Finland’s second female prime minister

I just came to think that Finland now has its’ second female prime minister. And this is the second female prime minister in two consecutive cabinets of the same political party. In the year 2003 the Centre Party won the elections resulting in Finland’s female prime minister, who was in charge from mid April to end of June. This is the shortest period for a cabinet to exist, as cabinets tend not to resign until they have been beaten in the elections.

The first female prime minister had to resign because of leaking some secret documents, with a male prime minister to follow from the same party. The male prime minister held his position for 7 years through out the next elections and formed a new cabinet, this time co-operating with a couple of parties.

He in his turn claimed health reasons when announcing his resigning at Christmas time last year, and has now been replaced by the second female prime minister in Finland, who was elected at the Centre Party congress in end of June 2010.

Anyway, I have noticed that there will be an election here in Finland next year. With more than 200 days to go I think that is in good time to get a real electoral campaign going, beginning it in time I mean.

Ham or not?

Traditionally ham is eaten at Christmas in the Nordic countries, so also here in Finland.

At this time of the year the supermarkets are full of hams in all sizes, ecologically grown and traditionally grown from various manufacturers salted in different ways and the prizes may vary quite a bit from where you live and which supermarket you shop in. This year the prizes may drop even more than previous years as we get closer the Christmas.

All that is Finnish has been considered as better, cleaner and safer than anything imported from abroad and so far that has been the same with the traditional Christmas ham. This year it is not discussed whether or not to glaze the ham or in what way to do it but whether to get a ham or not and many hams might not be sold at all as Finnish pig meat, or the pig farmers have lost their good image.

An activist group called "Justice for animals" secretly filmed Finnish pig farms two years ago publishing their filmed material, which was not nice to look at. The condition of some of the pigs were, well, I'd rather not mention it here so I guess you get the picture. I am sad to say I do not anymore recall what, or if anything came out of their action then, as I doubt the details of the farms in question were ever made known to the officials. But when doing the same thing this year again the Finnish Food Safety authority did inspect the farms in question and found major
negligence in half of them.

Anyway, protests are rare in the middle of parliamentary sessions here in Finland, but earlier this week one took place, and this when TV was broadcasting the discussion that was taking place at the time. Two persons hung a streamer from the second floor balcony stating "Is this what we want to do to the animals?" together with a picture of a pig lying down for all the world to be seen.

Strangely enough, the pig industry was granted government funds to clean up the image of Finnish pig meat not too long ago...and this prior to these incidents as far as I know. So the funds might come in handy for a campaign for improving the image, but what I am really concerned about is the conditions of the pigs...not the farmers that treat them badly.

So the big question in Finland this year is not whether to get an ecologically grown ham but if to get a ham at all for Christmas...

Strikes in season

Apart from the ginger bread and mulled wine this year's holiday season seems to have a new thing that is trendy and that is having a strike.

Not like going bowling but as in walk out from your job.

The financial industry is planning to begin their next week, as they want their fair share of the companies' profits. The union says that the cash machines will be running and that the wages and pension are to be paid to their due accounts despite their possible strike if the transfers are made before hand. Remains to see the result.

Last week the aviation baggage personnel walked out of their jobs at Helsinki airport in protest with it resulting in flights being cancelled and a luggage clog up with thousands of suitcases still to be sorted out .

The employees of one of the mobile phone operator walked out today and the IT sector have been negotiating for some time now about a pay rise.

Maybe this is a new way to get more time off before Christmas for them who have jobs as they are envious of the others who have been being laid off and made redundant?

Two plates policy

Since Finland joined the European Union the president has been able to take part in the summit in addition to the Prime minister at her own request, and the number the plates laid has so far been two, one for each partaker, the so called "Two plates policy".

With the EU Lisbon treaty having been reinforced yesterday, a decision upon the issue has to be made as the number of participants has been specified to just the single one from each of the member states.

So the hot topic for the last week or so has now been about the two plates to be laid at dinners. Or rather who has the right to attend in the first place, the President or prime minister of Finland.

Here the President and the Prime minister seem to agree, on disagreeing on the issue.

The Finnish President claims she has constitutional rights to attend to the summits, and the Prime minister contradicts this in his turn in concordance with the constitutional committee that he is to attend. The constitutional committee has for some time now been considering changes in the Finnish constitutional law with this amongst other issues.

