Uppity Texans Unite. Go Texas!

Below you can read a long and earnest Manifesto from stoppatriarchy.org. 

They are ambitiious. They are raising Hell in Texas as I type. I thought Texas was Hell. I think somebody famous said that. 

I support the abortion platform. I stop at the 'ending pornography' part. That is a little too bluestocking for trashmouth old Me. I like to look at dirty pictures. So sue me. 

If nothing changes, on September 1st all but six abortion clinics in Texas will be closed (there were 46 in 2011).

Women will begin dying from dangerous illegal abortions. Others will be imprisoned for self-inducing abortions. Thousands more will have their lives foreclosed by being forced to bear children they do not want – shattering their dreams, trapping them in abusive relationships, and/or driving them into humiliating and dangerous poverty. Rural, poor, immigrant, and women of color will be hardest hit.

Worse, this emergency in Texas is not an isolated problem.

Hundreds of abortion restrictions have been enacted in recent years. Six states have only one abortion clinic left. Eight abortion doctors and staff have been murdered. Countless women have been shamed and humiliated.

Those driving this attack on women's most fundamental rights are deadly serious. They will not stop until all abortions have been criminalized forall women in all circumstances.
THIS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED! Forcing women to have children against their will is a form of enslavement.

Courageous people are doing important work to keep abortion available. At the same time, it must be confronted soberly: much more is needed.

What happens this summer in Texas will affect women everywhere. It is the responsibility of everyone who does not want to see women forced to have children against their will to stand up and fight. Not some time in the future, but now.

This is a time for courage. For people to defy fear, to shatter silence, and to break their isolation. To refuse to wait for politicians or courts to make our will known. To raise our voices and fill the streets, to make art and wage protest, to defend doctors and assist women, to change hearts and enlighten minds. To engage in acts of militant non-violent direct action. To call forth thousands and soon millions until we have STOPPED these attacks and DEFEATED this war on women.

We reject the view that a woman's highest purpose is to bear children. Women are full human beings with the moral, ethical and legal right to decide when and whether to be mothers.

NO MORE women denied the right to dream, the right to live full lives, the right to love, the right to decide for themselves. WE WILL RESIST!

ZOMG. I am in LOVE.

This is what funding abortion looks like. Handsome man of the Cowboy Nerd persuasion and Banana his Cat. I want them both with a purple passion. I have always wanted to do twins. Take the Drink a Beer and Eat a Taco and Fund Abortion Challenge.

In Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, send a contribution to Women's Medical Fund. 

Hold Up, So How Does This Work?

You find yourself a fucking taco, or a fucking beer, or a fucking taco and a beer, then you eat the fucking taco or drink the fucking beer or eat and drink both the fucking taco and the beer, and then you donate some money to an abortion fund. You fucking film yourself doing this shit and then you send us the fucking video and we put it on the fucking internet.

"BUT BUT BUT WAAAAHHHHH I DON’T KNOW ANY ABORTION FUNDS"

Welp you fucking do now.

"BUT BUT BUT WAAAAAAH I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO SEND MY VIDEO"

Welp you fucking do now.

"Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words." - Arthur Brisbane

Go HERE for more. Just keep scrolling. All kinds of good stuff. 

Have a taco or drink a beer and fund abortion. Works for me.

I am never going to pour ice on myself. Never. I hate COLD.

I love tacos and beer. And I got an extra few bucks. I can do this. Margarita's Restaurant here I come.

Eat a taco or drink a beer. Make a video and send a donation to help women. Now that is win-win.

Kudos to the confident and generous prochoice men in the videos. The sexiest man in the world is a prochoice man. See more photographs and videos at the tumblr site or at #tacoorbeerchallenge. 

TACO OR BEER CHALLENGE

YOU JUST EAT A TACO AND/OR DRINK A BEER AND DONATE TO AN ABORTION FUND.

Hold Up, So How Does This Work?

You find yourself a fucking taco, or a fucking beer, or a fucking taco and a beer, then you eat the fucking taco or drink the fucking beer or eat and drink both the fucking taco and the beer, and then you donate some money to an abortion fund. You fucking film yourself doing this shit and then you send us the fucking video and we put it on the fucking internet.

