The road to Malaysia

Just to recap, here's the current F1 points situation going into Malaysia:

Drivers:

Jenson Button: 10 or 0
Rubens Barrichello: 8 or 0
Lewis Hamilton: 6, 5 or 10
Timo Glock: 5, 4 or 0
Fernando Alonso: 4, 3 or 8
Nico Rosberg: 3, 2 or 0
Sebastien Buemi: 2, 1 or 6
Sebastien Bourdais: 1, 0 or 5
Adrian Sutil: 0 or 4
Nick Heidfeld: 0 or 3
Giancarlo Fisichella: 0 or 2
Jarno Trulli: 0 or 6
Mark Webber: 0 or 1

The first number is the points they have now. If the FIA appeals court reverses Trulli's penalty, as they should, then Trulli will return to third place and everyone else will be knocked down one spot. If, on the other hand, all the teams using the new diffusor are disqualified, then everyone goes up four spots with the Brawn, Williams and Toyota cars being eliminated.

So amusingly enough, Sebastien Buemi has 1-6 points; he has two now, will drop to one if Trulli is reinstated on the podium, but goes all the way to the podium himself if the FIA decides against the diffusor as that eliminates everyone except Hamilton and Alonso.

In other words, one of these was the podium for the race you watched last weekend:

1. Jenson Button
2. Rubens Barrichello
3. Jarno Trulli

or

1. Jenson Button
2. Rubens Barrichello
3. Lewis Hamilton

or

1. Lewis Hamilton
2. Fernando Alonso
3. Sebastien Buemi

And you don't know that yet, even though the race was last Sunday.

**

And no, this isn't an April Fool's post. It's just to remind you what a fucking joke it is that we won't know the results of the previous GP until after the next one. New viewers, welcome to F1!

UN bans blasphemy

Reuters: U.N. body adopts resolution on religious defamation

GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries.

Okay, so it's a non-binding resolution, but a resolution by the Human Rights Council nonetheless.

I'd write a longer blog post, but can't really be bothered. As blasphemy is already illegal in Finland, there's no way this can possibly affect us.

I wonder when we Europeans, collectively, will realize that we're slowly giving up most of the defining freedoms that make us a free society. In Finland we're already not allowed to criticize the police too strongly, say mean things about religions or say something that a prosecutor can interpret as being racist. Our Internet traffic is monitored by the Swedish army and soon by our employees.

There is a sustained assault on our basic freedoms going on, and no-one really cares.

Australian GP thoughts

- Go Brawn! Brilliant.

- Ferrari, you suck. What a fiasco.

- What was Kubica thinking? He cut in front of Vettel when Vettel had the line going into the corner. I blame him entirely for the crash, and he should have been the one penalized. What was Vettel supposed to do, go off? Just terrible driving in general, and astonishingly idiotic considering he wrecked both his and Vettel's sure podium finish. Barrichello rear-ending Räikkönen was just as boneheaded, but not as catastrophic.

- Amazing work by Toyota: starting from the pit lane and finishing with both cars in the points and Trulli on the podium. Unbelievable, and in some ways even more impressive than Brawn.

**

Of course, Trulli isn't on the podium any more. I can't believe it's starting all over again. He was penalized for overtakin Lewis Hamilton behind the safety car, after Hamilton overtook him and let him pass. So, Hamilton overtakes Trulli and Trulli gets a penalty. Brilliant. Toyota have appealed the decision, but the only way it could be reversed is if the FIA appeals court decides against Hamilton. Yeah, right. As Trulli says:

"When the safety car came out towards the end of the race Lewis passed me but soon after he suddenly slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. I thought he had a problem so I overtook him as there was nothing else I could do."

Potentially this opens up a brilliant tactic for eliminating your rivals. Let someone pass you behind the safety car; they're hardly going to stop their car behind you and wait for you if you pull over to the side of the road. And then they're guilty of overtaking behind the safety car!

**

This was the first time in what, 30 years, that a newcomer team has taken a double victory in its first GP. At least according to Finnish TV, Richard Branson is planning to buy the team. Here's an idea, free of charge: he should only do it after this season. Then they can do the whole new-team-wins-first-GP thing all over again with Virgin GP.

If it's more of a co-ownership thing, will they call it Brawn Virgin GP or Virgin Brawn GP? Do they want to go with more of a really butch nun or a reservoir of untapped muscle? These are important image management decisions! I'd go with Brawn Virgin, and tentatively suggest Hammer from Fable 2 as their logo. Virgin Brawn might be more of a Tom of Finland thing. There are other fascinating possibilities like Virgin Racing. Although that's probably a Monty Python sketch.

**

I'm terrified by the prospect of the FIA appeals court getting its hands on the results after Malaysia. If, for instance, all the cars with the debated diffusor are disqualified, guess who ends up being the winner? Yeah. The guy the FIA has been pulling for, hard and in total disregard of any kind of impartiality, ever since he first sat inside an F1 car. Who was just given a podium finish he didn't drive to by the race stewards. So don't think they can't do it. I just hope they won't.

If the FIA reverses these results, and a small part of me actually expects them to, it'll be the death of F1. At least for a while. For those of us who aren't head-over-heels in love with the FIA's golden rule-excempt boy, it was bad enough to see him get into the points after a series of amazing cock-ups in front of him. He's disgustingly lucky. If the FIA then go on to hand him a victory, well, there won't be any point in calling it a sport any more. They might as well hand over the future USF1 team to Vince McMahon.

Luckily enough, Richard Branson and his wallet on the side of Brawn make it almost certain that this time Bernie Ecclestone will lobby in favor of Brawn almost as strongly as he lobbied for the McLaren drivers in the espionage scandal. As Bernie is apparently the one who really calls the shots, as seen then and plenty of other times, Brawn will probably keep their results.

