With over seven political parties in parliament (eight to be exact) and many obscure small parties, choosing a political party can be overwhelming – especially since the differences between each are so minute. Here’s a quick run-down of each party to help you decide…

National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) – The Conservatives promise to lower your taxes! With some of the highest taxes in the world, you’ll quickly come to realize that these people are assholes.

Centre Party (Keskusta) – Do you live on a farm? Do you enjoy small town life? Do you distrust the EU? Then the Centre Party is for you, hillbilly! Life was certainly better when we all milked cows for a living, wasn’t it?

Social Democrats (SDP) -Lenin, Guevara, and Marx were all great thinkers, weren’t they? If you answered “yes” to that question, than the Social Democrats are for you, comrade. Now shorten those work weeks and wonder why you don’t get paid enough. Strike!!

Swedish People’s Party (RKP) – Is Swedish your mother tongue? ‘Nuff said, this party is yours. Amazing how everyone who speaks the same language is expected to share the same political beliefs.

True Finns (Perussuomalaiset) – Foreigners sure are ruining the greatest nation in the world, aren’t they?? If so, then this is your party, but if you read this blog and you can speak English and you’re not a complete idiot…they’re probably ot for you.

Christian Democrats (KD) – Do you have a special relationship with Jesus? And do you live out in the middle of nowhere because the devil resides in large cities as well as your television set? Hallelujah you’ve found your party!

Green Party (Vihreat) – Are you young, idealistic and fanatical about mother Earth? Then come share a joint with these hippies.

Left Alliance (Vasemistoliitto) – But what about all the good things the Soviet Union did! Right?? Left!!

Liberal Party (Liberaalit) – Are you a confused, twisted, and borderline psychopathic male between the ages of 16 and retarded? You’ve found your home.

The newly appointed United States ambassador to Finland, Bruce J. Oreck (yes, from the Oreck vacuum brand), has a blog which he updates quite often (way more than me lately)!

He even has a Facebook Fan page, Flickr stream, Twitter page, and YouTube page. Cool! With all those pages to update, I assume he spends most of his workday screwing around online – I mean, what else would an ambassador do!?

And how did Bruce become ambassador? By buying it of course..! I wonder how much a few years in the Finland embassy costs? My guess is that he donated more money to Obama than let’s say, the ambassador in [insert African or Middle Eastern country here]…

Bruce J. Oreck, for ambassador to Finland. Oreck, a lawyer who previously served as general counsel and vice president of his family’s famous vacuum company, bundled more than $500,000 to Obama’s presidential campaign. He and his wife, Charlotte, also bundled another $75,000 Obama’s inauguration. [...] Along with his wife and children, he has contributed $261,550 to federal Democratic candidates, parties and committees since 1989. That includes $9,200 to Obama and $1,000 to Hillary Clinton last cycle.

I was expecting the outcome of the votes of confidence, but not quite the farce. There were two statements on the floor, the one made by Social Democrats requiring the Prime Minister to resign which was voted out and then another one by Christian Democrats which then both the SD and the Left Alliance abstained from. There were a few colorful speeches though. The Left Alliance’s whip made a speech deriding the Greens giving their unanimous support to the Prime Minister regarding the “pile of planks” and suggested they’re nesting in it. The Prime Minister couldn’t help giggling himself silly but the Green minister was not amused.

The pile of planks revealed by YLE hasn’t caused much laughter otherwise. The Prime Minister is actually quite annoyed about YLE and its timing of the allegations. Meanwhile the Centre party is facing investigations into its foundations. Now its bad when the ombudsman investigates you, worse you get investigated by the police, but total panic when the tax office joins in. And the other parties aren’t immune to whistleblowing either.

The whole campaign funding scandal is more likely to cause people to become even more apathetic, so it might be in the 2011 elections the “sleeping party” will be the winner.

