This is the kind of news you read in the newspapers on and off “Three football players accused of rape”. Then you read how the judge threw a book at them. But thats in America, so really…

Wait up now – actually we do have “American football” here and we do get players come in from the US and we had three football players accused of rape.

Well, this is Finland so the judges don’t throw books. As the rape wasn’t aggravated, and the men had been jailed for a significant amount of time (two months), the sentence was guilty on two counts of rape and one assisting, all three men sentenced to 1,8 months probation. Oh and yes theres damages to be paid to the women in question 4500 euros each. Somehow I find it slightly bizzarre if they’d run out of the house and pushed over someone who broke their hip, thats worth 8400 euros.

I somehow have in inkling thought if these guys had been back “at home” they might not have gotten off with 3000 euros and two months in jail.

But then again theres the Finnish guy in Brazil facing 18 years for killing his girlfriend. He should’ve come home to strangle her, might have gotten off with 3000 euros and two months in jail.

Ilta-Sanomat and other evening newspapers are at their yearly exposé again:

So do you want to know who is who in Finland? Its all there. Eat the rich.

The controversial blogger and Helsinki councilman Dr. Jussi Halla-aho recieved today a conviction of “breaching the sanctity of religion” i.e. blasphemy. He was sentenced by the Helsinki district court to pay 30 day fines amounting to 330 euros. Dr. Halla-aho has stated he will appeal on the verdict.

Dr. Halla-aho’s blog “Scripta – writings from the sinking west” came under scrutiny during his campaign for Helsinki city council as a nonaligned candidate on the True Finns ticket. Especially the women’s organization of the Green party took offence of his acerbic writings of immigration and multiculturalism. However bad taste is not a crime, which the Green Women found out trying in vain to destabilize Halla-ahos candidacy with frivolous police investigations.

The police took Halla-ahos blog under investigation after the state prosecutors office took interest in the case and the State Prosecutor Jorma Kalske raised two charges, one of “breaching the sanctity of religion” and another one “inciting hatered against a population group” of one blog entry appropriately named “A couple of baits for Mika Illman” (Mika Illman being the state prosecutor who had charged a few people over similar cases perviously). Halla-aho has stated he wanted to show the double standards regarding the treatment of different groups by the courts.

Surprisingly the charge on blasphemy stuck, even though that very law had been regarded as a dead letter since the 1960’s. According to the court “facts or logic do not have significance in religious discussion”. Fine by me, I’ll proclaim Charlie Manson as God and anyone claiming he is a deranged hippie will be charged, Helter Skelter.

More info from H.S...

News is coming in of a shooting in the Central Finland city of Jyväskylä that has left three people dead, all of them men.
Emergency services received a call about shots being fired just after 8 a.m. this morning, after which six police units and emergency vehicles were despatched to an apartment block in the Pupuhuhta district of the city.

Inspector Arto Rajala reported that police had surrounded the crime scene and evacuated people from the surrounding apartments while awaiting the arrival of a canine unit and an armed swat team.
Calls to the apartment and shouts through the mailbox flap were not answered.
After an hour the specialist officers broke in and arrested those inside.
The bodies of two men, both shot, were found from the courtyard of the building when the police arrived, and a third man was found dead in the apartment. All had apparently died of gunshot wounds. Speaking at a press briefing in the late morning Insp. Rajala noted that the police had not been fully aware of how many persons were in the apartment at the time they broke down the door, or whether there would be an armed response to their entry.

An hour after the events, Rajala could not confirm details of whether there had been a firefight in the building, who the victims were, and whether the main perpetrator was among them. It later became clear that the gunman was among those killed.
A woman and two children were also found alive in the apartment. The children have been handed over to social workers.
Rajala was also unable to confirm whether the woman was the child’s mother, and there were no immediate details given of the other relationships involved or the ethnic background of the victims and others.
It is known that the apartment block contains some Finnish Roma families, but there has been no confirmation that this may have been an internal feud between Roma families.

Rajala later told the Finnish Broadcasting Company that two weapons were located in the apartment and that a total of eight persons had been present. Responsibility will now pass to the National Bureau of Investigation, Finland’s central criminal police arm.
What is known is that all those involved are in police hands.
Those persons who were earlier evacuated from their homes will be allowed to return as soon as forensic officers have completed their work. They will be offered crisis counselling.

