a lamb with no guiding light

What makes Finnish kids so smart?

2008-03-02T12:18:00.002+02:00

Many say it's the diet of fish and berries. Wall Street Journal disagrees, offering another PISA-inspired look at the Finnish school system. There are some funny bits:

Teens sift by style, including "fruittari," or preppies; "hoppari," or hip-hop, or the confounding "fruittari-hoppari," which fuses both. Ask an obvious question and you may hear "KVG," short for "Check it on Google, you idiot."

(If you don't know the lingo, fucking google it, fruitcake.)

The reporter also notes that young school children tend to travel to school on their own, classes still have overhead projectors, and, shockingly, there are no marching bands. It's a strange, strange world out there.

Poll: Coalition 23.2, Soc Dems 22.5, Centre 22.0

2008-03-01T19:08:00.002+02:00

The Centre Party dropped to third in Taloustutkimus's latest poll (fi). The National Coalition Party lead for the third poll in a row, posting their third consecutive improvement. The Social Democratic Party were the biggest movers, though, gaining back the 0.9 percentage points they dropped the last time around. I would guess that this is closer to their true level of support than the previous result.

On the undercard, the Green League hit a ten poll high with 9.9 percent support. Christian Democrats are at a ten poll low with 4.0 percent.

CP   NCP  SDP  LA  GL   CD  SPP TF  gov  source
23.1 22.3 21.4 8.8 8.5  4.9 4.6 4.1 58.5 PE 3/18
...
22.3 23.6 21.2 8.5 9.4  4.6 4.5 4.7 59.8 TT 8/13
22.7 23.2 21.6 8.1 9.4  4.7 4.5 4.6 59.8 TT 9/9
22.5 22.6 21.5 8.4 9.0  4.6 4.6 5.0 58.7 TG 9/22
22.6 22.8 21.8 7.9 9.8  4.8 4.4 4.8 59.6 TT 10/13
22.6 21.7 21.7 8.6 9.1  4.6 4.7 5.1 58.1 TG 10/31
22.6 22.3 22.3 8.4 9.7  4.4 4.6 5.0 59.2 TT 11/19
22.3 21.5 22.3 8.6 9.4  4.6 4.6 4.9 57.8 TG 12/16
22.3 22.7 22.5 8.5 9.6  4.6 4.1 4.5 58.7 TT 12/21
22.5 22.9 21.6 8.4 9.8  4.7 4.3 4.7 59.5 TT 2/2
22.0 23.2 22.5 8.3 9.9  4.3 4.0 4.8 59.1 TT 3/1

Legend:
CP = Centre Party
NCP = National Coalition Party
SDP = Social Democratic Party
LA = Left Alliance
GL = Green League
CD = Christian Democrats
SPP = Swedish People's Party
TF = True Finns
gov = government parties
PE = parliamentary election
TT = Taloustutkimus / YLE
TG = TNS Gallup / Helsingin Sanomat
RI = Research International Finland / MTV3

(I'm cutting the table to ten most recent polls or six months' worth of polls, whichever will provide more entries.)

Digi-spin

2008-02-29T21:09:00.003+02:00

While I'm commenting on headlines, consider the following:

Verkkouutiset (fi): "Nearly one in ten without a digital receiver"

Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "One in ten without digital TV"

YLE (fi), the public broadcasting company: "Only few percent of TV households without a digital receiver"

In practice both are correct. The first two articles concentrate on cable households, for which analog broadcasts will end tomorrow. The YLE story, however, talks about all households - including satellite ones, for which the deadline was last year. Still, it's not difficult to see what caused the different emphasis here.

Headline of the day

2008-02-29T20:57:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "The Kremlin wants to buy 3200 white mice". Don't we all?

The article says they refuse to say what use they have for the mice. A Russian newspaper speculated that the poor things will be fed to the Kremlin's crow-repelling hawks. But in that case, why do the mice have to be white? I didn't know hawks are so picky.

Digi-TV for thee, but not for me

2008-02-28T20:34:00.001+02:00

I haven't bought a digital receiver yet and I'm feeling kind of proud for it. I fully expect my intellect to soar over the weekend. Oh, this blog will see such sophisticated, cultured posts!

Then there were nine

2008-02-26T19:59:00.002+02:00

If you've been trying to figure out who is the biggest no-hoper in the Social Democratic Party chair election, vacillating between Kimmo Kiljunen MP and Jouko Skinnari MP, you can stop now. Ilkka Kantola, a first term MP who became a Social Democrat in 2006 and is best known for having to give up his bishopric due to an affair, entered the race:

Ilkka Kantola, an MP since last year's general election and a former bishop, announced Tuesday he would stand as a party leader candidate at the Finnish Social Democrats' summer party conference.

Apparently someone made the mistake of joking to Kantola, "Why aren't you running for chairman? Hey, you could probably beat Pia Viitanen!"

Although Kantola's entry in the race has now changed everything, late last week YLE released a poll (fi) of Social Democrats according to which Erkki Tuomioja and Tarja Filatov are now tied at 27 and 28 percent, respectively. In other words, Filatov is a very good bet to win this thing.

Oh no! Society is decaying!

2008-02-25T21:14:00.002+02:00

Quoth Justice Minister Tuija Brax (Green League):

[Brax] was quoted as saying by Aamulehti on Saturday that the country's democracy faced a serious crisis that could lead to a marked increase in crime and violent behaviour.

The minister told the Tampere-based daily she had been concerned about declining election turnout figures for the past two decades. [...]

The minister feels the cohesion of Finnish society is decaying, spawning organised crime and violence.

Meanwhile the National Research Institute for Legal Policy reports:

Young men's delinquent behaviour has remained more or less unchanged over the past forty years.

[...] The institute compared criminal behaviour among young males in 1962 and 2006. Results found that today's youth has not become any more mixed up in delinquent activity than generations before, although many goods are far more accessible for theft today than 40 years ago.

So there's that.

I was particularly impressed by the connection Brax made between election turnout and crime. Considering that presidential elections have considerably higher turnout than parliamentary elections, it seems probable that bicycle thefts show a decline after presidential elections, because young would-be criminals feel like they have a say and stuff.

Happily, then, the solution to the Justice Minister's fears is obvious: To prevent societal breakdown, we must move to a fully presidential system of governance and arrange elections every two years or so. Then you could leave your bike outside without a lock, I'm certain of it.

PS: I've so far come up with two things I like about Jyrki Katainen. Will post when I can think of a third.

What I like about Matti Vanhanen

2008-02-22T21:22:00.001+02:00

This is part two in an on-going series where I list three things I like about a prominent Finnish politician. After President Tarja Halonen, this time I'll consider Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.

1.) I like it that Vanhanen refuses to show emotion in public. During the Susan versus Matti court case he was kind of forced to talk about his feelings; his solution was to note that he has feelings, even though he doesn't display them - all said in the usual matter-of-fact way of his. Some other politician would whine about his travails to every available friendly media outlet. Vanhanen remains coolly detached in public, which allows him to maintain his dignity even after all those embarrassing situations.

2.) I like it that Vanhanen acts as a counterbalance to the extreme Centrists, by which I mean the forces within the Centre Party who are chiefly concerned with regional politics. The Centre has traditionally fared poorly in my personal cares-about-people-like-me sweepstakes, seeing as I don't produce food and live in a growing southern city. In that regard, Vanhanen's leadership has been a step in the right direction.

3.) ...Huh. Er... He's not Anneli Jäättenmäki?

This is harder than I thought. I'll soldier on with Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen next.

What I like about Tarja Halonen

2008-02-21T20:23:00.000+02:00

Blogs can focus too much on politicians' flaws. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but even this blog right here has sometimes gotten snarky. As a much needed corrective to excess negativity, I'll start a series of posts in which I tell you just what I like about notable Finnish politicians. I'll try to come up with three things about everyone. I'm going to start at the top and work my way downwards till I get bored of it. First up, then, is President Tarja Halonen.

1.) I like it that Halonen has by and large done what was expected of her. We won't be joining NATO under her watch; she has tried her best to retain all the powers invested in the President in the Constitution; she speaks up for the welfare state every chance she gets. Her voters have little reason to feel disappointed or betrayed. Surely that's a good thing.

2.) I like it that Halonen greatly annoys our true-believing, US-style conservatives (and just about no one else). To experience these folks' rhetoric first-hand, check out the reader comments in Helsingin Sanomat's website under any article about Halonen. I hope the rest of us can come together in agreement that annoying them says good things about a person.

3.) I like what electing Halonen says about the country. She has many qualities that would limit her popular appeal in more conservative countries. She's a woman. She was a trade union lawyer. She used to be the chairwoman of a sexual minority rights organization. She resigned from the church. Having her as a President is a testament to the relative broadmindedness of our electorate, thus she makes a good representative for the country.

See, wasn't even difficult. Next up is Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen - maybe tomorrow, unless some piece of news strikes my fancy.

Kanerva's ambitious EU foreign policy agenda

2008-02-20T22:03:00.002+02:00

In a recent speech (fi), Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva (National Coalition Party) said there should be majority decision making in European Union foreign policy. I'm not sure the President and the Prime Minister will be pleased, but at least Kanerva added the caveat that important national questions - are there any other kind? - should still be decided unanimously. Now all we need is an unanimous agreement that unanimity is needed to decide what are important national questions, and consensus will rule the day.

In the same article, we learn that Kanerva wouldn't describe the relations between EU and Russia with the word "challenge", but rather "ambition". How does that work?

"Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva, how would you describe relations between EU and Russia?"

"Relations between EU and Russia are ambition."

"Good one, sir."

Filatov leads

2008-02-18T21:45:00.000+02:00

MTV3 asked board members of the Social Democratic Party's district organizations who should become the next party leader. The results (fi) look promising for former Labor Minister Tarja Filatov:

Tarja Filatov 21%
Erkki Tuomioja 19%
Miapetra Kumpula-Natri 15%
Jutta Urpilainen 10%
Johannes Koskinen 7%

Tuomioja is the left-wing candidate here and Filatov is the broadly acceptable alternative in the middle. It must be a bit depressing for Tuomioja that he has gained no support since the previous survey, in which only him and outgoing party chair Eero Heinäluoma received significant support. It'll be difficult for him to win from this position, I should think.

That Kumpula-Natri leads Urpilainen might be considered something of a surprise. I would have guessed that it was the other way around.

While I'm on the subject, for those of you who can read Finnish, Tagen Turinat has some decent, insider-ish analysis from a Lipponenian trade unionist perspective.

An issue with significance for the society as a whole

2008-02-17T20:12:00.001+02:00

Vanhanen versus Ruusunen got underway on Friday (alas):

Petteri Sotamaa, Mr Vanhanen's barrister, told the court that Ms Ruusunen's book catered to the inquisitiveness and voyeurism of a certain niche of readers, adding its publication had nothing to do with any issue with significance for society as a whole.

Yes, but what was wrong with it?

Ban the Islamic Party

2008-02-17T19:46:00.002+02:00

The Islamic Party - which is still collecting signatures - wants to institute the death penalty for adultery and implement Sharia law. Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors (Swedish People's Party) opined a while back that if it can enter the party registry, the law governing these matters will have failed.

Now Justice Minister Tuija Brax (Green League) quoth (fi), "If some association's goal is to weaken women's place in the society, for example by advancing violence directed at women, we must interfere in the matter. The purpose of an association can't be unlawful; for example, it mustn't promote anyone's death or killing."

Does this mean that it's illegal for any party to support the death penalty? Or is it just illegal to support the death penalty for silly reasons? I oppose the death penalty, too, but surely supporting it is a legitimate opinion to have. As far as I know, the Islamic party isn't talking about vigilantism, but wants to change the law through democratic means.

The other thing to take into account is that the party has no change whatsoever to accomplish any of its terrible goals. We're not afraid of the Communist Workers' Party even though it supports (fi) a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship. Ministers presumably don't want to ban it even though implementing its program would entail trampling some of our basic rights. Why should the Islamic Party receive different treatment?

Police brutality

2008-02-15T21:16:00.001+02:00

It turns out that the drunken man who pushed down Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen was a police officer (who has since resigned). But of course he was.

YLE says (fi) that according to the police investigation, the man didn't know he pushed Pekkarinen, which suggests that his motivation had nothing to do with Kemijärvi - unless he blames the dwarven kind for stealing Finnish jobs or something.

51/51 change

2008-02-14T20:54:00.003+02:00

Yes, we have a tie. MP Merikukka Forsius, previously of the Green League, switched over to the National Coalition Party. Now the Centre Party and the Coalition will have an equal number of MPs, 51. One more flip to the Coalition and things might get interesting.

Forsius, who is from Vihti, said that local Greens don't want to cooperate with her, and that the Coalition's current values fit her. I'm not sure the leap is good for her political future, though.

Kemijärvi interpellation

2008-02-13T21:41:00.001+02:00

The opposition - all parties are involved - will submit its second interpellation this Friday. It's all about the closing of Stora Enso's Kemijärvi factory, which according to the opposition the government should have opposed through its role as a major Stora Enso stockholder. As a result, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen's rhetoric is getting a bit heavy-handed:

The prime minister asked why the opposition did not issue similar demands to pension insurance companies and the unions that held sizeable stakes in them.

"The world would be an easy place to live if only the state bought slices in all key companies and cooperated with pension insurance companies with their even deeper pockets in order to "rescue" all the jobs in Finland through decisions taken at annual general meetings," Mr Vanhanen said, underlining that his remark was sarcastic.

Sarcasm? I don't see any sarcasm.