As I predicted, the election funding scandal has started to get dirtier and dirtier while the government parties are trying to save their respective asses. The prime minister arrived back from the USA quite annoyed and has been giving press monologues – as he does not welcome unprepared questions. However the press and lately YLE have dug up some old shit that while it may not stick, it might be the final thing to draw him under. Meanwhile investigations into the foundations, especially the Nuorisosäätiö have brought forth allegations of corruption in the real estate business and kickbacks of government funding to the Centre party members.

Of course the Centre party leaders are now frantically looking for a way out. All options seem if not bad then worse. As we remember the previous Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki had to resign in 2003 over the “Irakgate”, so if two Centre party Prime Ministers resign in a row – now that would need some serious image consulting. However as Vanhanen pigheadedly denies any responsibility and generally remains aloof it doesn’t convey any image of a trustworthy politician, rather a squirming worm in a fishook. The old guard such as hard-boiled veteran politician, Minister of Foreign Trade Paavo Väyrynen have kept silent, probably as they have had their share of negative media publicity back in the day.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Government will face a vote of confidence over elderly care, and Thursday will be the big show when the government will present its views on the election funding issue and bring forth the new legislation that has been proposed, facing another vote of confidence. Now it will not surprise me at all if the government will get the vote of confidence as the government parties have a majority in Parliament, but if there are enough rebels the scales might dip. Then again the opposition parties, Social Democrats especially, are not in a strong enough position to make it into a coalition government, so even there is a vote of no confidence, the status quo might not necessarily change.

Awaiting more scandals and more squirming.

- UPDATE- The big guns are out 30.9 Vanhanen goes on offensive against YLE over corruption allegations

As we all know Finns have been hugely proud of the “low corruption index”, while on the other hand “everyone knew” the political scene was a pile of manure just sitting there in the back of the yard. The old wisdom said “Shit don’t stink unless you go poking it” and now that shit has hit the fan. I don’t know how much the readership of this blog knows about the intricacies of Finnish politics, or the constitutional dependencies of the president, parliament and the cabinet, but mildly put the government right now is in neck deep, and any move they will make means more trouble.

The whole issue is about election funding – the whole stinkpot started bubbling already in May when it came clear that the legislation over party funding and especially its transparency were so full of loopholes that in principle there were no reprecussions for not disclosing where a politician got the money. Different parties came forward wanting to come clean and at the same time started to make all kinds of “privacy” excuses for not revealing their funding sources. Quite showing the slimy nature of politics the Left League was at first vocal demanding all parties open their books, but after the Left League was asked of their own funding the excuse was “the treasurer is on summer holiday”.

Unlike political scandals usually, this all wasn’t forgotten over the holidays. The parties started divulging their sponsors but the bankruptcy of Nova Group investment company started the domino effect. The investment company had channeled several hundred thousand euros towards the Centre party and the bankruptcy court eventually has sued the Centre party to return the monies as misappropriated assets. The Nova Group’s business dealings and municipal zoning started to raise questions of corruption, but more was to follow. As the different sources of money were investigated, centre party politicians were found to be in leading positions in government organizations and foundations that had then channeled money back to the party coffers. Of course the Prime Minister doesn’t see any troube in this kind of funding.

Now the other parties definitely don’t have unblemished reputations either, after all its a well-known fact the Social Democrats get huge funding out of the different unions’ and the Swedish Peoples Party from its rich cultural foundations. Which isn’t technically wrong if the purpose of the foundation or organization in the rules is actually to support political parties. Meanwhile the different opposition parties are starting to demand for the cabinet to resign and even a new early parliamentary election. Which provides an interesting dilemma – the Prime Minister, neck deep in the scandal is highly unlikely to call for a new election as his own party would definitely lose. The President’s powers have been curtailed, so she cannot dissolve the parliament either. And for the parties now in government, their outlooks of getting to form a new government looks slightly bad. The professor of public law from the University of Jyväskylä dryly stated that “in a Western Democracy the government would have resigned already”