Today a verdict came down of a heinous crime of smuggling in snuff in the Pietarsaari area. Now for the background, snuff is illegal in the EU except in Sweden. Its illegal to export from Sweden or sell outside Sweden commercially. So you can go to Sweden on a boat and bring in a roll, but thats it. However in certain regions, especially Ostrobothnia the snuff was already a part of the culture so these restrictions were seen unfair and the system continued.

For smuggling in some 500 000 cans of snuff the main culprit was sentenced to two years four months unconditional jailtime, and to pay the government 1 084514 euros of source tax along with his codefendant who got a two years probational jail sentence. Some ten gas station owners were sentenced to probational jail time and day fines for entry on smuggled items, selling substances prohibited in the law etc.

Meanwhile elsewhere a gang who raped a 15-year old girl got 2 years ten months and to pay 24 000 in damages… a drunk driver who ran over and killed a pedestrian got 2 years in jail, added with the probationary 60 days he got two days before the accident for… drunk driving…

While bringing in snuff is worth a bit over a million, burning a church when you’re 18 brings you 6,5 years in jail and 4,3 million euros in damages. If you keep your flame under the lid and molest a number of 6-12 year old children in the time frame of 10 years you get 7,5 years in jail and to pay 80 000 in damages.

Liberty and justice for all.

The workers of the Solna branch of the German LIDL in Sweden had a brilliant an idea of how to take care of the homeless problem. Really does make you think of how cruel life even in a civilized welfare state like Sweden can be. For starters, you need to be destitute to go to LIDL in the first place let alone skipdive.

I wonder if that would have been adapted to the USA by Wal-Mart if the Republicans had won?

The Finnish gun control debate got fuel from the recent school shootings that were placed a year apart. A lot of discussion was made about school bullying, alienated youth and the evils of the internet as well as the downsizing and lack of funds in youth mental care. Calls were made for the government to give more funding – of course this being a cosmetic fix as the whole mental health programme has slowly been cheesesliced silly.

Yesterday brought again some news showing that the welfare society isn’t faring that well. Two middle-aged couples were found dead in their homes. In Porvoo a policeman and his wife in their 40’s had both committed suicide by the man’s quite legal hunting weapons leaving a note. They police say both had been depressed also with physical ailments and there has been speculation that the suicide may have been triggered by the social welfare removing three foster children they had been caring for . Meanwhile in Helsinki two schoolage kids were orphaned when their parents were found dead in their home. The police have stated that the neighbours called the police after hearing a row and shots, the man apparently shot the women with an army service weapon and after that himself .

Only last week in Oulu a 43-year old man shot his 39 year old wife and children aged 11 and 9. Both parents were teachers at the local schools, and were living an outwardly happy life. Some financial troubles were looming ahead as they were building a new house just getting finishing touches but their old house they were selling was showing water damage, in what is called a “two home trap”.

So really, I am at loss to even guess as to where the politicians shall point the blame this time over, can’t be the evils of the internet nor school bullying and legal hunting weapons are commonplace not to mention people who professionally have access to firearms. Of course the weather’s been quite horrid and the world finances have toppled, but even as a trigger to melancholia that doesn’t explain what then makes adult, educated, professional people in their late 40’s do such drastic decisions? Financial troubles are usually in the background in a downward spiral but is it a cause or effect or both. The economists say the trends don’t follow a pattern necessarily.

And this isn’t restricted to only one age group. Last July an elderly 88 year old man killed his bedridden wife at the nursing home and shot himself after killing his two handicapped daughters in their 50’s leaving a message he couldn’t cope with it any more. So it isn’t just the one thing but a combination.

I think we are just now starting to reap the seeds of all this privatization and moving towards a competitive economy that was started in the 1990’s. There are services, but there is no outreach, and usually the people in most dire need cannot or won’t seek the help themselves. And even those who do need to take drastic measures – just in the summer a young man in Kerava stabbed an 14-year old girl just picking her random, as a motive he said “he wished treatment”.  Nevermind all the county finances having been cheesesliced to the minimum already so what would you expect the health care, let alone mental healthcare at a bare minimum.

The orthodox chaplain Father Mitro said that it is evident that along with prosperity there has also been the flipside people have been closing their eyes from, and it should be the whole society to take a stand on what is going on. He said that instead of having floral agendas the government should inspire the people and reach out. The former chair of the Mental Health Association Pirkko Lahti says that she is afraid these events will not remain the only ones and fears they might lead to an epidemic as people will see this as a way out of their situation. She says that people should go ask for help and she feels especially sorry for the five orphaned children.

