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Source: (consider it) Thread: Smartarse but More Besides
Ariel
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# 58

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quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Reading the article, they've gotten a HUGE influx of refugees this year. Recently, they've gotten 500 people a *day* at just one border crossing with Sweden.

They've got off lightly compared to other parts of Europe. Greece is getting about 5000 a day. I don't know whether that sort of info is percolating through into the US news.
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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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And, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan (all countries much less able to take in refugees than Finland) have received far more refugees.

--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be dismissive of what other countries are going through.

I've heard the news and the numbers. But I can only handle so much of that. At this point, I've got a note on a mental 3" x 5" index card. And it says something like, "war=bad; Syrian refugees leaving in droves; receiving countries overwhelmed; many people are trying to do the right thing for the refugees, if they can figure out what that is".

I think the Finnish 500/day (Iraqis, IIRC) at one border crossing was a number I could process. And I've never lived near a border, so that seems like a huge number of people.

--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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The current wave of refugees are from Syria, not Iraq.

That's Syria, the country we're (or our governments who supposedly act on our behalf) are dropping bombs on. Iraq was the country we were dropping bombs on a couple of years ago. There are also lots of refugees from Libya, where we were also dropping bombs recently.

Anyone else seeing a pattern?

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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Well, per the article to which Leaf linked, and which I was discussing:

quote:
So far this year more than 13,000 asylum seekers, most of them from Iraq, have come to Finland, compared to just 3,600 in the whole of last year.

In recent days, about 500 refugees per day have crossed the Finnish land border in Tornio, near the Arctic Circle, after a long journey through Sweden.

(Italics mine.)

--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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For background info:

"Demographics of Finland" (Wikpedia). Start with "Ethnic minorities and languages" section. Finland has more groups of minorities than I expected--but they're mostly *very* small groups.

--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Well, per the article to which Leaf linked, and which I was discussing:

quote:
So far this year more than 13,000 asylum seekers, most of them from Iraq, have come to Finland, compared to just 3,600 in the whole of last year.

In recent days, about 500 refugees per day have crossed the Finnish land border in Tornio, near the Arctic Circle, after a long journey through Sweden.

(Italics mine.)
Yes, the previous influx of refugees included a lot of people from Iraq. The 500 stoned by the inhospitable bastards would almost certainly be Syrian.

--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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Just for the record:

Surfing around last night, I found two articles:

"In Finland, a man dressed up like the KKK to protest refugees" (Washington Post). It's about the bus stoning and protest.

It's rooted in
"Ku Klux Klan-clad protester in Lahti anti-asylum seeker demonstration" (Yle Finnish state broadcaster, but in *English!)

The YLE article says, and the WP reiterates:
quote:
The bus contained some 49 people, the majority of whom were fleeing violence in Iraq. The group also included small children, as well as infants in arms, according to Yle’s reporter on the scene, Kirsti Pohjaväre.
{Italics mine.)

Oh, and while waiting to stone the bus, the protesters had nothing better to do than stone the *Red Cross workers*!

BTW, the Yle article is very good, and gets into some context, like:
quote:
All of the reception centres are being placed in communities where there haven’t been many people with foreign backgrounds.


--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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OK, well I stand corrected. As though it makes any difference whether people are fleeing Iraq or Syria (or anywhere else where they're in real danger from bombs, shells, bullets, tyrannical government or criminal thugs pretending to be a government). Having their bus pelted with stones in a supposedly safe and civilised country is just not on.

And, 500 people seeking entry to Finland per day is a mere trickle. To consider that to be an excessive number of refugees for the country is absurd.

--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Ariel
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# 58

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, well I stand corrected. As though it makes any difference whether people are fleeing Iraq or Syria (or anywhere else where they're in real danger from bombs, shells, bullets, tyrannical government or criminal thugs pretending to be a government). Having their bus pelted with stones in a supposedly safe and civilised country is just not on.

If they're genuine refugees, no it isn't. Though unfortunately it seems about a third of claimants generally are posing as Syrian when they are not.

quote:
And, 500 people seeking entry to Finland per day is a mere trickle. To consider that to be an excessive number of refugees for the country is absurd.
True, but apparently they think Finland is boring.
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Lyda*Rose

Ship's broken porthole
# 4544

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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, well I stand corrected. As though it makes any difference whether people are fleeing Iraq or Syria (or anywhere else where they're in real danger from bombs, shells, bullets, tyrannical government or criminal thugs pretending to be a government). Having their bus pelted with stones in a supposedly safe and civilised country is just not on.