As a side note, our completely unbiased Finnish announcer (hiccup) gushed about how fantastically brilliant it was that golden boy managed to finish fourth even though he started in 18th place. Of course, he barely acknowledged that Jarno Trulli drove to the podium after starting in the pit lane.

In the end, being sold an athlete, or for that matter any product, as hard as a certain British driver has been sold to us, is in the end like force-feeding: it just makes you want to vomit. The way the FIA is taking every opportunity to favor Hamilton over the other drivers is making a mockery of the whole series.

**

When they go back and change the results afterhand like this, in a way it feels like the whole race was for nothing, especially with the top two finishers facing the appeals court a week from now. They simply need to stop this garbage. I can't believe they let a guy go up on the podium to celebrate his third-place finish and then reverse the results a couple of hours later. It's beyond disgusting.

Imagine this happening in any other sport. Picture the NFL reversing the Super Bowl results after the trophy has been handed over. Imagine watching a hockey playoff game, only to be told later that the league has decided to reverse the result. What other sport does this? And how long does the FIA think they can keep changing the results to get the people they want on the podium?

Of course, last season they decided the world championship that way, so I guess there is no limit. It just makes it really hard to make any kind of emotional investment in F1 any more when you know that the order the drivers finish the race in is only half the story.

Your tax dollars at work

Sky News: Girl In Nude MySpace Pics Child Porn Arrest

A 14-year-old girl has been accused of child pornography for posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.

The charges could force the teenager from New Jersey, US, to register as a sex offender, if convicted.

Her arrest came as prosecutors across America pursue child pornography cases over kids sending naked photographs to one another by mobile phone and emails.

I'd like everyone to just re-read that last paragraph. There's your fight against child pornography in a nutshell. In Germany, it's raiding a man's house for the crime of hosting a domain name redirect to Wikileaks, in Finland it's censoring websites that criticize the police, and in the U.S. of A. it's suing teenagers who take pictures of themselves for producing child pornography.

Meanwhile, the law enforcement community is doing practically nothing about people who abuse children to make and distribute hardcore child pornography for money. For instance, the Finnish police only blocks actual child porn sites and doesn't even bother to inform the countries they're hosted in, but starts massive legal proceedings against a man who criticises them on the Internet.

Welcome to the world.

Halla-aho charged with agitation and blasphemy

No sooner do I say I'm sick of it than the "race doctor" himself is back in the news.

YLE: Halla-aho saa syytteen nettikirjoituksistaan

Helsingin kaupunginvaltuutettu Jussi Halla-aho (ps.) saa syytteen blogikirjoituksistaan. Syytteen nostamisesta päätti apulaisvaltakunnansyyttäjä Jorma Kalske.

Jussi Halla-ahon katsottiin syyllistyneen uskonrauhan rikkomiseen ja kiihottamiseen kansanryhmää vastaan.

Halla-ahon katsottiin laatineen kesällä 2008 nettiin kirjoituksen, jossa islam ja sen pyhät instituutiot yhdistettiin pedofiliaan. Nettikirjoituksessa esitettiin myös, että ohikulkijoiden ryöstely ja verovaroilla loisiminen on erään kansanryhmän kansallinen tai geneettinen erityispiirre.

Syyte nostettiin Helsingin käräjäoikeudessa.

In brief, Finnish municipal politician, would-be MEP and political racist and islamophobe Jussi Halla-aho is being charged with ethnic agitation and blasphemy. The charges stem from blog posts he wrote in 2008 where he claimed Islam is a religion of institutionalized paedophilia and that laziness and welfare sponging are racial characteristics of the Somali people.

In a nutshell, that is why I oppose this kind of legistlation. If overt racism is criminalized people like Halla-aho won't speak their minds, because it's illegal. As I've said before, many of the things he's said make it clear that he's a racist and an islamophobe. Without free speech, he wouldn't say those things. And I believe he should have a right to say those things, even if I do find them personally distasteful.

Legally speaking, looking at the previous case of Mikko Ellilä and others, it seems certain Halla-aho will be found guilty and fined. The Finnish laws on ethnic agitation and "disturbing religious peace" (=blasphemy) make any speech that "insults" an ethnic group, people or religion a crime, and as Halla-aho has clearly done that, he'll probably be found guilty.

As I've said previously on this blog, I oppose Jussi Halla-aho and I oppose the ridiculous restrictions Finnish law places on the freedom of speech. So basically my stand on all this is that it sucks. I'm off to watch F1.

Environmental philosophy, part I: a guide

As I'm thoroughly sick of the topic of immigration and refugees, and the zombie infestation that comes with discussing them, it's time to move this blog onto its next theme. I thought I'd jot down some thoughts on environmentalism and environmental philosophy, to address a few things I have on my mind about them.

No sooner had I decided to get to writing my first post on the topic, than Something Awful posted the Guide to Environmentalism. So maybe we'll just start with that.

Big Brother is listening

BBC: Social network sites 'monitored'

Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government under proposals to make them keep details of users' contacts.

The Home Office said it was needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but said it would not keep the content of conversations.

It is part of a plan to store details of all phone calls, e-mails and websites visited on a central database.

Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposals a "snoopers' charter".

Tens of millions of people use sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to chat with friends, but ministers say they have no interest in the content of discussions - just who people have been talking to.

I should write a bingo card.

"monitored by government"
"terrorists"
"not keep content"
"central database"

It's time to say goodbye to the old Internet, and say hello to Big Brother.

Märklin

I'm a bit late on this one, but I missed it completely: German model train maker Märklin filed for bankruptcy last month.

This is something of a personal tragedy for me as a second-generation Märklin enthusiast. Luckily, the company hopes to stay afloat under German bankruptcy laws, and man, I hope they do. I was just starting my epic Z-scale collection...