"BUT BUT BUT WAAAAHHHHH I DON’T KNOW ANY ABORTION FUNDS"

Welp you fucking do now.

"BUT BUT BUT WAAAAAAH I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO SEND MY VIDEO"

Welp you fucking do now.

A Note From The Founders

Dear Concerned “Pro-Life” Folks,

A number of you have written into the #TacoOrBeerChallenge tumblr with the suggestion that theChallenge’s founder “abort” herself. This proposal has been further explored and expounded upon on Twitter by a particularly vocal and especially thoughtful group of erudite individuals.

The Taco Or Beer Challenge has taken your proposal under advisement, but the Taco Or Beer Challenge regrets to inform you that it will not be implemented at this time. Thank you so much for your helpful input and your powerful witness in the light of the glory of Jesus Christ.

Best,

The Taco Or Beer Challenge

"Are they Prostitutes?" asks Baby Saver Servant. - Sexpig of the Month - August 2014

In a fit a black humor, I decided to create a Sexpig of the Month series. I made myself sick with it. It got unfunny and truly scary and disgusting fast. I grossed myself out.

I decided to lay off writing about Sexpigs for awhile for my own mental health. Then I came across these videos below and I just had to share. Trigger Warning: video is really creepy.

Baby Saver Servant who produced this video expects to be seen as sane and caring. That expectation is the chief delusion of the Forced Birth Cultists. Brace yourself. The woman has a higher register than Sarah Palin the Tundra Tart. This is the kind of speech SCOTUS calls 'counseling.'

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told us that these people are not anti-abortion “protesters.”  Instead, he glowingly described them as, “counselors” who wanted “to comfort these [pregnant] women” by speaking to them, “quietly and in a friendly manner.” 
- Dean Obeidallah

I call this madness. And I think a federal law to make this activity illegal is needed. Stalking and harassment are crimes. Is this stalking and harassment? You tell me. I will tell you where it is at for me. I would have all I could do not to give this fetus freak the bitchslapping she so richly deserves. And that is why I am not a clinic escort. Clinic escorts are models of restraint.

Here is the whackjob practicing medicine. 
This is counseling, Fat Tony?

Sign of the Month - August 2014

Gainesville welcomes a new Hobby Lobby store. I had a hard time picking the sign out of the wealth of candidates.

Get the story of the protest and quotes from the protesters from the Gainesville Sun.

And get more photos of the protest HERE. 

Everybody was there. And the signs were clever and creative. Ultimately, the prochoice man with the simple information sign about how to resist the Hobby Lobby decision was my choice. The sexiest man in the world is a pro choice man. See the runners-up below. And see the Satanic Temple for another way to resist. 

Some 90 people join protest against Hobby Lobby

Hobby Lobby's new Gainesville store opened quietly Friday ahead of its official grand opening Monday morning, but it was noisy on the sidewalk outside. Passing cars honked in support of sign-waving protesters who oppose the company's stance on women's contraceptive health care.

When was the last time a Philosopher went viral?

Open Carry Texas Activists

Below is an excerpt of A Rational Response to Open Carry Activists written by Philosopher Jack Russell Weinstein that went viral.

You want to read this essay in full and the resulting comments at the source. 

"As most people know, there are activists in Texas who are making a point of going to public places with visible firearms. They have gotten a lot of attention because some chain restaurants and stores have prohibited them from openly carrying their weapons, mostly because it frightens other patrons.

This fear is legitimate. As many have pointed out, there is no way for bystanders to know whether the people with guns are “good guys” or “bad guys.” It is rational to be afraid of someone with a weapon, especially if you know nothing about them.

Furthermore, as Jon Stewart has pointed out better than anyone else, since people are often legally permitted to use guns to protect themselves when they are legitimately afraid for their lives, there is no predicting when someone is going to see the activists and shoot before they ask questions. This will happen. It is just a matter of time. And, in many cases, it will be a legal and rational act. None of us want to be victims of the crossfire.

My proposal is as follows: we should all leave. Immediately. Leave the food on the table in the restaurant. Leave the groceries in the cart, in the aisle. Stop talking or engaging in the exchange. Just leave, unceremoniously, and fast.