The problem was apparently vented, according to the media, when the freshly elected EU president visited Helsinki yesterday meeting with the Finnish President. His only comment was, that the issue it has to be sorted out between the two themselves.

Following the development of the two plate policy, and maybe even the end of it, will at least be some change from the pig flu news that has been on all the time and become a bore.

To fund or refund?

The election campaign funds are currently the hot topic here in Finland.

The topic hit off with the last parliamentary elections but has stepped back in time even to the last presidential elections and "to dare to fund or have to refund is the question" so to say.

So far there seems to have been few rules and guidelines to apply to in Finland and since the last election the topic has hit the roof turning even ridiculous. The hot potato is the reform for the election fund raising on its' way, what to change and what to allow and which party, or who personally in so many cases, has to refund what money and to whom. Someone paying for you birthday bash or a vacation trip abroad for that matter seems an awkward bit too much like bribery to me.

I personally can not see why money donated years ago should be paid back now, unless there was something illegal about it back then. The persons in question having made the mistakes, giving donations wrongly should take the fall. Nor can I see the for reason it being mandatory to find out about the donor when receiving money. Until now you have been able to anonymously donate funds, at least up to a certain amount of money, if I have not got it wrong.

If a state owned corporation, or maybe a charity fund, donates money to some politician for their campaign, and the politician in question happens to be a member of the board of the corporation, or charity fund in question, it should be illegal. Which it seems is not, at least not yet, and money has been refunded to where it originated from at the same time resulting in some members of parliament resigning from their posts.

Logical would be for worker's unions to support their parties, which, at least presumably, should be some parties on the left wing of politics, and for employers to support the right wing of politics in correlation to their political interests. This might be illegal too soon, as well as banishing private donations...

So what way would there then be to support your party, if you're not personally involved in politics here in Finland?!?

One thing is for sure, all donations should be public for anyone to see, who paid what to whom and when.

Municipal re-elections

In the last municipal elections this spring some of the municipalities were test pilots in e-voting, that is voting on-line on the Internet, but as it turned out to not work in the expected way, the elections were voided and the polls were carried out again last weekend.

Candidates were the same as in the void polls previously, but it seems that the interest in voting again were even much lower than earlier. This has been a sad trend, the only voring you could actually make an impact in are the municipal polls, as you pay most tax to the town, or municipality you live in, than to the state.

At least one valid reason to vote in your home town.

Running out of paper?

Many blogging ideas have popped into my mind lately, but I have not had the real urge I used to have earlier to get them posted, still some ideas have been bugging me for some time now and I guess they'd better get posted, or I'll die with them spooking around in my mind.

In the very early days when I first started blogging we had this long paper Union strike in Finland, a strike that has over the years showed having huge impact on the paper industry as well as the forest industry in general in this country. Of course other things such as the worldwide recession also has paid its' respects to running down the industry in question.

What surprised me though, is that the same company, one of the major companies in Finland, that has plants and mills in other countries, has been running down mills and cutting down on personnel, is doing so well abroad their mills running on full around the clock.

I read somewhere some statistics that most magazines and newspapers are now printed on Russian paper as it is more cost-effective. Well, using the same wood must be cheaper and turning it into pulp and paper in Russian, instead of importing them to Finland and having to pay import-taxes on the wood on top of the higher costs in wages and transports in and to Finland
is much cheaper so the paper industry, that used to earlier be so important for the Finnish economy, seems now threatening to die out completely.

One comes to wonder about ulterior motives though, about what trade unions really are about, when one hears that leading union representatives are members of boards in companies, that own parts of the companies they are union representatives for, the same companies that now are closing down.

Crimean war fought also in Finland

The spring is here and a lot of things have lately been occupying my mind but none of them worth to blog about really, nothing to keep me ticking.

I was just surprised to hear about that the beginning of the Crimean War in the 1850´s actually began here in Finland with the British fleet supported by the French fleet entering the Baltic sea attacking various cities on the coast with a lot of shipyards were destroyed by fire and some Finns also getting killed. But then Finland was a part of the Russian empire and thus considered the enemy.

Best European minister of finances

According to the Financial Times, Finland is a rarity among the European economies with its’ stable economy among the global finance crisis.

In a comparison of European Finance ministers done for the third time made by the newspaper, the Finnish minister of finances was considered the best regarding the expected outcome of the expected Finnish national economical growth for next year, considering the stability of the Finnish market and his personal political abilites.