Sisters of Mercy live

I finally saw the Sisters live at Nosturi last night. Here's my report:

Andrew Eldritch is Peter Garrett.

Christi Shake

It's time to get this blog back to what it's all about: hot chicks. This is Playboy's Miss May 2002, Christi Shake.

Cybercrime in the 21st century: linking

As related earlier, Finnish free speech activist Matti Nikki's charges were dropped on a technicality. However, the Finnish state prosecutor basically agreed with the police that posting a link to illegal material can be considered a crime. Now, as in so many other things on this front, Australia is following suit:

Sydney Morning Herald: Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

The article is worth reading. Here's a tidbit for those of you who don't believe the slippery slope argument:

The site has also published Thailand's internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

In fact, the recently leaked Australian blacklist includes "dentists, bus companies and a tour operator"(computerworld.com), not to mention perfectly legal online gambling site betfair.com.

In the spirit of cybercrime, I'd like to take this opportunity to share a forgotten literary masterpiece with you, courtesy of somethingawful.com: Bruce Gibson's Cracked Copy, a nail-biting account of life on the razor's edge in the apocalypse of a postmodern world.

Hot sticks

A couple of nights back, Alex Ovechkin scored the 50th goal of his season and celebrated by putting his stick on the ice and warming his hands to it, as if it were hot. You get it. I'd just like to repeat what the Hockey News' Ken Campbell said:

GOOD ON OVIE
Alex Ovechkin’s celebration after his 50th goal of the season was undoubtedly over the top and probably ill advised.

But it’s clear that, by doing it, Ovechkin made a bold statement that he couldn’t possibly care less what Canada’s National Windbag or anyone else thinks of the way he celebrates goals. And you’d have to think he’s not terribly concerned about said windbag’s prediction that “somebody will cut him in half.”

Cherry is really becoming a complete joke, if he isn't that already. Remember back when Kovalchuk owned Sidney Crosby, suckered him into taking a stupid penalty and then pointed at Crosby when he came out of the box after Kovalchuk scored on the power play? Cherry was irate and screamed his head off. According to Cherry, somebody oughta break his arm!

Funnily enough, nobody did. And nobody will now.

It's somehow revolting to me that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gives airtime to a racist bigot who openly calls for violence against foreign players who violate his "code". Luckily it doesn't seem to matter on the ice, though, as Cherry clearly inhabits some fantasyland of his own where players aren't allowed to celebrate goals unless they're Canadian.

It would be good to do some remembering, like Hockey News columnist Ryan Kennedy did:

Last night, Alex Ovechkin scored his 50th goal of the season, the third time he has reached that mark in his four NHL seasons. In a pre-planned celebration, he dropped his stick and held his hands over it as if it were too hot to touch. Awesome.

Now people are going to freak out about this – most of the Tampa Bay Lightning did, since they were the victims – but let’s not forget how stars used to celebrate big goals. From Theo Fleury’s playoff slide to Teemu Selanne’s duck hunt routine when he broke Mike Bossy’s rookie goals record in 1993. That flavor gave us the enduring images that are till shown on broadcasts to this day.

Hot dogging? Whatever. Ovechkin’s job is to score goals.

Exactly. Whatever. And what's more, in doing his job he gives us iconic moments we're going to remember for as long as we live. I love that guy.

F1 season!

The new F1 season is nearly upon us, and what with the new rules and everything, I should resume my F1 blogging.

f1.com: Driver with most race wins to become 2009 champion

Formula One racing’s governing body, the FIA, has approved a change to the points systems for this year’s drivers’ championship, which will see the title awarded to the driver with the most race wins. The rest of the standings, from second to last place, will be decided by the current points system.

Of course, the FIA may have decided on it, but this is Bernie Ecclestone's idea. In case everyone isn't aware, in the old days F1 gave the winner 10 points like now, with the second-place finisher getting 6, the third place 4 and so on. Bernie wanted this system changed some years back when one Michael Schumacher kept winning the championship. Bernie felt that a more equitable distribution of points would make for better competition. Now Bernie thinks rewarding winning more would make for better competition.

See how this works? I confidently predict that in about a year and a half, Bernie is going to say that the system of emphasizing wins isn't working, and we need to switch to a more equitable system.

The more I think about the new system, the more I disagree with it. Jarno Trulli and Rubens Barrichello were already pretty vocal in their displeasure, and I think they're right. I'd only like to add that the new system will, in all likelihood, have one large consequence which will probably lead to calls to scrap it within the next few seasons.

Prioritizing wins so heavily practically forces all teams to nominate a "number-one" driver. If a team gives both its drivers an equal chance to win, neither of them will win the world championship. Historically, any given F1 season usually has two teams vying for the championship. If, in this situation, one team concentrates on getting its #1 driver the greatest number of wins possible, and the other team lets its drivers split the wins, obviously the first team will win.

The most concrete result of this policy will be that Heikki Kovalainen will never win another Grand Prix as long as he drives for McLaren. Realistically speaking, he can only win if Hamilton crashes or has absolutely no chance of winning.

Overall I believe emphasizing wins will force all teams to strictly adhere to a number-one driver policy, which will lead to an explosion of team orders. It will simply become an accepted fact that one driver is always the number-one and one is always the number-two, and the number-two is not allowed to win if there is any way of getting number one the win.

Given that just a few years back F1 was all about getting rid of team orders, it seems damned odd to institute a policy that forces teams into them.

News roundup, week 12

It's heartening to see the Hitlerjugend can still have its voice heard in world affairs.

Guardian: Pope claims condoms could make African Aids crisis worse

The pontiff, speaking to journalists on his flight, said the condition was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".

(...)

Addressing bishops from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho who had travelled to the Vatican for papal audience, he said: "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids."

He also warned them that African life was under threat from a number of factors, including condoms.