But here is the key part: don’t pay. Stopping to pay in the presence of a person with a gun means risking your and your loved ones’ lives; money shouldn’t trump this. It doesn’t matter if you ate the meal. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just received food from the deli counter that can’t be resold. It doesn’t matter if you just got a haircut. Leave. If the business loses money, so be it. They can make the activists pay."

Sign of the Month - July 2014

Grayson and Tina Haver Currin just doing their Saturday Chores. And then they got famous.

Smile when you say "Open Carry," Partner.

Open Carry Guitar Rally
July 4th in Texas

They came early. 
They brought their axes. 




Nobody got hurt. Nobody was scared. Even though there were some weapons of mass production and aural dissemination. 

When it was over, everybody went home tired, happy and humming. Barry Kooda and friends made it happen. And they swear they are going to do it again. 

I am Speechless. SCOTUS picked my pocket because Jesus. - UPDATE

I will believe that a corporation is a person, and its money is speech, and a corporation has spiritual life when a corporation goes to jail for depraved indifference. A big corporation has destroyed the Gulf of Mexico and its entire food chain. Who is going to jail for that? Anybody? Hello?

A big Corporation, Religious Authoritarians and the Supreme Court are practicing medicine and making social policy. They just picked my pocket. A meat person who picks pockets goes to jail. And they did it to me because ... wait for it ... they did it because I am a woman and they can. They did it to me for Jesus.

I am so angry and stunned it has taken me days to write or do a thing but garden. I am getting upset just writing about this right now. Do not expect this rant to be coherent.

Brendan Boyle

I was pulling weeds and muttering "I do not know what to do." And then the light dawned. The Democratic Party 170th district candidate for PA State Senator is a "staunchly pro life" forced birth cultist. I am going to do a Mississippi-McDaniel on Brendan Boyle.

I swear that I will never vote for an anti choice Democrat. Never. I am going to vote for his Republican opponent. I am going to ask every pro choice woman I know to do the same.

Except he has no Republican opponent it seems. I googled. Okay. I am going to write Margaret Sanger's name on the ballot.

I know Boyle is popular. I also know I am not alone. Women talk and we do not have to whisper about abortion and contraception in the kitchen anymore.

If I cannot control my own body and sexual and family life, what difference does it make who holds the whip? Maybe the Democrats will get the message. Do not mess with the Roe v. Wade the Republicans gave us. Oh the irony.

Our State of PA, which cannot find money for schools to educate children, has found more tax money to fund "crisis pregnancy centers" like Real Alternatives in order to manage PA women's reproductive decisions. I think PA women can manage their own sexual and family lives and should be left alone to do so.

It is state politics that we must concentrate on now, Folks. Bigtime.

Just this summer, the Pennsylvania legislature doled out $5.8 million to Real Alternatives, which is not a penny less than last year, giving the organization a special distinction indeed. In a year that saw huge slashes to the state budget — including cuts in AIDS pharmaceutical services, an 18 percent loss in the operating budget of the Department of Environmental Protection, and $1 billion eliminated from schools, among many other cuts — Real Alternatives' budget was left untouched. - Holly Otterbein, City Paper

I am going out into the garden and pull some more weeds. And continue to ask myself "What can I do about this?" Can you impeach a Supreme Court Justice?

Happy Fourth of July! Let Freedom Ring.

Rest in Peace and Love Jimi Hendrix

I'm a Barbie Girl - Sign of the Month - June 2014

The sign in question is indisputably the most remarkable political sign that I saw in June. It is the work of street artist Sabo. You can see it in one of its settings below.

I almost let the month slip by without a winner. I have been gardening obsessively. Sometimes that is all I do in June.

Go Wendy. Do not let the bastids grind you down. Keep on going no matter what is said or what they do.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- Mahatma Gandhi

So I googled "feminazi barbie" and a really interesting batch of images came up.

I thought this image ---->  was funny in a perverse sardonic way. Google images said its best artistic source is Nazi propaganda. The rest is the product of a witty photoshop artist. Anybody know who?

Signs of the Month - Albuquerque in April 2014 - UPDATE

UPDATE 2: The man murdered in the video, James Boyd, was shot in the back and that is the shot that murdered him. The citizens of Albuquerque are battling their own police force.