The funding issues have caused several government organizations starting from the parliamentary ombudsman to start investigations regarding party funding, and it seems there might be more and more revelations as the weeks pass. So far there has been outrage over the fact that blatant tax evasion creative tax planning seems to be rife, and the secrecy of the funding has raised the question wasn’t the government-paid party support money supposedly put in place so that parties could function without dodgy support. There will be a lot more shit hitting the fan before the politicians can withdraw back to their cabinet schemings, so if the opposition manages to pull off a vote of no confidence we might well be looking for some interesting campaigning already this winter and not have to wait for 2011. Even though the politicians in power are definitely hoping that the shitfan will run out of power next year and the nations’ memory fade any moral outrage by the next. And we all can go sleep again peacefully as “there is no corruption in Finland”.

- UPDATE - The opposition parties made a statement today suggesting the Prime Minister to “make conclusions” over the issue. The Cabinet announced it shall be giving its “Government report to the Parliament” over the election funding issue – after which there shall be a “vote of confidence”. The discussion over the issue is still waiting the PM who is at the moment in the USA attending an United Nations Climate Change Conference.

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.

Well it looks like you can start soon forgetting to stock up for the long holidays. The government has gotten through the wrangling over shop opening hours, and the legislation seems to be ending up as follows:
- Shops can be open 12-18 Sundays except on “Holy Days” say like Pentecost.
- Shops smaller than 400 sq.m can be open 24/7 if they so wish.
- However there is also an amendment that small shops in malls may stay closed on Sundays if they so wish.

When the law gets passed and we step into the shopping era is still to be seen… baby steps, still requires a pole vault to be able to buy your Tylenol at 3am at the Siwa.

Two great stories for today – Finnish taxpayer money going to build brothels (well, not really, more like sex slaves) in Afghanistan…

Finnish officials suspect that a new women’s prison in northern Afghanistan, built through Finnish money and political will, may have been turned into a brothel. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs suspects that inmates may have been forced to sexually service guards, employees and their guests.

And an Espoo mother of two got an idea from the show, “Weeds”, to grow and sell marijuana…

A single mother in Espoo and her two underage sons intended to make the content of a popular TV-series a reality, and began growing cannabis in the home for sale.
The attempt foundered after a couple of months when police got wind of the venture after one of the boys was found in possession of some of the drug.
The mother and her boys had watched the series Weeds, starring Mary-Louise Parker in the role of the pot-growing suburban mum, on Finnish TV, and had picked up the storyline as a business idea.

Wow! From YLE…

Finland has received more judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights than the rest of the Nordic countries together over the past 15 years.

According to the newspaper Turun Sanomat, Finland has received a total of 75 binding decisions, of which all but one have been made over the past 15 years.

Sweden, for example, has received a total of 22 court judgments, Norway 19, Denmark 9 and Iceland just one.

In April, the European Court of Human Rights reprimanded Finland over the eight-year long case of a Helsinki man. The court intends to hear nine Finnish cases concerning questions of freedom of speech.

Finland has, so far, lost three-quarters of its cases before the court.

Well we know that basic freedom of speech is often lacking in this country. Here’s some other human rights concerns in Finland, from Wikipedia…

1. Conscientious objectors to both military and civilian service are jailed for six months. There are about 10-20[citation needed] conscientious objectors every year. Most are in minimum security, open facilities, and objecting is not entered on criminal records.
2. Charges of racist/xenophobic treatment of ethnic minorities by officials, and that refugees are hand-picked by the Ministry of the Interior on basis of country of origin citing “security reasons”.[citation needed]
3. A case in which agitated asylum seekers were drugged, for deportation.[citation needed]
4. Unfair court action in the light of the verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights.[citation needed]

* Handling time has been unacceptably long particularly in civil cases or criminal court cases relating to bankruptcy, e.g. eight years in the court of first instance and 12 years in total

I don’t know how much the readers follow the Finnish politics and issues, but so far it seems that the old game of “broken telephone” gets even worse when it is transferred from the reality into a newspaper with a political slant, regurgitated, edited and then translated into a foreign language. One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain wrote of this in his short story “Running for Governor” already in 1870, and nothing much has changed since. So you may see headlines of “Finnish politician sued for blasphemy” but I bet the articles are more or less confusing the issues.