"It is of great concern that the fabric of African life, its very source of hope and stability, is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraception mentality," he added.

More than two-thirds – 67% – of the global total of 32.9 million people with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Three-quarters of all Aids deaths in 2007 happened there.

According to the pope, condoms make AIDS worse. I have nothing to add.

**

In other stupidity news this week, the Finnish government is moving closer to implementing a windfall tax on hydroelectric and nuclear power in Finland. You see, emissions trading has driven the price of electricity generated by burning fossil fuels up, as it's supposed to. Because the majority of electricity is still produced by fossil fuels, this drives the price of all electricity up. In a situation like this, electricity generated by nuclear or hydroelectric power is obviously more profitable, as the electricity company can charge the same price for it, but not having to buy emission rights for it makes it more profitable.

This amounts to a net incentive for power companies to produce electricity in ways that don't release greenhouse gases. This, in fact, is the exact point of emission trading.

Now, however, the Finnish parliament is passing a "windfall tax" to tax precisely these profits. In other words, to remove the incentive created by emission trading.

Seriously, if someone understands this, can you please explain it to me? First we set up a multi-billion-euro system to create incentives to move away from fossil fuels. Then we implement a tax that reduces that incentive, effectively counteracting the previous system. The only things that have gone up are the price of electricity and the amount of bureaucracy.

Actually, that sounds like a pretty good summary of EU climate change policy in general.

Immigration criticism and rationality

On the topic of the current discussion in and around my blog on immigration, I want to take a moment to register my exasperation at one particular aspect of these debates.

As a rule, a political position does not follow logically from facts. If a certain statistic says something, for instance, we can all agree 100% on the existence of that statistic, but disagree on what the proper political response to it is. If, say, deaths from traffic accidents are rising, there are innumerable different policies people can advocate in response to it.

What truly exasperates me in any discussion one has in Finland about immigration and refugees is that almost invariably, the so-called "immigration-critical" people insist that only their point of view is rational. In this discussion as well, I have been criticized by several people for not being rational, not advancing rational arguments and adhering to a "faith", presumably because I don't agree with their "immigration-critical" policies. These are the same people who bemoan a lack of "rational" discussion on immigration.

Based on my experience, which is far greater than I'd like, the great majority of Finnish "immigration-critical" people only accept as rational those arguments that they agree with. If you disagree, you are immediately vilified as someone who "does not admit the truth", or accused of being a "multiculturalist" who has a religious belief in immigration and is impervious to logical arguments.

The fundamental precondition for any sensible discussion on politics has to be an acceptance that the person you are arguing against is also rational, and holds a rational point of view. Here on my blog and in response to Vera Izrailit's posts, I've been trying to frame a rational criticism of an immigration policy based solely on limiting refugee numbers. In response, I have been vilified as irrational, making no sense, and an intellectual whore, among other things.

This is not an isolated phenomenon; far from it. So far, every time I've been involved in some kind of discussion about immigration and refugees in Finland, people who disagree with me have been seemingly enraged by the fact that I don't accept that they're correct. Practically every discussion so far had led, in short order, to personal attacks and total dismissals of all of my arguments as either dishonest or willingly false.

The fact that these same people then complain about a lack of rational discussion is, quite simply, the height of hypocrisy. I would offer this as a general guideline:

If you really think that your personal opinion on a political question is the only rational one, and that everyone who disagrees with you must therefore be doing so for either dishonest or religious reasons, you are in need of psychiatric attention or a careful rethink of your philosophy. Or at the very least a tin foil hat.

To Vera Izrailit, part III

Vera's latest here.

Unfortunately this conversation is threatening to become disingenuous to the point of sophistry.

The subject under discussion, however, is the cost that the Finnish society pays for accepting refugees, and the feasibility of accepting them in large numbers. For the purpose of this discussion it makes no difference whatsoever whether they do it because they have a lot of young men, because they are of a lower socioeconomic class, or because of any other factor.

Unless, of course, you are intending to correct those factors. Are you?

Yes. That is the entire point of my objection. Did you miss it?

To sum up, there are problems with the integration of refugees into Finnish society. The way I see it, there are two possible approaches to resolving these problems:

1) stop or limit the immigration of refugees because they cause problems. Crudely speaking, blame the refugees and stop them from coming to Finland.

2) try to fix the political and socioeconomic causes of the problems. Crudely speaking, blame Finnish society and the state, and try to fix them.

I don't know when you missed that I've been constantly trying to argue for option 2, or if you're just trying to score rhetorical points.

In my opinion, the problems associated with refugees are not a "refugee problem" as such but one manifestation of wider problems in Finnish society and politics. Blaming refugees for their problems and seeking a solution in stopping more refugees from coming to Finland not only does nothing to fix existing problems but also makes refugees the scapegoats for much wider problems.

To speak in economic terms, the cost of refugees to society is purely a question of socioeconomic costs and benefits. Currently refugees have problems assimilating to society and becoming productive members, i.e. net benefits to the state as opposed to a cost. In my mind, the only sensible solution is to address the problems that give them difficulty in assimilating.

On the other hand, the "immigration-critical" reply is to treat all refugees irrevocably as "problems" whose impact must be minimized. At best, an "immigration-critical" proposal like your idea of quotas and expulsions can only limit existing problems; it does nothing to fix them. I can't agree with that kind of policy.

The new Star Trek movie

Eh. I won't be seeing it. First of all, I watched the trailer, and I'm totally underwhelmed. There's so many things even in that I could complain about, but I won't. Suffice to say I wonder who decided Jim Kirk looked like that guy from Twilight when he was a kid.

I read up on the movie on its Wikipedia page, and a quote from there fixed my opinion:

For Abrams, "The costumes were a microcosm of the entire project, which was how to take something that's kind of silly and make it feel real.