This is good news for Finland, regarding the series of measures the government has agreed upon to revive the Finnish economy despite that the unemployment rising and with a lower expected tax-income for the state budget.
Guess that must be one of the reasons the alcohol tax will rise with 10% by beginning of next year, together with the aspect its’ impact on the national health.

Tax increase delayed

Earlier this week the Finnish Prime minister met the Russian Prime minister in Moscow in person for mutual talks.

Among other things discussed the increasing of the export tax of Russian timber came up. The taxation of exported timber from Russia was to rise many times from the already present increased tax from Finnish point of view was expected to rise again by the end of the year and now the tax increase was promised to be delayed by 9 months or possibly up to one year.

Sadly enough, this seems to come too late for salvation of the declining Finnish forest industry, as it lately has been troubled with many lay-offs and shutting down mills and factories, as a result of the general decline of demand of paper on the world market.

Anyway, just being back from a visit to my physiotherapist yesterday, I realized that these visits are the closest one can get to another person without having sex with the person in question. And being a heterosexual and the physiotherapist being a male, made it even more obvious to me. Not that he was coming on to me, or ever has, or that I have either but just the thought, was oddly funny.

As going somewhere and paying for them to cause you pain, well, it sounds very much like a session of S/M to me, than improving your well-being as it in reality is.

Still, after the two-three days you actually feel worse and have more pain than before the visit, you feel like a person re-born, without the pain and stiffness you had previously.
And this, the result in the end, makes is worth the pain you have to endure in the hands of your physiotherapist.

Finnish President gets Nobel Prize

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari has been awarded the Peace Nobel prize for his diplomatic peace work.

On the same day he is receiving his Nobel Prize in Oslo, on December the 10^th, a stamp with his image will be released here in Finland to the value of 0, 80 Euros, which is the same as 80 European cents.

The stamp can be used to post any 1^st class letter or postcard to the maximum weight of 50 grams nationally and up to 20 grams internationally for the rest of the world.

This is the second stamp former president Ahtisaari will have his face on a Finnish stamp, as he was earlier pictured for the first time for his 60^th birthday in 1997.
No offense, but there are other motives too, for stamps I mean.

Updating benefits

A committee, called the 100-committee, was founded by the Government to scrutinize the updating the social benefits in Finland.

The social benefits, like unemployment benefits and old-age pensions, are suggested to be guaranteed to a fixed minimum level of income which would automatically be paid to you. This would facilitate the lives of people depending on social benefits quite a lot, as you currently have to first to find out about what benefit you eventually might be entitled to, how to and where apply for it. Then apply for it and maybe get it. Some social benefits that today are handled in the municipalities, would according to the suggestions be handled by KELA, The Finnish Social Insurance Institution as they are already in charge of so many of the existing ones.

Now, this is just a suggestion so far, these changes in benefits, some of them expected to take place by the beginning of next year, but still, the parties of the cabinet are still to agree upon it, as some parties at present are said to be very much opposed to any changes at all in social benefits, just out of their political doctrines, not out of reason, it seems to me.

Still, one of my old question remains, where to take the money from?

The Government has promised to ease the taxation by next year, in order to make the money go around, as the more we consume, the more money it generates and boosts up the economy, well, the state getting less tax money, and paying more in social benefits, also from next year on, that adds up to less than zero, at least in my maths.

Anyway, I am happy to not be into politics and having to worry about it.

More interest in politics

Voter turnout in the municipal elections has from the year 2004 improved to 61 percent voting in yesterday’s municipal elections.

24 % had voted in advance and could stay home instead of having to make the trip to the polling stations in the prevailing bad weather with hard winds and heavy rain.

The True Finns Party gained most votes, as their share of voters rose most in percentage still being a small party, but The National Coalition Party were the winners as the got the biggest part of the votes.

These numbers from the elections are just absolutely useless, as they give no hint of what happens in your own city council or municipality. It just gives a clue of the party’s popularity in general all over Finland, with the numbers are added up party-wise.

The interesting part is what happens where you live.

For me remains only one question to ponder about after the municipal elections.

How are people, who already are members of the parliament, and now were elected into city councils and municipalities, going to be able to be at two places at the same time? If they are not able to be in two places at the same time, then they must get double pay for half the job?!?

