The star of north ⭐

Suomesta tulee huomenna ainoa maareitti EU:n alueelle. Tämä on niin hävettävää.

The Evermore Grimoire: Mythology

The Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, made a visit to Ukraine today and met with President Zelenskyy as well as several other government officials. 

Our minister of the exterior signed the letter with a fancy, gold-coloured ballpoint pen, which was offered to him by a journalist (from a tabloid, i must add), because it looked nicer than the Ministry-branded plastic pen he was going to use

Finland and Sweden will both very likely submit their Nato applications within a few days, probably at the same time. The progress of this process has been so fast that it has taken Russia by surprise and it hasn’t really executed large disinformation campaign related to this so far, but that is probably in front of us. Here in Finland and Sweden Russia’s actions may appear at least as airspace violations, DoS attacks and vague threats, but that’s just business as usual. Our governments have prepared pretty much for every imaginable more serious cyber and hybrid threat but it’s also possible that nothing much happens and Russia will treat this just as an annoying loss when it has its hands full elsewhere. I’m more concerned about what Kremlin disinformation will look like in other countries especially when many people don’t know a lot about nordic countries and can be prone to believe misinformation about us. Finland is especially going to be a target of this because it shares a long border with Russia and was a part of Russian Empire before its independence, so Russia will take it’s joining Nato more personally, so to speak. Some things that you may see:

1. Both real and staged footage of Russia moving military equipment to Finland’s border. This has actually already happened back in April and some trash magazines like Dailymail jumped in without fact checking, and it will happen again many times over the next months. It’s very unlikely that Russia would invade Finland, but it wants to give an impression that it could. They’re already badly struggling in Ukraine and they simply don’t have resources for starting a new war. Putin also knows that Finland being an EU country and soon to be a Nato country other countries would be more likely to come directly help it, plus UK’s Boris Johnson just signed a security agreement with Sweden and Finland and even though it’s not legally binding it’s also not nothing. Russia however feels it must increase its military presence on Finland’s border and Baltic Sea to save a face but it’s just empty posturing and meant to cause anxiety. Remember that IF Russia would attack Finland or any other country against all logic you would learn it very quickly from the news and not from some vague twitter video.

2. Labeling finns and swedes and their governments as nazis. Russia is obsessed with nazism and fascism because defeating them in ww2 is the core part of their historical narrative. Those words have even stronger negative ring in Russia than they do in the west. “Fascist” and “nazi” can mean almost anything Russia’s government wants but often they simply mean “anti-russia”. And because being nazi is the worst evil they can imagine it means that anyone who opposes Russia is a nazi and thus pure evil. Nearly every country in the world has nazis/fascists but in Sweden and Finland they have been a fairly marginal and universally detested group that has no real power. Both countries currently have left-wing governments as well. In Russia the campaign to turn finnish and swedish people, who have in the past been generally positively viewed by russians, into nazis has already started. There’s an emerging narrative that Finland has a legacy of nazism because of it’s ww2 history. There has been propaganda posters in Moscow claiming that famous swedish people were nazi supporters. They range from an actual pro-fascist Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad to life-long anti-fascist Astrid Lindgren. The purpose is to convince russian people that Sweden and Finland are rotten with fascism to the core and thus dehumanize us in their minds.

Again, Russia is most likely not attacking either of them any way soon but the government wants to set up the narrative in case that it some day will, so that russian population would be more accepting of “denazifying operation”. This propaganda is mostly aimed at Russia’s own citizens but it may have an effect elsewhere too, like Russia has managed to convince some american people that Ukraine has somehow bigger nazi problem than other european countries (it doesn’t). I’ll also add that swastika is sometimes used in finnish decorations and flags such; like in many other cultures it’s an ancient symbol entirely unrelated to nazism and has been used in Finland since Iron Age. I assume we’ll be seeing those symbols used as a proof there are nazis in Finland’s leadership.