ALBUQUERQUE — The 13 protesters who stormed the mayor’s office here and were arrested and jailed Monday said they were spurred by renewed outrage over the latest development in a string of fatal police shootings: An autopsy released last week showed the bullet that killed a homeless man, James Boyd, had been fired into his lower back.

UPDATE: See the raw video of the citizens of Albuquerque kicking butt and taking names. Way to go Albuquerque! We need more of this populist political participation. God bless voters. It is a long video and it is a thing of beauty. God bless voters. God bless America.

I had no trouble picking the political signs this month. These signs are from the Albuquerque Police Protest.


Police Assault Protest Against Police Violence

 Lauren McCauley, staff writer, Common Dreams

What began as a peaceful protest against the Albuquerque Police Department’s systemic abuse of force and frequent shooting of unarmed civilians spiraled into chaos Sunday evening after police officers—many mounted on horses and in riot gear—assaulted the demonstrators with tear gas.

Photo: Sergio Ximenez via Daily Lobo

Mental health consumer here, occasionally medicated for public safety. My Doctor suggested I not buy a gun.

UPDATE: Because of the Isla Vista mass murder by a mentally ill man, I thought it would be useful to publish this essay again. My apology to those who have already read it. I wrote this precisely a year ago. Not much has changed. In fact, the gagging of doctors has gotten worse. 

Do you want the government telling your doctor what to say to you? Or what S/he must not say to you? Did Nancy Lanza's doctor ask her about guns?

Gagging doctors and scientists or giving them a script to follow seems to be a right wing hobby these days. Who do we thank for the proliferation of bills dictating what your doctor can or must say to you? Is it ALEC, the NRA, the Republican Party or the Religious Right? 

AMA Supports Blocking Illegal Florida Gun Gag Law 

CHICAGO - The American Medical Association (AMA) today filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the State of Florida’s attempt to revive a law preventing doctors from asking patients and families about guns in the home. The brief condemned government-sponsored censorship of private medical discussions between patients and physicians.

It is easy to see why medical personnel might ask clients about guns. Take a look at the leading causes of death per the CDC. Suicide is #10. Chronic depression and bipolar disorder can and do kill patients and others who know them.

I wonder if Nancy Lanza was afraid of her son? Many parents of mentally ill children live in fear. The Police routinely ask medical professionals if they are aware of guns in the home in the course of investigations, for their own safety as well as ours. Do we really want to tell medical professionals they cannot ask about guns?

Psychiatrists and Psychologists who have clients like shooter Jared Loughner and the Lanza boy are understandably confused. They are damned if they do report a scary or aged client and damned if they do not. "Why did you not know they were dangerous?" we accuse. They may get sued if they speak about a client's behavior or their guns. And sued if they do not. Add gun gag laws to the mix. No wonder malpractice insurance is so high.

I think the President has got this. Now let us all make a lot of noise and help him out!

Obama enlists doctors for gun violence prevention

The president reassures physicians that they can ask patients about guns in the home and inform authorities if they believe someone might harm others.

By CHRISTINE S. MOYER, amednews staff. Posted Jan. 28, 2013.

 President Obama’s multifaceted plan to reduce gun violence calls on physicians to play an important role in decreasing shooting deaths and injuries in communities nationwide.

Obama clarified that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors from discussing gun safety. He assured physicians that they can report credible threats of violence without fear of penalties from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule. He also authorized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research the causes and prevention of gun violence, work that was suspended in 1996 after a National Rifle Assn.-backed push to block the study’s funding.

Dr. Denise Dowd

“We need to counsel our families about how to keep our children safe,” regardless of whether that involves bicycles, guns or swimming pools, said Denise Dowd, MD, MPH, a pediatric emergency physician and director of research in the Division of Emergency and Urgent Care at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo. 

Dr. Dowd said Obama’s clarification on this issue was needed, because some physicians were confused by language in the ACA that prohibits the collection of any data pertaining to firearm counseling, language inserted by pressure from the NRA.

Update: Kansas legislature proposing a Bill to prevent doctors from asking questions about gun ownership. Five other states have gag laws in the works. Why? 

 Sec. 9. No physician, other than a psychiatrist, shall inquire of any patient in conjunction with obtaining the patient's personal information and medical history, whether the patient has any firearms in such patient's home or on such patient's property and shall not require such information before providing treatment.

