A scoop to be kept out of daylight

The arctic sea ice extent was 10.422 million square kilometers in November 23rd, 2018. This information probably does not open to my reader, and therefore I decided to present the following table. There I have collected the extents of the arctic ice in November 23rds during the last ten years. 

2018 10.422 million km²

2017  9.826  million km²

2016  8.845  million km²

2015 10.021 million km²

2014 10.396 million km²

2013 10.314 million km²

2012  9.950 million km²

2011 10.207 million km²

2010   9.923 million km²

2009 10.247 million km²

The important point - which might even be considered a scoop in the light of recent media information about the climatic change - is that six days ago the extent of the arctic ice was the largest (of date) during the last ten years (right now it is the second largest after year 2014). 

The table above tells us - at least - that the melting rate of the arctic ice is not especially rapid. It should, however, be noted that the extent was biggest in early dates of the statistics: 11.897 million km² in both years 1983 and 1992, and the extent was 10,700 million km² in year 2008 when it was for the last time larger than this year.

It remains to be seen if Jari Haapala, Research Professor of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, was right couple of years ago, when he predicted that it will take only few years before we can sail to arctic pole through an open sea and that the arctic sea ice will completely melt away during the 2030´s or 2040´s. That is, during the next 12 or 22 years.

Therefore it is also good to take a look on the extent of the arctic sea ice, when it was smallest in this year: 4.594 million km². Also this figure needs a comparison table, before it can be interpreted.

2018 4.594 million km²

2017 4.665 million km²

2016 4.165 million km²

2015 4.433 million km²

2014 5.029 million km²

2013 5.054 million km²

2012 3.387 million km²

2011 4.344 million km²

2010 4.615 million km²

2009 5.119 million km²

As can be seen from the table, this year is in position six in this statistics. The extent of the arctic sea ice was smallest in year 2012 and largest in the first year of the table. Therefore we can conclude that Research Professor Haapala´s view about the ongoing rapid melting of the arctic sea ice is not supported by this table. Or more exactly: this table does not show any trend. 

Despite the two tables above, I have no idea whether the arctic sea ice is melting or not in a long run. And certainly I do not want to guess whether we are in the middle of climate warming caused by human actions. 

Instead, I am willing to bring this piece of information about the extend of the arctic sea ice to public discussion, because I suspect that it will not be reported by main media and will therefore not reach the ordinary people in Finland and elsewhere.

I wrote this article in Finnish six days ago, but there has been no news about the extent of the arctic sea ice. The reasons may be imagined, but I am not willing to open my own thoughts. Instead, I want to point out that the instructions of Finnish journalists say the following. "A journalist has a responsibility towards her readers, listeners and watchers: they do have a right to know, what is happening in the society."

The original thought in Finnish:
Skuuppi, joka jäänee mediapimentoon

Lessons from Italian politics

After the last elections of parliament has Italy obtained a so called populist government led by PM Giuseppe Conte. Looking from here in Finland, that seems to have two consequences.

The first one - and highly appreciated here under the North star - is the reduction of people´s migration over the Mediterranean sea. And the second one - largely irritating Finns - is the loose budget policy of PM Conte, criticized even by the EU leaders and possibly leading to the flow of Finnish taxpayers money to operations intended to save Italian banking system.

In practice, the Italian government is pumping borrowed money into the Italian economy with two wishes. The first one is to keep people in a good mood - in other words keeping their voters happy with the government for at least few years to stay in power. The second one is to use borrowed money for pushing the Italian economy towards growth after many years of cessation. My hope is, that the second aim would be successful - simply because the alternative would be a serious pan-European economic crisis.

A simple analysis of Italian development says that the massive flow of people from developing countries led to a dissatisfaction of Italian citizens, which led them to vote so called populists to political leadership and therefore to form a regime behaving fully irresponsibly in its economic policy.  Or finding a solution to Italian stagnation - although no one considers it possible.

A simple lesson to be learned from Italian development is that any wise government - including the political leaders of the EU - should carefully listen to peoples expectations and views. That was not done by the previous Italian government nor by the PM Juha Sipilä´s regime in Finland, and neither have most of the regimes in our continent understood the importance of refraining from irritating voters. I mean: most regimes in EU have not been blessed with clear understanding of their duty as political leaders in a democracy to serve their citizens instead of a crowd of third world people seeking for a better standard of living in Europe. 