If they're genuine refugees, no it isn't. Though unfortunately it seems about a third of claimants generally are posing as Syrian when they are not.

quote:
And, 500 people seeking entry to Finland per day is a mere trickle. To consider that to be an excessive number of refugees for the country is absurd.
True, but apparently they think Finland is boring.

So if they aren't real refugees, having their bus pelted with stones is on? Just asking.

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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano

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Ariel
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# 58

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quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
So if they aren't real refugees, having their bus pelted with stones is on? Just asking.

Yeah, I realized how that would read after I posted it, but too late to change it now.

Personally I don't agree with throwing stones at a busful of fake refugees, or anyone else for that matter, but it can be hard to have sympathy for people who have been discovered to be posing as Syrian refugees with forged passports and who haven't actually escaped danger, just fancied a change. Some of the genuine Syrian refugees are getting annoyed with people who obviously aren't from the towns they claim to be from and speak Arabic with non-Syrian accents. How widespread this is, nobody is quite sure, though German officials estimate about one in three Syrian migrants isn't Syrian.

No excuse for the Finnish hooligans, anyhow.

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lilBuddha
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# 14333

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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
.
No excuse for the Finnish hooligans, anyhow.

And isn't this the whole point?
You think those bastards, and all the whingers protesting, really care about where the refugees are from?

--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Ariel
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# 58

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Of course not. That was my point.
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Gamaliel
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# 812

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Perhaps Ad Orientem has absconded and is now a refugee from the Ship?

Wherever he's gone, it won't be Ad Occidentum that's for sure ...

Ad Accident Waiting To Happen-dem ...

I'll get me coat ...

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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Oh, please don't apologize. This is the first time in a long time you posted something I enjoyed reading. [Big Grin]

( Welcome to Hell, folks. Please tip your server.)

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Albertus
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# 13356

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan (all countries much less able to take in refugees than Finland) have received far more refugees.

Of course they have. It is reasonable that people should seek asylum in the first safe place. There migth be- there certainly is- a case for some kind of organised dispersal scheme after that so that all the responsibility doesn't fall on near neighbours, but really it's hard to see how anybody who arrives in Finland is strictly speaking a refugee any more, unless they have claimed asylum elsewhere and then been dispersed to Finland by international agreement.

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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
really it's hard to see how anybody who arrives in Finland is strictly speaking a refugee any more, unless they have claimed asylum elsewhere and then been dispersed to Finland by international agreement.

A refugee is someone who has fled their home seeking refuge somewhere safe. Does that change if they travel further than absolutely necessary? Especially if they pass through other places where they are not welcomed and do not feel safe?

I would suspect that if the refugees are arriving in coaches that someone had organised that trip, and therefore they were being dispersed within Europe by international agreement. Whether the 500 per day arriving at other borders were in coaches or making their own way I can't comment on.

--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, well I stand corrected. As though it makes any difference whether people are fleeing Iraq or Syria (or anywhere else where they're in real danger from bombs, shells, bullets, tyrannical government or criminal thugs pretending to be a government). Having their bus pelted with stones in a supposedly safe and civilised country is just not on.

And, 500 people seeking entry to Finland per day is a mere trickle. To consider that to be an excessive number of refugees for the country is absurd.

Again, that was 500 per day at *one border crossing*, not for the whole country.

But no, no one should be treated like that, ever. And people from one place aren't more or less valuable than those from another place. I wasn't trying to make a point--just trying to understand and responding to the article that someone else provided.

[Angel]

--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
Albertus
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# 13356

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
really it's hard to see how anybody who arrives in Finland is strictly speaking a refugee any more, unless they have claimed asylum elsewhere and then been dispersed to Finland by international agreement.

A refugee is someone who has fled their home seeking refuge somewhere safe. Does that change if they travel further than absolutely necessary? Especially if they pass through other places where they are not welcomed and do not feel safe?

I would suspect that if the refugees are arriving in coaches that someone had organised that trip, and therefore they were being dispersed within Europe by international agreement. Whether the 500 per day arriving at other borders were in coaches or making their own way I can't comment on.

In a sense it doesn't change. In another sense, it does. I suppose one determining factor is the lenght of time that you spend in the countries you're passing through. I'd agree that if people are arriving in coaches that's probably being done in some kind of properly organised way, which is fine.

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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.

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