Welcome to Sinn Fein

I am not the only one who sees that the politics in crisis. In a countries where there is a freedom to vote, people abstain using that power that a lots of other people used gunpowder, ink and manpower to achieve.

There are not many good reasons to avoid the crisis. There are too many good things in life and too little trustworthy parties to just go for it. For me it was kind of easy. I've been a party member before, I know the crisis (for me it has been that parties should be judged by their goals and their doings). I've been and I still am a member of organized and less organized political movements. Sinn Fein is not the most leftist or a liberal party of Ireland, but it's hefty lot more credible than the labour party. It kind of reminds me of a party that I used to belong. It was Left Alliance back in Finland. It wasn't the most liberal and the most to the left, but it was the party whose other member wanted positions themselves there.

When I joined Sinn Fein I was actually surprised that somebody called me, just to check what kind of a member I wanted to be. I was happy with the idea that I just join the party and can support it with my subscription fee. I got surprised by that proactiviness I did enjoy it even though I could have lived without it.

We met with this Party Worker (I don't know if it's appropriate to say his name as this is a public blog), and his reason was only that because we work from the grassroot-level (my words, not his) that we want to know what people want to do in the party. People can be supporters, and it's a big thing; Joining a party is already a big step because you are aligning yourself with the ideas of a party.

To keep it short.
There might be some political stuff on this blog.
I wanted to write about Finnish government possible trying to make slavery official.
It is nice to write stuff.
I enjoy writing.

This is not a poem.

Finland's Grand Committee on Greece

Finland's Grand Committee had a meeting last Saturday about it's policy on Greece. Grand Committee is a compromise between having a two chambers or not. Grand Committee usually has members from all of the parties represented in the Eduskunta (Parliament), and it's foremost duties include issues concerning European Union, and law proposals that has been passed to a second round for amendments.

In case somebody is wondering how the Parliament felt about the Greece's situation you might be interested in these minutes. I could not find them in English so I have taken this opportunity to translate the minutes. Everything inside brackets are my own comments to give background information and it might not be completely unbiased. I'm solely responsible if something is lost in the translation or if the translation is inaccurate on any accounts. Also, keep in mind that politician's don't always speak the language that you would hear in a pub. Viewer discretion is highly recommended due to these limitations.

***

"Item 3 - Eurogroup 11.7.2015

Meetings of European Council and European Union's councils
EUN 41/2015 vp [link is broken or unpublished]

Preparation

Following were heard by the Committee:
- Minister [of Finance] Alexander Stubb

Assisted by Secretary of the State Olli-Pekka Heinonen, Secretary of the State Martti Hetemäki, Ministerial Adviser Minna Aaltonen, Financial Secretary Jouni Lehto [from] the Ministry of Finance.

Follow-up Letter EJ 14/2015 vp (E 137/2014 vp) has been received by Eduskunta [the parliament]. The Minister Stubb and the Secretary of the State Heinonen outlined Finland's Policy [so far].

The floor was given to MPs Tuppurainen, Arhinmäki, Elo, Biaudet, Jalonen, Essayah, Haavisto, Harakka, Mykkänen, Kalmari and Vice Chairman Pekkarinen. Minister Stubb, and Secretaries of the State Heinonen and Hetemäki, and the Secretary of Finances Lehto then answered to queries.

The Grand Committee pointed out that the item in hand involving the contents of the Follow-up Letter EJ 14/2015 vp (E 137/2014 vp), the position of the Government, and the discussion made in the [Grand] Committee is a matter of discretion on the grounds of the Constitution § 50 subsection 3 to secure the negotiations. During the discussion the Chairman Virolainen made the following basic proposal as the position of the Grand Committee: Committee agrees with the Government's Policy.

The meeting was suspended at 16.34, and it was adjourned at 16.50.

MP [Johanna] Karimäki made the following proposal for the Grand Committee to approve as it's position supported by MP [Eva] Biaudet: 

"Finland's objective of negotiations should be to secure the stability, the unity and the future of the Eurozone. Greece has made a new request for a new loan program via ESM [European Stability Mechanism], experts have given their views of the Greece's reform proposals, and the Greeks have indicated through a referendum that they want a change.

