of changing the system.

I guess the situation in Canada is the same as in the UK in the sense that even though a lot of people agree that the existing electoral system should be changed they strongly disagree on what it should be changed with.

Putin won't be around very much longer. He is gravely ill. However, that may not be good news as there's no way of knowing what his successor is going to be like.

I wonder are there any people at all who believe that both ideas are bullshit namely that Putin arranged Trump to become president in 2016 and the 2020 elections were fraudulent. After all, most people who think one of those ideas is bullshit think the other one is an unquestionable gospel of truth.

In the Russian system an honest person who doesn't steal and cheat all the time is considered to be just stupid.

I'm not sure if this is a smart move by us in Finland but the more the Russians threaten us with consequences the more resolute people become about the need to join NATO.

Russia is very close to us in Finland but so it is to you in Canada unless you believe in the flat earth-theory.

I never knew who was the foreign minister of Canada but a couple of days ago she made a statement concerning the Finnish and Swedish membership in NATO. What caught my ear was that English clearly isn't her first language. We often forget that Canada is a bilingual country.

With its natural resources Russia should be an economic powerhouse with a standard of living at the same level with countries like Germany and a lot of people would want to live there instead of the current situation that absolutely nobody wants to go there and the brightest people over there want to get out. Of course in such a scenario they wouldn't be a military power. It is either/or. Not both/and. However, in order for Russia to be economically successful they should stop allowing various gangs of thieves governing them.

I'm not sure what war is the stupidest war in history but this one surely must rank very high.

I have once been to Russia. I spent there two weeks in St.Petersburg but that was a long time ago. However, many Finns have said that they have never been to Russia and have absolutely zero interest of going there and that even applies to the people who live close to the Russian border. I understand them absolutely and I wish we could somehow throw out the 100000 Russians living in our country before Putin thinks they need to be protected,

The application will be sent this week and membership should start very soon. Unless of course Russia bombs us to pieces but fortunately they are up to their necks in Ukraine. Traditionally support for NATO-membership has been like 20% but all of a sudden it has jumped to 70%. I wonder why that is.