There is no confusion that we still retain a paragraph in the Penal Code on “blasphemy”, actually Ch.17 Par. 11: “Breach of the sanctity of religion “(563/1998). Which enables the courts to sentence people on the grounds of “ridiculing what others regard as holy”. Of course in modern times you can laugh at Jesus and God, but can you laugh at Mohammad?

Double standards if you can’t laugh at both equally – and Finland is a land of equality, isn’t it? Then again theres a few other vague subjective laws in the Penal Code that require only that you be accused of them. You don’t have to find a victim for these crimes which makes them perfect to be used in silencing people. There is a law Ch.11 Par8 – “Ethnic agitation” (578/1995) that says “A person who spreads statements or other information among the public where a certain race, a national, ethnic or religious group or a comparable group is threatened, defamed or insulted shall be sentenced for ethnic agitation to a fine or to imprisonment for at most two years.” Which of course is a noble law. Again the question is, are all races, national, ethnic or religious groups or comparable groups equal before the law? For example, can you say that Finns are prone to drunken killing sprees? So if you can say that, can you say that X are prone to robbing passersby and leeching off welfare?

The vocal (or can you say vocal of someone who writes but doesn’t speak much) anti-multiculturalism blogger and aspiring politician Jussi Halla-aho got into the eye of a shitstorm running for the Helsinki city council (he is now among other things supervising the wanking baboons and lethally biting camels in the board of the Korkeasaari Zoo) and now as a result he’s facing court of his blogpost he made in 2006 that questioned the above equality issues. It is quite important to note that the Green Women had no case and no crime to have investigated – not liking someones opinions isn’t enough grounds.

The text “A few baits for Mika Illman” (the state prosecutor) was in fact the *only* one the prosecutor took upon himself to draw charges upon. Can you call that a hook-line-sinker?

On the one hand I find the whole case totally preposterous, as it clearly has a political agenda. Then again “publishing the Mohammad cartoons” issue has been a watershed so the blasphemy part might prove interesting. A part of me though wants Halla-aho to be sentenced for the agitation, so I can sue the ass off anyone claiming Finland is a cold soggy dark place with drunk wifebeaters who have a difficult language.

The Global credit crunch and the recession that has been its after-effect has slowly been gnawing at the Finnish economy. The wailing over a shortage of labor has switched over to a louder wailing from people being laid off or terminated. The latest figures from the Ministry of Labor state that the trend is looking worse.

Meanwhile, the Government, lead by “things don’t need to be discussed” PM Vanhanen has been taking steps to stall the recession. The first measure was to remove a part of the employer contributions, known as the “social insurance payment” to enable employers to keep their laborforce on for longer. Maybe a cosmetic change, nevertheless KELA wasn’t amused as their budget is tightening. Last week a new proposal was made changing the highest pension age from 63 to 65. While I am quite assured I’ll be 75 before I get to pension, the proposed change has caused more than a little stir with both the labor unions and the opposition parties. (*)

There is also fears that in the current economic situation and the fact that the last years of your employment directly relate to your pension has made more and more people in the ages now allowed to go on pension to “take the money and run” and not chancing being laid off and loosing out. Which of course puts more burden on KELA and the pension insurance companies. And as we’re in a recession there isn’t as much revenue coming in and the investments of the insurance companies are in the red, it seems we will not be seeing too many tax cuts. And we won’t seeing too much improvement in public services – any public services.

What does this mean in real life one might ask. If you aren’t depending on such services you might miss the situation, but if you depend on services you might feel the full blast. One small streamlining operation by the tax office for example will effect small enterpreneurs. Basically your monthly returns must be both in time, and correct, or you’ll be hit with a fine. Which also is a bit rude as if you figure out you made a mistake and go correct it you still be fined for it. And as tax fines are non-negotiable… Oh yes, I bet the revenues will be certain for a while at least.