The evalution given by the Institutions were presented to the Grand Committee only verbally. According to the statement the Government's position is against the recommendations of the Institutions. The Grand Committee acknowledges that the evaluation should have been trusted. The growing humanitarian crisis has to be stopped, people should be able to fulfil the requirements for living in the whole of European Union. It is in the core of the European values. The legitimacy of European Union is based on this.

Finland's overall liabilities should not necessarily be increased as there is still capital in ESM to cover Greece's third loan program. In the long run it should not be a threshold question should the capacity of the crisis solving mechanism be increased if the stability of the Eurozone requires it. Crisis solving mechanism to maintain the stability of the Eurozone has been proven to be a success. For example, Portugal and Cyprus have been able to get their economy on a more sustainable foundation due to the support program. 

For the last five years we have been solving the crisis by saving banks. According to experts 75 per cent of the benefits of the European Union and other creditors went to international banks. Most of the benefits went to Germany. In a normal market economy banks and the investors would have carried the risk. Cuts in the Greece have been substantial, and most of it is being paid by people who are already in the low income and unemployed. This does not remove the fact that Greece needs to do systematical reforms to expand the foundation of taxes and to tackle the grey economy, tax evasion and corruption. Also the reform of pension scheme should be continued so that the raise of the pension age would not only affect the now young generation. Greece's government should be able to decide what are the reforms that provide the best growth. 

Big part of the Greece's economical problems and the amount of the debt is derived from domestical problems. But also a very big part is derived from the financial crisis and the bank saving operation. This has to be acknowledged when we are thinking about the terms of a compromise. 

Uncontrollable exit of the Greece from Euro would lead to a long-term instability which could in the worst case expand to a European wide crisis. The objective should be to keep all the current Eurozone states in using common currency. In case the Greece exits the euro it would be probable that the Greece would not pay their debts. Also the risk of Finland losing all it's receivables is high. 

The terms and conditions of the crisis countries' support programs or loans should be able to be readjusted if the crisis countries implement healthy reforms for their economies and if the readjustment is to secure the well-being for the whole Eurozone and Finnish economy. Support programs are to be implemented in the matter that they support employment and growth. Principal is that the loans given out through the support mechanism will be paid back.

Greece's government needs room to choose their economical means to get by the crisis, but we also need to to see true commitment to necessary reforms. Syriza needs to be held responsible for credible accounting. In the mean time EU and Finland should be prepared to give humanitarian aid immediately if the whole economical system of Greece, and the availability of groceries and medicine collapses in the immediate following days.

[Grand] Committee expects that the negotiations are driven to find a compromise that secures Finland's and Europe's interests, secures our receivables, secures the stability of Eurozone, and is fair to Greece and to their ability to see growth as a part of the union of common currency. From this position Finland can agree that we will negotiate with Greece about the ESM program."

MP Karimäki's proposal lost the vote by 17-4, 4 abstained. 

MP Arhinmäki made the following proposal for the Grand Committee to approve as it's position:

"Finland is prepared for a solution that enables Greece's economy to grow, unemployment to go down, stop the growing of the humanitarian crisis and is ready in principle to start the negotiations for the ESM program. Also as proposed by the so called Institutions (Comission, ECB, IMF) the Greece's proposal will be the foundation of the negotiations for ESM program.

Objective is that Greece can also pay back it's debts. Sustainability of Greece's debts might require restructuring of the debts. 

Negotiations should include that Greece will make major reforms to tackle corruption, stop tax evasion and improve it's taxation. Also the pension scheme requires restructuring reforms."

Proposal was not put into a vote as it was unsupported.

MP [Tytti] Tuppurainen made the following proposal for the Grand Committee to approve as it's position supported by MP [Riitta] Myller: 

"Finland's government has been unable to acquire enough information and credible estimations of the situation in Greece to make decisions. Finland has to hold on to it's receivables negotiated through [our] liabilities."

MP Tuppurainen's proposal lost the vote by 17-8. 