3. Claims that russian finns or other minorities are oppressed or even facing genocide. Self-victimizing narrative where the entire world is against Russia and everyone are russophobic is an essential part of Russia’s propaganda. All the criticism against Russia is dismissed as russophobia. Russia repeats the pattern where it aggressively targets other countries while insisting it’s “protecting” russian population in them. Finland has a russian speaking minority of around 70 000 people that Putin’s government intends to exploit. For example after Ukraine war started Russia’s embassy suddenly requested finnish russians to inform it of all the discrimination they’ve supposedly experienced. However most finnish russians are anti-Putin and fairly happy with their lives in Finland. Finnish and swedish people’s views of Russia as a state tend to be negative and for a good reason but they don’t usually have anything against average russians as long as they don’t support Russia’s government. Xenophobia and racism exist everywhere and being a romani i’ve faced racism in my home country but mostly in the form of individual people being prejudiced and generational poverty. Governmental violence or suppression aren’t a plausible risk here.

4. Slandering and spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the central finnish and swedish politicians. Many swedish and finnish politicians, especially the prime ministers, ministers of defence and ministers of foreign affairs are going to be a target of this. The type of propaganda varies by is the intended target audience right-wing and left-wing. Not all the criticism is dishonest of course but don’t believe everything you see. Typical example of propaganda targeted at right-wing conspiracy theorists:

5. Insisting that Finland and Sweden are not making their own political decisions and are under the control of USA. This is a very common Kremlin narrative about every country that acts against russian interests, that is also often peddled by its useful idiots in the West. It’s both totally false and incredibly offensive and condescending. When talking about Finland it’s particularly ridiculous because for its whole history Finland has almost single-mindedly focused on protecting its independece. Nothing is more important for finnish people than their autonomy and independence, it’s hard to overemphasize how seriously it’s taken here. No matter what you think about Nato and USA, they unlike Russia have always respected Finland’s sovereignty and have never tried to pressure us into anything over the years. President Niinistö actually implied Russia threatening Finland if it would join Nato solidified his decision, because it’s a sign Russia has no respect for Finland’s autonomy and a decision not to join wouldn’t be free. Nato membership also has a very high support in both Sweden and Finland, in Finland currently around 80% of people support it. For comparison 56% of finns supported EU membership back in the day. The reality is that we have an imperialist, expansionist neighbour that acts increasingly aggressively and unpredictably and we have no illusions about it. This decision has been entirely driven by common swedish and finnish people, if you dislike it blame us and don’t disrespect us by saying our will isn’t our own.

6. Claims that Nato/USA is going to bring nuclear weapons to Finland or Sweden. This is not going to happen. Neither Nato or Finland has any motive for it, and Finland‘s law also prohibits it. Most Nato countries don’t have nuclear weapons in them and they haven’t been placed in any of the newer member countries. From Nato’s perspective nuclear weapons close to Russia’s border wouldn’t give any advantage because its existing nukes are already close enough to Russia, it would only destabilize the border, and create a risk that IF Russia attacked Finland those weapons would end up Russia’s hands. It’s also not possible that Nato would place weapons or bases in member countries without their consent. In Finland literally zero politicians or citizens want nuclear weapons here. It’s not even a theoretical discussion. From Finland’s perspective the main reason why we want to join Nato is to make Russia’s aggression toward us less likely and nuclear weapons close to its border would have an opposite effect.

7. Claims that Finland and Sweden would be a burden for Nato or destabilize it. This is primarily targeted at existing Nato countries and politicians and citizens in them who view Nato positively or neutrally. People will try to rise fears that Finland and Sweden’s membership will cause the situation to escalate or even lead to another world war or nuclear war. It’s however unlikely it would cause any escalation. It’s a humiliating loss for Kremlin but its attention is elsewhere. Putin still has his self-preservation instinct and he’s not going to start a global war he can’t survive from. From Nato’s perspective Finland and Sweden joining will strengthen its nothern and eastern defense. Some people have also suggested that Finland and Sweden aren’t good enough for Nato military wise or by some other criteria.