It remains to be seen what happens in Finland in the next elections of the parliament in April 2019. It is, however, clear that a fall of Italian economy to the arms of the EU as well as a new acceleration of migration from developing countries might have unpredictable consequences.

Because there is nothing unclear in this issue, it is surprising how sloppy the immigration policy of PM Sipilä´s government has been. That is because a new wave of humanitarian immigration would result in a colossal price to be paid by both the regime and people of Finland. The latter consequence could, of course, be fixed or worsened - depending on the people´s votes - in the next elections four year ahead.

Thus, the situation in Finland is right now in many ways similar to that in Italy. The difference, however, is that the Finnish party most probably collecting votes from failed immigration, the True Finns, has not shown any signs of irresponsible economic policy like the regime of Italy. Actually, their message has rather been vice versa.

Very interestingly: we learned today that Hillary Clinton of USA advised us Europeans to avoid further humanitarian immigration, because that irrigates people and might therefore favor populist politicians. I think we should listen her advise this time, although there are plenty of things I disagree with the former first lady of her country. 

The original professor´s thought in Finnish:
Italian talous- ja muut opit

Rape statistics in Finland and Sweden are breaking prejudices

In Finland only one out of four sex crimes are reported to the police, and it is highly probable that  the announced cases are preferentially made by unknown people or are more serious than the ones quietened. Therefore true rapes are taken to investigations more often than other cases of sexual assaults. And rapes made in streets by strangers even more often.

Although rapes are serious crimes, every second victim of sexual assaults considers them private. This holds especially among young people, who are not informed about their rights and who do not fully understand the difference between legal sexual intercourse and harassment. 

A serious lack of knowledge is probably common also in many immigrant groups. There sex crimes withing families made by husbands are only extremely rarely reported to officials, whereas sex crimes towards unknown victims may be practically always announced. 

Despite above, the situation in Finland is considerably better than in Sweden. There only 5-10% (i.e. less than half of the figure in Finland) of sexual crimes are reported to police. Despite that, Sweden has one of the highest official rape records in the globe, only South Africa being clearly ahead. 

It is often incorrectly claimed that the high rating of sex crime statistics in Sweden would be due to high and ever increasing frequency of reporting. Instead, it is getting more and more clear that both the shocking statistics and peoples reluctance to report on sex crimes are due to the growth of certain immigration groups.

Also in Finland both the number of immigrants and sex crime are increasing. In year 2014 police was informed of more than 1000 rapes whereas ten years before the number was on average "only" 800. In 2017 the number was already 1272.

According to a report by the Finnish Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, 23% of solved cases of rape were conducted by a foreigner in 2013. Considering the share of foreigners at the same time - 3,8% - the causality between immigration and rapes becomes evident.

This causality described above combined with the share of immigrants in Sweden as an order of higher than in Finland explains why the country is one of the leading raping centers of the world.

The lower reporting frequency of rapes in Sweden has also another conclusion. By combining that information to an order-of-magnitude higher share of immigrants in Sweden logically confirms that sex crimes among them are only rarely reported to officials. In other words, it falsifies the frequent claim that assaults made by immigrants would be reported more often that those by the original population - it is vice versa. The explanation lies in the immigrants patriarchal culture, where a rape by a husband is probably not even considered as a crime, no matter how much it hurts the victim.

The original story in Finnish:
Suomen ja Ruotsin raiskaustilastot rikkovat ennakkoluuloja

When will they ever learn?

One again a young Finnish woman had to pay for her naivety. That is because she started a relationship with a man named Abdullatif in internet, and thereafter became cruelly raped by several humanitarian immigrants.

The first question arising is that when will young western women - and their parents - learn - and warn - about abdullatifs. Or will they ever learn?

The second question to be considered is when our decision makers will understand the connection between immigration policy and sexual crime. Namely, the high raping risk associated with immigrants, demonstrated by Abdullatif with his colleagues and supported by statistics. And ruining the lives of young western women. Will the ever learn?

And not two without a third. When do voters in western countries understand that the actions of abdullatifs in democratic countries is possible only if parliaments are filled with politicians who have no understanding on the share of criminals like Abdullatif among asylum seekers. I wonder if they ever learn.

The original story in Finnish:
Abdullatifin opetukset

An ignorant mediahouse failed again in historical facts

World War I ended exactly  a century ago. The war was started by Germany, and it resulted in a collapse of European emperors of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary and freedom of many nations previously governed by them.