You're doing a movie based on Star Trek: The Original Series, and you think the original is "kind of silly"?

I'm not giving you money. No way in hell. That reminds me vividly of what Peter Jackson said about writing the scripts for the Lord of the Rings, but I was unable to find the exact quote. He said it's tough to do a script based on one of your favorite books, because then you realize there's a lot wrong with it and you have to fix those "mistakes".

I'm sure Abrams and his lot also "fixed" all the "silly" things about Star Trek. That's why I'm not interested.

To Vera Izrailit, part II

Vera's previous post here. This is a short answer only.

On the question of statistics, I'm not a social scientist, so I don't feel competent to comment on the statistics. The post I linked to and cited quoted sources on the adjustment of statistics to compensate for age groups and socioeconomic factors, and I'm not competent to critique those.

As for the socioeconomic factors - you are right, they do affect it. What difference does it make, though? Crime is still crime[.]

What difference does it make? All the difference in the world. It's totally dishonest to compare the entire Iraqi or Somali population to the entire Finnish population, when the Iraqi and Somali populations in Finland are made up of a totally different mix of social classes, ages and income classes than the Finnish population. I don't mean to be rude, but if you don't understand that, then I'm going to have a hard time believing you're qualified to be commenting in any way on statistics either.

In one sense, I'm presenting my argument badly, and I apologize for that. I want to point out a matter of principle here, and jumping from facts and statistics to principle like this is bad form. Nevertheless, the problem with arguing for accepting less refugees because previous refugees have committed crimes is, to me, totally unethical as it constitutes punishing future refugees for the crimes of other people.

I promise, as soon as Finland changes its policies in such a way that half of working-age refugees are self-supporting after 4 months of being here, I'll say "hurrah, let's get more refugees!" right here in this blog. In fact, if you can find any statistics of any refugee group doing so now, I can say "hurrah, let's get more of those!" now.

And this, really, to me is the core problem. If the problem is Finnish policies, not refugees, why on earth are you agitating against refugees, instead of for political change in Finland?

The War on Drugs

Just stop is already, says the Economist. Excellent article.

To Vera Izrailit

Vera dedicated an entire post to replying to my comment, so I'll extend her the same courtesy. The original post is here.

On to my reply.

First of all, I mistakenly assumed the number the Finnish immigration office gives on their page for admitted refugees is, in fact, the total number of refugees admitted to Finland. Apparently it isn't, so my bad.

It may not seem like a lot, but it's a lot for a country Finland's size. My "admitting everyone" in any case referred to a potential future situation where the number of applicants has risen sharply. Which is not all that potential anymore, now that their number has in fact risen sharply.

The number has risen sharply, but this is not indicative of a general trend. In fact, the number of refugee admissions provides an excellent example of how fundamentally dishonest people, like one J* H*-A* use statistics. Here, from the Finnish Immigration Service, are the numbers for refugee applications received per year in the 2000's.

2000: 3170

2001: 1651

2002: 3443

2003: 3221

2004: 3861

2005: 3574

2006: 2324

2007: 1505

2008: 4035

As you can see, 2007 was a record low in applications in the 2000's, while the 4035 applications of last year are only 200 more than in 2004. Looking at the numbers, there is so far no clear rising trend. So your potential future situation is a possible future situation.

Also, how is slightly less than 2000 refugee admissions in a year "a lot for a country like Finland"? That's, what, 0.0004 percent of our population of five million? Each year there are some 60 000 Finnish people born; admitting 2 000 refugees in addition to them doesn't exactly unbalance our population structure dramatically.

I don't see how this is a lot for Finland in any way.

I did not say "for a single crime", but "for a single serious violent crime". I was not suggesting that we deport people for shoplifting, chewing khat or even having a minor fight or cheating sossu out of a bit of money. Shit happens. When shit start happening to the extent of aggravated robbery with assault and battery, it's time to shovel it out. To me it's monstrous to let them stay.

To me it's totally monstrous to suggest that if a person makes one mistake, they're deported from Finland forever. It's the height of naïvete to assume, like you do, that a population can be divided into criminals and non-criminals, and we should expel all the criminals. If a policy like that had a positive effect on crime rates, there would be no crime in Britain because they expelled everyone who committe a "single serious violent crime" to Australia.

However, I feel the constitutional issue is more important, and you're actually quoting the wrong part of the Constitution:

Perusoikeudet
6 §
Yhdenvertaisuus

Ihmiset ovat yhdenvertaisia lain edessä.

I believe a case can certainly be made that revoking the refugee status of a person immediately on their commiting a crime and expelling them in addition to the regular punishment is treating them less than equally.

And yes, it doesn't say "citizens". Human rights in general apply to humans, not just humans who are citizens of your particular polity. There are very good reasons for this.

Foreigners are less equal. They can't vote, and they usually need residence permits to stay in Finland. Foreigners can be deported for a single crime, and sometimes are. A person who has come here to work is denied a residence permit renewal if he or she loses the job just before the renewal and doesn't immediately find a new one. People who come here to work don't get the same social security as Finns until they get a permanent residence permit, and if their contract is short enough, they don't get any social security at all. I am not even talking about the status of students.

Refugees, on the other hand, are holy cows who are sometimes impossible to deport even after a series of convictions for aggravated assaults, batteries and robberies.

This is a disingenuous argument, for a simple reason. The juridical difference between a refugee and a foreign national is very simple. Most foreign nationals can be deported to their country of citizenship, but refugees are considered to be fleeing from persecution by that country, which is why deporting them is an entirely different matter from deporting, say, a British national.

Equality before the law doesn't mean everyone who lives in the country has to be allowed to vote or to be paid Social Security, it means they have to be treated the same before a court. And if a Finnish citizen is sentenced to four months for robbery, but a Somali refugee is sentenced to four months plus deportation to a war zone for the same robbery, then they're rather obviously not being treated equally before the law.