However, as Stubb points out, they fill all the criteria and when talking about military Sweden is average Nato level whereas Finland has one of the most efficient militaries of Europe, if not the whole world. There has also been claims that the Paris Peace Treaty would disallow Finland from joining military alliances. This isn’t true and those treaties aren’t considered to be effectual anymore.

8. Claims that Finland is planning to attack Russia to take back the areas that originally belonged to it. After the Winter War Finland was forced to give up territories to Russia, pictured here:

These territories, especially Karelia, have a very strong emotional value for finns and after the war there were hopes Finland could get them back one day. However, that was a long time ago and there hasn’t been any significant activism around this subject for decades. Finns have accepted the loss and moved on. Because those territories are very poor compared to modern Finland trying to reunite would also probably put a massive strain on Finland’s economy, compare reuniting East and West Germany except worse. Finland’s official position is that it’s ready negotiate about returning the annexed areas if Russia ever initiates discussion but is not actively trying acquire them back. I think allegations that Finland is trying to gain these areas back, or even to create Greater Finland are likely going raise in Russia, to paint Finland as some kind of aggressor. If you see comments on social media that are talking about “getting Karjala back” that aren’t obvious jokes they likely aren’t made by actual finnish people. Similar tactic maybe used on many other countries such as Moldova and Japan, because as you may have noticed Russia has a bit of an habit of annexing territories.

*hours later, out of the blue*

Mom: how much cash do you have?

Me: *tells amount* why?

CARRO, DID YOU SEE THIS??!?!?

I did!!! It's such a pretty cover too, I'm so happy for Goldie

Unfortunately I did find a video of some Italian child flipping through this Topolino and it looks like Goldie only appears on maybe one or two pages?? She's relevant to the story but not present in it which is a little disappointing

It’s angst time again….

(spoilers for the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck - King of the Klondike)

I’ve been rereading the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck again and no matter how many times I read it the raw pain of the scene above always hits HARD:

Rosa never really elaborates on what happens between the time Scrooge rips the river boat apart and he finds the goose egg nugget but I can’t imagine it was a particularly happy time in his life.  This lead me to coming up with the drawing below which takes place shortly after he returns to the cabin from Dawson after the incident above.  In it he finally has some time alone by himself to reflect on the stark cruelty of what has happened to him personally and the reality sinking in of the loss of his mother.  On the floor beside him are what’s left of the letters from home that he fished out of the wreckage ‘cause you just KNOW he went back in for them. 

How to get around internet censorship and maintain internet privacy

This will be an extremely long post 😅

Priorities

Download the Tor Browser

This will hopefully help you access the internet regardless of Russian government bans. It’s a little slow, but better than nothing. It hides your IP address from the internet, so it’s kind of like using a VPN. A very basic summary of how Tor works: your internet traffic is routed through several “nodes”. The Entry Node, can see your IP address but has no idea what data you’re sending, and this goes through several middle nodes, until it reaches the Exit Node. The Exit Node can see what data you’re sending, but it can’t see your IP address so it doesn’t know WHO sent it. That’s why it’s a good idea to do nothing identifying when using the Tor Browser, like writing personal information. Here’s a blog post with more detailed information about the Tor Browser.

Get a VPN

VPNs are often used to get around government internet restrictions. Russia will probably not be able to do much about it. However, not all VPNs are created equal. Nearly all of the free VPNs are a scam that turn around and sell your data, so free VPNs are not secure. The only exception to this is ProtonVPN which has a free tier, but it’s very slow. Basically the only good VPN is one you pay for. When choosing a VPN, be aware of where the company is based, because if a VPN company is based in the USA, it will have to comply USA privacy laws. So choose a VPN based in a country that has good privacy laws. A great one is Mullvad VPN, which is based in Sweden. But for the purposes of Russia, just making sure your VPN is not Russian or in a country sympathetic to Russia is probably good enough.

