Nobody smokes that anymore. LBJ pills are the real deal.

Nobody smokes that anymore. LBJ pills are the real deal.

The Moomin cartoons promoted moderately conservative finlandssvenska values through means of heavy satire. The parallel to South Park is obvious. Truly, the woman was ahead of her time.

Moomins for global warming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YNK80QqxoE&feature=related

Well this goes to show that some swedes really should get a hobby or two. Analysing moomins?? I mean, they are fairy tale carachters.

I think it’s ok for fairy tale characters to be gay. Ingvarsson is simply making a queer interpretation of the Moomin characters, there’s no homophobia or anti-gay sentiment in his interpretation.

The fact that Jansson was gay doesn’t mean everything she wrote was gay. But as it was a fairy tale world of her own, it’s quite natural that many of the characters take on aspects from her life.

When Jansson created the Moomin characters, it was criminal to be gay in Finland. Women got prosecuted and convicted at court for being gay. It would have been unthinkable for her to create an openly gay fairytale. If there are gay allusions in there, that may be irrelevant to many of today’s readers but it certainly could have given faith to gay kids growing up in Finland of that era. I don’t know enough of the details to judge myself whether the characters are gay or not, not that it matters to me. My point is that there can be other reasons for claiming the characters as gay than homophobia.

Plenty of virulently homophobic people have loved the Moomin Characters over the decades. First for a long time they didn’t know the author was gay and when she came out of the closet I bet many of them wanted to look the other way. What homophobes are usually most afraid of is that kids are influenced by gay culture.

This issue here in the Nordic Countries is not such a big deal. But I’d like to remind everyone that the campaign against Proposition 8 in California that threatens to annul the gay marriages of thousands of couples was fought partly on the issue of *gay fairy tales*. The anti-gay campaign that was conducted by several religious denominations and heavily funded by out of state money culminated in an ad where a mom gets awfully scared when her kid tells that they told a fairy tale at school where a prince meets a prince.´

My daughter absolutely loves the Moomin characters and I would never have anything against her being told fairy tales at school where princes meet princes or whatever. I think fairy tales can be whatever they are as they are ultimately just fairy tales. But the homophobes in California have a different opinion and they scored a spectacular victory with their ballot initiative when they took the issue up among the voting public.

Hmmm, isn’t Moomintroll queeralyzed through already? Must have been ten years ago when some literature auntie was telling on the radio, how “Magic winter” is actually a getting-out-of-the-closet allegory etc.

One could end-up worse, I guess. Think of Juice Leskinen making satire of everything, religion included and what did he get? A bunch of master’s thesis in theology discussing theological aspects of Juice’s song lyrics.

I had a job in my early days with an Insurance company. One function I did was watch for gay bars to miss an insurance payment. Then I axed their policy that day.

If they paid, they stayed, and even got a good new policy when they expired. But the cost for HIV cases was so large, there was an incentive to cut losses, and non-payment was an excellent way to get the costs down for the non-gay bars.

Winter, please. This is about moomins, not the american bankcrupt health care system which doesn not always cover even those who have insurance and have paid their bills.
Some former employes of those insurance companies have come out (suits fot this discussion) and have told that they were forced to write off some of the customers if the company thought that their treatment was too costly, despiote of everything. This is the policy of private health insirance companies, naturally they just try to make money. But that is not about moomins. Sorry.

One has to admire the American economy for once being powerful enough to provide someone like winnie with a job. Which insurance company was that? AIG?

Think about it, I saved the Insurance company Millions of dollars. I was well worth it.

Now that Sam the stupid has the lame idea that Insurance companies don’t pay. That is not true, as I saw what we paid out to the gay bars, and it was well over any payments they ever made.

If you want to promote Bad Behaivor, then don’t expect to pick my pocket to fix what you do.

No, your stealing from they neighbor who works hard, to stuff the pockets of drug addicts, is just another way of promoting that bad behavior. Have fun with your results.