"Finland is admitting less than one thousand asylum seekers per year, and this number is not going to change dramatically despite the fearmongering going on."

Would you like to define "dramatically", and the timescale?

I've done all this already in my Finnish blog, but for the purposes of this discussion, I don't see the massive flood of refugees that hatemongers like Halla-aho are predicting. The claim is theirs, and they have no evidence for it except saying so.

"But the idea that "something's gotta give" is just exaggerating the nature of the problem so much that it's hard to understand where you're coming from. I don't understand this Finnish "refugee hysteria" at all."

That's simple. First of all, people have noticed that the refugees are very much overrepresented in violent crime statistics and underrepresented in the employment statistics. Second, we have the unfortunate example of other European countries in front of our eyes. And third, the number of applicants is up.

This is a handy summary, so let's get to it.

First of all, I direct you to Heikki Kerkkänen's massive post on "immigration criticism".

Miksi Suomen maahanmuuttajaväestöstä väestöosuuteensa keskimääräistä isompi osa syyllistyy seksuaalirikollisuuteen?

Keskimääräistä isompi osuus seksuaalirikollisuudessa tiettyjen kansalaisuusryhmien kohdalla (joilla siis on muun kuin Suomen passi) on paitsi Iivarin (Stakes 2006) tutkimuksissa että Oikeuspoliittisen tutkimuslaitoksen tutkimuksissa esiin tullut fakta, jonka kieltäminen ainoastaan hankaloittaa sosiaalityön kehittämistä ja tärkeiden sukupuolijärjestelmää koskevien keskustelujen rakentavaa ja järkevää aloittamista. Se on liian tärkeä sosiaalipoliittinen kysymys jätettäväksi Halla-ahon tapaisten ksenofobisten diletanttien reposteltavaksi.

Ensin täytyy muistaa, ketkä rikoksiin erityisesti syyllistyvät: nuoret miehet. Lisäksi täytyy katsoa perinpohjaisesti kaikki taustamuuttujat. Oikeuspoliittisen tutkimuslaitoksen mukaan maahanmuuttajarikollisuutta on

"selitetty ensinnäkin maahanmuuttaja- ja kantaväestön sosiaalisen aseman, ikä- ja sukupuolirakenteen ja muiden kriminologisten taustamuuttujien eroilla. Lisäksi maahanmuuttajien on todettu kohtaavan syrjintää taustansa vuoksi esimerkiksi työmarkkinoilla ja yleensä arkielämässään. (Esim. Diesen 2005, 256–257.) Sen vuoksi tilastollisessa tarkastelussa olisi tärkeää vakioida sosioekonominen asema, perhesuhteet, ammattiasema, koulutus ja muut heidän sosiaalista ja taloudellista asemaansa kuvaavat tekijät (Iivari 2006, 36–
37; vakiointiyrityksistä esimerkiksi Ahlberg 1996, 45)." (Niemi, Honkatukia&Lehti 2008, 274)

Ilman vakiointeja selittävät muuttujat menisivät persiilleen kuin perussuomalainen "maahanmuuttokritiikki", koska esimerkiksi väestöryhmien ikärakenne on Tilastokeskuksen mukaan alla olevan näköinen:

Vakiointien jälkeen maahanmuuttajaväestön rikollisuus on Stakesin erikoistutkija Juhani Iivarin "Tuomittu maahanmuuttaja"(Stakes 2006)- teoksen mukaan 1,5- kertaista valtaväestöön nähden.

(...)

Väitän, että vakiointien jälkeinen rikollisuuden 1,5-kertaisuus on selitettävissä niillä eri tavoilla, joista Mukhtar Abib on puhunut (kursivointi meikäläisen, tarkoitettu allekirjoittamaan niitä asioita jotka itse näen keskeisimpinä):

"Moni somali on samaan tapaan sosiaalisesti huono-osainen kuin suomalaisetkin rikoksiin syyllistyneet. Mutta lisäksi heitä rasittaa syrjintä. Moni lapsi ja nuori kokee ahdistavaksi sen, että koulussa kaverit eivät hyväksy ja oman paikan löytäminen on vaikeaa. Kun lapsi yrittää kertoa kotona vanhemmilleen, että koulussa on ongelmia, tukea ei juuri tarjoudu, jos isä ja äiti ovat kielitaidottomia ja sopeutuminen suomalaiseen yhteiskuntaan kesken.
Tämä synnyttää vihaa ja katkeruutta. Tarjolla ei ehkä ole muuta puolustuskeinoa kuin samastua niihin suomalaisiin tai muunmaalaisiin nuoriin, jotka tekevät rikoksia.” (Helsingin
Sanomat 22.1.2006).

En allekirjoita Helsingin kaupungin sosiaaliviraston nuorisoyksikössä työskentelevän Abibin hieman ärsyke-reaktio-tyylistä näkemystä täysin, mutten näe sitä myöskään vääränä. Se on hyvä Helsingin Sanomien lehtijuttuun tehty tiivistys poikkeavien alakulttuuristen ryhmien synnyn lähtösyistä.

He uses rape as his example, but the same basic logic applies to all violent crime statistics. When we adjust for overrepresentation in the age groups that commit the most crime, the per capita violent crime committed by refugees is not markedly larger than that of the general population. When we take into account socioeconomic factors, the difference is easily accounted for.

So basically, taking all factors into account, refugees do actually commit crimes at approximately the same frequency as the general population.

Secondly, the unfortunate example of other European countries is something we have to be aware of, sure. But despite what Halla-aho and his like are peddling, Finland is a long way from having ethnic ghettos like those of Paris. What we need to learn from the situation in other European countries is how to stop it from happening here. In my opinion this means a stronger policy of integrating refugees and other immigrants into society, not demonizing them as criminals and trying to erect barriers of entry to stop them from coming here.