In related news, Ilta-Sanomat reports (fi) that a drunken man, angry about Kemijärvi, pushed down Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen in Kolari last Friday. The incident happened when Pekkarinen was leaving a restaurant opening around midnight.

Personally, I think the drunkard is lucky Pekkarinen didn't bite his ankle. (Because Pekkarinen is really short.)

Urpilainen's appeal

2008-02-12T21:50:00.000+02:00

Happened today in the Social Democratic Party chair election campaign: Jutta Urpilainen announced (fi) her candidacy. Miapetra Kumpula-Natri will say whether she's running tomorrow. Maria Guzenina-Richardson is running for vice chair - and not supporting Erkki Tuomioja, who, she implied, was "another old face".

Antti Kalliomäki - quite possibly the grayest man on earth - wants (fi) a chair who brings "a new look and youthful energy" to the party. Paavo Lipponen, for his part, wants a chair with a minimum amount of old encumbrances. Now's an opportunity to clean the table and leave old juxtapositions behind. Something tells me he isn't supporting Tuomioja, either.

The feeling I get is that what the Social Democratic influentials are after is stylistic reform, as opposed to radical substantive change. This is an understandable reaction to the parliamentary election, I think. The party promised to deliver the things its supporters want out of it, but it lacked credibility. With a fresh face as party chair, maybe it regain that credibility and leave behind the "old encumbrances" it accrued during the government years.

For Urpilainen, then, entering the race at this early date is imperative. She qualifies as a fresh face, and the contrast to Eero Heinäluoma's appearance, if not policies, would be considerable. But being quite new on the national scene and not looking like Heinäluoma aren't qualities unique to her, so she needs to move quickly to shore up support before others (read: Kumpula-Natri) challenge her for that niche.

PS: In case you're wondering, one of these days I plan to write about something else than the Soc Dems. No, really.

Strongest candidates for Soc Dem chair

2008-02-11T22:02:00.000+02:00

Yesterday's shock announcement from Social Democratic Party chairman Eero Heinäluoma is obviously the big political news story of the day. According to YLE (fi), Tuomioja and Filatov are "the strongest candidates for party leader". YLE reached 52 of 61 party council members, of whom 33 revealed their current preferences. Erkki Tuomioja got 12 mentions, Tarja Filatov 10, Jutta Urpilainen 6, Maria Guzenina-Richardson 5, and Miapetra Kumpula-Natri 4. Tuula Haatainen, Mikko Mäenpää, Johannes Koskinen, Riitta Myller, and Lasse Lehtinen were also mentioned.

In other words, even the most popular candidate had the backing of less than 20 percent of party council members. Given the rudimentary nature of the field, there's very little we can say about the outcome at the moment, except that Tuomioja, the only one who has announced his candidacy, will in all likelihood still lack the party pooh-bahs' backing. As for the rest, I assume that the support for a fresh face - Urpilainen, Guzenina-Richardson, or Kumpula-Natri - isn't wedded to their current candidate and could be pooled behind the same person.

Incidentally, Lehtinen announced his support for Kumpula-Natri, who was Lehtinen's election chief in the last European Parliament election and pooh-poohed the possibility of taking a crack at it himself. He also described the contest as one between the Tuomioja line and the Paavo Lipponen line, and said that the future chair should be able to advance Finland's NATO membership. It's odd, then, that Kumpula-Natri opposed NATO membership (scroll down to section E) before the parliamentary election.

Heinäluoma exits the race

2008-02-10T17:11:00.000+02:00

Er... about yesterday's headline... It was - how should I say this - very, very wrong. In fact, it was the opposite of right. In my defense, everyone else got it wrong, too.

Eero Heinäluoma announced today (fi) that he isn't running for Social Democratic Party chair. It's a bit of a bombshell and now lots of people (fi) who thought they didn't stand a change are scrambling to get in the race.

24d (fi) and Uutispäivä Demari (fi) have quotes from Heinäluoma's speech:

"We've suffered an undeniable election defeat and due to it, too, there is a need for reform. What is the chairman's responsibility and trust, what conclusions should be drawn?"

"After listening to the discussion for quite some time, I've reached the conclusion, that I should as the chairman take a clear responsibility for the election result. I've decided not to stand as a candidate in the election for party chair."

"I hope that a change of chair will give our supporters a strong message that we take the feedback we received in the election strongly."

"I hope that a change in party leadership will give our movement new strength, new energy, and also a new unity."

According to Helsingin Sanomat, he also quoted Martin Luther King(!): "If you can't be a sun, be a star."

I suspect that the constant negativity surrounding Heinäluoma after the parliamentary election got to him. He could have held on and had another crack at it. For some reason he didn't want to.

It'll be interesting to see whether former Heinäluoma supporters can line up behind a single replacement candidate. I doubt many of them will now become Tuomioja supporters, but obviously Tuomioja's chances are suddenly much better if there's no one dominant establishment candidate.

Heinäluoma enters the race amid infighting

2008-02-09T19:04:00.000+02:00

Social Democratic Party chair Eero Heinäluoma will be up for reelection in this summer's party conference, reports (fi) party organ Uutispäivä Demari. The official announcement is due tomorrow. Few will be surprised, I should think.

Meanwhile the debate on holding a party member vote on the chair rumbles on. SONK, the Social Democratic students' organization, and the Social Democratic Youth are collecting signatures (fi) in support of a referendum. Uutispäivä Demari refused to publish the appeal and editor Juha Peltonen went on the attack, writing with dripping sarcasm (fi) that the Youth have no plans to organize a referendum and that some leading members have links to labor unions. In a somewhat peeved response (fi), SONK chair Mikko Koskinen called Peltonen a "limbo champion".

To show why the question of a referendum is so important, a Taloustutkimus poll commissioned by YLE shows (fi) that among the Social Democratic rank and file, challenger Erkki Tuomioja actually leads Heinäluoma 36 percent to 24 percent. Tuomioja's supporters tend to be women and young people (such as SONK members); Heinäluoma, with those famously extensive labor union ties, does well among workers.

Stubb's profile

2008-02-09T18:53:00.000+02:00

British blogger Jon Worth likes National Coalition Party MEP Alex Stubb's website.

Counting votes

2008-02-07T20:36:00.000+02:00

Hank W. is generally the best of the Finland for Thought crew when it comes to commenting on Finnish politics, but his post on election reform left something to be said.

There is a proposal into forming Finland into one or fewer electoral districts, mainly due to the fact that as the population has massed to the cities, the popular vote is valued differently in different district. So the vote of a person living in a small county weighs less than the vote of a person living in a populous city, thus conflicting the Constitutional principle of equality. Or say in the last elections Cronberg of the Greens didn't get into parliament from North Karelia (she is a minister though) even she had 8000 votes, while a True Finn Ruohonen-Lerner who got in from Porvoo with a mere thousand votes. Discrepancy? Maybe.

The number of MPs from an electoral district is proportional to the number of people living in the district, or at least about as close as it can be. This part of the system works pretty well. The real impetus for election reform is that some districts are now so small that their seats can't be divided between parties fairly. Parties need an unreasonably high percentage of the vote to elect even a single MP in low population districts, while in the big (and still growing) electoral districts a much smaller vote percentage is enough to win a seat.

As for Ruohonen-Lerner versus Cronberg, mentioning it doesn't make much sense in this context. The proposals mentioned in the media wouldn't do anything about the current open list system. Further, Cronberg was from a small district, received many votes, and wasn't elected; Ruohonen-Lerner was from a big district, received fewer votes, and was elected. This surely can't be used as an example of how votes cast in small districts count for more.

The real problem, and the one the reform is supposed to address, is the uneven way in which parties are treated in different sized districts. To use the previous case as an example, no Green League candidate was elected from Cronberg's district even though the party received 12 percent of the vote there, whereas True Finn party chair Timo Soini and Ruohonen-Lerner were both elected with six percent of the vote in their much more populous district.

Headline of the day

2008-02-06T20:39:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "Soc Dems want being a human as a school subject". But what does it say if you fail?

What happened here is that the Social Democrats made the mistake of giving poet/MP Tommy Tabermann something to do, namely preparing a document on mental wellbeing for the summer's party conference, and this headline is their reward. Some other proposals (fi): give people the right to their own time, include an allowance for buying art in all construction, and add silent restrooms to places of employment with more than 30 people.

If I'm reading this correctly, the key to mental wellbeing is taking naps during working hours in a room that has paintings on the walls.

Halonen on government ownership

2008-02-05T18:05:00.000+02:00

The President is not happy with government inaction on the Kemijärvi pulp mill issue:

Tarja Halonen, Finland's president, criticised the centre-right government's ownership policy at the opening of the 2008 session of Parliament on Tuesday.

"The government has stated that central government ownership in Stora Enso, for instance, is a financial investment which does not entail employment or regional development responsibilities beyond the scope of normal corporate social responsibility," the president said in her speech.

"And I believe that this is exactly what many people want to know: is this normal corporate social responsibility, then?"

[...]

"There are no easy answers now, nor will there be in similar situations in the future. Ultimately, however, it is up to Parliament to decide what the central government does and what its ownership policy is. Power comes with responsibility. I wish Parliament wisdom in taking decisions."

It's not often the President criticizes the government on domestic policy grounds, so this should get a lot of attention.

The speech in its entirety can be read here (only in Finnish). In addition to commenting on Stora Enso, Halonen defended the President's role in leading the country's foreign policy.

Election reform hits a snag

2008-02-03T20:20:00.000+02:00

The Justice Ministry's election reform committee, which was intended to finish its work in late March, has reportedly hit a bit of a rough patch (fi). Anonymous sources have accused the big parties of obstructionism, so this week the Centre Party's secretary Jarmo Korhonen, a member of the committee, laid down (fi) his party's proposal. He that the big parties were prepared to change the system so that the whole of Finland constitutes a single electoral area and there's a four percent national electoral threshold. The Swedish People's Party, which benefits from its regionally concentrated support and is currently barely above the four percent threshold, obviously opposes (fi) such a move.

Of the micro-parties, the Senior Party and the Liberals issued a joint statement (fi) in which they approved of the plan for a single electoral area, but said that the threshold should be larger than four percent. Instead they would like to see a two-percent threshold - which, for what it's worth, is still so high that both of them put together would have a difficult time clearing it.

Looking at the last ten parliamentary elections, on average 6.9 parties have received more than four percent of the vote and 7.7 parties have gotten more than two percent. No parties have fallen between four and two percent in the last three elections, but in the six elections before that, one or two regularly did. Fear of fragmentation is hardly an issue unless we assume that these results would change drastically. Of the current established parties, the Christian Democrats and the Green League spent several elections below four percent back in the day, but had MPs anyway due to regional support and beneficial electoral alliances.

I kind of like the idea of a single national electoral area, but I agree that four percent is too high of a threshold. There's no particular reason why the limit shouldn't be two percent.

Heinäluoma leads, Feldt-Ranta out

2008-02-02T17:41:00.000+02:00

It has been a busy few days for Social Democratic Party internal wrangling. MTV3 polled (fi) Social Democratic district board members on who should be elected the party chair next summer. Current chair Heinäluoma romped home in first place with 53 percent of the vote, followed by Erkki Tuomioja at 22 percent. Jutta Urpilainen was third with eight percent and Tarja Filatov fourth with seven percent. The Urpilainen supporters need to find a new candidate, though, as Urpilainen announced today that she will run for vice chair.

In other Social Democratic news, party secretary Maarit Feldt-Ranta won't be seeking another term. I've found Feldt-Ranta's media skills lacking. However, while she was far from the solution to the party's problems, she wasn't their source, either. The name mooted as her successor (fi) is Ari Korhonen, the chair of the party's Varsinais-Suomi district.

In the linked blog post, MTV3's Timo Haapala hinted that the party secretary didn't look as easy for Feldt-Ranta as the party chair race for Heinäluoma, so it's possible that she jumped before she was pushed. Lending further credence to that theory, in today's Turun Sanomat SDP parliamentary group chair Filatov says (fi) the party needs a new secretary who isn't an MP.

Poll: Coalition 22.9, Centre 22.5, Soc Dems 21.6

2008-02-02T17:11:00.000+02:00

Taloustutkimus's latest party support poll, the first of 2008, is out (fi). It must be considered good news for the government parties, which have all increased their support by a few percentage points. The Social Democratic Party was the big loser, dropping 0.9 percentage points, but it's not all bad news for SDP. The polling was conducted between January 8th and January 31st and YLE reports that during that time the Social Democrats' support increased, whereas the Centre Party lost support. Is it the Kemijärvi effect?