[Grand] Committee approved the position of the Eduskunta: [Grand] Committee agrees with government's policy."

****

It is also notable that even though the Grand Committee is formally representing the Parliament all the amendments to the Grand Committee's basic proposal came from the members of the opposition parties.

Hopefully this translation shows that not all of the Finland, or it's Parliament, is in anyway supporting the unreasonable terms that the Greece is presented with.

The Five Reasons to Be Against Abortion

There is a good few of you folks who still needs reasoning against abortion. We all know it, and we know what already happened when gays were allowed to get married. God doesn't live in this country as strong as it used to. I think the strongest reason why we failed there was because we were not reasoning enough. Before the kettle of hell gets turn to us as a nation we should all figure out how to fight the next level of Satanism, and Abortionism. So write these down. These are the five good reasons why abortion should not be allowed.

1. The Polish

Did you know that after the Schengen deal, most of the Europeans that came to Ireland were the ones from Poland? There are more people speaking Polish than Irish. According to eurostats there are more people moving to Ireland than from anywhere else. Think about this?!? Enda Kenny might be required to have a simultaneous translator from Irish to English, and then to Polish, just because of all those ladies who had an abortion in Poland. The good lady always stays home, and what are they doing here right now?!? Not just taking jobs, but also protesting for abortion.

2. Eiffel Tower

Did you know that Eiffel Tower is more than 300 meters tall? You probably did not know that. French also built the Statue of Liberty. They also were very rebellious against the Monarchy, just like Irish did. What do they do with that easiness?!? They build a fekking tower which some could find a bit like a penis looking, and who do like penises the most?!? The ladies who are driven by the devil, and don't want to get married. They just want to get pregnant, just to have an abortion, because they like to visit France. 

3. Aer Lingus

It is probably a bad moment to talk about Aer Lingus, but as you know the bible says

 "They would none of my counsel: they despised all myreproof."

And this is why it never works the same way as Ryan Air. Of course the other company can take where ever you want to go, but you should never forget that there is no such thing as a cheap abortion. Think about the brimstone, and then think about flying planes. Think about the Aisling, the daughter of Ireland. Were would you be now if we would have been using Aer Lingus just to get an abortion?!? Think about that.

4. Personality

If you have ever seen a pregnant woman, you will know by heart that there is a living, and breathing thingie inside the mother. That's why it is already perfectly a good situation to do personality tests to them. Hardest part is to get your voice heard through the pregnant people, and that's why normal people use amplifiers. They can raise your voice's normal strength to as high as 120 db. which allows you to make reasonable questions to the child. You can ask him/her questions like which colour do you like the most? This red, or this blue. Of course you might laughing because children cannot speak at that time. They are not even breathing. BUT WOULD YOU LIKE TO MURDER THIS LOVELY PERSONALITY, just because you hate god. I think not. You want to cherish that pile of DNA as a person of free will. 

5. Donald Duck

Name your ten favourite cartoons. You can even name five, and they probably have a Disney brand on them. Think about the world where that would not be possible. That would only be possible because the evil atheists killed Walt Disney, and with him, the angry bird, and all the musical animations that you love. Would you like to be the abortionist of your family?!? Think again!

Celtic Tiger Might Take a Great Leap for Equality Today

This is a great moment to live in Ireland. You can see, hear, and feel the history being made. Referendum will be held today to decide what should be the age of presidential candidates. Important as well, but also the vote for Marriage equality will be cum in actum.

Posters of "Yes" and "No" side

As it is kind of obvious that equality includes the idea of similar rights for everyone, as well as similar obligations. There should only be a need to inspect why Ne Doit Pas -side seems to be steaming against equality. 

My favourite bully group, Iona Institute, has been publicly advocating against equality by saying it is inequality. Let's take a moment to look at the work of these great minds.

Reasoning is that a mother can't be a father, nor a father cannot be a mother. I don't think anyone has even tried regenderize (I don't know if that is even a word, but I'll let it be here for a while. Maybe it will grow some root) parents. On a grass root level the no-side has been vigorously handing out leaflets explaining why you should vote no in bullet points. The point seems to be that it is redefining marriage, and that even the Bible says something about something. I just fail to see what is the downside of Marriage Equality. Is there going to be a flood, or a swarm of grasshoppers raining from the skies? 