Third, the number of applicants is up from last year's record low, yes; we did this already. We'll have to see what happens. But applications would have to increase massively before we can really

**

To finish with your last thoughts:

I really wouldn't worry about refugees if they found jobs fast and committed crimes with approximately the same frequency as Finns. This is, unfortunately, not the case.

To start with finding jobs, this is a problem with our integration policies, not with the refugees themselves. I direct you to Eero Iloniemi's column in Nykypäivä:

Yksi maahanmuuton epämiellyttävistä totuuksista on, että heikko sosiaaliturva nopeuttaa integroitumista. Kun maahanmuuttajalla ei ole turvaverkkoa, hän on pakotettu etsimään töitä ja sopeutumaan.
Yhdysvallat on tästä selkein esimerkki. Se on onnistunut integroimaan uudet tulokkaat paremmin kuin yksikään toinen teollisuusvaltio. Yhdysvaltojen kansallisen maahanmuuttofoorumin (National Immigration Forum) mukaan maahanmuuttajat työllistyvät jopa kantaväestöä paremmin. Vaikka vain 11,5 prosenttia maan väestöstä on maahanmuuttajia, heidän osuutensa työvoimasta on 12,4 prosenttia.
Läntisistä teollisuusmaista vain Yhdysvallat, Kanada ja Australia ovat onnistuneet muuttamaan maahanmuuttajat kulusta tuloksi. Yhdysvalloissa maahanmuuttajilta saatavat verotulot ovat yli kymmenen kertaa suuremmat kuin heidän aiheuttamansa sosiaalimenot. Suomessa tilanne on lähes päinvastainen.

It's clear, to me, that the problem is not with the refugees but with our social security policy. We need to reorient our social security to encourage people to work.

In short, the reason refugees aren't finding jobs fast enough is, in my opinion, social democracy, not the refugees themselves. And as for violent crime, as I said, taking all factors into account refugees commit violent crime at approximately the same frequency as the Finnish population.

So this is my point: you don't need to worry. This is not nearly as big a problem as people like Jussi Halla-aho and other propagandists would have you believe. Nothing is going to "give" any time soon.

This is not to say that there aren't problems with refugees and their integration into Finnish society; far from it. I don't see any reason why we can't go about solving these problems in a constructive way and continue to admit refugees and other immigrants to Finland and see them become a net benefit to society.

Georgia quits Eurovision Song Contest

Times: Georgia quits Eurovision Song Contest over lyrics mocking Putin

Georgia has pulled out of the Eurovision Song Contest after organisers banned it from entering an act that mocked Vladimir Putin.

It rejected an offer to revise the lyrics to We Don’t Wanna Put In, whose chorus played on the Russian Prime Minister’s surname, after the disco song was ruled to have broken Eurovision regulations against political statements.

The Georgians are idiots.

“It’s still not clear to us why Eurovision took this decision. We have not received a concrete explanation.”

If they're honest, there's something wrong with them. The Eurovision Song Contest rules specifically ban politics from the competition, and the Georgian song is obviously making a political point.

I agree with them; I don't wanna Putin either. But the Eurovision Song Contest is about bringing Europe, in a very broad sense, together over something we can share: music. I like to believe in the idea that we can forget about politics and everything that divides us for a couple of nights in May. That's why I think the Eurovision Song Contest is a great thing. And bringing your political grievances to it undermines the whole idea of the contest. I admit I'm not sure how I feel about allowing the Russians to host after they attacked Georgia, but the correct way to protest is to boycott, not to try to break the rules and then act outraged when you're called on it. Shame on you, Georgia.

**

While on the topic of current events and the Times, to repeat what's been said over and over again, here's an article on preventing school shootings. It's hard to put it better. Unfortunately, like I've said and documented, we continue to respond to these things by demonizing the perpetrators and looking for easy things to blame like guns or too little money for shrinks. Somehow we take it for granted that young men are being driven to murder innocents.

As long as we refuse to address the underlying problem, this will continue to happen. I'm just worried about how long it's going to take.

No charges against Matti Nikki

Tietokone.fi: Nikin sensuroidut sivut vapautettiin syytteistä

Matti Nikki, a Finnish Internet activist, had access to his website blocked last year by the Finnish police. (my original post on the topic is here) On the site, he criticized the Finnish police for their inefficient and unconstitutional anti-child pornography measures. In retaliation, the police added Nikki's site to their anti-child porn block list, and when he complained, they filed charges against him for distributing child pornography.

In my opinion, the charges were purely malicious, based on a technicality in Finnish law that leaves the "distribution of child pornography" so loosely defined that technically any ISP, or Google, could be found guilty.

Before you think this is a victory for free speech, the charges were also overturned on a technicality. In the decision, the Finnish state prosecutor decided to overturn the charges because it can't be conclusively proved that any of the sites Nikki linked to contained child pornography at the precise time he linked to them. Also, according to the Finnish police, the decision to not charge him will have no bearing on Nikki's site being censored.

The last part is self-evident, because the censorship is based on an extrajudicial, illegal decision by the Finnish police; it predates the criminal charges. Nikki's legal team is now trying to challenge the decision to censor his website.

In their decision, the state prosecutors upheld the interpretation that "constructing a link" (bizarrely "linkin rakentaminen" in the original Finnish) can constitute distributing child pornography, but simply posting a URL as text is not a crime.

Think about that for a moment. If you can click it, it's a crime. If you have to select it, copy it and paste it onto the address bar of your browser, then it isn't.

It should be noted that the legal basis for this interpretation is absolutely nothing. The law doesn't specify what constitutes distributing child pornography. The way I see it, if you get a Google result that gives you a link to a child porn website, they're guilty of distributing child pornography, if you can prove there was child porn on the website at the time it was linked to.