Of course as the international newsvultures haven’t landed to feed on the carrion the government has poked its head into the sand and discusses more relevant and current issues, like political correctness training to the new councils. Probably they’ll allocate funds to some nice brochures showing how happy and joyful place Finland is, after all its positive thinking and prozac that shall save the world. And then they still wonder why the people “voted wrong”.

The Turkish Embassy in Helsinki was subjected to a molotov coctail attack on Monday night around 3am. The door of the embassy was burnt and and a staff member was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, but there wasn’t further damage reported. The police have arrested four youths suspected of the attempted arson. The Finnish security police is investigating the arson along with the Helsinki criminal police, which haven’t released further speculations of the motives.   In their brief statement the police said the youth suspected of arson are Finnish residents, but some have “Kurdish background”. The Turkish Embassy has stated they are suspecting Kurdish PKK as there was a similar incident ath the Turkish Consulate in Salzburg, Austria on Sunday night . There was a demonstration in front of the Embassy the previous day objecting the treatment of the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan currently jailed in Turkey. The Finnish minister of foreign affairs Alexander Stubb has condemned the strike and assures Finland is taking further measures to provide safety for embassies and their staff.

There have been reports of shots fired at the vocational education centre campus in Kauhajoki, South Ostrobothnia, Finland. The police reports that a 20-year old student of the college has fired shots and there are casualties. The police are currently evacuating students and staff. Eyewitness reports from the site say that a male student clad in black had fired with a big handgun and that he is still at large in the building, which is on fire.

The Kauhajoki vocational education centre campus has Seinäjoki UAS departments of restaurant and catering as well as Seinäjoki region SEDU vocational school providing a dual degree with a vocational diploma in catering, nursing or tourism as well as an option for joined studies with a high school matriculation diploma, the campus has some 200 students and 30 staff.

UPDATE (from Phil):

News reports are saying the shooter is caught, while others are saying he shot himself. Looks like he’s mimicking the Finnish shooter from last year by posting info on YouTube. Here’s some links, thanks to everyone who’s been sending them in…

His YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/Wumpscut86

A gallery of his photos: http://www.kuvalauta.fi/b/src/122215887655.jpg

His singles profile page: Click here

A collection of files: Click here

UPDATE: ( @13:50 & 14:10 Hank W.)
The police have confirmed the suspected shooter is injured severely and is being transported to the Tampere University Hospital. The police have just confirmed the number of casualities as nine – there are two victims in “critical state” other one being the suspect – the school is still filled with smoke from the fire the police confirm was started deliberately.

The police have stated that the shooter was a man in his 20’s. The principle of the college stated that a 2nd year student of the UAS had entered a classroom in the building where some 20 students were taking an exam and started shooting. The janitor of the school stated a man in a commando hood and carrying a large bag entered the school after he heard shots and was shot at by the suspect.

Meanwhile the press conference at the Seinäjoki Central Hospital came to a dramatic end as the adjacent nursing college was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

UPDATE (@15.17 Hank W.)
The Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund released during the press conferece of the Cabinet that the suspect, Matti Saari born 1986 had been interviewed on Monday by the police in relation to the shooting videos on YouTube he had placed there on Friday. The police had found no reason to withdraw the permit nor remove the guns from his possession. Minister Holmlund said that this process will be looked into.

UPDATE (@18:20 Hank W.)

Victim toll has risen to 10, also the suspect deceased. One person is still in critical condition, and two others injured. The victims haven’t been identified, and the medical personnell say because some of them are badly burned. The chief medical officer says it mis possible that not all of the victims died of gunshot wounds, but suffocated. Apparently Saari had petrol bombs with him which he used to start a number of fires.

A small piece of news struck my eye yesterday and made me thoughtful. Theres been a restructuring of the 112 call centres into a national organization instead of the previous county-run regional units since the 2000’s, and the results have been a bit questionable. The nationalization of the Helsinki emergency centre has been blasted as the restructuring has caused and stated that the safety in the region has come down. Another question is the services in the Swedish-speaking areas.

