-TSS-

Nobody cares about Greece. The big panic is about the French and German banks running into trouble after they had given Greece cheap credit. Profits are always private, losses are paid for by the tax-payers.

Thank you for your good post even though I disagree with it. Let me just ask one questions based on your post: Do you think the Greeks were mistaken to adapt the euro to begin with when the currency was started?

This is so funny, if you were Europeans you would realize how funny this is and perhaps some of you do despite not being Europeans. All I can say that it is indeed true that many American journalists' knowledge of the European affairs leaves a lot to be desired for: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/26/far-right-europe-election_n_5391873.html?1401104084

It seems to be so that the whole issue of abortion is such a poison-chalice in North America that any wise politician avoids the issue like a plague since you can't say anything about the issue without upsetting someone and even if you don't say anything even that may upset some people.

One sentence: Russians are inveterate liars therefore nothing coming from their information-sources should be given a second look.

In many ways a US-state or a Canadian province has more say over its own affairs than a supposedly independent member-country of the EU, especially small countries, big countries can look after their interests. Having a Lutheran mindset also doesn't help a country like Finland. A country can only succeed in the EU if it totally ignores the most ridiculous orders coming from Brussels instead of thinking that all rules and regulations are for to be obeyed.

Not such an unthinkable idea any more: President of France Marine Le Pen. Such would just mean adieu to a lot of North-Africans currently living in France. In fact, I expect a surge in citizenship-applications by North-Africans in the near future so that they couldn't be expelled if their worst nightmare became reality.

The problem with the euro is that it is too strong a currency for countries such as Greece, Spain or Italy and many others. However, perhaps all this euro-crisis is a devious plan to destroy countries from the inside and drive them into the arms of the euro-federalists. This together with totally unfettered and accelerating immigration speaks on behalf of this assumption.

In Sunday's euroelections the eurosceptics triumphed across the whole continent; most prominently the FN in France led by Marine Le Pen as well as the UKIP in Britain led by Nigel Farage. Both parties received the largest number of votes in their respective countries.

The flimsy excuse for the present troubles is that a democratically elected president has been overthrown. That just leaves one question: How can an incompetent president got rid of in the middle of the term if it becomes obvious that the person is very very detrimental to the nation?

I must admit that not having visited NYC will remain a serious void in my life-experience.

The world cup should always be held in Germany or the United States. Both have ready facilities for the event and everything runs like a clockwork. Hence the best world cups have been the ones of 1994 and 2006. This forthcoming tournament has a failure written all over it.

Brazil will host the world cup this year and that will bring profits to the Brazilian economy when as in two year's time they will host the olympics and the olympics always cause economic loss. So, hopefully the profits gained from the world cup will offset the losses of the olympics but sadly; Brazil being Brazil, the profits of the world cup will go into better pockets.

Speaking of golf-courses I was surprised to learn that there are golf-courses in Singapore. Why was that such a surprise? Well, I thought that as they are crammed on a small piece of land and are at the mercy of Mlaysia they would really take advantage of every cubic inch of their own land instead of wasting good land on some stupid rubbish such as playfields for the rich.

The inevitable loss of the independence-vote will leave the SNP in an interesting situation; their very central tenet will have been defeated but yet they wil continue to be the most popular party in Scotland.

Are those Canadian dollars the prices you are quoting? The usual price per litre for petrol in Finland is 1.50-1.60 euros which is at the current rate 2.24 CAD. If North-Americans were made to pay that much for petrol there would be a revolt.

People survived South-Africa four years ago and even though Brazil is certainly a nasty place for a person who's used to safe comfy western lifestyle it is still far safer than South-Africa.

Hopefully, the Chinese will colonize Africa as they appear to be doing little by little and on the side they impose a strict one child-policy in their colonies.

In countries where abortion is banned or very restricted everything else in those countries tends to be primitive and backward as well.

Does life begin at birth or at conception? Futile to start arguing about that as that must have been debated many times over. However, I'm not familiar with the abortion-legislation of many other countries but in Finland we have the 26-week rule which must be later than almost anywhere else. Let's not kid ourselves on one issue; It is a tiny minority of the abortions which are because the parents have discovered that the child would be severely handicapped or deformed that his/her life would not be worth living (as if human beings could make such a judgement on behalf of other human beings anyway) but the overwhelming majority of abortions are so-called abortions of convenience, ie. for social reasons. In Finland the abortion-laws were relaxed in 1971 and since then there have been approximately 10,000 abortions every year. That would ampount to over 400,000 people + their descendants. None of those people exist however. If they did there would be none of this nonsense about ageing population and the need to import immigrants. On the other hand, the demographic void created by abortions gives the multikulti-cluster a handy excuse to pursue their agenda. If that wasn't available they would come up with something else. After all, abortion is banned in Ireland and Ireland has the youngest population in Europe but that hasn't stopped immigration.

Some people's views on abortion are certainly more relevant than those of some other people. When old men rant against abortion it is difficult to resist the temptation to ask why does the issue bother them so much as it most certainly doesn't personally concern them.

Constitutional monarchy is a system which doesn't work in theory but works well in practice; at least well enough to stop people wanting to leap into unknown especially as there can never be full agreement among the population as to what kind of republic to replace the monarchy with.

In Europe abortion is banned in three countries: Poland, Ireland and Malta. That means that the Polish go to Germany, the Irish into the UK and the Maltese into Italy for abortion. Banning abortion may therefore enable some saves in the health-budget but your neighbours won't like it that your citizens start burdening their health-system.

I wonder would the constituent states of India be better or worse off if they each were independent countries instead of being part of an insanely large and dysfunctional country.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic share one tiny island between themselves. The DR is relatively well-off by Latin-American standards when as Haiti is the worst country in the western hemisphere, at least many surveys have concluded so. satellite images of the island speak volumes, lush and green on one side and totally barren on the other. No need to say it really that the border is heavily patrolled.