CP   NCP  SDP  LA  GL   CD  SPP TF  gov  source
23.1 22.3 21.4 8.8 8.5  4.9 4.6 4.1 58.5 PE 3/18
23.0 24.1 20.7 8.2 9.4  4.5 4.4 4.5 60.9 TT 4/5
22.8 23.3 21.1 8.4 8.9  4.5 4.3 4.9 59.3 TG 5/20
23.4 23.3 20.8 9.0 9.6  5.0 4.1 4.4 60.4 RI 5/25
22.4 23.4 21.7 8.4 10.1 4.7 4.1 4.3 60.0 TT 6/9
23.0 23.2 21.5 8.3 9.0  4.3 4.2 5.0 59.4 TG 6/26
22.8 23.9 21.2 8.5 9.3  4.7 4.4 4.3 60.4 TT 7/2
22.3 23.6 21.2 8.5 9.4  4.6 4.5 4.7 59.8 TT 8/13
22.7 23.2 21.6 8.1 9.4  4.7 4.5 4.6 59.8 TT 9/9
22.5 22.6 21.5 8.4 9.0  4.6 4.6 5.0 58.7 TG 9/22
22.6 22.8 21.8 7.9 9.8  4.8 4.4 4.8 59.6 TT 10/13
22.6 21.7 21.7 8.6 9.1  4.6 4.7 5.1 58.1 TG 10/31
22.6 22.3 22.3 8.4 9.7  4.4 4.6 5.0 59.2 TT 11/19
22.3 21.5 22.3 8.6 9.4  4.6 4.6 4.9 57.8 TG 12/16
22.3 22.7 22.5 8.5 9.6  4.6 4.1 4.5 58.7 TT 12/21
22.5 22.9 21.6 8.4 9.8  4.7 4.3 4.7 59.5 TT 2/2

Legend:
CP = Centre Party
NCP = National Coalition Party
SDP = Social Democratic Party
LA = Left Alliance
GL = Green League
CD = Christian Democrats
SPP = Swedish People's Party
TF = True Finns
gov = government parties
PE = parliamentary election
TT = Taloustutkimus / YLE
TG = TNS Gallup / Helsingin Sanomat
RI = Research International Finland / MTV3

Architecture in Helsinki

2008-02-01T20:17:00.000+02:00

...and some other places.

Not everything on the Internet is true

2008-01-31T22:31:00.000+02:00

While advocating for age limits on "some Internet sites" (how would that work?), Interior Minister Anne Holmlund makes some good points.

"Studies say children and young people use the internet on a daily basis."

It's a good thing studies say that, because how would you otherwise know it to be true?

"It is especially important for children and young people to learn that not everything on the internet is true."

Consider yourself educated, young people.

Kemijärvi

2008-01-30T21:32:00.000+02:00

I've been meaning to write something about the closure of a Stora Enso pulp mill in Kemijärvi, but the story keeps growing in all directions, so I'll just do a quick recap of its main branches.

There's the government ownership angle. The government owns a plurality of Stora Enso stocks, so the opposition demands that it throw its weight around to influence Stora Enso's decision. (Here's the Left Alliance linking Kemijärvi and Bochum.) The government resists, preferring use its stocks to make money rather than politics - and, truth be told, most opposition parties would agree were they in the government.

There's the Massaliike (fi) ("Mass Movement") angle. It's a citizens group that wants to keep the pulp mill operational or, failing that, to set up a new mill in place of the old. The demonstration it organized when Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen visited Kemijärvi - a break from chatting with Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bill Gates - was a pretty effective spectacle.

There's also the Anaika Group angle. I find this part of the story quite confusing. Anaika wants to buy the mill's site to set up a wood processing factory. Some Kemijärvi folks seem to believe that the company isn't on the up and up, but in that case, what angle would it be exploiting?

The Tits Pervert and other offenders

2008-01-29T21:48:00.000+02:00

Re the survey on sexual harassment in the Parliament, Helsingin Sanomat did some investigative reporting and called many men and women working in the Parliament. The resulting article is interesting, but quite provocative (clearly on purpose).

At the end, the article has comments from a bunch of MPs whose names came up during the calls. I'd like to have a strong notion that these men are guilty of something before I printed their names in a newspaper and I'm not sure a person's name coming up during a round of phone calls qualifies.

On the other hand, Centre Party MP Pekka Vilkuna doesn't do himself any favors by opining that he has been accused of improper behavior "because it is fashionable these days to say that" and advising women to laugh along at the jokes. Obviously it's not "fashionable" to name Vilkuna, in particular.

PS: The article focuses on MPs and states that "as a rule the party doing the harassing is an MP", but according to the survey in almost half of the cases the harasser wasn't an MP. So it's not much of a rule.

Take a bow, idiots

2008-01-28T17:59:00.000+02:00

From the stupid criminal files comes this tale (fi) of murderous intentions, in which several men, all around 20 years old, attempted to kill a woman with a crossbow.

To the surprise of the would-be killers, an arrow to the head failed to knock the victim unconscious. She fled to her apartment's balcony from where she screamed for help and the assailants ran away. The police soon apprehended a man carrying a crossbow near the apartment.

But that's not all! Also, being thorough contract killers, they had planned the whole thing carefully on a mate's computer. The plans found by the police - of course they were found - included a map of the target and the victim's description.

Why did the men attempt to murder the woman, you may want to know. The police believe the perps had been hired to do the deed by the victim's 16-year old daughter. Natch.

These events raise a couple of questions. First, how large was the daughter's allowance that she could afford to pay several hired killers? Alternatively, just how cheap is it to hire a complete moron to kill someone?

Second, wouldn't it be better to plan a murder without leaving documents for the police to discover? I mean, were I planning to kill someone, I wouldn't leave a file on my computer that says:

1. Go to 13 Murder Street, where Mrs Victim lives.
2. Shoot Mrs Victim in the head with a crossbow.
3. ?
4. Profit.

Third... A crossbow? Really? How embarrassed is the guy who proposed that particular murder method right about now?

The Office of the President

2008-01-27T18:30:00.000+02:00

After Tasavallan presidentti, the same makers have a new show on YLE, Presidentin kanslia ("The Office of the President"). In my opinion it's a clear improvement on Itse valtiaat, which it replaces in the Saturday night lineup. The humor is considerably sharper, more topical, and more timely.

The show also fixes many of the things I criticized in its predecessor. The pseudo-documentary form has been dropped, the characters interact with each other more, and they have better defined personalities. Sometimes things even happen on the screen, although the budget is obviously still quite tiny.

On the downside, jokes about Tarja Halonen being a Stasi informant will get really old really fast for the segment of the viewing population that doesn't hate her guts, which I'd guess is the large majority. It doesn't work as a comedic exaggeration, because there really are people out there who believe those sort of things of her.

Sexual harassment in Parliament

2008-01-26T18:40:00.000+02:00

In a story that has some potential, according to a survey (fi) commissioned by the Parliament, one in three women working there have been subjected to sexual harassment. About one in seven had been harassed physically and the rest had heard inappropriate comments. In four incidents out of ten, the harasser was a Member of Parliament. In response, former Culture Minister Tarja Saarela (Centre Party) has said (fi) that she has been harassed.

There were about 100 respondents in this section of the survey, so we're talking about 33 respondents who say that they have been harassed and about 14 respondents who report having been harassed physically. In total the survey was sent to 680 people, out of whom 320 respondent. Of the respondents, 224 were women. The response rate means that we probably shouldn't extrapolate the harassment rates to the entire parliamentary workforce, but the results still show that there's a problem.

Scientology Handbook

2008-01-26T18:17:00.000+02:00

If you have any doubts about the wisdom of Scientology, the Scientology Handbook should help you make up your mind. Consider, for example, the chapter describing "assists" for illnesses and injuries. Apparently the way to help coma patients is to take their hands and press them against different objects, like pillows and bedspreads. You should talk to them while you're doing this - "I am going to assist you to recover. Feel that Tom Cruise action figure. Thank you." - because otherwise they might think you're a crazy person.

This has to be very, very black humor, though.

No to Soc Dem member vote

2008-01-24T19:20:00.000+02:00

Social Democratic Party members won't be voting in a non-binding poll on party chair. Quoth current party chair Eero Heinäluoma:

The party management's decision was unanimous, with Eero Heinäluoma, the chairman of the SDP, saying the rules would not be changed "when one racer is already on the track".

Mr Heinäluoma's analogy was a reference to the former foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja who has challenged the party leader and called for a consultative vote among all party members before the summer's party conference.

Tuomioja's candidacy can be used as a convenient argument, but it's hardly the determining reason. If Tuomioja announces tomorrow that he's no longer in the race, it seems highly probable to me that the rules still wouldn't be changed.

Germans to boycott everything

2008-01-22T22:10:00.000+02:00

As you've no doubt read elsewhere, a movement is gathering pace in Germany to not buy products from companies that have moved production from one place to another. The German protest movement is asking everyone to boycott Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz cars; Siemens electronics; and every other thing in existence. In future the German protesters plan to exist on a diet of berries and rain water and to mainly wear leaves.

(Insert Seppo Räty quote here.)

Imurda, South Gorelia

2008-01-21T19:29:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat commissioned a study (fi) ranking cities with over 25'000 inhabitants based on the number of capital crimes committed in them in 2000-2006. Top of the list was the South Karelian city of Imatra with 5.72 capital crimes per 100'000 inhabitants, followed by Lahti and Kerava with roughly 5.5 capital crimes. The biggest cities landed in the lower reaches of the ranking; Helsinki was 24th out of 37 cities with 2.55 capital crimes.

I have little to say on the topic - I just wanted to use the headline - and the story already makes the obvious points: The results say very little about how safe you are in public places. The typical capital crime is perpetrated by a drunk, unemployed person on a drunk, unemployed acquaintance. ("Who can say why Jeppe drinks alcohol. Some lose self-control, when they drink a lot. Then these sort of things happen," commented the police chief of Imatra.)

More on Internet gambling

2008-01-20T21:06:00.000+02:00

Re the proposed changes to the Lotteries Act it should be noted that none of them are not a sure thing. The proposals came from Ministry of Social Affairs and Health officials and will need political backing to go through. Some politicians, e.g National Coalition MP Arto Satonen (fi) and Green League MP Jyrki Kasvi (fi), have criticized the proposal to curb online poker by enabling losing players to get their money back. Outside of the Parliament, the Coalition Youth have expressed their disapproval (fi).

It's important, though, to have good arguments against the proposals, and on that front I'm afraid that these critics fall down a bit. For example, Satonen asks, "Is this how individual responsibility works? Do we really want to give young people the model, that you can gamble carefree even while drunk, and then afterwards have others pay for your losses?" The ministry of course argues - compellingly, I think - that it would never come to that. Should it be proved that Finnish pokers can effectively recoup their losses in courts, they would be barred from playing.

Satonen, Kasvi, and the Coalition Youth all propose setting up a national Internet poker site run by Finland's Slot Machine Association (RAY). The problem here is that the new service would have to compete with all the existing ones. The one competitive advantage I can think of is trustworthiness, but I kind of suspect that's only enough to attract a large market share if the non-licensed foreign competitors aren't superior in other fields, like quality of opponents, quality of software, and the house's profit margin.

Kasvi writes, "Finnish authorities could monitor its operation and legislation could mandate for example recognizing the signs of problem gambling, counseling to control playing, and recognizing and shutting out obvious professional players." Given that the signs of a professional player is that he plays quite a bit and tends to win, I'm not sure barring everyone who meets the description is going to make a new site very popular. I can also see professional players and losing poker addicts alike staying put in the Internet card rooms they currently frequent.

All that said, the proposals are worth opposing. Problem gambling just isn't that common and online poker trails behind slot machines in the gambling form of choice for the true addict. The Määttä report (fi, PDF) has some statistics on this and although it tries to paint the issue as a serious problem, the actual figures cited are pretty darned small. In 2003, about 5'500 people called a problem gambling help line; in 2006, the share of online gamblers among the callers was 14 percent; according to international studies, about 0.5 to three percent of people suffer from gambling related problems; and so on. Further, compared to e.g. excessive alcohol use, the externalities from problem gambling are tiny - fewer health problems, less crime, etc. The problem isn't widespread or intensive enough to justify restricting people's personal autonomy like the ministry proposes.

US presidential candidates' environmentalism

2008-01-19T12:52:00.000+02:00

The two aspects of the US presidential campaign I find most interesting from the point of view of a condescending European are the candidates' foreign policy views and their environmental views. If you've been following the campaign at all, you've probably gotten a pretty good idea of where the front-runners stand on foreign policy, but environmental policy doesn't get as much attention in the media. To that end, here's a handy charty from Grist magazine.

While I'm at it, the Green League party organ Vihreä lanka published an article on the topic (fi). Their conclusion was that John Edwards was the best of the Democrats, although they got there mainly by noting that he opposes nuclear power whereas Barack Obama supports it and Hillary Clinton won't say. If you disagree with the assumption that nuclear power is bad for the environment, your ranking may differ with theirs. On the Republican side, they named John McCain as the first Republican candidate who takes climate change seriously and supports cap-and-trade.

Party chair member vote fever - catch it!

2008-01-17T19:30:00.000+02:00

Centre Party secretary Jarmo Korhonen presents in Apila magazine (fi) his plan for electing the party chair. Korhonen would like to see a member vote that would be binding in the case that one candidate more than half of the votes. Otherwise the choice would be left to the party conference.

Turun Sanomat interviewed (fi) other party secretaries. National Coalition Party secretary Taru Tujunen thinks a member vote is a "very interesting idea." She claims, though, that the Coalition's party conferences are "so big that in fact everyone can attend." Green League secretary Panu Laturi notes that one in ten members already attends party conferences. According to Left Alliance secretary Sirpa Puhakka, "it's clear that the party conference decides," but that a member vote "isn't out of the question for example in ten years time."

Within the Social Democratic Party, Erkki Tuomioja, who set off this discussion, has found a supporter in potential rival candidate Jutta Urpilainen. As per her text message to Helsingin Sanomat (fi), "a non-binding referendum would be a good start" to increasing party members' opportunities to make a difference.

Risk free poker

2008-01-16T19:16:00.000+02:00

It turns out (fi) that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is preparing an update to the Lotteries Act (PDF). A working group published its suggestions (PDF, fi) today. A ban on minors' gambling is apparently on the cards, apparently, as well as a ban on advertising, save for factual information distributed by licensed operators.