Basically before you also had the police as well as ambulances or fire departments have their own numbers you could call for “less emergency” so you’d call the “emergency number” when the house was on fire, but the lesser number when the cat was up the tree. But now you deal only with the 112 with all kinds of nonsense. Which isn’t anything peculiar to just Finland.

The new reform into larger units also caused some problems as many villages and towns have similar or the same streetnames, and the 112 operators weren’t necessarily that versed with the area. So in 2002 a “middle aged woman” who worked on the west coast got a warning from the court as she’d directed an ambulance to the wrong city and a man with chest pains died of a heart attack.

The yesterdays piece of news said that the same woman had been fined in court for negligence of duty and stripped of her office, as she had cut approximately a hundred 112 calls that then had redirected to other operators in 2006. She had logged these as missed calls or wrong numbers. Apparently the stress and workload at the 112 centre had overwhelmed her – maybe the first mishap was a cause or a symptom, but the manager of the centre said that of course the “performance is evaluated”… Now I can understand this is a job that does not bring in profit – but now you need to remember that we are talking of peoples lives – so adding insult to injury and stressing the workers out when the job itself is stressful enough sounds they should hire comrade Stahanov.

At the end of the day, who can your stressed out 112 operator call?

Cliff notes: emergency services in emergency

Are graffitis art or vandalism?

The question has been debated in Helsinki as in many other cities. Some ten years ago the city adopted a policy banning any kind of graffiti be it murals or tags and started a no-tolerance policy so that most graffiti is cleaned the same day. They were joined by the public transport providers – VR trains were washed the same day they got painted. A lot of guards were also employed – and if youare caught the financial punishmentsare in the tens of thousands – compare this with the woman who got a hysteroctomy due to misfiled lab test and was compensated 2000 euros – she’d gotten more money if the doctor had a felt tip pen and signed her…

I have a number of photos of graffiti in Paris I took on my trip in May. I travelled from a banlieu to the centre and just took photos of the sometimes quite artistic pieces. Coming back to Helsinki I “noticed” that really the “no tags” policy has made any graffiti – even the artful pieces – just nonexistant. Oh well, the young peoples opinions are definitely not as divided on the issue, there was a counter-demonstration to the anti-graffiti movement’s theme day meeting, and the police was not amused. I guess they were practicing for the riots when the HEX collapses and the Espoo yuppies demonstrate for cheap gas. Another policy being implemented in the city is a definitely more stringent policy against demonstrations.

Meanwhile fear and loathing in the Helsinki City continues while the different city deparments are in each others’ throats over a proposal for a “legal graffiti” area. The situation has escalated into such hostility, a few city council members were denied entry to the city-organized 10-year anniversary of the anti-graffiti campaign. Which bickering really does seem quite silly. I wonder if the upcoming elections will provide the city with new brains.

I can understand both sides’ arguments, but really I don’t have any strong opinions either for or against the issue. On the one hand I do get annoyed some kids scribbled four-letter words in our freshly painted staircase – but then again some of the graffiti I managed to get pictures of in Paris, and murals all over the world do have something else in them than just vandalism.

Cliff notes: overkill over sprayed paint

The YLE scandal investigative journalism programme MOT broadcasted last week has caused diplomatic strain between Finland and Slovenia, both small EU countries whose populations probably never much were aware of each others existence. The MOT programme revealed the Finnish defence contractor Patria of paying bribes to gain a lucrative deal on ATV’s for the Slovenian armed forces. The police investigation on the case along with an investigation of a previous deal of howitzers to Egypt had started in May, and the CEO of Patria had stood down from his position. Patrias deals before such as that with Poland also raised some questions but no investigations were started. As the Finnish NBI investigations are noted for their rapidity, the case is expected to go to the prosecutor in October and a possible court case to take place sometime next year.

Meanwhile in Slovenia the MOT programme caused an uproar, as the programme suggests that on the receiving end of the bribes was the sitting prime minister Janez Janša, who is along with his party just preparing for a tight parliamentary election. The Slovenian government even produced two diplomatic notes over the MOT programme to the Finnish government demanding proof of the accusations. Despite both YLE and Patria are to some extent government-owned, the Finnish government said that they can not much do anything about the situation at present. Janša has denied any bribery even been suggested to him by Patria, though he said the other party in the tender process did as for meetings. Which seems very interesting indeed.