 

Gun Safety and Gun Nuts

UPDATE:  Gun-rights activists: No more long guns in businesses ... more at the link.

My Dad was a big gun guy. His guns nearly killed my baby brother and, years later, my toddlers. His guns were never of real use. They bagged him a wild boar, a dozen woodchucks and almost 3 children over three generations. In his elder years, Father laid up in the front bedroom and waited with his shotgun and a revolver for the "college boys who are running over my mailbox for fun." In suburban Lawrenceville New Jersey. To be fair, our nearest neighbor was a half acre away behind trees. No other neighbors were near. Good reason to have a gun in the country.

If you have a gun, you have good chance someone around you will be maimed or die. Thank you Gun Nuts and the National Rifle Association for my bad dreams and the deaths of a good many children over the years.

The Gun Nut mofos buy junior rifles for their kids. Pink ones for girls. A toddler bleeding to death from a gunshot wound in the parlor is Gun Nut chic evidently. Doesn't everybody have one?

The picture below of the boy with the gun comes from the Facebook page of Flakoo del Campo a typical Open Carry Mofo. I would not trust this guy to get me a cup of coffee much less trust him with guns or my child. Flakoo got so much flak he removed the picture.

I learned a new word for these Mofos and that word is Ammosexual. Flakoo recently took part in the invasion of a Chipotle restaurant. And what is up with this boys Mother? Is she nuts? Child protective services anyone? If I lived in Texas I would be on the phone ASAP.

The photo below is Flakoo and friend in the midst of occupying Chipotle. How safe do they make you feel? Flakoo is the shorter of the two flakes. UPDATE: Chipotle has since this writing made their restaurants closed to open carry Mofos.

Sign of the Month - May 2014 - Truck as Sign

I am amazed and know not what to say. - Midsummer Night's Dream

See more Trucks as Signs HERE. 

Reading to Cats

This is the feel-good Pennsylvania story of the month. I love cats.

The Animal Rescue League of Berks County PA has a program called “Book Buddies.” Children volunteer to read to sheltered cats. Via Reddit.

Have patience if you go to their website. Everyone is going there for more information, more pictures and to donate to this great program. The boy in the photo thought he was "too dumb" to learn to read. Nope. His reading and grades have improved tremendously. And the cats are finding forever homes.

Asshats on Parade - Which ones are the Good Guys? Edition

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Hot damn I love Texans. A bunch of open carry Mofos showed up at the Jack in the Box and the employees called the Cops and hid in the freezer. Mofos were indignant that they were treated like criminals. Video at the link.

Open Carry Demonstrators Scare Restaurant Employees

By Ken Kalthoff

 “They locked themselves inside a freezer for protection out of fear the rifle-carrying men would rob them,” the email stated. “The demonstration had no signage that would have alerted anyone to their real purpose, and to our knowledge they did not attempt to contact anyone in the Fort Worth Police Department to advise us prior to the demonstration.”

Fort Worth police responded to the situation as if it was a robbery. 

Imagine if the employees were also big fans of open carry and 'stand your ground'. You want to be the Cop deciding who to shoot?

What are the PoPo going to do if some customer decides to stand their ground and shoots these Mofos? Charge the frightened customer?  Know how much a trial would cost?

Shaking my damn head. Not in my State. How much tax money do they have to waste in Texas? How crazy stupid are these folks? Maybe it is the heat? You have to admit that Texans have panache. What does Pennsylvania have to offer? Scrapple? Quakers? At least when we go out to get a hamburger, we do not end up hiding in the freezer. I will take it. I am getting a little too long in the tooth for hide and seek. And scrapple is delicious.

A Vast Wasteland May Be Soon Upon Us

UPDATE: I wrote the original essay below in October 2013. I so hate to be right.

Antibiotic resistance now 'global threat', WHO warns

By Pippa Stephens

We need the Affordable Care Act. Why is the government shut down to prevent us from having health care? I have nothing funny, happy or partisan to say about this debacle. I say this:

CDC Threat Report: ‘We Will Soon Be in a Post-Antibiotic Era’

• BY MARYN MCKENNA
 

The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:

• Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;

• Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;

• Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;

• And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity.

