The Battle Continues

by Cylinsier

A couple days ago, I posted a video of Jon Stewart making fun of Sean Hannity. I later updated that post with Hannity's response. Well, as hoped for, Jon Stewart has returned the ball back to Hannity's side of the court in hilarious fashion:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

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Carrie Prejean is the dimmest bulb on the Christmas Tree

By Ellipses

Carrie Prejean appeared on Larry King Live to prove that she's dumber than a bucket of hair. I believe she's probably the frontrunner for Palin's running mate in 2012 after this clusterfuck.

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Are we even surprised anymore?

by Cylinsier

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

No comment needed. Just watch.

UPDATE: Mr. Hannity admits that Jon Stewart caught him red handed and apologizes...in the way only a true asshole can.

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Mike Castle Vowes to Cockblock Delaware!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a District - Delaware's Mike Castle
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

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On a lighter note...

By Ellipses

I have been so ridiculously busy lately, I haven't really had much of an opportunity to contribute much to the blog outside of some promotion and playing around in the comments. Last night, I had a brainstorm just as I was falling asleep during the 3rd quarter of the Steelers' prison-raping of the Broncos on Monday Night Football. I present to you the most awesome tattoo idea ever:

It's the dramatic prairie dog coming out of a guy's asscrack, and it is awesome! Not only is it awesome because it's dramatic prairie dog, but there is the added layer of awesome in that when you really have to take a dump, and that little Joe Lieberman is poking his Gollum head out of your hobbit hole, I call it "prairie doggin'."

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A look at the Democrats who plan to screw us over

by Cylinsier

Let's have a look at the Blue Dog Senators who are bound to undermine any chance of seeing health care reform, at least this year, and compare them to how their respective Representatives voted on the House version. Kudos to this map for helping me out. And thanks to this link for adding additional information.

Max Baucus of Montana, already looking foolish for thinking he could woo Republicans to vote for anything brought forth under a Democratic congress, will likely vote against a public option bill. Minnesota has 3 Republicans and 5 Democrats in the House. One Democrat voted against the bill, Collin Peterson, who is a Blue Dog; McCain won his district in 2008. The others voted for.

Evan Bayh of Indiana is a Blue Dog so he's a likely candidate for voting against the bill. Indiana has 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans in the House. All 5 Democrats voted for the bill.

Maria Cantwell of Washington is a Blue Dog as well. Washington also has a 5 to 3 Democratic advantage in the House. Of those Democrats, only Brian Baird voted against the bill. Baird is not a Blue Dog and is in a district that went to Obama in 2008. Baird explains why he voted against the bill on his site.

Tom Carper of Delaware is a Blue Dog. Delaware has one Representative, Republican Michael Castle.

Kent Conrad of North Dakota is a Blue Dog. North Dakota has one Representative, Earl Pomeroy. He is a Democrat and he voted for the bill.

Dianne Feinstein of California is a Blue Dog. California has 34 Democrats and 19 Republicans in the House. All the Democrats voted for the bill.

Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is another Blue Dog. Of the 7 Representatives there, only one is a Democrat, Charlie Melancon, and he voted against. He is a Blue Dog as well and McCain won his district in 2008. It is worth noting that the lone Republican supporter of the bill, Anh Cao, is from Louisiana.

Superstar Joe Lieberman, "Independent" Blue Dog, hails from Connecticut. All 5 of Connecticut's Representatives are Democrats and all 5 voted for the bill, leaving Joe as the odd man out among his state's Congressional representation in terms of support of the reform bill.

Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas is a Blue Dog. Arkansas's other Senator, Mark Pryor, is also a Blue Dog. Arkansas has 1 Republican and 3 Democrats. Democrat Mike Ross voted against the bill. He is a blue dog and his district went to McCain.

Bill Nelson of Florida is a Blue Dog. Florida has 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats in the House. Of those 10 Democrats, Allen Boyd and Suzanne Kosmas voted against the bill. Boyd is a Blue Dog. Both of their districts went McCain in 2008.

Ben Nelson is a Blue Dog from Nebraska. Nebraska has 3 Republican Representatives and that's it.

Ron Wyden of Oregon rounds out the Senatorial Blue Dogs. Oregon has 4 Democrats and 1 Republican. All the Democrats voted for the bill.

The Conclusions I draw from this:

Max Baucus, Tom Carper, Mary Landrieu, Bill Nelson and Ben Nelson are all conservative Democrats in very conservative states. They more or less have no choice but to remain skeptical of the public option at best or they will be replaced in their next elections. Its their jobs to represent their voters so you can make the argument that they are just living up to their end of the bargain of getting elected.