(*)The HS International Edition has a pretty extensive coverage of the ins and outs.

Thanks to the long running Finnish grocery store racket, Finland’s already insanely high grocery store prices are increasing faster than any other EU state – and 2nd to only Iceland throughout Europe…

Food prices have risen faster in Finland than in any other EU state, finds Eurostat, the statistics centre of the European Union. The agency reports that the price of food in Finland is rising at a record speed of over 10 percent a year. Experts say there may be a lack of competition on the food market.

[...]“In Europe, only Iceland has outpaced Finland when it comes to rising food prices,” says Martti Luukko of the Finnish Consumers’ Association.

Luukko says that primary production composes a minor share of food prices. However the secondary production phase and grocery stores take the lion’s share of the price sticker. Experts say there may be something wrong with competition on the food market.

”Is it perhaps an issue of competition not being entirely effective?” asks Luukko.

Finland’s supermarket duopoly coupled with the people’s/state’s resistance to any new business (remember how hard everyone fought when Lidl arrived?) means that we get raped each week at the registers for the most basic of necessities.

Visit the foreign food stores in Hakaniemi for an eyeopening experience – everything is a fraction of the price you’re accustomed to, and these stores are essential boutiques who import everything from Asia (so BULLSHIT to anyone who says shipping to Finland is expensive).

“But Phil, you can’t trust those Asian fucks with our food!” …get your head out of your racist, ignorant ass.

Interesting commentary from Helsingin Sanomat…

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) has waged a legal battle against his former girlfriend Susan Ruusunen in order to defend his privacy – for example the privacy of his SMS text messages.

At the same time, Vanhanen’s government would like – through the means of the so-called Lex Nokia legislation – the rights of employees to the privacy of their e-mail correspondence.

According to Vanhanen, the details divulged about him by Ruusunen [in her book] are harmless enough, but it is a question of principle.

If on the other hand Lex Nokia goes through in Parliament, an employer will be entitled routinely to monitor the identification data of e-mails sent by employees, for example who is the recipient of the messages.

And who is Vanhanen’s employer, then?

Do we not, the voters, thus have the right to monitor the identification data of Vanhanen’s communication tools?

The messages may indeed be harmless, but it is a matter of principle.

This country has serious, serious freedom-of-speech issues, that stem back to it’s long cooperation with the Soviet Union: A woman writes an autobiography about her life which happens to include dating our Prime Minister. Finland’s PM makes an ass out of himself after their breakup and decides to get his revenge by taking her to court. The lower courts rule in her favor, but he’s wealthy and powerful so he decides to appeal to the upper courts, and wins…

Helsinki’s Court of Appeals has ruled that Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s ex-girlfriend did violate his right to privacy by publishing an exposé of their relationship. This overturns a lower court’s ruling in favour of his former girlfriend, Susan Ruusunen. The court issued fines for both Ruusunen and her publisher, Kari Ojala.

Wow, not only can you write truthfully about our highest ranking politician (imagine if Bush sued everyone who wrote about him! LOL!), you can’t even write truthfully about your own fucking life! But I have no sympathy towards Susan either, after she decided to sue visitors of her website who left nasty messages.

You can sell your house, car, body…but you can’t sell your vote? Is there anything else of yours you can’t sell? (bodyparts?)

Peddling his vote over the Internet proved costly for a man from the southern Finnish city of Hyvinkää. The man tried to sell his vote in last autumn’s municipal election via the huuto.net online auction site.

The starting price in the bidding for his vote was one euro. The seller promised to vote for whomsoever the highest bidder would ask him to. The Hyvinkää District Court sentenced the man to pay 40 day-fines, totalling EUR 680, after finding him guilty of election bribery.

Let’s do some math: 680 euros divided by 40 days = He’s poor. Let him earn a little extra cash on the side.