That’s what the unrealized capital gains tax proposal is for.
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Finland came up in the US vice presidential debate as the conversation turned to gun violence in schools.
JD Vance and Tim Walz stand behind the podiums next to each other. Vance watches as Walz speaks while pointing his hand in Vance’s direction.
Newspaper Helsingin Sanomat covered the discussion on Finland at the US vice presidential debate on Tuesday night between Republican candidate JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz.
On the subject of school shootings, Walz brought up his experience visiting Finnish schools.
“I’ve spent time in Finland and seen some Finnish schools. They don’t have this [school shootings] happen, even though they have a high gun ownership rate in the country,” Walz said on the debate stage.
Walz said he and presidential candidate Kamala Harris were both gun owners and stressed that it was the responsibility of policy makers to ensure the safety of children.
He also spoke about how he was affected by meeting the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut. Walz emphasised that change can be made without taking away Americans’ guns.
Vance, however, advocated for improving school safety by reinforcing doors, windows and other security features. He also said schools should be given more resources.
“I appreciate what Tim [Walz] said about Finland, because I do think it illustrates some of the weird differences between our own country’s gun violence problem and Finland. First of all, we have way higher rates of mental health substance abuse, we have way higher rates of depression, we have way higher rates of anxiety. We unfortunately have a mental health crisis in this country,” Vance responded.
HS also noted that Walz is the current governor of Minnesota, a state with a large population of Finnish ancestry, and that a photograph of him wearing a Finland beanie previously circulated online.
Despite the rhetoric praising the Nordic country, Finland suffered its first school shooting in over a decade earlier this year.
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Not sure what a mental health substance is, or how one would abuse it.
Moving on…
So at the time of the quote, he’d never heard of Finland before. I see.
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It’s a weird thing to latch onto, like rules lawyering when someone has most definitely broken the law, but the law doesn’t specifically mention the exact, detailed violation.
So he wasn’t in China at the exact same time a brave soul stood in front of a line of tanks. The social and psychic impact on the various territories lasted for years, just as 9/11 did in the US, and it would have been palpable when he did actually go there.
(I traveled through China more than a decade after Tiananmen, and it was still a raw nerve even then.)
eta: I owe @catsidhe a beverage
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… and Texas, some of the time.
And for the record, my ear hears that “phonograph needle dragged over the surface of a vinyl record” sound when I hear the word “aluminum” said as “al yew mini um” so my tetchiness is not limited to U.S.ians and their word-mangling.
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I hear mangled words often enough that my brain seems to automatically translate them, and I don’t even notice unless someone points it out. Growing up in WV will do that to you. Also requires the ability to code-switch on a dime. I frequently tell folks that I am bilingual. I speak English and WVian.
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I am a lifelong code-switcher myself.
I hear you.
Languages fascinate me. I almost majored in linguistics but lacked the budget for tuition at a school with such a degree program. Some variants of American English are pretty intriguing. I’d love to get some time to deep-dive the influences of WVian in all its forms.
When I listen to politicians speaking, I am definitely listening for more than my own comprehension. When I listen to them in a semi-unscripted debate, I am listening for other cues. Weasel words. Pitch. Vocabulary choices say a lot about the speaker. Growing up around one very tonal language, and the other a ridiculously complicated language, has made my ears sharper and made me something of an outlier.
Gish gallop alert… apologies:
I am a bit blind to body language, so I suppose I can let Joe Navarro give me the overview. Apologies that this is a Politico link, but at least we know Navarro’s creds and he’s writing it:
ETA: wiki link added for variants (and for mutants, like me)
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We’re just saying it how it’s spelled. 
(the link also shows the US spelling and pronunciation, but that hardly seems relevant. 
)
Which are those? I’m most curious.
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Watch it or we’ll take the second “i” out of “Titanium” too.
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This is an odd case where the American spelling is the older one. Aluminium was introduced to make it match the other metals, although it seems like nobody ever felt the need in cases like platinum and lanthanum. The IUPAC calls it aluminium but aluminum is an accepted variant.
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Part of the problem is that Humphry Davy was horribly inconsistent, and used both interchangably, as well as Alumium.
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TIL. I’m going to call it Alumium from now on.
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ok ok it’s off-topic and I am sorry…
Ooohhhhhhhh this is interesting.
TIL there are two spellings for one element on the periodic table. Thanks! This solves a long mystery to me. Ye gods, why didn’t I think to look up the word in a British-English lexicon? 
One parent: Shanghainese, Putonghua and Mandarin (primary), with American English as a second language. Scientific Russian and scientific German distant thirds. He may have had some Taiwanese (at the time of his learning it, it would have been called Formosan) but if he did, I can’t say how much.
Other parent: Bavarian-German, Swabian-German, Hochdeutsch (primary), with American English, Italian, French, Brazilian-Portugese, Russian as second languages, and Putonghua as a distant third. She was fluent in everything except for Putonghua though she tried for decades, bless her.
Shortwave radio was played often in our house with all kinds of languages on those cloth-covered speakers, and I used to think everyone listened to it at their houses. Turns out, nope!
Back on topic!
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That’s an awesome language list to grow up around.
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Adam just posted a nice little rant about the debate:
I thought it was tough but probably fair.
In particular he was explaining the conundrum facing progressive candidates who want to make housing more affordable, and the fact that homeowners (who vote in high numbers) really hate it when their property values decline, which would pretty much need to happen by definition if we’re going to make housing affordable.
Obviously Vance told shameful lies and blamed the whole situation on immigrants, because bigots gotta bigot, I guess. But Walz didn’t get into the weeds about what’s actually necessary to fix the problem or tell any hard truths because he, quite understandably, would like to win the election.
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