Have you seen Sicko by Michael Moore? Just saw it today. I want to know how realistic it is. The parts filmed in Europe were true, but I haven’t been living in the states and don’t know for sure what it’s like there. Kinda sad if it’s true.

Well, if you ask from winter, he will say it is anti-american propaganda, but the sad truth is that the american health care system is down to toilet.
Middle class families can not afford to have two persons in hospital at the same time and yes, insurance companies have denied money from their customers even if they have been paying up.
Further more, this health care system is the most expensive for national economy. This is the reason why Canada went from private health care system to national health care system. Private insurance system is full of holes, it is the most expensive and most insufficent. That is a economical fact, no matter what mr Winter may propagate.
Ps. In Finland we have been moving towards the american system for 15 years now and the results: poor are getting sicker, it takes months to get a doctors appointment in public system and in private sector it is too expensive for most of those in need. But hey, that ist the name of the game! Free markets and so on.
Pps. In case mr winter starts to babble about our free health care nanny state, I haven’t had a free medical care in this country since the balmy army days of early 1980′s.

“american health care system is down to toilet”

Huh, I like the feet test. Where are folks going for care?

Hummm… Not to Finland…

Not to England……

In Canada, its still a 6 month wait for a MRI, and thats after a 5 year plan to fix it.

Sounds so Soviet Union like.

Oh and does Finland, or Canada even test Men for Cancer, but yea, they test women?

Thats the facts guys, you cost to much to fix, so no testing for you.

Look, I always give you a shut me up line. Show me why you do not test for Cancer in Men, but do for women, and I will shut up.

Right now all I can think of, is it saves money. So my impression is that the state run systems are just another gatekeeper, who denies care for different reasons. Those reasons are political, not economic based, or what I call market based.

“Ps. In Finland we have been moving towards the american system for 15 years now and the results: poor are getting sicker, it takes months to get a doctors appointment in public system and in private sector it is too expensive for most of those in need. But hey, that ist the name of the game! Free markets and so on.”

Well I haven’t noticed that. I got a free surgery on my left arm when I was 6 years old, my father was just dead and my mother barely provided for both of us. The next time I went to a hospital was after I got some sort of an infection in my throat when I was 20. They told me it would cost me 20 euros with the medicine. That 20 euros would cover the whole year though. If I couldn’t have covered that bill, it would have been covered by the government.

“Hummm… Not to Finland…
Not to England……
In Canada, its still a 6 month wait for a MRI, and thats after a 5 year plan to fix it.
Sounds so Soviet Union like.”

I don’t know I have never lived in the Soviet Union. All I know they had some things done the right way, despite the system collapsed. I think it collapsed because of their leaders were greedy, not because people caring for each other.

We also have private health care for the rich people, if they don’t like the public. 19 times of 20 the rich do like the public way better.

But I just wanted to hear if the documentary was realistic or not?

“Show me why you do not test for Cancer in Men, but do for women, and I will shut up.”

We do that, but you don’t have to shut up. KELA pays everything here, they have something similar across the EU. You can also use the private care if you have taken the insurance, if you want.

“Well, if you ask from winter, he will say it is anti-american propaganda, but the sad truth is that the american health care system is down to toilet.
Middle class families can not afford to have two persons in hospital at the same time and yes, insurance companies have denied money from their customers even if they have been paying up.”

And for that I have to say I’m sorry. I really wish those Americans who can’t get treatment would get it from somewhere. Ask for dual citizenship if you have to, and get the treatment elsewhere. I really felt bad and also guilty after seeing that documentary. I would help if it’s possible someway.

“We do that, but you don’t have to shut up. KELA pays everything here, they have something similar across the EU. ”

Gee check your facts. Finland does not pay for a 25$ test for Cancer in Men.

My test was free and scheduled when I turned 50. Yours is not.

its a money thing. The evil Nanny state must stop procedures or go broke, as even you do not have a unlimited money supply.

“My test was free and scheduled when I turned 50. Yours is not.
its a money thing. The evil Nanny state must stop procedures or go broke, as even you do not have a unlimited money supply.”