This is probably how they see themselves:

(excerpt from Iona Institute's Bible)

When I go through Iona Institute's established view points. I see this:

(excerpt from Iona Institute's legal division)

You kind of know that things have gone too far when a lobbyist group starts posting news about two heterosexual men marrying each other. It is like taking everything that you can find, and just keep throwing them at imaginary enemies. Well, why not. They seem to be in good terms with a special kind of imaginary friend. 

This is what was happening on O'Connell street yesterday:

I was too lazy to edit this video. Anyways, it seemed so appropriate that people were singing Queen. They also sang John Lennon's Imagine. 

The tiger is about to touch your pint

It seems that the Irish government is planning to set a minimum price for alcohol reports the Irish Independent. Paper usually uses a lot of pages to slur Sinn Féin, but this time they left out the part that the party was opposing the governments plan, not because of raising alcohol prizes, but that they are not promoting a bill to ban alcohol commercials.

My favorite country for comparing Ireland is Finland, and they officially have both of these bills in affect. High taxation on alcohol, and starting from this year, they have also banned alcohol commercials in spite that there is no evidence that alcohol commercials would affect drinking habits. Though there are some credible sources (citation needed) claiming that the commercials have an affect on which brands people pick up as their drug of the evening. So far the price changes in Finland hasn't affected so much in the usage, as it has more affected on the types of alcohol sold (beer, wine, vodka).

Leo Varadkar seems to believe that higher alcohol prizes will put a hold on domestic violence, sexual violence, and all kinds of other violence. At least if we are interpreting his Independent quote correctly when he stated that "[alcohol is] associated with many suicides and instances of sexual violence, domestic violence and child harm. The time for debate is over, we have had four years of it now. It is over and we need to put those measures into place."

I could make a working theory if I would assume that Varadkar's view of correct social policy by stating that it could be measured. In the future, only the people, who can afford drinking, would be the number one suspects when it comes to domestic violence.

Alcohol prizes might go up to somewhere between 1.70 and 2.20 per beer can. It is not a horrible prize, but it is definitely something to be concerned about. With wines the price range seems to be in par with mine. The minimum prize of wine might go somewhere between 7.20 and 8.80.

On the other hand I would suspect that people might still be drinking, and those who already use all their money to alcohol products will be the ones who will only get poorer at much faster rate.

What I truly believe is that alcohol consumption has many effects on society. Alcohol might break families, but it also creates new ones. Alcohol might be the cause of problematic gambling, but some winnings might only be due to the correct amount of alcohol usage. Anyways, this political process is definitely something to follow up on. It might also give a very good insight on how the mainstream politicians truly feel about alcohol.

Finland's neighbor, Sweden, has their own interpretation of Finnish alcohol politics. Robert Gustafsson shows the five stages of Finnish drinking (in Swedish):

Ireland to censor the internet

It didn't take that long for Ireland to take the bait of internet censorship, which is, mildly saying, dangerous for any country. I will use the word freedom at the end of this post, but before that I will give examples of why it sucks the wrong way. I will be making comparisons to Finland, which might have the strictest laws, and enforcement of piracy laws in western Europe. Finland still stays a bit behind of some countries, which are also criticized by the liberals of the western countries, for let's say China and North Korea, and the latter mentioned two countries wouldn't be doing that good of a job without the help of the biggest piracy channel in the world, namely Google. Even this platform is provided by Google, and blogger is widely used to distribute copyrighted material - to the extent that it should be blocked on the same merits as The Pirate Bay.

