Tuukka R

Most of politicians at least here in Europe have not started with a lot of money. You first start in communal politics, then when you’ve shown your skills in that, your party gives you more visibility among the general public. And then you might get to the national parliament, and if you’re doing your job well there, you might end up in a position where you become interesting for voting in as a MEP. Or as the president of your country.

You cannot get into the national parliament out of nowhere, but I don’t really know why you should. It’s a very tough job, and it’s good that you’ve first had to gather some experience from communal politics before that.

Though, this is of course only how it works with leftist and centrist parties. In the right wing parties the system is apparently somewhat different. But that’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t vote them anyway.

What niches are missing? Sports was mentioned, what else?

A wooden one? Or did you mean a suitcase?

Put your oven to heat up to maybe 175 degrees? Take some flour and sugar and salt and, I guess, baking powder? Mix in correct proportions, add enough of some form of edible fat and a suitable amount of a liquid safe for eating. Mix well. Pour in forms.

Put the forms on a baking tray and into the oven. If you’re very lucky and you remembered to add the unlisted ingredients in correct amounts, you now have something cupcake-like. Put some toppings on.

Yoghurt.

…what? Nobody you know IRL uses Facebook, Linkedin, Insragram, Bluesky, Twitter, or That Google Thing?

How is that possible? I don’t think I could find anyone here in Finland who could say what you’re saying. Need more data about this case of yours!

Less convenient to use does not equal impossible to use.

They are losing those, but they haven’t lost them yet. It’ll take at least a few years of actually living without them for the people to wake up and revolt. The end of serfdom took from 1860’s or so until 1918.

It will take time but it will happen.

Some earlier GTA could be better for this. I tried driving around for the scenery, but there was so much random violence happening around that my kid got scared. I did manage to explain everything upside down in the end, so no harm done, but it did not feel nice.

GTA3:SA still wouldn’t have had that effect, I think(?)

At what age?

Depends on what’s meant here with “GTA”. GTA 1 was not really that bad. There’s shooting, which is not cool, but it’s not very graphic.

Then there’s GTA2 where you collect people from the street and turn them into kebab meat with a lot of screaming. And, starting from GTA3, the games start getting seriously.bad fir children.

But, the meme might mean GTA1 or GTA2.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that GTA is good for kids. It just means that something else is even worse.

To my knowledge, there have been no plans that this decision would cover. The only talk there has been about sending foreign troops to Ukraine would be as a peacekeeping force, and that would be organized in a way explicitly allowed by this decision.

This decision was probably made to cater to some Bulgarian domestic discourse, right? Anybody got any idea which one?

True, but there is the army that handed all the logistical trucks to the Red Army. The backbone of the Red Army was US material support. They provided the manpower, USA provided the tools. Plus, USA and UK provided a notable amount of manpower from another direction. And the tools for that manpower as well.

It is true that the Soviet army did a lot there. But still, the Russian claim that they did basically all of the job, especially when a huge chunk of “their” soldiers were actually from Ukraine and not from the Russia, is a lie.

It was a coöperational effort of several countries. USA could not have freed us of Nazis without UK and USSR. And USSR could not have freed us of nazis without USA and UK.

Also, in this case we are discussing here it is crystal clear that this was an actual intended nazi salute. Those other ones in the photos probably were not – at least each picture has visual cues that point towards the hand gesture having had a different meaning than on this one now.

On first one the fingers are much more open than now. On the second one the arm is quite low and the facial expression looks mostly worried. Probably he’s just waving his hand there. And the same goes for the rest of the pictures. Especially the facial expressions are very different from the video shown now, where there is nothing ambiguous.

Of course, if the context is shown, some of those photos could prove to really have been hitler salutes, but I highly doubt they were.

You probably meant this is an answer to me, so I’ll reply.

What I mean is that for example France supporting undemocratic regimes in Africa in order to get cheaper minerals and cheaper cocoa and cheaper bananas is colonialism. It does not mean that it is as bad as what France used to do in the past. And it’s not even as bad as France still retaining several actual colonies. But it is still bad. And it is colonialism. It would be colonialism even if France did not have any formal colonies around the world.

And when China does in 2025 what France is now, in 2025, doing with now-independent countries that used to be its formal colonies, then both of those are colonialism in the same manner. If what China is doing is okay, then that part of what France is doing is also okay. And I do not like the idea of accepting European countries’ colonialism, not even a little bit.

Being bombed is worse than being economically abused, absolutely. But it does not mean that abusing a country economically is okay. I do not like it at all that cocoa and bananas are as cheap here in Europe as they are. That luxury of low prices is coming from other people’s lack of well-being. And someone doing something even worse does not make this bad thing any better. At least in my opinion.

For what I understand, in reality we two think much more alike than you think we do.

You calling me dishonest is not colonialism. You stubbing your toe is not colonialism.

You, my friend, are defending colonialism and I am opposing your view that colonialism is okay as long as it’s done by a country on a list of “countries allowed to behave in a colonialist manner” that you are curating. And somehow that makes me a colonialism apologist?

Haha, everyone is a fascist now?

Yeah, the French colonies, such as French Guyana, are not okay. But neither are the things France is doing to many of the countries that used to be France’s formal colonies. Even though those countries are not colonies of France, what France is doing to them is colonialism all the same. Or do you disagree?

Also, calling me “dumb” was impolite of you, even though factually correct. Calling me a fascist was outright weird.

I’m sorry but you sound like the people who call DOGE “auditors” who “look for corruption and end it”.

China has been trying to get into big infrastructure projects in Finland as well, with the precisely same kind of loan arrangements. And it’s very good that we declined the offer. We were a colony of Sweden for 600 years. We don’t need to become one of China’s now.

What you’re saying suggests that France’s current behaviour is not colonialist. What are your thoughts on that?