Pre-voting begins today

Today the pre-voting begins for the Finnish municipal elections at special polling stations.

A campaign has also been launched to try to make most people to vote in advance, as the number of polling stations on the election day itself, has been cut.

Even foreign residents are allowed to vote in the municipal elections, provided they are registered for voting and have a valid piece of identification, which is required of all voters. This gives you a good opportunity to influence the politics in your home town, and the interest in municipal politics is said to have increased, especially among the younger voters.

Revising gunpermits

The most controversial thing that has happened lately here in Finland, has been the sacking of the editor in chief for a newspaper.

The owners of the newspaper deny the editor in question for having been sacked for living in a lesbian relationship and claims instead that the reason instead is her dishonesty, as the editors' partner is involved in local politics and this never came up in their talks previous to hiring her.
And with a journalist being involved in a relationship with a politician, no matter being lesbian, gay or heterosexual, there is always the possibility of being biased towards your spouse. Which is all natural,

Anyway, the Finnish gun laws are now being revised and it seems that Finland is to get the most restrictive laws concerning the possession and licensing of firearms in the whole of EU. All permits granted during the past two years are to be revised and in the future two police officers will have to be present when applicants are interviewed for their permits and also a medical check will be required.

Strangely enough both of the recent school shooting incidents here in Finland, were committed with licensed firearms, and as there always are ways to obtain illegal guns, I really wonder how much impact, if at all, this new gun permit law will have on sad incidents like these as they seem to become more and more common.

Homes for the homeless

Finally some good news for the homeless in Finland.

It has been appalling if not outrageous, the amount of homeless, in this northern country with winter so cold, with currently estimated 2500 persons, living human beings, without a place to stay. But now, finally, the government has decided to do something about it.

The state and the concerned municipalities, and here it means the cities, where there are most homeless wandering about in the streets, are to split the costs in equal halves acquiring either apartments or housing in so called group homes for 1300 of the homeless.

Well ain’t this grand, then there only is the other estimated half to provide for who will still be “chronically homeless” as they are called that still will be without shelter when the winter comes.

But still if I may say, it seems quite controversial for a government in any country aimed more at conservative values than socialistic ones, to reform such a thing as housing for the poor and homeless.

Change of ministers

The Finnish text messaging Foreign minister will be replaced with a new candidate.

The new Foreign minister from this Friday on will be a former euro-parlamentarian so he should have got the routine and has so far not been involved in any scandals to my knowledge.

The old Foreign minister now to step down did not do it on his own behalf but had to be sacked by his fellow party members as well as from the cabinet of ministers, but he is to pursue his work as a member of the parliament.

It seems apparent that the post as Foreign Minister does not seem to be that sought after here in Finland and it required two weeks to find a replacement and behind the façade things were carried out in secret of public knowledge.

I wonder now what the neighbourhood’s ladies think of this. They always have made up their minds about anything that happens, and as it seems plausible they might now disapprove of the change of ministers as much as they yesterday wanted him to resign.

The all of a sudden warm spring weather always seems to surprise me. Still subzero temperatures in the mornings for you to have to dress heavily in order to not freeze intermittent with heavy casts of warm sunshine, too warm in anyway to wear the same clothes you left home in the same morning. This is the time when basking in the sun begins, that people get their wake up calls. Strange considering that the same people you were looking at in the gloomy winter light all of a sudden now tend to look much happier and more pleased with life in general.

The sap is rising, is the Finnish expression that comes in mind, if you know what I mean. This expression might have been right considering the former to be Finnish Foreign minister but at the time of the text messaging it was not yet spring, so he might have been an early riser.

No April fool

Two issues seem to currently be the main news, the merger of the two online systems that still is not up and running smoothly as has been several times promised by the bank.

There still seems to be a major glitch somewhere in the dungeon labyrinths of the digital money world.
And the foreign minister still is hitting the headlines with his text messaging to the blonde model, or erotic dancer.

According to a non official Gallup done among the neighbourhoods old ladies most of them think the whole affair is a disgrace and would like to see him resign as his credibility as trustworthy politician has been lost. Well, I would like to know one politician that if not dishonest but at least does not make the truth up seeming mush better than it in reality and daylight is, or does not use any white lies at all. Politics it seems is like playing poker, do not show what you think of it, and keep your face plain. Say nothing and deny everything you might have said.