Alternative Front-Ends A frontend is the the part of a website which the user interacts with directly. To browse the contents of websites, you usually have to visit them. However, many people have made alternative privacy-respecting frontends to popular websites that allow you to see the site’s content without actually visiting the website. This helps avoid tracking, data-collection, and even countries’ attempts to ban websites. Twitter is banned in Russia right now, but using all an alternative frontend to Twitter works (according to my Russian friend).

Google Translate

Lingva Translate / Instances

SimplyTranslate / Instances

some instances allow you to choose to translate with several other services (such as DeepL)

Imgur

Rimgo / Instances

Instagram

Bibliogram / Instances

Medium

Scribe / Instance

Reddit

Libreddit / Instances

Teddit / Instances

TikTok

ProxiTok / Instance

Twitter

Nitter / Instances

Wikipedia

Wikiless / Instances

YouTube

Invidious / Instances

Piped / Instances

YouTube Music

Beatbump / Instance

If anyone knows of one of these for Tumblr please let me know. I found this site called Tumgir but it looks sketchy and unlike the rest of the ones I listed, it’s not open-source. So visit with caution, but I’m mentioning it because it might be better than nothing.

There are also these browser extensions that automatically redirect site links to the available alternatives:

Mozilla Firefox

LibRedirect - Redirects YouTube, YT Music, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Imgur, Reddit, Wikipedia, Medium, etc.

Google Chrome

Privacy Redirect - Redirects Google Maps, Google Search, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Youtube.

iPhone (iOS 15+) Safari

Privacy Redirect - Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Google Translate, Google maps, Google Search, Medium

Android

UntrackMe - Google Maps, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube

Messaging / Communication

Matrix is a federated and decentralized End-to-End Encrypted (E2EE) messaging with many platforms, the most popular of which is Element. It’s like Discord, but worse. It’s getting better over time though! You can even use a a throwaway email to sign-up.

If you’re Russian you likely already know about Telegram, but MAKE SURE you’re aware that only Secret Chats are End-to-End Encrypted. So don’t say anything that would get you in trouble outside of a Secret Chat.

End Notes

This post isn’t the MOST correct though.

The addition, I mean.

I did a lil research just now to see the topics im most interested in and I already can firmly say: TorBrowser is BLOCKED here, And Mullvad, or anything above 4$/month and especially in foreign currency, is also utterly INAFFORDABLE.

Rvssians as of rn p much cannot pay or receive money abroad as almost all payment systems have blocked rvssia. People are also pretty darn poor as a baseline, so even tho the local low prices can get us by sorta well, nutella and peanut butter and cereal are in many cases a delicacy, not even speaking about prices for things abroad.

A rvssian blogger made a post on 2nd March speaking about the same things, including GETTING AROUND TorBrowser BEING BLOCKED.

• Finland now allows Ukrainian citizens to arrive to Finland without visa. Starting from 25th of February 2022.

• Ukrainian citizens are allowed to stay in Finland for 3 months without visa. HOWEVER you can apply for asylum or residence permit and stay in Finland for longer than 3 months. If you have family members in Finland, you can apply for residence permit based on family reasons.

• You’re welcomed with open arms, we stand with Ukraine💛💙My DM:s are open and anyone who needs help with anything such as applying for asulym or residence permit, or simply arranging everyday things, I’m always here to help.

UKRAINIAN EMBASSY IN HELSINKI, FINLAND: https://um.fi/representation-of-foreign-states-in-finland-or-in-the-nearest-country-to-finland/-/asset_publisher/eSWq5XE6v1DV/contactInfoOrganization/id/123798

HOW TO APPLY FOR ASYLUM: https://migri.fi/en/asylum-in-finland

MOVING TO FINLAND IF YOU HAVE FAMILY MEMBERS IN HERE: https://migri.fi/en/moving-to-finland-to-be-with-a-family-member

source:  goldiejake11

Happy Yukon Heritage Day and Sourdough Rendezvous

Yay!!  It’s here!  I figure we can all use something to cheer us up so have some scroldie!