Evan Bayh, Maria Cantwell, Blanche Lincoln, and Mark Pryor are on the cusp. Their states seem to be split down the middle if not in favor of the public option. Therefore, if they were to vote against it, I think there would be a legitimate question as to whether they were serving the best interests of their voters or just their own interests.

Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Ron Wyden, and especially Joe Lieberman have absolutely no business voting against the bill if they think they are going to convince their voters to elect them again. North Dakota's other Senator is also a Democrat so Conrad will be alone in opposing the bill in his state if he does so. North Dakota seems to be too liberal to accept him opposing the bill. Its a similar story with California. Overwhelming Democratic support for the bill in the House, another Democratic Senator in Barbara Boxer who will clearly support the bill, and Feinstein left trying to cater to the minority conservatives of her state if she votes against. Ron Wyden's state, Oregon, also has a Democrat as its other Senator. The voters of Oregon clearly favor the Democratic platform and Wyden will be going against that to stand in the way of the bill.

And of course we have Joe Lieberman who is unpopular with pretty much everyone in his state. Complete support for the bill in the House. Chris Dodd is the other Senator. HEAVY support for the option in Connecticut. One struggles to find sane reasoning for Lieberman's sudden crusade against the reform bill. The most logical conclusion is that he's catering to his wife, who works as a health insurance lobbyist, but who really knows? One thing is for sure; he is likely in his last term as Senator from Connecticut.

So, we have 5 Senators who can vote against the bill and probably remain in office, 4 who run a risk no matter what they choose, and 4 who may be signing their walking papers by voting against. Of course, the only one threatening to actually aid a Republican filibuster, Lieberman, is also the one who by far has the least business pretending to be against the bill for noble reasons. It will be interesting to see how the above Senators decide to act in the coming weeks of bill debate and how they reconcile that with their voters' wants. Note: its worth mentioning that most Blue Dog districts are probably in support of the public option, meaning the cases where Blue Dog Representatives voted against it might have been less than fair representation.

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Sometimes you just need to laugh at the imminent collapse of our country

And who better than Jon Stewart to help us do that?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Health Care: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The first one is a rip on the health care debate in general, and the second is probably the best Glenn Beck impression I've ever seen. Enjoy! Sphere: Related Content

Take your hands of my interwebz!

by Cylinsier

Ellipses hooked me up with a recent story on net neutrality that's worth a read and was also the impetus for this blog post. The writer, Larry Downes, makes an argument against the concept of net neutrality (hence forth referred to as NN), and its not a bad one.

The FCC seems to be chomping at the bit to be in charge of enforcing NN, but Downes questions their ability to do so effectively. He points out that the FCC would only have control of NN via ancillary jurisdiction, which sort of means they made up a rule to try and adopt the net as their baby. They've already been challenged on this jurisdiction once by Comcast and would no doubt be challenged again if other private companies felt threatened.

The point of NN, if anyone doesn't know, is that the internet should be made available to everyone at a fair price without the interference of private providers throttling back speeds. The reasons they would do this are to slow down access to websites that might be considered competitors of your provider or to decrease speeds for features like downloads and video streaming in an attempt to sell more expensive plans that would advertise faster access to these assets. Considering that the internet is fast becoming the number one resource for access to breaking news and events, you don't have to think too hard about it to see why it would be important to keep access available to everyone including those who can't afford premium plans. Imagine how many people might have gotten out of the Towers in New York if internet news traveled as fast in 2001 as it does now. You also don't need an MBA to see how putting a muzzle on that access will inspire those who can afford it to pay more to take that muzzle back off.

Downes mentions fears that the FCC could impose ridiculous decency regulations on the internet, something I find highly unlikely by virtue of it being nearly impossible to enforce, but he mostly suggests that any role the FCC tries to play in this theater would nothing more than a paper tiger. He argues that the FCC hasn't exercised any potent enforcement over the properties it does control, pointing to their inability to retain the half million dollar fine levied for the infamous Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction (a federal court threw it out). Why then, he asks, should we expect them to wield any power over a medium that can look and operate completely different in a matter of months? I would personally point out the failures of the MPAA and RIAA to stymie illegal file sharing as an example of the viscosity of the internet; the technology to do so simply moved too fast and became too hard to track for those agencies and now the organizations that make such file sharing possible consistently manage to stay one step ahead of copyright law. Even when a file sharing giant is taken down, ten new outlets tend to pop up in place of them.

While Downes recognizes the threat to both consumers and the industry from any hasty agency action, he mostly is advocating a wait and see approach based on the previous point. The internet is changing too much too fast to believe that any regulations put into place now will be adequate literally 24 hours from now, especially if enforced by the FCC.