Well, at least some of us know, we're not all April fools you know.

Anyway, I must confess that I have not been as good as I should have with the exercise I should have been attending to advised by our dear family doctor, whom I know drops in occasionally to read up on my Blog. I have been quite good at making up various excuses for not pursuing my daily walks. Good reason have lately been the slippery surface I would have to be wary of walking upon, another has been the clod weather and winds blowing which is not good for my complexion. Not a s good excuse mostly are I have forgotten cone again the whole thing, I do not want to enter on long walks on my own, or I prefer to do them daytime when I do not have to have anyone tagging along, (read dear spouse of mine who likes to keep me company, nothing wrong with that, just sometimes love can be too much and you need to get some air, on your own as he is a caring, and loving husband)

Quite the opposite to what you would suspect I am very lazy, I prefer not to make more than I have to and I was quite energetic and outgoing in my younger days and probably did more than my fair share of exercise, but with age the metabolism gets sluggish, we put on some extra pounds, sometimes several stones and I had lost most of that, but…

Lately it has been creeping back on, slowly and almost without me noticing it at all, until our dear doctor told me I could use with loosing 10 kgs. Well, fortunately for me it was not the same 30kgs I had once already lost four years ago, but new additional weight I am carrying around that really has no use, unless there soon will be a great famine with lack of food for us here up in the Nordic countries, which I doubt will happen in the very near future. With the global warming heating up even more and climates changing you never know, so maybe I should stick to my extra weight, just in case if the worst would occur?

Text messages going public

The Helsinki District Court rejected motion made by the blonde exotic dancer against the planned publication of text messages she has received from the Foreign Minister.

The Finnish tabloid magazine “Hymy”, which would be smile in English, is now ready to publish “a sizable sampling” of the text messages sent by the Foreign minister and they stated on their website that it will be in his favour.
We have come a long way from the usual old fashioned letters black on white.

Anyway, first when dear spouse and I heard of a film called Alien vs. Predator, we thought it was some kind of joke as the idea was presented in such an odd manner, as a film to watch in some kind of comedy concept, so we laughed about it, but then the film was run on the TV so I just had to what the film was like. If it was any better, or worse than or maybe as bad as the previous Alien films and Predator films, and it turned out there had been no development in the plot, just the same old routine. Surprising was thought that the first killed person, or android in the first Alien film was in this film too, the same actor I mean, but this time he was human and he got killed by a Predator instead of an Alien.

The pyramid thing seemed to be nicked straight from Stargate and having set the scene in the arctic was just out of the X-Files UFO encounters, such a worn out idea. Lots of slime around, set in darkness to make the film more thrilling, but the outcome was the same old thing twisted around a bit.

The offspring of course found out I was watching the film so I didn’t have to do it alone.

As it happens, Alien was the very first movie I watched without the required age by sneaking in on a slow Sunday night in the movies. It was quite frightening then and as I was home alone when arriving home after the scary movie I checked underneath the bed. I kept checking under the bed for many weeks to come afterwards so I guess I did pay the prize. Since then I have seen all the Alien films during the years, not because they have been good but more out of nostalgia for the scare the first film gave me, but I can still say that I have seen all the Alien films.

Minister threatened to death

I must confess that this is now beginning to become ludicrous, with the Finnish foreign minister receiving death threats since his involvement in his second text message affair in two years time.

The Foreign minister has confessed to having sent a couple of hundred text messages to “a blonde erotic model”, or quite frankly, a stripper like an 80 year old friend to the family expressed herself on Sunday. I can agree with her that things should be called their right names as the name of the so called model has already been featured in the media. Mind you, she used to be a dancing teacher of good reputation this friend of ours so maybe her professional pride took a bad blow at the hint of erotic dancing.

Still, the current situation in the text messages scandal seems that both the sending and text messages receiving counterpart has been threatened to death and the Finnish security police has been informed. I assume they will begin their will investigations soon, but so far the foreign minister has not given any details about his threats to the public.

Yesterday a party member foreign minister and fellow MP of the same told one of the evening papers that she thinks the foreign minister is to resign because of him having lost his credibility. According to her the bad media attention caused by his behaviour has hurt his reputation, both in Finland and abroad.

Well, President Clinton of the US stayed in office so why should not one Foreign minister of Finland be able to do the same?

This is just politics.