First wave

First, let's take a look, how Finland has managed to handle the blocking of Pirate bay. It started with legislation of the so-called Lex Karpela in 2005. It was a bundle of laws aiming to protect companies against copyright infringements. It gave law enforcement instruments to block certain pages, and it was wildly controversial on the grounds of citizens communicating freely without governmental officials stopping it beforehand (aka. censorship)

First time Finland applied censorship of Internet, was on the grounds of fighting against child pornography. The process was to create a list of web sites, which should be censored, for distributing child pornography. As the idea might have sounded great, for it is for children's sake, it went terribly wrong, at least on three levels. Firstly, the list was not public, and nobody was held responsible, if the list had wrong sites on it. Only way for a company know that their website was blocked, and this is very true for companies not based in Finland, was to try access the page from Finland. Users trying to access blocked pages saw a warning message stating that the page is blocked because of child pornography.

So, it was basically some officials, who updated the list, and were not held liable. Ironically, one of the sites that got blocked, was a Finnish web page, which only crime was being critical against the censorship (YLE: Police censor porn website)Practically, this whole black list idea, was doing, what critics were afraid of, on the most horrifying way - blocking sites critical of the government.

Matti Nikki, who administrated the critical web page, couldn't get his web site out of the black list, because no authority recognized it's duty not to interfere with a freedom of speech. I have to point out that censorship is forbidden in Finland on it's constitution, even though it might be a closer to dead letter these days, it is still written there. Meaning it is somehow still recognized.

Thirdly, the list was shown to have a pretty vague idea of what constituted child porn. List included a plumber company (must be because that many times told audiovisual story of a plumber man and a housewife), 

So it went wrong at least on three levels: blacklisters didn't have accountability, it blacklisted critics, and there was no way for commercial web sites to get off the list, even if those web sites didn't broke any laws.

And the blacklist was also meant to be used against sites that were in countries, where there wasn't any means to prosecute potential Child Porn distributors. Most of the sites on the list were on servers based in the United States or Europe, where there are effective legislation already in place against child porn.

Second Wave

The second wave of Finnish censorship, was the Pirate bay. Lot of Finnish Internet providers were ruled to block The Pirate Bay, and it didn't go that well either. The blocks were diminished in value in a matter of hours on two counts. Finland is very technically savvy country, with a high educational standards and know-how of the information technologically. Secondly: the Facebook. Through facebook, even the people who had problems accessing The Pirate Bay before the blocks, and whose technological skills were limited to logging on to Facebook, were given instructions how to avoid the blocks. The most easiest one being the link to Estonian mirror site. Basically you just need to change the .org to .ee. Block cracked.

Then there are those proxies, which you might probably heard of. And you don't need a lot of technical skills to use those. Web is full of those. Those Chinese citizens who break the censorship of China, don't really need to be very technical. They basically just need to go to a website like hidemyass.com, and type the web page they want to visit.

But the easiest way of them all, is the use to world's most popular pirate indexing site, is the Google.com. Just try it. Or how about reddit.com, or delicio.us.

China has a whole national department of thousands of workers working 24/7 to censor the internet, and they are not doing a very good job at it.

Secondly, the Finnish court didn't even bother to check those sites, that were about the be blocked. So they also blocked promobay, a site for indie artists to promote their own material. So, good job Ireland, and good luck enforcing your new ruling. 

So, Ireland just took a very dangerous route, which starts with blocking The Pirate Bay, and then their subsidiaries, and then pages, which might have something to do with it, and then probably the critics of the law, and then probably just obnoxious pages, and then probably this page, and soon we will notice, that we have lost our freedom.

They came first for the allofmp3,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a leech.

Then they came for the child pornography,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a pedophile.

Then they came for the pirate bay,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a pirate.

Then they came for the online poker games,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a poker player.

Then they came for the online news, chats and forums,
and I didn't speak up because I didn't care.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

I want to propose a toast, and it died in the committee

It is probably going to happen, when Keith Richards becomes the pope, when abortion is going to be legalised-legalised in Ireland. After the sad, and misfortunate death of Savita Halappanavar last year, a wide pro-abortion movement got it's momentum. What was the sad part of this act was, as the pregnant Halappanavar was dying in pain, the existence of three doctors around her bed using their fingers to explain how this 'country is catholic', and that they cannot do a life-saving surgery, because that would be an abortion. And the doctors were even sure that, there wouldn't be a baby coming out alive anyways, but just in case, that the pope would disagree, they decided to deny all their goodwill and surgical knowledge on a basis of being afraid of getting sued. That's doctor-ish approved not.