Ours is free as well. You should watch the documentary for that “unlimited” statement to understand further. It’s tax funded, like the police, library, school and that soft of.

MM:
“You can also use the private care if you have taken the insurance, if you want.”

There’s no need for insurance. Private facilities accept cash, debit and credit cards and of course company health care is tax-free. Which reminds me that I have to book an appointment for my check-up.

“Ours is free as well.:

Huh, check your facts… I don’t think Finland offers it as a routine check up item, in fact I had a Finn who works inside the system confirm this.

I thought Chairman Obama was going to stop these Mumbai hits with just his election?

Now that the left wing fantisy of love with the Muslims has been shot to death, again in Mumbai.

Can we learn from this again, and now just build a lot more Club Gitmo’s? They are needed.

Gee reality is so hard on the left wing. Now we know Bush was right, he had a legacy thats going to be hard to better.

I wonder what Winter shoots up his nose? I mean this guy is really fyin high!

I wonder what Winter shoots up his nose? I mean this guy is really flyin high!

So could somebody confirm whether the documentary was realistic or not?

A Michale Moore left wing dribble is real? Get into reality.

Winter, the last of the mohicans! Still babbling about the left and other shit when his beloved George W. has ruined not only the US economy with his policies but also the worlds monetary and finance business. Way to go, Winter!
You remind of those nazis who still believed when soviet tanks were rolling on the streets of Berlin. Do you kn ow what was the motto of those soldiers?

“A Michale Moore left wing dribble is real?”

The parts filmed in Europe were. Just interested if the parts filmed in the US were as well.
I suppose it’s easier to ask someone who has lived there, instead of going to see it myself.

#23
I’m sure that this will be the wingnut theme for the next four years: Every act of terror, plane crash, oil price fluctuation and snowstorm will be proof that Dubya Dumbfuck was right after all!

Or to put it another way, the attack on Mumbai was obviously planned so meticulously that the process must have been well underway before the US election.

#23, poor Winter! Pity him. He doesn’t even know that radical muslims are hostile towards any leftist ideas, like all religoius freaks are. I think the poor guys brain is gettin in to mush. He is extremely confused.

This isn’t a law enforcement problem, but an ideological assault – and we’re fighting the symptoms not the cause. Islamic imperialists want an Islamic society, not just in Palestine and Kashmir but in the Netherlands and Finland, too.

Now we have a Chairman Obama who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists don’t seem to have got the Chairman Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we haven’t yet held talks without preconditions with.

This isn’t about repudiating the Bush years, or withdrawing from Iraq, or even liquidating Israel. It’s bigger than that. And if you don’t have a strategy for beating back the ideology, you’ll lose.

Bush has a strategy, Chairman Obama does not, unless you think the FBI will stop these guys. That strategy worked so well before 9/11, and it failed.

#33
What this has to do with the alleged sexual orientations of the Moomins is beyond me, but since we took this track, here it goes:

Any possible Islamist ideological assault on Western values has been hugely advanced by eight years of Bush, which have made the USA a laughingstock.

His reaction to 9/11 was the best thing that could have happened to the Jihadists, for whom Gitmo alone has served as a powerful recruiting tool, while alienating allies and potential friends. But it is kind of funny to see Bush, in his lame duck period, forced by the failures of super-capitalist economics, to effectively socialize the banking and car manufacturing industries.

This article in Time (a moderately conservative publication by any reasonable standards) sums it up pretty well:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1862307,00.html

And here’s a “late nigth joke” that a New York Times reader submitted to the humor section:

‘How bad must the G.O.P. feel right about now? It portrayed Obama as a socialist, a communist, a Muslim, and a friend of terrorists, and the majority of American voters said, “Y’know, we’re O.K. with that, as long as he’s not a Republican.”’

So what is the legacy of the Bush years? I’ve found a very good answer to that question in reading a book by Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. It’s called Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy. I warmly recommend that book if you want to see what has been done to the principles of the US Constitution, to the laws that the Congress has passed and to the autonomy of the judiciary and why that is bad for liberals and conservatives alike.