“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”

WPA Poster

We are in bad shape. We are 37th in health care outcomes among all the nations. And we pay the most for health care. That is bad, it is true. It is worse than folks think. Some Governors are resisting the ACA. Their solutions to these serious disease issues are, for example:

1. Defund women's health clinics which diagnose and treat men and women for STDs;

2. Close the only public tuberculosis hospital in the state and house the contagious patients in an old motel in a large city.

This creates active disease vectors in major population areas. These diseases will bubble upward from the poor, who cannot get medical treatment, to the rich and privileged. Disease is no respecter of gated communities, security guards, or wealth. Everyone has heard of Typhoid Mary, right? As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Do we really want to go back to 1940s? Those who do not remember and learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Response to the Canonization of Pope John Paul II

I remember how shocked everyone was when Sinead OConnor sang this on Saturday Night Live in the 70s. I was there watching the TV. Ms. OConnor was reviled.

Fight the real enemy. It was appropriate then and is even more appropriate now. I am a Catholic baptized and confirmed.

'How can you post this and call yourself a Catholic' you may ask. It is complicated.

"Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church."  (Pope Benedict XVI [then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger], "Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II", ed. Vorgrimler, 1968, on Gaudium et spes, part 1, chapter 1.)

Ghetto Garden Fabulous

My New Fig among the Daffodils

My house is a tiny HUD row house I bought as a veritable shell a decade ago. I have had to dedicate any money I had to serious repairs like putting in a heating system and erecting a front door.

I love to garden. However, my garden gets the least investment in terms of capital available. Nevertheless, I have turned it from hard packed clay with a scraggly lawn I had to mow to its present state.

I scavenged antique bricks from an old house and we made a walk. Who wants a lawn to mow? Not me. I use fallen tree branches to make garden beds. I use chunks of cement. I scavenge fallen leaves that others bag up and throw away. I compost to make soil and keep weeds down. In that way, I have raised the level of my garden 6 inches of fertile composted soil all over. Took some time.

I write a lot about garden design here. Even so, I did not realize quite what I was doing, until my Daughter suggested I get some nicer paving stones on a trip to the garden store. I recoiled. And I was not sure why. I mean, I just spent $50.00 on new fig trees.

And then the light dawned. I like the scavenging. Saves money so I can indulge in fig trees. It is a challenge. I just did not know it was a design theme. I scavenged every single one of those Iris and in another few weeks they will be glorious. I have the Herbs in and my Blueberries are doing fine.

My garden theme is Ghetto Fabulous. Example is the old ladder. It is a bean tower. I think it will be beautiful. We shall see. God bless my Daughter. Eventually she will whip me into shape. One way or another. Kind of like my garden.

Letter from Finland to America

Jore Puusa 
I am a Fin living in Finland, Europe. ( BTW Europe is on the other side of Atlantic ocean for those who had no free education)

We have free education and free healthcare. Of course we pay lots of taxes- me about 21% and richer people even 50%. But, this way everybody can stay healthy and study whatever he/she likes and has talent. Most of fins learn english, swedish, germany or french in schools, I hear that even American English is a problem at certain areas in US???.

We are a small country of five million and we do not try to learn how to live to other nations. So here I´m only telling to US citizens what real freedom sounds.

On the opposite of US we have real freedom of speech cause most of us can read or write ---as I`ve heard 14% millions of US citizens cannot read. Our people do not beg or sleep in the streets. If one gets sick he/she goes to local health station and sees a doctor. If You go only once or twice a year You pay 40 USD for those two first... all the rest is free. I does not depend on disease, if You have cancer it is as cheap as a broken leg or a flu. So why can we pay for it and mighty US cannot??

Maybe cause we are not to the right so much and we really care for other people.
Or for some other reason. Maybe You could care about Your citizens if You did not throw away Your money in useless wars. maybe.

I am a photojournalist, I´we been twice to USA. In 1984 La Olympics and in Lake Placid olympics. No other problems but the racism everywhere and crime all over seemed a bit sad. When I read angry and almost facist comments in this thread I understood that You just cannot make it better, so sad.

But its Your choice. Good luck.
Jore Puusa
Helsinki
Finland