The working group also takes aim at foreign online casinos, or "illegal gambling providers", as the ministry calls them. The possibilities of banning money transfers and Internet connections should be examined. In an ingenious solution, the working group mentions the idea that losing players would be entitled to get their money back from non-licensed providers - the hope being that foreign Internet casinos wouldn't accept Finnish customers. I find it difficult to believe that such a blatant end run around EU legislation could succeed, but I'm no legal expert.

Helping people with gambling problems is cited extensively as the rationale for making these changes. I'd buy that as the main motivating factor if the proposals also went after slot machines, the leading cause of gambling addiction in Finland. Since they don't, I'll go with the theory that the ministry is trying to protect and strengthen Finland's Slot Machine Association's (RAY) monopoly on casino table games.

The ministry also ordered an expert report (fi, PDF) from Professor Kalle Määttä. In the report, Määttä makes some questionable claims about the nature of poker. For example, he argues that poker could be considered a game of luck because, even though in the long run good players will win over bad ones, in the short term a beginner can beat a professional. But of course the better player has an edge over worse players in the short term, too, regardless of whether it is enough to overcome the variance inherent in distributing cards randomly.

Määttä also compares online poker to a pyramid scheme, noting that in both many people lose money and relatively few win. That disparity, however, isn't the defining feature of a pyramid scheme. After all, in Lotto, the state-run lottery, a great many lose and very few win; that doesn't mean that it's a pyramid scheme.

Blair for EU President

2008-01-15T20:47:00.000+02:00

What a terrible idea this is. Admittedly a lot of people in a lot of different countries know Tony Blair, which can't be said for most possible candidates. Alas, he's known for making a disastrous mistake and then not owning up to it, i.e. for showing bad judgment and not being particularly trustworthy. That sort of fame isn't really a desirable quality in a candidate.

It's a Tuomioja landslide

2008-01-14T19:13:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat's Hanna Kaartio magnificently reports (fi) that Erkki Tuomioja is leading the race for Social Democratic Party chair on the Internet. She musters two, count them, points of data in favor of this thesis:

On Facebook, Tuomioja's support group has about 140 members, whereas Jutta Urpilainen's support group has about 40 members.
On reilusuomi.fi (fi), a SDP website where people can share their thoughts on the party's future, Tuomioja was leading a poll on who should be the next chair. Out of ten votes in total, he had five, Urpilainen had four, and current chair Eero Heinäluoma had one.

That's some ace reporting right there.

Meanwhile in less earth-shattering news (fi), party secretary Maarit Feldt-Ranta (who's actually more likely than Heinäluoma to lose her post) said that Tuomioja is too late with the proposal for a non-binding vote open to all party members. "The party board or the party council received no suggestions that an advisory vote by the members should be organized. Tuomioja must have missed this." Sure, the party council could change its mind in its next meeting, but Feldt-Ranta thinks the option is "hypothetical".

I'm thinking Maarit isn't in Erkki's Facebook group.

Vanhanen in America

2008-01-13T19:29:00.000+02:00

As I've written before, certain sections of the media have been wringing their hands over the dearth of top level meetings between Finland and the United States. Now, however, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is scheduled to meet with the guy in charge:

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen starts a visit to the United States on Sunday. Vanhanen will have official discussions with the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington D.C.

I'm glad that we can now drop this silly topic.

Tuomioja is running, sort of

2008-01-12T13:03:00.000+02:00

Social Democratic Party MP, former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja announced (fi) he will stand as a party chair candidate in a non-binding party membership vote, if such a thing is organized. The vote isn't a sure thing, though, as the current chair, former Finance Minister Eero Heinäluoma has expressed doubts about holding it.

The election method is for regional representatives gathered to the party conference to choose the chair. I think Tuomioja believes that if the vote is left up to party insiders, he doesn't stand much of a chance, so he needs to up the public pressure. If he wins a non-binding membership vote and still loses the party conference representative vote, it would lead to calls to change the election procedure, which might also be an acceptable result for him. Also, if party members are denied the opportunity to have their say, Tuomioja has some new supporting evidence for his case against Heinäluoma.

Tuomioja's themes were undivided human rights and equality. According to him the party's popularity depends on how well those values are carried out. I find a bit odd the emphasis on human rights. Now, obviously human rights are important, but they're not exactly a leading election issue, are they? Support for human rights also doesn't seem to differentiate him all that much from his main opponent. Or does Heinäluoma have some anti-human rights positions of which I'm not aware?

OSCE time

2008-01-11T21:01:00.000+02:00

It's enlightening to occasionally observe how differently the same events are covered in Finnish and Russian press. For example, compare Helsingin Sanomat with Moscow Times on Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva's comments upon taking the OSCE chairmanship.

While I'm on the subject, while this YLE article states that Russia accepting election monitoring during the upcoming presidential election "would be a great victory for Finland", I'm far from convinced that Finland had anything to do with it.

Price of milk

2008-01-10T20:14:00.000+02:00

The next time an unlucky politician is criticized for not knowing the price of some common grocery, remember this:

More than one in ten respondents could not give any price for a carton of milk or a packet of sausages in euros, while those few who did logged an average error of almost 30 per cent.

And yes, things used to be better in the old days:

In a similar poll taken before euro notes and coins hit the tills in Finland found that nearly all respondents could provide some sort of estimates of the prices of staples, with errors remaining below the 20-per cent mark.

For the record, I missed the price of milk by 11 cents.

Heinäluoma vs Tuomioja II on the cards

2008-01-09T19:04:00.000+02:00

Social Democratic Party MP and former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will reveal Saturday whether he'll challenge incumbent Eero Heinäluoma for the party chairmanship. Helsingin Sanomat reports (fi) that sources close to Tuomioja believe he will enter the race. In 2005, when Heinäluoma was elected to the job, Tuomioja gathered a third of the vote.

Since the parliamentary election loss, Tuomioja has been busy searching for a new direction for the party. Inasmuch as he's found one, what better way is there to put it in practice than as the chairman of the party? I don't think he's going to win, mind you, but it would be interesting to see him try and what repercussions it would have to SDP's policies.

Other potential candidates who have not ruled out a run are former Justice Minister Johannes Koskinen and Jutta Urpilainen. The party meeting will be held in June, so now's a good time to announce one's candidacy.

Causes of poverty

2008-01-08T19:14:00.000+02:00

Great ledes of our time, from Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "A majority of Finns thinks that the cause of poverty is that a person is unemployed or has a too low salary." It seems that most Finns have firmly grasped the link between not making much money and poverty. No wonder we rocked PISA.

More seriously, the study (fi) that prompted the article looked into whether people attribute poverty to individual, structural, or fatalistic causes. According to a 2005 survey, most blamed poverty on societal structures, fate, and poor luck. Few think poverty is about laziness or lack of will.

I'm not sure why you'd want to set these causes against each other. Surely the correct explanation includes a bit of each.

Presidential election procedure

2008-01-07T19:51:00.000+02:00

Re constitutional reform, Aamulehti interviewed (fi) parliamentary Constitutional Law Committee members Kimmo Kiljunen (Social Democratic Party) and Kimmo Sasi (National Coalition Party). Lest my previous post on the topic leave the wrong impression about said gentlemen's opinions, I'll summarize what they had to say.

According to Kiljunen, the Social Democratic representatives involved with constitutional affairs believe that if the President's powers are taken away, electing the President should be left to the Parliament. Kiljunen said that he considers this to be the best alternative.

The article notes that the Social Democrats have traditionally demanded that the President be elected by the Parliament. After the last five presidential elections, however, it shouldn't take a genius to see that the election system is good for the Social Democrats due to the centre-right parties supporting their own candidates and the Left Alliance usually backing the Social Democrat in the race. Why would Kiljunen want to make an unpopular change that is likely to hurt his party's power? I wonder how widespread his kind of thinking is among the Social Democrats.

According to Sasi, the President should be elected through a popular vote, because "There's not yet enough confidence that some electoral college would select the sort of person the people want. And there's no reason to take the election away from the people, even if the powers are reduced." Sasi, too, favors stripping the President of her powers.

The logical options, I think, are a ceremonial head of state elected by the Parliament and a President with real powers elected by the voters. Sasi's argument about the potential for cabinet wheeling and dealing is silly; there'd be no point whatsoever in electing a controversial, unpopular figure to a ceremonial post. If the choice is left to the Parliament, I fully expect our future Presidents to be inoffensive establishment figures. It'll all become frightfully dull.

As far as other parties are concerned, the article says that the Centre Party is undecided, with the party base traditionally supporting a strong President. True Finns chair Timo Soini, who rarely misses these kind of opportunities, announced (fi) that he, at least, likes the current situation.

Party papers on the Web

2008-01-05T19:43:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat has a piece on party web magazines, in which representatives from all parties promise to develop whatever services they're currently offering.

Currently only the Centre Party has the best web magazine going in Apila (fi). By contrast, the party organ, Suomenmaa (fi), has a pretty shabby-looking web site that only carries a few stories from the current paper and has nothing in the way of archives that you can browse.

The Social Democratic Party's Ruusuverkko (fi) publishes two to four stories a month, which isn't enough. It also lacks a newspaper-like front page, although the stories do appear on the party website's front page. Of course there's Uutispäivä Demari (fi), the party organ, which has a pretty good website.

For the National Coalition Party, Verkkouutiset (fi) does a good job of reproducing politics-related Finnish News Agency stories with only the occasional editorial thrown in. Aside from the editorials, its Coalitionist leanings sometimes show in stories' headlines and prominence. The party organ, Nykypäivä (fi), provides more opinion pieces and has a nice archive.

The Green League's party organ, Vihreä Lanka (fi), doesn't put all too many of its stories online. The party has no online magazine per se; the closest thing is a blog (fi) which isn't updated all that often. The Left Alliance's party organ Kansan Uutiset (fi). Despite a slightly clumsy design, it offers a decent amount of original news stories and opinion pieces.

The common problems these papers have is that a) they don't provide enough original content (Ruusuverkko, Verkkouutiset, Vihreä Lanka), and b) the web design is pretty poor (Suomenmaa, Kansan Uutiset, Ruusuverkko). Instead of having several papers on the Web, maybe the parties should focus on developing their party organs' online presences. The content is already mostly there; what's lacking are websites that look sharp, offer archives that you can browse, and offer at least some interactive features. Group blogs might also be nice - for examples, see TAPPED, The Corner, or Hit & Run.

Huckacraze!

2008-01-04T17:25:00.000+02:00

I propose that henceforth all headlines for stories about Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee should be huckawords - that is, combinations of the prefix "hucka-" and the actual word. Preferably the headlines should end in an exclamation point, but this is not strictly mandatory.

I'll give a few example, so you'll see how this works.

Story: Huckabee wins a primary.
Headline: Huckaboom!

Story: Huckabee loses a primary.
Headline: Huckabust!

While single syllable end words work well, you shouldn't be afraid to use longer ones.

Story: Huckabee is criticized by conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg.
Headline: Huckafascist!

Story: Huckabee polls poorly head-to-head against Democratic candidates.
Headline: Huckainelectability!

Now all we need is a Huckabee story that also involves a duck...

Bildt on Nordic defense cooperation

2008-01-03T19:08:00.000+02:00

YLE reports (fi) that Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (se) said that defense cooperation between Finland, Norway, and Sweden meets the new types of soft security challenges better than NATO membership. Bildt raised the possibility of also inviting other countries on the Baltic. (Bildt expressed frustration about being unable to find information on the Foreign Ministry's NATO report in languages other than Finnish. Not an aLwNGL reader, obviously.)

Noted NATO membership supporter and parliamentary foreign policy committee chair Pertti Salolainen (National Coalition Party) was asked for comment. He agreed with Bildt on the Nordic approach, but expressed some reservation about including the Baltic countries. Salolainen also admitted a basic fact: "Now it's pretty clear that during this parliamentary term and during this presidency we won't be joining NATO." True, that.

Noted NATO membership opponent and President of the Republic Tarja Halonen (Social Democratic Party) was likewise asked for comment. She, too, agreed (fi). "[Bildt] said that with regards to these new security risks, Nordic cooperation may even be more important than membership in some alliance. With this in mind one can say that he's thinking along Finnish lines. To kid a little, it's nice that Swedes too join in this thinking." The difference to Salolainen was that Halonen was less reserved on the idea of including the Baltic states, mentioning that there have already been talks on cooperation.

The point to grasp here is that Nordic defense cooperation is so inoffensive that both sides of the Finnish foreign policy debate can embrace. A cynic would say this is true because it wouldn't make much of a difference to anything, new threats or no new threats. But it's still nice.

Pictures of Helsinki circa 1907

2008-01-02T19:41:00.000+02:00

The Helsinki City Museum has a nice online exhibition of pictures taken of Helsinki sights by Signe Brander in the early 1910s. The pages are in Finnish, but navigation is pretty simple. There are two tours ("kierros"), each of which have several objects ("kohde"), each of which feature several pictures ("kuva"). "Panoraama" takes you to a panorama view and "animaatio" to an animation view, where applicable.

To keep things political, here's an animation (of sorts) of a workers' May Day parade.

Brander has captured the bleeding edge of early 20th century political advertising, from prior to the first unicameral parliamentary election in 1907.

Here's a shot of the inaugural service held at St. Nicholas' Church (a.k.a. the Helsinki Cathedral) and here's a parade from the church to the Imperial Palace (a.k.a. the Presidential Palace).

There's also a pretty panorama view from the church dome.

Finally, for those interested in a bit of social realism, Brander also photographed Töölö and the area's ordinary folk.

