Happy Independence Day!

[Cynical Ninja]

20% of England thinks they don't need a military budget because America will save them, again ... and 17% believe the Earth revolves around their Queen.

::death::

If we don't have a military budget then why do you keep grovelling to us for military aid in whatever fucked up quagmire you have created this week?

The US is 49^th in the world in literacy.

NYT, Dec 12, 2004.

The US is 41^st in the world for infant mortality, Cuba has a better infant mortality rate.

NYT, Jan 12, 2005.

Cuba is well known for having exemplary medical care. Why would you use them as an example when they would make any country, not just the US, look inferior by comparison? Not an effective argument.

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37^th." In the fairness of health care,you are54^th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.



[*]"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80).
[*]Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
[*]Still think you have great health care?

I never said I did, nor did anyone else. The US still makes England look like a steaming pile of dog feces in most other standards of living.

[*]"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22^nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
[*]Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
[*]"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
[*]"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
[*]The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
[*]Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).