The can of hairy worms the MOT programme opened is actually an old one, but it does seem to squirm vigorously. The contract was signed in December 2006 and was the biggest arms deal in Slovenia so far and thus a huge issue in Slovenia, basically as the other rejected tender was from a Slovenian company later sold to an American conglomerate. Allegations of bribery started escalating in Slovenia, going deep into the country’s leadership, including politicians and senior civil servants so a parliamentary commission of inquiry was established in March 2007 to investigate the tender process relating to the sales contract. From what I understand the Slovenians were manufacturing the Steyr-Puch Pandur I on a licence and the competition was between the Patria AMV, Piranha and Pandur II with obvious logistical benefits. Now the Slovenian officials interviewed in the MOT programme were politicaly opposing the current government, and some had ties with the Slovenian contractor. Sour grapes maybe? Or then maybe not… in any case the election race in Slovenia got a surprisingly well-timed injection of scandal.

Cliff notes: Lord of War

Last Saturday evening at 9pm a 14-year old girl from the local basketball club was stabbed fatally when she was alone practicing at a basketball court in Savio. ( For our international readers – 9pm this time of the year is still “in broad daylight” ) The girl managed to drag herself into the yard of a neighbouring house but perished before the EMTs arrived. The police caught the same evening around 10pm an 18-year old male who later confessed to the stabbing. According to the police the suspect investigated for murder had been seeking for a(ny) victim for about 3 hours before he randomly picked up on the girl – as for his motives the police said he had given a “sociopolitical motive”. Being a Finn I just have a hunch the perpetrator will be excused due to his mental instability. Somehow I feel it would be right in these kind of cases of the people who let these kind of loose cannons roam the streets should be the ones accused along with them.

Now Savio is a few klicks south of Jokela which surely had hoops and whistles going on about a young man with sociopolitical motives. No doubt if the situation had involved a gun and a school there’d be international vultures homing in on social porno news. But a lonely schoolgirl on a basketball court in an adjacent park to her school is not worth their time, fortunately considering their insensitivity in the media. But the underlying question is – what is making these young men on the northbound track towns commit such mindless killings? Is there something wrong with the water? Is there something wrong with the sociopolitics? Or what is wrong?

The family and friends of 14-year old Emilia who had just celebrated her confirmation a few weeks prior definitely would not want to be asking.

Travelling especially to the USA got a bit more interesting now that all new passports should be biometric. When I heard first of this biometric thing I was wondering if they had a strip of my DNA there like in every half-decent sci-fi movie or at least a retinal scan like they have in every spy movie, but the “biometric data” is as boring as a mugshot, and starting later next year fingerprints.

Or are fingerprints boring? They’ve been used for over a hundred years in forensics to identify people, as fingerprints are unique to each person. You have every other crime movie out there having someone dusting for fingerprints, even in CSI they still do it though it requires super glue and and hot air. So its definitely something even your average joe on the street recognizes whats it for.

The Aamulehti today ripped a headline over the newly appointed Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero wanting to form a fingerprint registry of Finnish citizens. Within ten years all adult Finnish citizens would be fingerprinted as fingerprinting would be a prerequisite of getting a passport (and probably ID card as well) The reason given is that with the registry it would be impossible to use forged passports and of course it would enable the police to find out their perps quite effectively. The Data Protection Ombudsman Reijo Aarnio is all against the idea of establishing a national fingerprint register.

In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.

There is an old saying: “The manure pile won’t stink unless you go poking it.” and it seems there is nothing better to do than go poking during the summer. In the beginning of the summer there were some remarks made of doping in Finland, and as a few former skiers denied vehemently the use EPO-hormones or any knowledge of blood-doping – last week the ex-coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö came forward making a number of statements implying that the Finnish Skiing Association wasn’t as clean as they presented themselves during the 2001 Lahti Hemohes scandal. And his stories have been corroborated by others, so the story is opening up daily. As the Finnish News Agency chief editor and reporter were convicted of libel in 1999 due to claims of doping that were at the time “unfounded”, the NBI has reopened the investigation. Better late than never I guess.

Another case not as ancient re-surfacing is the infamous Sonera-book which the supreme court returned to the assizes overturning the inadmissibility of evidence. Now the public opinion on the case would be rather than trying to find the author to find “Where disappeared the money of Sonera” as the book title reads. They bought some air in Germany if I recall it correctly.

Maybe I should start a properly to go with the retro feelings and buy a Jopo.