Halonen's New Year's speech

2008-01-01T18:24:00.000+02:00

In the remote chance that you didn't the President's traditional New Year's speech, you can find the text (fi) on-line. A translation is probably in the works. If so, it'll be posted here. In the meantime, here's my summary:

"Things have been nice and peaceful lately. It's a shame about Jokela, though.

"Still, public welfare services rock, because they keep you safe. Social equality rocks, too, but sadly nowadays some people make less money than others.

"You know what else is nice? Comprehensive income agreements. I mean, just think about this autumn's quarrels. I hear some people want to make some reforms here.

"Everyone should do something about climate change, including us. Also, the Baltic Sea is a bit polluted. Come on, Baltic Sea peoples, let's work together here.

"How about that Mikael Agricola, eh? Not that everyone speaks Finnish.

"There are Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Finland, and I've been talking to all three. Talking is good.

"I met an Afghan immigrant girl. She said she likes it here, probably due to the peace.

"Big ups to our soldiers serving abroad.

"We'll be chairing OSCE next year. The whole thing was Kekkonen's idea, need I remind you.

"We had a parliamentary election in 2007. In 2008 we'll hold municipal elections. Municipalities offer welfare services. Please vote, 'cause elections matter.

"Thanks for everything. Peace out."

What a wonderful tradition.

Privacy International's country rankings

2007-12-30T17:32:00.000+02:00

Privacy International has published its 2007 National Privacy Ranking. Greece wins, followed by Hungary and Romania. Finland comes in at 11th, tied with the Czech Republic and Ireland. We get the maximum points for democratic safeguards, but do poorly especially at data sharing. The public tax records are the chief culprit, I think. There's a countrywise report, which provides a good rundown of what the relevant legislation says.

The report mentions that the police can use mobile phones to access official tax records, but surely it's much more troublesome that tax records are published in the press. I mean, at least the police have a decent reason to access the information; the press is just making a buck by catering to the public's curiosity.

The report also has a few words about the Sonera surveillance scandal, but although the trials went on and on (fi), the crimes (fi) occurred before 2002. I'm not sure how relevant it is today.

Against the wall

2007-12-29T18:05:00.000+02:00

It's book review time. I've been reading "Seinää vasten vain!" - Poliittisen väkivallan motiivit Suomessa 1917-18 by Mikko Uola, which concerns the motives for political violence in Finland prior to and during the Finnish Civil War. I found it be an interesting look at well-known events from a different perspective as usual. The book focuses on the question of how the Reds and the Whites justified their own or their side's actions. Quite a bit of material from the era is quoted - newspaper articles, diary entries, letters, speeches.

Uola seems to see the Reds as aggressors - appropriately, in my opinion - who were driven to violence by their ideology in combination with circumstances that made them believe the revolutionary moment had come. He points at lies and exaggerations told about bourgeois violence in socialist newspapers, and how these stories were used to justify violence directed against the bourgeois. Työmies, the former Social Democratic Party organ that ceased operation after the Civil War, is not painted in flattering light by its own articles.

One tangible aspect of the conflict highlighted in the book is the importance of the police. The non-socialists saw setting up a police force loyal to the government to replace the prior arrangement of workers' guards policing the cities as imperative to maintaining order and protecting themselves. The Reds, by contrast, were strongly opposed to the idea and became especially fearful after they lost the 1917 parliamentary election and the right-wing Svinhufvud Senate took power.

Joseph Stalin makes a cameo to tell a Social Democratic meeting that "In the climate of war and decadence, the revolutionary movement about to be ignited in the West, and the Russian workers' revolution's growing victories, there are no such dangers and difficulties that could withstand your onslaught." Good one, Joe.

The final chapters of the book, dealing with events of the war itself, are tragic. The events make for a text-book example of a circle of violence.

Heinäluoma is feeling optimistic

2007-12-28T20:31:00.000+02:00

Uutispäivä Demari, the Social Democratic Party organ, carries an interview (fi) with party chair Eero Heinäluoma. The opposition leader sees tough times ahead for the government.

Aside from predicting an election victory for the Social Democrats in next autumn's municipal elections, Heinäluoma opines that the government may not stay in power for the usual four years. He argues that Centre Party supporters are particularly unhappy with the government and that Green League supporters aren't well pleased either.

Now, as things stands, the government isn't the least bit vulnerable. The government parties' combined support has dropped roughly 1.5 percentage points since the summer - and is now about where it was in the election. Approval ratings (fi) have dropped, too, but are still quite comfortable. Current trends will need to continue for a good long while before government MPs start to get fidgety.

Heinäluoma's suggestion isn't realistic and he probably knows it himself. What's the point, then? Well, suggesting that your political opponents are headed for a crisis can't hurt. It also gives Heinäluoma an opportunity to bag on the government policies for being hideously right-wing. (That's why the Greens and the Centrists are highlighted as the unhappy parties: within the government, they're on the left.)

Ah, Christmas

2007-12-27T20:31:00.000+02:00

I'd resume normal service now, but nothing whatsoever has happened during the past four days.

Why do Finns oppose NATO membership?

2007-12-23T19:43:00.000+02:00

This survey (PDF), commissioned by the Advisory Board for Defense Information, has the goods.

Half of the respondents answered a multiple-choice question and the other half filled in an open question.

The most important (48 %) reason for remaining outside NATO is to prevent Finnish troops from having to fight foreign wars. The second most important (46 %) reason is that Finland should not be involved in great power conflicts. The third (43 %) reason is the disproportionate dominance of the United States in NATO. The fourth most often (40 %) cited reason was that Finland's NATO membership could increase the threat of Russia against Finland.

As for the open answers, the reasons were analogous. The most often used arguments against military alignment were that NATO membership was thought to increase the threat of Russia against Finland (N=68) and that Finnish "sons and grandsons" would be forced to fight foreign wars (N=51). The justifications also included increased insecurity (N=32), expenses (N=32), the irrelevance of NATO (N=30), the importance of maintaining independence and sovereignty (N=22) as well as the superiority of non-alignment (N=27).

The most important reason for backing NATO membership was that the Finnish Defence Forces were not considered capable of defending Finland on their own (53 %), followed by obtaining military security against Russia (45 %), benefits from participating in western organizations (40%) as well as the opportunity to participate in decision-making with regard to NATO operations (38 %).

The open answers brought increased security (N=78) to the forefront, followed by obtaining support if Finland were attacked (N=53) and the increased threat of Russia (N=32). Even here, the most often used caveat was that Finland should not seek membership in NATO (N=99).

To summarize, opponents of NATO membership don't want Finland to get involved in other people's quarrels, especially ones that concern Russia. Supporters consider membership to be helpful in defending the country against Russia. The first group wants to avoid conflicts; the second wants to be prepared for the worst.

The survey also provided party-wise numbers (with 2006 figures in parentheses):

Ninety-seven (69 %) per cent of Left Alliance supporters are against NATO membership and the corresponding numbers for the other parties’ supporters are as follows: Greens 77 per cent (87 %), Social Democratic Party (SDP) 75 per cent (61 %), Centre Party 67 per cent (72 %) and National Coalition (conservatives) 38 per cent (44 %).

The changes from 2006 are so big that the margin of error must be quite large, but the left-right split is undoubtedly true.

Foreign Ministry's NATO report

2007-12-22T19:02:00.000+02:00

It's the all-singing, all-dancing... No, actually, the Foreign Ministry's NATO report is boring. (It's currently available in Finnish, but an English translation is underway.) The chosen approach is to state basic facts and not much else. As the introduction says, "The report doesn't present evaluations about NATO's or Finland's operational environments or potential threats, and it contains no recommendations." In other words, they left out the interesting bits.

The report's tone is polite and cautious. For example, it says that membership would bring "both challenges and possibilities" in the relationship with Russia - which means nothing, but sounds vaguely positive. Some media highlighted the finding that membership fees and personnel expenses would be about 40 million euros, less than previously estimated. Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva's assessment was that the difference between membership and the current situation is "hair thin" in terms of the extent of cooperation with NATO.

In other news, in a recent poll (fi) 69 percent of respondents said that Finland shouldn't seek NATO membership. 26 percent are in favor. The numbers have barely changed from last year.

Poll: Coalition 22.7, Soc Dems 22.5, Centre 22.3

2007-12-21T20:17:00.000+02:00

YLE's latest poll (fi) inverts the top three positions from the previous one published by Helsingin Sanomat. By doing so, it breaks some patterns that have held for a long time. The Centre Party hasn't come in third since the summer of 2006. The National Coalition Party has been steadily losing support in every poll released since July, but now it gains a couple of percentage points.

The two frequent pollsters, TNS Gallup (doing work for HS) and Taloustutkimus (doing work for YLE), almost always support the same trends - e.g. at the moment both suggest that the Social Democratic Party has been gaining support - but notably there are distinct differences between their raw numbers for certain parties that persist over time. Taloustutkimus regularly measures higher support for the Coalition and the Green League, but lower support for the True Finns than TSN Gallup.

After the election Taloustutkimus in particular was accused, a bit unfairly, of consistently getting the Coalition's numbers too low. Now they're at the other end of the scale. Overcompensation, perhaps?

CP   NCP  SDP  LA  GL   CD  SPP TF  gov  source
23.1 22.3 21.4 8.8 8.5  4.9 4.6 4.1 58.5 PE 3/18
23.0 24.1 20.7 8.2 9.4  4.5 4.4 4.5 60.9 TT 4/5
22.8 23.3 21.1 8.4 8.9  4.5 4.3 4.9 59.3 TG 5/20
23.4 23.3 20.8 9.0 9.6  5.0 4.1 4.4 60.4 RI 5/25
22.4 23.4 21.7 8.4 10.1 4.7 4.1 4.3 60.0 TT 6/9
23.0 23.2 21.5 8.3 9.0  4.3 4.2 5.0 59.4 TG 6/26
22.8 23.9 21.2 8.5 9.3  4.7 4.4 4.3 60.4 TT 7/2
22.3 23.6 21.2 8.5 9.4  4.6 4.5 4.7 59.8 TT 8/13
22.7 23.2 21.6 8.1 9.4  4.7 4.5 4.6 59.8 TT 9/9
22.5 22.6 21.5 8.4 9.0  4.6 4.6 5.0 58.7 TG 9/22
22.6 22.8 21.8 7.9 9.8  4.8 4.4 4.8 59.6 TT 10/13
22.6 21.7 21.7 8.6 9.1  4.6 4.7 5.1 58.1 TG 10/31
22.6 22.3 22.3 8.4 9.7  4.4 4.6 5.0 59.2 TT 11/19
22.3 21.5 22.3 8.6 9.4  4.6 4.6 4.9 57.8 TG 12/16
22.3 22.7 22.5 8.5 9.6  4.6 4.1 4.5 58.7 TT 12/21

Legend:
CP = Centre Party
NCP = National Coalition Party
SDP = Social Democratic Party
LA = Left Alliance
GL = Green League
CD = Christian Democrats
SPP = Swedish People's Party
TF = True Finns
gov = government parties
PE = parliamentary election
TT = Taloustutkimus / YLE
TG = TNS Gallup / Helsingin Sanomat
RI = Research International Finland / MTV3

Who needs a great leader?

2007-12-20T20:36:00.000+02:00

Recently there have been some low-level chatter about one of the eternal topics of Finnish politics, the role of the President. Last week Seppo Tiitinen, the Secretary General of the Parliament, argued for full-on parliamentarism. He has something like the German model in mind. According to him, countries that are comparable to Finland usually no longer trust in a great leader. (Since when do people see Tarja Halonen and Martti Ahtisaari as great leaders?)

Social Democratic party leader Eero Heinäluoma endorsed Tiitinen's point that now would be a good time to talk about the issue, because the discussion will become more difficult the nearer we get to the next presidential election. Now is a rare opportunity to change the constitution without an interjecting presidential election, and with the current head of state at the end of her term limit. In theory, then, people can take a stand without considering the identity of the current or next President.

In any case, on the changes suggested by Tiitinen, Heinäluoma declared his position to be open. Of course, back in 2005 (fi) Heinäluoma said that citizens can decide in the next (i.e. the latest) parliamentary elections what sort of powers they wish the President to have. His party supports - or at least supported - maintaining the current arrangement. This neatly shows another way in which elections pose difficulties for would-be reformists; they entice politicians to take a stand for the rather popular status quo.

In other news (fi), although official parliamentary work on the topic will start only in autumn 2008, parties are already considering their positions. Kimmo Kiljunen, a Social Democratic MP, said that one of the issues under consideration will be whether to have presidential elections at all; if the President is elected in a popular vote, she must also have real power. Kimmo Sasi MP, representing the National Coalition Party, would hold elections even for a figurehead President - to soften the blow, I guess.

Nazi rings

2007-12-19T21:46:00.000+02:00

Andrew Curry, reporting for the Spiegel, wrote about a charity drive with a difference:

A Finnish charity is selling rings engraved with a swastika to raise money for the country's 80,000 World War II veterans.

The article is pretty good in giving the background, despite carrying the atrociously punny title "Nazi or Nice? Finns Snap Up Swastika Rings for Christmas".

(Two minor mistakes I spotted: 1.) The rings aren't being sold by "the Finnish Veterans' Association". There's no organization by that name, as far as I know. Rather (fi), the campaign is run by several Finnish veterans' associations operating through an organization called Veteraanivastuu. 2.) R-Kioskis aren't supermarkets. They're kiosks, as the name implies.)

Quoting Curry, Prerna Mankad wrote on Foreign Policy's Passport blog:

But with neo-Nazism reportedly growing in Finland's European neighborhood, brandishing Nazi symbols may easily convey a different message than the one Mikkonen and the Finnish Veterans' Association seem to have in mind.