But the legislation is going forward. After the tragic death of Halappanavar, the whole country woke up, and there were promises that there will be a draft by new year's day, and the vote would take place before the May.

There was a strong, unified sense of a need for legislation change, for a while. Now, the ministers just had a 6-hour meeting, and their progress was basically, that the bill changed it's name from "The Protection of Maternal Life Bill" to "The Bill for the Protection of Life During pregnancy". When you see that kind of determination in politics, you can bet your sweet uterus against the survival of unicorns with hundred-to-one, and you will win anyways, and always.

There is also a debate of how many doctors do you need to have, to make that judgment call. They are not sure, if three doctors and two psychiatrists, or 6 doctors,  is needed for unanimous vote, because last time it only took three doctors to deny the abortion.

Of course, there is also the Iona Institute, and the like, which are more than afraid, that if there will be an abortion law, it will soon become a law basically allowing service by request. Not that anyone would be interested in the self-governance of one's own body.

This to say, I'm still on the first page of The Irish Times. There might be other faults in the world, and we'll be back right after these videos. And then there's Tom with the weather.

Ireland is loosening the backing up of banks

It seems that the Irish politicians are figuring out, that it's not in the best interest of the poor or the rich, to guarantee banking in this country. At least when it comes to socialising deficits and letting the bankers to go with the profits.

Michael Noonan announced that Ireland will stop giving that special care to bankers. But will this be enough for the economy to go "normal"? This is Captain Hindsight talking, but it doesn't seem fair that banks will be paid if somebody can't afford to pay their loans, but those who owe to banks still owe to the banks. I might be a bit slow, and my education is based on the Finnish educational system, and my opinions are only based on to the people I trust my money with, but it seems a bit - no exaggerations - unfair.

It would seem fairer for all the participants in the economical field to have comparable changes of opportunity to win, and in cases of losing, having same probable consequences. Now it seems that many households are still holding the dead man's hand, while the banks win championships of poker with ten-deuces off every year.

But at least this country hasn't lost it's sense of humour. Government will probably still get their vote of confidence through every voter's own argumentation. On my behalf, I should use more of my time tuning into the political field of Ireland, just in case it would help me to understand how politics is understood by the so called common man.

Abortion or death - Right for abortion raises it's fist in Dublin

In a country, where many think that god himself wrote the Bible, leave the choice to men shaving their beards, but don't leave a choice to women to decide what their fetuses do, is something that I refuse to accept. I'll probably have to explain that in the third of Moses, it is very clearly stated that any man who shaves his beard is to be stoned. After that I can continue with fetus, where there is no mention of it all in the Bible. At least I'm pretty certain of it, because I'm one of those rare people, who have actually read the book. Not the original, but one that is said to be the true word of God.

I'm very sad to call the passing of Savita Halappanavar a victory for something that should be legal in any case where you put human's life and choices in front of total destruction. I'm very sorry for using words of human and destruction in the same sentence, but I believe I have a very strong ground for it. Thousands of people gathered in the centre of Dublin yesterday to support the cause of at least giving people choice to decide for themselves what's happening in their body.

There's a good video on Irish Times giving a picture of the shock that locals are feeling here.

Independent: Pro-choice activists got tip-off on tragic death

Would you like to walk on The Ernest Walton Bridge?

Siliconrepublic.com reports of a movement led by The Institute of Physics (IOP) in Ireland aiming to have Dublin's City Council to name the planned Marlborough street bridge spanning over the River Liffey as "The Ernest Walton Bridge" after the nobel-prize winner.
 
I think it's a great idea for a city of such a long history to brand new projects with a sense of pride in history. In Helsinki, a city where I have lived more than a half of my life, the main street is named Mannerheimintie after the president and a military leader who fought on the side of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War. Although Mannerheim's greatness is a matter of debate in Finland even after 90 years since the Civil War, Walton himself doesn't have a cloudy past which could be a burden to a new bridge, unless you want to blame him for discoveries that lead to Manhattan Project.


You can sign the petition at the surveymonkey.