Also, the prosecutors' decision confirms my previous belief in the official definition of child pornography in Finland: anything an investigating officer looks at and believes to depict a minor. Apparently it doesn't matter if the website provides contact details and a custodian of records as required by US law; if a Finnish policeman thinks that girl looks under 18, it's child pornography, and possessing it is a crime under Finnish law.

Again, think about that for a minute. If the police think an explicit picture or video on your computer depicts a minor, you're guilty. They're not required to prove it, for instance. A majority of the censored porn sites on the Finnish block list are gay or "teen" porn, based in Western countries. Most of the US sites seem to be legal, and provide the address of their custodian of records, which would make it possible to find out if a given model on the site was a minor or not.

The Finnish police don't need to do that. They can just decide. And then you're guilty; no proof necessary.

Now, I seriously doubt they're going to start prosecuting people for having "teen" porn on their computers, but I'm just saying they could if they wanted to. And as for the status of Nikki's site and the block list, the first thing his legal team is trying to accomplish is to get the Finnish police to make an official decision to censor the site, so they can file a complaint. The censorship is totally extrajudicial so there isn't even any way to file a complaint.

This is interesting, though. I tried to find some clause in the Finnish constitution that would say that Finnish citizens are innocent until proven guilty, or that the police isn't allowed to take extrajudicial action to restrict the liberties of Finnish citizens. I couldn't find it.

Just as well, since nothing is stopping them now.

Piratism and theft

Courtesy of the Finnish Pirate Party.

News roundup, week 10

The US will collapse next year! No, seriously! A guy said so!

AP: Russian scholar says US will collapse - next year

Great stuff.

In related news:

The Superficial: Sarah Palin adds F-ck Me Boots to GOP arsenal

Mmm.

Also, check out the luckiest man in the world, or possibly Wolverine:

Mies selvisi junaan törmänneen rekan alta - katso hurja video!

Seriously. Do.

Also, the more conservative a U.S. state is, the more Internet porn they buy. No surprises there.

Trade deadline reactions

Just some quick notes before my upcoming root canal. (anything to keep my mind off it...)

The trade deadline!

Winners:

* Calgary. The biggest splash with Jokinen, who should fit in well. It'll probably do him a world of good to not have to be the go-to number-one guy; for my money, Jokinen always played his best hockey as Team Finland's number-two center.

* Toronto. Got rid of some players, got some picks. I have to say I thought Burke was crazy to think he could get a first round pick for Antropov, and he didn't.

Minor fail: Philadelphia. Getting Kyle McLaren just isn't going to fix their problems on F. The Scottie Upshall - Dan Carcillo trade is good for both sides, though; maybe on Gretzky's bench Upshall can start fulfilling some of the expectations people had for him when he was drafted, and Carcillo should fit right in in Philly.
Also, Montréal. Right now, I don't believe the team is good enough. They'll make the playoffs, but not much further. Pittsburgh also didn't address their lack of defense.

Fail: Washington. The Caps did nothing at all, despite the last few games showing up the glaring deficiencies of their defensive play. They won't make a deep run; the finals are out of the question. I'm hugely disappointed. Of course, it's likely they couldn't do anything because of their cap trouble, but still.

EPIC FAIL: NY Islanders. All you could get for Bill Guerin was a conditional, at best third-round, pick?!? Boston gave up a second-rounder and two good prospects for Mark Recchi, and all you got was this? Given the low expected value of fourth and fifth-round picks, they gave up Guerin for practically nothing.

**

Based on this, I have these playoff predictions to make:

Eastern Conference final: New Jersey - Boston

Western Conference semi-finals: San Jose, Detroit, Calgary, Vancouver

I'll consider it a major upset if either New Jersey or Boston doesn't make the Stanley Cup final. The one thing that could knock Detroit out is their goaltending, in case Osgood doesn't make a recovery, but I think he will.

NHL trade deadline: the Flyers

At tsn.ca, Bob Mckenzie reports:

FLYERS STEPPING UP EFFORTS FOR BOUWMEESTER

(1:30pm et) - The Philadelphia Flyers are stepping up their efforts to acquire defenceman Jay Bouwmeester from the Florida Panthers, but salary cap constraints are rearing their ugly head.

The Flyers are bumping up against the cap and they are working hard to try to free up some space.

Sources say one of the options is trading goaltender Marty Biron and turning the number one job over to Antero Niittymaki.

If the Flyers could swing this, it would be epic. Their defense badly needs a reliable D-man, and Bouwmeester would be perfect. The Flyers are in a lot of cap trouble, but if they can clear out Biron's salary they should be able to keep Bouwmeester. He does want to play with a contender, and the Flyers are set to be one for a few years.

This season, Niittymäki has been better than Biron. He has a better save percentage, goals-against average and winning percentage. Last year, Biron was (mostly) great in the playoffs; on the other hand, Niittymäki is the reigning Olympic MVP. There's no doubt in my mind he can take the starting job and run with it. As I've said earlier, Philadelphia's problem isn't goaltending, it's team defence. Bouwmeester should be a considerable help with that.

If the Flyers offered up James van Riemsdyk and other assets for Bouwmeester and managed to move Biron to clear up space, they just might pull off a historic deal; one that would set them up not only for this year's playoffs but potentially several years ahead as well.

Some Ayn Rand for today

Johan Norberg noted the Atlas Shrugged index; sales of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged go up as the government intervenes in the economy.

As it happens, I'm currently reading The Fountainhead, and it's easy to see why this might happen. Here's a thought for the next four years. I won't insult you by pointing out its applicability.

The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice - run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters.

Ayn Rand:The Fountainhead (Signet Centennial Edition), p. 637