The world entered in a new time, dominated by competition between western democracies and versions of socialism, both national and international. That time ended only in 1991 and thereafter, when Soviet Union and its socialistic satellite governments in East Europe collapsed.

During that time the world had to face the World War II, seeded in the Treaty of Versailles, the peace agreement, by stringently sanctioning Germany. But not so stringently, that it could not have recovered to challenge the world after 20 years, and lose again with even more stringent peace agreement.

This all was celebrated by the main Newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, which published an article with a picture on border changes in Europe between 1914-1919. Surprisingly, in those pictures Finland was drawn as independent of Russia already in 1914, although we received our independence only in 1917.

It is not long since I was amazed on the ignorance of the same media house on the number of Stalin´ s victims. In spite of that I would not have imagined that any journalist in this country might have been so unaware of his own history, that such a mistake could have happened even accidentally.

Under the map published was a text "Jukka Himanen/HS". That is the name of the artist and the acronym of the journal. Right now I cannot resist recommending to him and other employees of the newspaper a short history course.

That might help in avoiding such embarrassing mistakes as the one today. And perhaps the general level of Finnish journalism would increase, as the articles which I had interpreted to be agenda journalism may actually have been based only on pure ignorance and lack of civilization.

PS (10:18 CET): very interestingly the picture with the false information has now been removed from the newspaper netpage.

The original story in Finnish:
HS: Suomi oli itsenäinen jo vuonna 1914

Vikings and the technological cutting edge

A recent study showed that about thousand years ago Vikings based their success in trade, crime, expedition and warship on a technical revolution allowing mass production of tar. The result should not have been a surprise as the use of wooden ships without a protectant against decay was not  - and neither is today - possible.

It should be noticed that the study demonstrated once more that big changes in the history of mankind have always derived from technological innovations. It was already so when agriculture was invented in Middle East, which fed an unforeseen population growth and resulted in migration of people to Europe, where previous hunter-gatherers were either displaced or assimilated to the new tribes.

Technological revolution was also the cause of development of towns and cities via industrialization and replacement of agriculture from its position as the heart of the society. Thereafter the economic and military power has been in the hands of those nations, which have had the most educated and skillful people. Thus, it should today be understood that the welfare depends essentially on the ability of people to gain education and technological skills.

I also noticed an opinion article, where a researcher working with loose money claimed on her poor and insecure position in the society, and threatened her readers with the aim to leave research by moving to other working environment. Considering this threat, the society should rather celebrate than be sorry, as the aim of researcher education is not only to raise people for universities,  but also to provide first class workforce to private sector. 

Therefore I am encouraging the person to make her first step as a top expert towards her new career; and to proudly show this in her application process for the new position. This opinion is based on the fact, that scientific education is essentially designed to make people more objective: to be able to see a difference between the facts and their hopes or ideologies. If and when this has been successful, these people can offer things, that are rarely available. And that should be useful in all fields of the labor market. 

Therefore also the private sector should take advantage of people with scientific education. By doing so, they would gain an edge ahead their most serious competitors in local and global scale. That should be understood by all company directors from high tech enterprises to those making business on marketing or human resources. 

Aiempia ajatuksia samasta aihepiiristä:
Viikinkien retket perustuivat teknis-taloudelliseen vallankumoukseen

Why a journalist was unaware on the number of Stalin´s victims?

The main newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, published a correction by telling  that "in Tuesday, October 30 on page A24,  it was claimed that ca. one million people died during Stalin´s progroms in 1930´s. This number refers to those executed. The total number of dead people due to Stalings pogroms was tens of millions."

To me it was extremely surprising that a journalist of the main newspaper in the country had made such a mistake. This is because one might have imagined that Stalin´s achievements are generally known here in Russia´s neighborhood - or at least their order of magnitude.

I wrote this short note, because I suspect that the mistake was not made by chance, but due to the willingness of our media to hide the magnitude of destruction and human suffering due to the big socialist experiment during the last century. This becomes understandable by thinking, whether such an order-of-magnitude mistake could even be imagined to be made in the number of Jewish victims of the Hitler´s regime.

Therefore I consider it possible, that it is exactly this reason - hiding the bloody footsteps of sosialism - why we have not demonized the use of hammer and sickle in clothes or demonstrations in a similar way as the use of swastika. And noticeably, we have even in our parliament a political party that cherishes the legacy of this ideology.

The original story in Finnish:
Miksei toimittaja tiennyt Stalinin kymmenien miljoonien uhrien määrää?