The post's title is "Finnish charity selling Nazi rings for Christmas". Mankad takes it as a given that we're talking about Nazi rings carrying Nazi symbols. The campaign would of course dispute (PDF) those assumptions. For sure there's room for confusion if someone doesn't know the history, but Mankad has presumably read Curry's article. It's not all a clever ploy to get away with wearing Nazi rings, you know.

Finally, the Telegraph's Harry de Quetteville penned a more sympathetic article.

Mobile Female Monument

2007-12-18T19:33:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat: "Giant vulva is the aesthetic act of the year" (fi). Yes, there's a picture. It's... quite aesthetic.

Criticism of UPI's NATO report

2007-12-17T20:05:00.000+02:00

At the end of last week a few politicians, who are both for and against NATO membership, criticized the Finnish Institute of International Affairs' (UPI) NATO report. First Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva took issue with the report's prediction of a negative Russian reaction in case Finland joins NATO.

[Kanerva] does not believe that Russia would object to Finland joining NATO. [UPI's report] speculates that Russia would be temporarily annoyed if Finland were to join the military alliance.

Kanerva said he is wary of the report's interpretation on the matter.

"I was surprised by the results of the NATO report. In my dealings with Russia, I have not once been told that membership would not be possible," Kanerva said.

It's worth noting that Kanerva argument isn't logical. Whether NATO membership is possible wasn't under question. To the contrary, the analysis (PDF) concerns a situation in which Finland chooses to join:

If Finland chose to join NATO, the political relations between the two countries would almost inevitably suffer to some degree, and some limited military remonstrations in the vicinity of the Finnish borders (which are now hard to specify) could occur. Officially, Russia might question whether threat scenarios had changed or why military non-alignment is no longer sufficient for Finland.

The effects, however, would hardly extend beyond the short-to-medium term and they would not necessarily be intensive but gradually disappear after accession.

Later, Social Democratic Party chair Eero Heinäluoma opined that the report downplayed EU's security guarantees.

Heinäluoma said that the [EU reform treaty] offers more steadfast defence to member states than Article V of the NATO charter. According to the article, member countries can determine what kind of assistance they will offer.

However under the EU reform treaty, EU states are committed to provide all available assistance to other member states. Heinäluoma suggested Finland look to Sweden as a model. He added that Sweden does not hesitate to assist other EU countries.

Where Heinäluoma compares the texts of the relevant treaties, the report, by contrast, considers their practical implementation:

In Europe, only NATO has the structural capacity to help member states through military assistance. This structural capacity includes standards on training, equipment, planning procedures, and the actual headquarters planning and intelligence capabilities that form the basic building blocks of a defence planning capacity. The European Union does not currently have any capacity to organize a collective defence of its membership and until a significant portion of "dual-members" take steps to create such a capacity, any military security guarantees it provides are largely theoretical.

The report may or may not be correct on these points, but Kanerva's and Heinäluoma's counterarguments miss their target.

Poll: Centre 22.3, Soc Dems 22.3, Coalition 21.5

2007-12-16T15:54:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat published the first poll (fi) since before the election in which the National Coalition Party is in third place, dropping down to 21.5 percent. Meanwhile the Social Democratic Party and the Centre Party are tied for first at 22.3 percent. The Social Democrats are the biggest movers this time around, gaining 0.6 percentage points. Everyone else is within 0.3 percentage points of the previous poll.

Although the poll was released now, the first interviews for it were conducted in late November. As such, the nurses' pay row is one possible reason for the changes. Looking at the numbers, it seems to me that the government parties as a group started losing suppport in September. The public sector pay talks got underway in September and the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) rejected the initial municipal employers' offer at the end of that month.

CP   NCP  SDP  LA  GL   CD  SPP TF  gov  source
23.1 22.3 21.4 8.8 8.5  4.9 4.6 4.1 58.5 PE 3/18
23.0 24.1 20.7 8.2 9.4  4.5 4.4 4.5 60.9 TT 4/5
22.8 23.3 21.1 8.4 8.9  4.5 4.3 4.9 59.3 TG 5/20
23.4 23.3 20.8 9.0 9.6  5.0 4.1 4.4 60.4 RI 5/25
22.4 23.4 21.7 8.4 10.1 4.7 4.1 4.3 60.0 TT 6/9
23.0 23.2 21.5 8.3 9.0  4.3 4.2 5.0 59.4 TG 6/26
22.8 23.9 21.2 8.5 9.3  4.7 4.4 4.3 60.4 TT 7/2
22.3 23.6 21.2 8.5 9.4  4.6 4.5 4.7 59.8 TT 8/13
22.7 23.2 21.6 8.1 9.4  4.7 4.5 4.6 59.8 TT 9/9
22.5 22.6 21.5 8.4 9.0  4.6 4.6 5.0 58.7 TG 9/22
22.6 22.8 21.8 7.9 9.8  4.8 4.4 4.8 59.6 TT 10/13
22.6 21.7 21.7 8.6 9.1  4.6 4.7 5.1 58.1 TG 10/31
22.6 22.3 22.3 8.4 9.7  4.4 4.6 5.0 59.2 TT 11/19
22.3 21.5 22.3 8.6 9.4  4.6 4.6 4.9 57.8 TG 12/16

Legend:
CP = Centre Party
NCP = National Coalition Party
SDP = Social Democratic Party
LA = Left Alliance
GL = Green League
CD = Christian Democrats
SPP = Swedish People's Party
TF = True Finns
gov = government parties
PE = parliamentary election
TT = Taloustutkimus / YLE
TG = TNS Gallup / Helsingin Sanomat
RI = Research International Finland / MTV3

Jorma Ollila, wise man

2007-12-15T18:18:00.000+02:00

It came out yesterday that Jorma Ollila of Nokia fame will become one of two vice chairs in the European Union's "Reflection Group". The others will be former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Ollila stands out in that crowd for not being a politician. However, he has taken part in political discussions in Finland, even moderating televised election debates.

Ollila commented (fi) that the essential thing is to think about Europe's role in the world. A vague statement like that is probably suitable at the moment, as the group of wise men (and Vike-Freiberga) is not allowed to take issue with EU's enlargement, financing, or organs. In fact, one gets the impression that the group was set up so that French President Nicolas Sarkozy wouldn't pout.

Some past EU-related statements from Ollila:

"Jorma Ollila thinks that Europe has four challenges in attracting investment in industrial research and development. Ollila demands simplifying public regulations, removing obstacles from common markets, better use of information and communications technology, and improving the efficiency of research and development." -- Tekniikka & Talous (fi)

"Ollila has joined the list of internationally influential figures who ask for radical action from states to combat climate change.

"Ollila especially thanks the EU's emissions trading. According to him, emissions trading is needed so that the price gap between fossilized and renewable energy sources can be closed." -- Helsingin Sanomat (fi)

Headline of the day

2007-12-15T18:00:00.000+02:00

Malta Independent: "EU summit in Brussels: A series of victories for Malta –-PM Gonzi". Oh, so that's what it was.

ETLA's experts on the Nordic model

2007-12-14T21:28:00.000+02:00

The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) released a report called The Nordic Model - Embracing globalization and sharing risks. (There's also a summary in Finnish (PDF) available.) ETLA is funded by employer organizations and as such tends to promote pro-business views. This report was written by a number of leading Nordic economists, including future Bank of Finland board member Professor Seppo Honkapohja.

With those caveats out of the way, the report points to some commonly perceived problems for the Nordic model: relocation of production and job losses, "international factor mobility", and tax competition. The solutions it advocates are also pretty standard: lengthening working careers, "clarifying" (i.e. limiting) the scope of public services, and privatization and outsourcing of services.

The most interesting part of the findings is the esteemed experts' evaluation of some often suggested fixes as unrealistic and based on deceptive thinking. Economic growth leads to higher wages also in the public sector. Increased fertility will start to increase public sector growth more than tax revenue after a few decades. Immigration helps the public sector only if its limited to easily employable young people, which isn't politically realistic. Taxation, especially on work, is already high.

But everything isn't broken:

[T]he authors believe it is essential to preserve one central feature of the Nordic Model. The Nordics have been embracing both globalization and the welfare state, and they argue that the security offered by collective mechanisms for sharing risks has been instrumental in enhancing a favourable attitude to globalization and competition. This key characteristic of the model must be preserved – in order to maintain an economic and social climate which is conducive to future welfare and growth. Collective risk sharing should continue to offer a safety net which helps workers and their families to cope with risks and to adapt to new requirements in times of change.

[...]

Finally, investment in human capital should not be the victim of increasingly tight budget constraints; what is good for the young is good for the future of society.

Yay for human capital.

Image is nothing

2007-12-13T20:55:00.000+02:00

Kampanja magazine asked (fi) marketing professionals which politicians and parties have the best and worst images.

Out of a list of ten politicians, Speaker Sauli Niinistö (National Coalition Party) had the best numbers; 46 percent of respondents said he had the best image and 0.6 percent said he had the worst. Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva (Coalition) came second (+15%, -0.4%). At the other end of the list we find Social Democratic Party chair Eero Heinäluoma (+6%, -45%) and Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen (Coalition) (+5%, -27%). The results suggest Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) is a bit bland (+9.5%, -10%), so no surprises there. The rest didn't get many mentions either way.

Of the parties, the Coalition scored high both for the best image (33%) and the worst (31%). The Centre (+21%, -9.5%), the Greens (+14%, -2.7%), the Swedish People's Party (+8.7%, -0.5%), and the True Finns (+8.5%, -3.1%) scored positive results. The Social Democrats (+11%, -41%) and the Left Alliance (+1.7%, -10%) didn't do so hot. The Christian Democrats barely rated (+2%, -1.7%).

The survey format could have been better, e.g. by asking the respondents for ratings instead of just requesting them to name their top and bottom picks. Now we only see the very ends of the scale. As it is, the main conclusion I draw from the results is that losing an election is really bad for your image - see numbers for Heinäluoma, the Social Democrats, and the Left.

Finally, the survey also asked which politician would make the best Santa Claus. Foreign Trade Minister Paavo Väyrynen (Centre) of course won with a fifth of the vote.

Soviet posters

2007-12-12T21:46:00.000+02:00

Some of this stuff is pure gold. Also, the cigarette ads are amusing.

UPI's NATO report

2007-12-11T19:28:00.000+02:00

'Tis the season to talk in circles about NATO. The Finnish Institute of International Affairs (UPI), "an independent research institute that functions in association with the Parliament of Finland", released its NATO report (PDF) today and the Foreign Ministry's report should be out later this month.

Titled From Protecting Some to Securing Many - NATO's Journey from a Military Alliance to a Security Manager, the UPI report focuses on describing the ways in which NATO has changed and will be changing. I'll quote some of the juicier statements - relatively speaking - from the executive summary:

[N]o longer facing a conventional military threat, NATO has since the mid-1990s also taken on a security manager role. In this role it has engaged in a range of activities in which the organization's military competence supports broader efforts to increase the security of member and non-member states. These include military exchange, assistance and disarmament programmes, as well as humanitarian assistance and crisis management operations.

[...]

What is clear to all [NATO members] is that Europe's collective defence is realized through NATO. Irrespective of the status of the European Union's potential security guarantees, the EU does not have the capabilities required to plan and execute collective defence; nor is it planning to acquire them.

[...]

Finnish membership in NATO would temporarily annoy Russia, but the relationship is likely in due course to return to normal.

[...]

Despite the nearly exclusive focus on non-Article 5 crisis operations, collective defence responsibilities remain at the core of the Alliance. Therefore, Finland should only seek NATO membership if it is ready to assist other members if they are attacked, and conversely benefit from receiving assistance from other Alliance members if it is ever attacked.

The folks at UPI don't say outright whether Finland should join, but if the above quotes weren't suggestive enough for you, this paragraph sort of gives the game away:

Most critically, a better understanding of NATO is important so that the organization can be properly placed within the broader context of Finland's security and defence policies. The debate about how these policies need to be changed cannot properly be held as long as "NATO" is effectively a swearword in Finnish society.

"I wish you wouldn't be so dead set against buying a pony, so we could properly debate how many ponies we need.

"Pro-pony? Me? Whatever gave you that idea?"

Dmitri Medvedev, next president of Russia

2007-12-10T19:55:00.000+02:00

I see good ol' Vladimir Putin has named Russia's next president. The lucky winner is First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, whom I liken to a doe-eyed Ville Itälä to Putin's Sauli Niinistö.

Of the leading candidates, Sergei Ivanov is another old KGB hand with all that it entails; Medvedev is a lawyer who rose to his current position through the ranks of St Petersburg bureaucracy. Ivanov is connected to the intelligence agency FSB; Medvedev is connected to the giant gas company Gazprom. Ivanov has overseen the military's rearmament; Medvedev has overseen housing and education programs.

In short, while it would be too optimistic to expect this selection to change Russia's course, the signal it sends could have been worse.

Tuomioja's role in the Rusi leak

2007-12-09T20:14:00.000+02:00

Turun Sanomat and Helsingin Sanomat had competing pieces on how confidential information about the Security Police's (Supo) investigation into Alpo Rusi's Stasi connections turned up in the media.

Turun Sanomat wrote (fi) that Erkki Tuomioja (Social Democratic Party), who was informed due to his position as Foreign Minister, told the late Antti Satuli, then the Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry, who in turn told the media. Tuomioja said (fi) that Satuli, who has since died, already knew about the investigation and that he had gotten the impression from his discussion with Nevala that Satuli should be informed.