See, I used to think that Russia was in this quandary of whether to have more democracy (US-style) or dictatorship (Chinese-style). We all know that Russia has been preferring secrecy, weakening the press and the judiciary and the duma has been willing to pass whatever laws the executive asks them to without asking any questions. After I read Savage I started to think that perhaps Putin and Medvedev aren’t taking all of their cues from Communist China, many of their moves are vintage Bush & Cheney stuff.

So I’m actually thrilled about Obama stepping in because I hope that he has more respect for the Constitution than this outgoing administration and he will start the slow and painful road back toward open government.

Charlie Savage makes a great case for the idea that Bush and Cheney indeed had a strategy. It was a big government strategy where this government was supposed to act in complete secrecy. They produced newscasts where one government official poses as a reporter and throws softball questions to another one who then gets to praise what a fantastic job the government has done – these news-imitating broadcasts were then aired at a number of local tv stations. Nothing wrong with commercials but these were paid by taxpayer money and presented as news. So perhaps I shouldn’t be saying so much about Russia practicing Bush-style secrecy, I might consider the possibility of the Republican US government producing Putin-style state journalism.

The legacy of the Bush years is that we don’t know what the government has been doing since everything that has been possible to keep secret has been classified. They have even reclassified plenty of stuff that had been previously released to the public based on the Freedom of the Information Act.

I think that government should work in an open and honest manner with the possibility for the public to check out what the executive has been doing. I know terrorism has to be fought through covert operations and the government needs powers to crack down on extremists. Of course! But remember, that’s not all the Bush legacy is about. George W. Bush has been a big brother-style huge government president, a government that does a whole lot but isn’t accountable to anyone. The size of the government has been increased during the past eight years, no doubt about that. But the efficiency of that government is another matter. When you increase the size of government to do something the public actually wants make sure there are plenty of checks and balances so that it don’t end up in corruption. That’s why the press needs to know what the government does, the judiciary has to be able to prosecute officials who do wrong and the government has to implement those laws that exist and not those that they wish that existed (something that Bush has been done by ignoring important parts of legislation with his use of signing statements in the way of “Yeah, I sign this law but I proceed to ignore a), b), c) and d) because these provisions are an unconstitutional encroachment on my absolute power”).

Bush has done a whole lot of things that don’t seem to be clear even to his supporters. I guess Winter is so focused on terrorism that he hasn’t been noticing all other things that the government has done. He has been using government power to the max, but not to promote public interest. Openness in government is actually in the public interest and the key reason for Bush and Cheney to limit that openness has been to promote certain special interests in a way that wouldn’t attract attention. Of course what happened to the economy has caught many people’s attention and there’s a reason for why the Bush Administration has low approval ratings. It’s easier to promote special interests if checks and balances are put out of place. It’s rather ironic that Enron, to name one company that expected their profits to go sky-high when Bush came to power, ended up bankrupt. There are plenty of business leaders who thought contributing to the campaigns of George W. Bush was a smart investment to them but I’m not sure if even those of them who were the president’s personal friends are convinced that this thing has worked out so wonderfully.

One lesson is that those who talk about a judicial philosophy of strict constructionism should do well to read even that part of the Constitution that is about the separation of powers. One of the biggest jokes has been the Bush judicial appointments who were supposed to be so great at upholding the ideals of the Constitution. I’m glad that the incoming president has worked as a teacher of constitutional law and he at least knows what the constitutional powers of the presidency are supposed to be. Bush had some bizarre ideas about that one issue and this is why his legacy resembles that of Putin on point of the centralization of power.

Helsinkian wrote, “queer interpretation of the Moomin characters, there’s no homophobia or anti-gay sentiment in his interpretation.” The term, ‘queer interpretation’ is hostile. Would the author refer to a ‘nigger’ interpretation. Such terminology is not, by the way, acceptable to any gay person I know.

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