When reporting on Turun Sanomat's reporting, Helsingin Sanomat reminded us (fi) that the state claimed during the autumn's Rusi trial that Satuli learned of the investigation from Foreign Ministry official Juhani Suomi (of Kekkonen biography fame), who had helped Supo in the investigation as an expert. Further, the court ruled that Satuli was legally entitled to the information due to his role as Suomi's boss.

Turun Sanomat had a nice scoop in theory, but the story seems like a bit of a dud in practice. Alternatively, Tuomioja was damned lucky that the person to whom he leaked the information not only knew about the investigation, but was supposed to know.

Citizenship test

2007-12-09T15:23:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat put together a citizenship test (fi) with the questions based on real tests from other countries. I narrowly passed, but the experience mainly served to convince me that citizenship tests, at least ones that focus on trivia questions, are stupid. There's no logic according to which one's prospects for citizenship should depend on whether one knows the origins of the Tiernapojat play.

Obligatory handwringing over politicians' performances can be found here. Alas, the article doesn't name names.

Sports act of the year

2007-12-08T16:25:00.000+02:00

The voting for the 2007 Sports Act of the Year ends tomorrow. Looking at the candidates (fi), I think there are three serious possibilities:

Virpi Kuitunen's three world championships and a third place in cross country skiing
Tero Pitkämäki's world championship in javelin
Kimi Räikkönen's world championship in Formula One

Kuitunen brought home three gold medals. Aside from winning in Osaka, Pitkämäki dominated his sport all summer long and has already been elected the European Male Athlete of the Year. Räikkönen scored the most high profile victory of the year - and it's not even close. I'd opt for Räikkönen, if only because the last two GPs of the season were so much fun.

Someone might vote for Teemu Selänne's Stanley Cup win, but it would be a sentimental choice. Juha Salminen's umpteen enduro world championships is a rather impressive feat, but the sport is too small for him to win.

Now watch for Tampere United fans organize to haul their team to number one.

Month off from civilian service

2007-12-07T20:33:00.000+02:00

The Parliament passed a few notable bills this week. Car tax reform became a reality and a month was lobbed off civil service. Despite the latter change, conscientious objectors still object:

The League nonetheless feels that conscientious objectors are still discriminated against. They say the government has failed to show why civilian service should be any longer than conscription.

Surely the reason is obvious: the state wants to encourage men to choose conscription. Civilian service only exists because some object to conscription. Locking up the objectors would be inefficient and not very nice, so the state has them do odd jobs here and there. But the alternative doesn't need to be particularly appealing, because if it were, that might increase the number of men who choose it. Simple as.

Whole lotta handshakin' goin' on

2007-12-06T19:51:00.000+02:00

I'd like to take this moment to consider the chief downside to Finland's independence.

I'm of course talking about the Independence Day reception at the Presidential Palace, also known as the most repetitive television program in the history of ever. For those fortunate enough to never have seen it, it consists of a few thousand handshakes followed by riveting footage of hundreds of people milling about in a few tightly packed rooms as the band plays nothing to which you should pay attention. During breaks in the music, some guests are asked pointless questions to which they give blandly patriotic answers.

You can try to adopt an ironic attitude toward the spectacle and make quips about the guests' clothes and hair styles, but the interminable proceedings will beat even the most hardy wit into catatonic submission. Were I to draft an indictment of Finnish culture, the high ratings enjoyed by the reception year after year would be exhibit one. There's no way you can watch the world's stiffest conga line crawl past the presidential couple, all tight smiles and empty patter, without your soul departing your body as a protest over your failure to find less tortuous viewing, like MADE, for example.

It's quite dull, is what I'm saying.

Rank your rights

2007-12-05T22:22:00.000+02:00

Apropos of tomorrow's Independence Day festivities, YLE commissioned a poll in which respondents were asked to rank their rights. It's an interesting excercise, but YLE's coverage of its own poll is disappointingly misleading. The worst offender is this paragraph:

The survey also asked which rights people would be willing to sacrifice under exceptional conditions. Most of those asked said the right of association and a quarter put freedom of movement on their list.

The survey didn't ask what rights respondents would be willing to sacrifice. The question (fi) concerned "being flexible" "if decision makers see it as necessary". Second, when it comes to limiting the right of association, "most of those asked" actually amount to 36 percent of those asked.

YLE's Olli Ainola wrote a column (fi) on the topic titled "Many Finns would accept the East German society." He makes some good points about situations in which rights need to be weighed against each other, but the title is of course very, very hyperbolic.

Ainola writes, "After a little bit of pushing, surprisingly many Finns are prepared to accept a society in which the right of association and freedom of movement are limited, the death penalty is in use, and freedom of religion and conscience is shackled - as long as social services and privacy are guaranteed.

"What sort of a society does that bring to mind? What else than the former DDR; only Stasi is missing."

Stasi was pretty damned central to the East German society, but we'll forget about that for the moment. Instead, let's try to figure out what what we can say about how many is "surprisingly many".

Of the rights that would be limited, the freedom of religion and conscience is the most popular (fi), with 19 percent willing to accept restrictions on it under exceptional circumstances. That's the upper limit. On the other hand, if there was no correlation between accepting limits on the four rights Ainola mentions, then the number would be approximately, oh, zero percent. So take your pick.

Minorities in China are treated better

2007-12-04T20:58:00.000+02:00

The Swedish news site The Local carries a wacky AFP article on the ol' language question. (You can tell that the author is French by the way Arto Paasilinna is quoted in the end.) The problem with discussing the topic is that the world is neatly divided into people who don't care and people who care a bit too much. This article tries to bring a smidgen of heat to the proceedings by only quoting the latter.

"Finland tries to teach everyone a lesson about morality but minorities in China are treated better," blasted Juhan [sic] Janhunen, an expert on Asian languages, comparing one of the most egalitarian countries in the world to the Communist regime.

On the other hand, the majority in China is treated worse, so it evens out.

And as a result of budgetary cutbacks, Swedish-speaking police stations, courts and municipal offices will in the coming years be integrated into Finnish entities.

"It's scandalous! We don't even know who was here first, the Swedes or the Finns," thunders a judge, Charles Lindroos, whose court is due to close.

The Sami may have been there first, but it totally doesn't count because our ancestors weren't playing for keepsies back then.

Heikki Tala, the head of the Association for Finnish Culture and Identity, doesn't see a problem.

"Swedish speakers enjoy privileges like no other linguistic minority in the world," he said.

"The 500,000 Finns in Sweden have no rights," he pointed out.

That's not strictly true. For example, while you're allowed to enslave Sweden-dwelling Finns, you must ensure that there's no gender discrimination among your slave force.

Missiles from NATO

2007-12-03T21:58:00.000+02:00

Matti Ahola, former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defense, makes the military case (fi) for NATO membership in an interview that appeared in several Alma Media newspapers today. He doesn't see the Finnish military lasting for long in modern warfare against a strong enemy - i.e. if Russia invades, although that's left unsaid. "We're talking about a durability of days, at most weeks. After that aid from foreign countries is needed. We have no system to ensure this aid."

According to Ahola, Finland doesn't have the goods needed to stand up to air strikes in a protracted struggle. "You can load ten to twelve missiles into a Hornet at a time. When there are 63 planes, in theory a significant part of Finland's missiles is attached to the planes at one go. After the first full round of shots, we must quickly get more missiles from some NATO country. Others don't have them." Therefore, "It is one hundred percent up to NATO whether our air force's and army's main weapons usable in a lengthening crisis."

Guerrilla warfare is an alternative, but it has a significant downside. "A guerrilla army's effect starts to be felt only when the enemy has penetrated deep into the country. At that point no one is safe, least of all civilians. This sort of weapons cache romanticism is out of date."

Ahola isn't very pleased (fi) with President Tarja Halonen, who has made anti-membership comments in recent weeks. "She's aware of these facts, there's no doubt about that. Clearly she's playing knowingly with two sets of cards." I would consider the possibility that Halonen thinks that foreign policy benefits of non-alliance cancel out the military benefits of NATO membership.

Ahola seems to be on shakier ground when talking politics. "Before both the presidential and the parliamentary elections, certain security policy topics of which there was to be no debate were defined. We won't be a very good example of democracy as OSCE chairs next year." This is wrong. Nothing stops any politician from bringing up any security policy topic, but if there are no votes in talking about your pro-NATO views, why spend valuable campaign time on it?

In third grade, he wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President'

2007-12-03T20:04:00.000+02:00

This statement from the Hillary Clinton campaign, concerning Barack Obama's presidential aspirations, is gotcha politics at its very funniest.

"It was clear to me from the day I met him that he was thinking about politics," says a law school classmate.

How can any candidate recover from such a revelation?

How Russia is like Tex Willer

2007-12-02T20:42:00.000+02:00

Apropos of handling foreign policy, the latest number of Europa magazine (fi) carried an interview with Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva on Russia and the European Union.

The main takeaway from the article is that Kanerva supports an "active" Russia policy. Russia shouldn't be driven out of common negotiations. EU needs Russia and Russia needs EU. This topic also prompted the best Kanerva-ism of the interview: "Driven into a corner, Russia won't stay there, but break out like Tex Willer."

According to Kanerva, the security guarantees mentioned in the not-a-constitution don't remove the need for a discussion on NATO membership. "They are different types of solutions. EU's guarantees aren't interesting for NATO members. All options are needed." He also called for a common EU energy policy as a way to stop Russia from applying the principles of divide and conquer.

Poll on handling foreign policy

2007-12-02T20:13:00.000+02:00

Turun Sanomat published a poll (fi) that asked respondents to rate politicians' handling of foreign policy on a scale of four to ten - Helsingin Sanomat has more numbers (fi). Speaker of the Parliament Sauli Niinistö (National Coalition Party) and President Tarja Halonen (Social Democratic Party) scored the best, 7.9 and 7.8 respectively. Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva (Coalition) at 7.5 narrowly pipped Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) at 7.4 for third place.

The Speaker of course doesn't handle foreign policy at all, so one wonders how the respondents were able to rate Niinistö's performance. Still, he's probably pleased; it's the sort of question on which prospective presidential candidates should hope to do well. As for Vanhanen, in addition to losing to his Foreign Minister among all respondents, he lost to Niinistö 8.0 to 7.9 even among Centrists only. It seems that foreign policy is considered something of a weakness for him.

According to the same poll, 82 percent supported the current model in which the President together with the government is in charge of foreign policy, thus making supporters of pure parlamentarism gnash their teeth.

This house is a transparent house

2007-12-01T20:04:00.000+02:00

Amanda Hess from the Washington City Paper learned a lot from the Ambassador of Finland. Sample dialog:

"We do have one reality television program that I enjoy," the man from Finland continued. "It is based on survival."

"Is it like Survivor?" I asked him.

"No," replied the man from Finland.

Veterans hate trifling entertainment

2007-12-01T17:22:00.000+02:00

There's a new play in the Finnish National Theater that reinterprets Väinö Linna's The Unknown Soldier. The fact that the Helsingin Sanomat's critic liked it should give one pause, but since I haven't seen it, I shan't comment any further. Instead I'd like to discuss an idea presented in this post (fi) by Heidi Hautala, a Green League MP.

Hautala liked the play a lot, which is fair enough, but the message she saw in it is, to be frank, utter poppycock. According to her, the play sends the message that "our fathers and grandfathers didn't fight and die so that" - and there's no good way to finish the sentence at this point - "trifling entertainment and confusion over human fundamental questions would reign in the land."

Now, that strikes me as nonsense. Did the veterans of our wars fight so that light entertainment wouldn't be available to willing consumers, and if so, did they go see Lapatossu ja Vinski olympiakuumeessa for its deep philosophical content? Did they serve in the Winter War because they opposed confusion over human fundamental questions? How on earth would the reasoning there even work? "Communist indoctrination might not convince everyone, thus leaving some confused. This must be opposed!"?

The point is: If you want to whine about how modern life is rubbish, that's your prerogative, but don't attribute your hobbyhorse to others and then appeal to their authority. Because they too think you're an ass, I'm sure of it.

PISA 2006 rankings

2007-11-29T21:49:00.000+02:00

The rankings for the 2006 PISA survey, "the most comprehensive and rigorous international yardstick of secondary-school students' attainments", are out (PDF). Guess who's number one with a bullet [1]?

Finland (563)
Hong Kong-China (542)
Canada (534)
Chinese Taipei (532)
Estonia (531)
Japan (531)
New Zealand (530)
Australia (527)
Netherlands (525)
Liechtenstein (522)
Korea (522)

Hong Kong? Phooey! Please don't "harbor" any ill feelings just because our 15-year-olds are brilliant. Suomi! Suomi! Suomi!

[1] Too soon?

Should Estonians listen to Paavo Lipponen?

2007-11-28T21:24:00.000+02:00

Giustino asks in the comments re Paavo Lipponen's take on Estonian foreign policy:

Should we in Estonia listen to his opinions or is he basically useless?

In my opinion everyone should listen to Lipponen; he's grouchy, thin-skinned, and opinionated to a degree that makes much of what he writes or says rather entertaining. I just hope that he takes offense to Estonian criticism and fires back, because no one issues a rejoinder quite like Paavo Lipponen. So if you like colorful denunciations, he's far from useless.

Another question is whether Lipponen knows what he's talking about. He's generally pro-NATO - when there isn't an election campaign going on, that is - and very pro-EU. The latter trait was a prominent feature of his prime ministership. He has a fairly good reputation for his handling of international issues, but that was built more on supposed negotiating prowess than any special foreign policy insight.

But really, the main thing here is that what we need is a proper row between Lipponen and Estonians. If I may make a recommendation, Estonians should say something like, "Now I see the Finnish media had Lipponen's number all along." (Lipponen hates large segments of the Finnish media.) If that fails to get a rise, I'd go with "With comments like that, no wonder Finnish voters opted for Anneli Jäätteenmäki." (Lipponen really, really hates Jäätteenmäki.)

141 agreement

2007-11-27T20:53:00.000+02:00

Finland and the European Union Commission have reached an agreement on the so-called 141 agricultural subsidies. The news was reasonably good for Finnish taxpayers:

Next year, nearly 94 million euros will be granted to farmers in southern Finland. By 2013, support will be just 62.9 million euros.

However, Less Favoured Area (LFA) subsidies will help compensate for the cuts.

During the first four years of the national subsidies, funds will decrease on average by 2.7 percent annually. In the final two years, support will be cut more drastically.

The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) said it is very disappointed by the decision to cut subsidies. The union said pig and poultry farmers will be the most affected by the loss of support.

As expected, the EU Commission didn't buy the rather unconvincing argument that the 141 subsidies were meant to permanent. I wonder if it will still be dragged out of storage in 2013.

The LFA subsidies - wouldn't "More Favored Area" be a more accurate name? - are an interesting addition, but it seems that they won't cover the drop in the 141 subsidies. The 141 cuts will amount to about 30 million euros after six years. According to Alexander Stubb MEP (fi), the LFA subsidies will cover about 15-20 million euros of that.

Mannerheim movie

2007-11-26T21:22:00.001+02:00

I got to say, I have a bad feeling about this (fi). Renny Harlin, Markus Selin, and Mikko Nousiainen? It's like making a movie about George Washington with Jerry Bruckheimer producing, Michael Bay directing, and Ben Affleck portraying "G" (as he'd be called throughout the film).

The article mentions that some Russian financiers backed out after a disagreement about the script. It'd be interesting to know what the Russians wanted changed - maybe it was the scene where Mannerheim, operating deep within enemy lines in 1940, punches out Stalin?

If at some point in the movie Mannerheim doesn't get to shout, his neck veins bulging, "THIS... IS... KOLLAAAAA!" then I, for one, will feel cheated.

Supply-siders in our midst

2007-11-25T17:01:00.000+02:00

Something that puzzles me about Finnish political debate is the way the National Coalition Party (in particular) espouses supply-side economics without getting called on it by the left.

Coalition chair and Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen sure sounds like he subscribes to the Laffer curve. He's not crude enough to directly say, "Hey, let's raise taxes so tax revenues will go up!" Instead he and likeminded folk say something like, "In order to get Finland working, we need to increase the employment rate by cutting income taxes. Only be reducing unemployment can we maintain our current economic growth, which in turn is the only way we'll be able to pay for the welfare state." But it's the same thing; they just spell out the supposed mechanism.

Another example of the Coalition tying its advocacy for right-wing economic policies now to being able to pursue left-wing economic goals in the future is when Coalitionists contrast cutting debt with increasing welfare spending. In that case, however, the Social Democratic Party challenges the argument quite forcefully. When it comes to tax cuts, however, the Social Democrats seem awfully quiet. Matti Vanhanen's first government, in which Social Democratic chair Eero Heinäluoma served as the Finance Minister, also cut taxes with the intention of stimulating economic growth.

US liberals, who are in many ways to the right of Finnish Social Democrats, don't go along with the Laffer curve, so why isn't it more controversial in Finland? Given that the Laffer curve is a curve, it might be easier to argue for the economically beneficial effects of tax cuts in a country where taxes are higher, but you'd still expect left-wingers to challenge the notion, wouldn't you?

Headline of the day

2007-11-24T19:40:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "Swedish porn parody of Dallas is funny only at times". Hard to believe.

(Alas, the article is just a quick a theater review.)

Religious attitude survey

2007-11-24T19:09:00.000+02:00

Earlier this week the Evangelical Lutheran Church published results from a survey carried out at the beginning of the year. It'd be interesting to see the full results, but in the mean time we have to make do with the press release (fi) and some PDF files (fi).

According to the survey, 68 percent of Finns identify as Christians, 56 percent as "Finnish basic Lutherans", and a whopping five percent as "convinced atheists" - no, I have no idea who came up with these terms. One percent of respondents defined themselves as fundamentalists and eight percent as religious conservatives. (For comparison, in the World Values Surveys they usually find that about three percent of Finns are atheists and that about eight percent don't believe in the existence of God. The contradiction there belongs to the respondents.)

On the other hand (PDF), 15 percent agreed with the statement that "all religions are based on false beliefs, but they still represent important humane values" and four percent agreed that "all religions are based on false beliefs and they cause humans direct harm"; so presumably at least a fifth of the respondents don't subscribe to a religious doctrine. In fact, a dazzling six percent of respondents believed that the truth can be found in one religion. 37 percent believe that "religious beliefs can't be proved or disproved and their truthfulness can't be compared".

39 percent believe dreams sometimes predict the future, which makes sense in light of all those high school kids who only notice they're buck naked when their classmates point and laugh.

Roger Boyes interview

2007-11-23T21:21:00.000+02:00

My visitor logs indicate that there's still a market for Roger Boyes bashing, so let's take another tilt at it.

Helsingin Sanomat interviewed The Times's man in Berlin a few days ago and now they've put a translation of the article up on the web. Boyes, as we all remember, wrote an asinine analysis of the Jokela school shootings and was subsequently flamed crisp. HS euphemistically describes his article as "streamlined text from a man who seems to be drawn to a psychological approach." In other words, it was a load of cobblers.

What did Boyes take away from his experience?

"I do not believe that I am communicating with an entire nation. It was more like an enclosed community of some kind. There was something hysterical in the answers."

Hysterical, you say?

"They did not want to tell their opinions, they wanted to kill me."

Hysterical.

The great man noticed that some of his critics were Brits living in Finland. With characteristically keen insight and colossal condescension, he remarked,

"A typical Stockholm syndrome. A man is the hostage of his Finnish wife and identifies with her thinking."

An alternative explanation is that a man has lived in Finland and thus understands just how poor Boyes's analysis was. He knows, for example, that social lives are not put on hold in the winter; and that a kid living in a sleepy suburb might be lonely, but not due to physical distances separating lakeside farmsteads.

"People do not accept that any evil might come from within the community. It is always imported, in this case, caused by America, the Internet, or globalisation."

Of course, a central argument put forth in Boyes's article was that kids in Finland spent too much time on the Internet, chatting away with friends when they should be making human contact. (Internet friends, as we all know, don't count as humans.)

"But still, this took place specifically in Finland. The environment that allowed this to happen is Finnish."

So analyze the environment, then. Come up with some distinguishing features that separate the events in Jokela from numerous incidents in which armed non-Finns have gone amok. Make some bloody sense for a change.

Or, if that's too much bother, you might just come up with another wacky theory. Here's Boyes holding forth on why he was criticized so heavily:

According to Boyes, there are societies on the outskirts of Europe, where trust in the local media is low.

These include countries such as Romania and Hungary.

People in these countries seek information from foreign media - reliable brands such as The Times, Boyes says. At the same time these people are nevertheless plagued by an inferiority complex.

"They feel that they are treated with disdain in the foreign media, and therefore, react in an emotional manner."

Oddly enough, trust in the media is unusually high in Finland. Can't this guy get anything right?

"OK, OK, the comparison is shaky. ..."

This almost convinced me that the comparison was strong.

Very telling in the view of Roger Boyes were the comments of the teachers concerning Pekka-Eric Auvinen: he was an average pupil.

"That was all that they had to say. They did not say that he was isolated, or that he had strange thoughts."

According to Iltalehti (fi), a Jokela teacher described Auvinen as a militant radical who was interested in both the extreme left and the extreme right. He also said Auvinen was a better than average student. The police said (fi) that at least some of the teachers were aware that Auvinen had been bullied.

I don't blame Boyes for not knowing any of this. He doesn't speak Finnish or follow the Finnish media. But given that he knows nothing about the topic, might he show just a tiny bit of humility when coming up with his theories? Maybe he could - oh, I don't know - check his facts before spouting off. Perhaps he could do a web search or two. If he has some time on his hands, he could even interview a Finnish person.

(Here's how I imagine it would go:

BOYES: "Are there many farmsteads in Jokela?"
A FINN: "Nope."
BOYES: "What role do you suppose Ukko played in this?"
A FINN: "Zilch."
BOYES: "Thank you very much, Finnish person. Without your invaluable help, I might have made a complete prat of myself.")

PS: Markkinointi & Mainonta magazine had an amusing interview (fi) with Boyes. If you can't read Finnish, rest assured that the pattern of Boyes making some claim ("Finnish newspapers operate within a narrow consensus") without knowing what he's talking about ("So you've read Finnish newspapers?" "Well, no, ...") was repeated.

Vanhanen has a go at nurses' union

2007-11-22T21:16:00.000+02:00

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen had a few choice words of the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy):

"Targeting industrial action on targets where, according to official estimates, the result would have been the loss of human lives within hours is unprecedented in the history of Finnish industrial action," Mr Vanhanen said at a Finnish Central Chamber of Commerce event.

Mr Vanhanen added the union should have warned its members what kind of consequences they would face in the event of deaths attributable to their participation in the planned industrial action.

The prime minister said Tehy's mass resignation, although averted on Monday, had lowered the government's threshold to intervene in industrial action.

A prepared copy of the speech can be read here (fi). One notable aspect of it is that Vanhanen said the deal signed by the Union of Practical Nurses (SuPer), among other municipal employees' unions, "succesfully took into consideration female majority fields" and showed that "good results can be achieved through normal labor market practices". That is, he was pretty pleased with the offer Tehy turned down.

Vanhanen also had a pop at the opposition: "It openly accepted the situation that nurses threaten with their resignations people's health and life, and the state must solve the row with money." He went on to note that any of the current opposition parties would be the 'weak link' in future governments unless they take back what they've said on the topic.

Shockingly enough, the opposition didn't appreciate Vanhanen's views.

Next US president and NATO

2007-11-21T19:39:00.000+02:00

Last month Risto E J Penttilä, head of the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA), wrote (fi) in Taloussanomat about the meaning of a Hillary Clinton presidency to Finnish foreign policy (my translation):

When Hillary Clinton tells Finns that NATO is an alternative to American autocracy, Finnish 'intellectuals' will begin to examine the military alliance in a new way. When Clinton tells Finns that Europe's influence in NATO will rise, presidential candidate Niinistö smiles. When Clinton says to Halonen that Finland's conciliatory abilities, peacekeeping knowhow, and good relations with Russia would be needed in NATO, intensive deliberation will begin also at the highest level. Is it truly the case that NATO has become an ordinary international organization which we too should join?

The suggestion that joining NATO would somehow limit American power is rather bizarre. Presently it's difficult to discertain any such mechanism at work, and surely nothing would change on that front should Finland join the club. If the United States really, really wanted to invade a random Middle Eastern country, then that's what would happen.

Still, the main point, if exaggerated here, is sound enough: a new US president, one less belligerent than the current officeholder, would probably boost NATO's popularity. I've written as much before.

The problem is that even if the bad US presidents eventually leave office, so do the good ones. Thus, it's not a sound approach to base one's NATO position on just how belligerent the current office holder happens to be - or who you expect to win the next election. You might get a Clinton or, better yet, an Obama. You might also get a Giuliani, after which the Bush years might seem like the good old days.

All Finnish newspapers 1771-1890

2007-11-20T21:54:00.000+02:00

The Finnish National Library now offers in digital format all newspapers published in Finland between the years 1771 and 1890, free of charge. The archive is even searchable - the search feature appears to have some problems, but you should be able to work around the issues. Browsing by name of newspaper and date works, too, if you know what you're looking for.

I searched for my surname and have spent the last 30 minutes reading about criminal ancestors: a couple running a brothel in Mikkeli, or at least offering lodging to women of loose morals; a Kurkijoki man who committed suicide by shooting himself in the gut after getting mixed up in the disappearance of a drunken ex-soldier; a skilled artisan - blacksmith, carpenter, stonemason, and watchmaker - from Rautalammi who kept getting arrested for theft... Great stuff.

All over but for the spin

2007-11-20T18:24:00.000+02:00

Helsingin Sanomat explains why the Commission for Local Authority Employers (KT) and the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) disagree on how large the agreed-upon wage increases are:

A large part of the differences in interpretation stem from the fact that Tehy assumes that overall pay hikes of 4-6 per cent will be implemented in the municipal sector in 2010-2011. The municipal employers make no such assumptions for the last two years of the contract period, as the general contract in the municipal sector ends at the end of January 2010.

The actual size of pay increases at that time will not be known until 2010-2011, but it is expected that Tehy members will see their pay rise by more than 20 per cent in the next four years.

I find it interesting how well the lengthy contract period has served to cloud comparisons between this agreement on one hand, and rival trade unions' contracts or Tehy's demands on the other. A 22 percent pay hike - to pick a number - in four years obviously isn't anywhere near a 24 percent raise in two and a half years, but that fact doesn't come across in many news stories.

The scope of the agreement has also caused disagreement. The contract is supposed to apply to only Tehy members, but experts disagree (fi) on whether this is legal. Law mavens may want to check out the Employment Contracts Act (PDF), which states among other things that employers "shall not exercise any unjustified discrimination against employees on the basis of ... trade union activity ... or any other comparable circumstance" and that they must "treat employees equally unless there is an acceptable cause for derogation deriving from the duties and position of the employees."