Downes is not the only one arguing against NN. Many ISPs and investors argue that NN will vanquish competition in the market and undercut the incentive to innovate. Others follow Downes' line if questioning if the government can handle such a responsibility, and if it should. The arguments in favor of NN are often made by consumers as well as major internet companies (NOT providers) like eBay, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Vonage and Microsoft. In other words, those that would clearly benefit from NN. They claim that ISPs hold too much power over access and have no incentive to make it affordable to consumers or said companies who also require access to be affordable to profit from online business. They also claim allowing ISPs to be the gatekeepers creates an unfair business model and additionally that its unfair to hold different internet content to different standards of bandwidth allowance. See below for sources.

Wait a minute, industry claiming competition will be stifled and the incentive for innovation will be destroyed? Consumers claiming monopolistic business models make price gouging unavoidable and that government intervention is needed to level the playing field? Its amazing how much this is starting to sound like one of our favorite topics around here.

Just like the aforementioned topic, NN is largely an issue of lots of money and who should get it. Its also an issue of the governments' role in the lives of its population and whether or not they can be trusted to act fairly.

My opinion? Downes makes a good point in recognizing the nature of the internet and the difficulty in regulating it. In fact, the point he makes is exactly why I have very little fear that our government could really dismantle the peoples' access to the internet, even if they wanted to. Some want us to view the government as big brother in relation to a lot of issues right now, but that's fairly unrealistic. I'm pretty sure that in no point in history has the population of a country voted a totalitarian dictatorship into power. Well, maybe the Old Republic in Star Wars III. But that was a long long time ago. Most dictatorships come as a result of a coup. Seeing as how we're all still free voters and our government still turns executive leadership over to a different administration at a maximum interval of every eight years, the fear of a government takeover overnight is more or less propaganda. We heard it from the left over the last eight years and we are hearing more loudly from the right this year, but as long as voters retain a modicum of intelligence and a smidgen of motivation to cast votes in elections, the government will remain simply the bureaucratic mouthpiece of the people, never especially effective and always a source of irritation, but about as scary as a twenty foot tall pillow man. The population remains in complete control of the makeup of the government so long as they remember that they do. Its no coincidence that the ones always decrying government involvement are the ones in the party not in control at the time.

As far as the need for NN, I don't think we're far off. I can personally attest to this as I watch my internet bill inexplicably continue to rise every six months or so. As a business, an ISP should be allowed to continue to flourish and certainly has ways to offering luxury plans to high paying consumers, but as internet access comes closer and closer to being a necessity, its very important that it remain affordable to everyone and that said affordable plans aren't crap. After all, how do you expect people to get jobs to pay those high internet bills if they can't mail resumes to employers?

The ultimate goal here is finding a way to keep the doors open for internet consumers without interfering with the nature of the content of the internet whatsoever. I firmly believe that anything short of an outright attack against ISPs will not hinder their ability to profit, so there isn't much to consider in the way of damaging them; just make sure they are forced to make affordable and fair access available and leave it at that. ISPs continue to thrive, consumers retain access, end of story.

Small digression: I imagine that someone somewhere will suggest a "public option" for internet access. A government run option for health care has been proven to work in other countries and presents no real opportunity to screw it up that the voters can't fix in four years. But the last thing you want to do is give the government control of the internet. Frankly, I don't trust conservatives to wield it fairly if they return to control. I'm just bringing this up because I know someone else is going to if I don't. The difference here is that health care is for making your citizens healthy. There is absolutely zero incentive for the government to do anything but try to keep as many voters as healthy and alive as possible so they can continue to vote. Everybody wins. However, if the government controls a significant portion of internet traffic, there's every incentive in the world to use that as a method of telling the voters what to think and when. Bad idea. We've seen government agencies work well across the world in many areas including health care. We've also seen times when the government has controlled the media and it has never worked. So, anyone who starts thinking "public ISP," don't.

It is my belief that the FCC is extremely ill-suited for the role of NN regulator. I think you need a new agency for this, one who's role exists solely at each end of the wires and nowhere in them; the greatest appeal of the internet by far is its total freedom. Its the wild west, the very embodiment of a new and constantly explorable frontier with the added benefit of anonymity and accessibility to basically everyone. The internet is nothing if not a (relatively) consequence free environment where free speech flourishes in a way not available anywhere in the real world, including the USA, and for that reason alone, it is imperative that it not be touched, even in spite of all the dark and treacherous happenings in the back alleys of the digital world. If something gets on the internet that shouldn't be there, that will always remain in the jurisdiction of the real world in my mind. Cut off the source, not the medium. As I have said, I doubt in full the FCC's ability to hinder this environment, but I don't think they won't try. That's why the responsibility needs to fall in a new agency with crystal clear jurisdictional boundaries drawn for them.

Sorry this was so damn long. Sphere: Related Content

The Conservative Gambit

by Cylinsier

There was a stretch of time from 1952 to 1994 during which the Republican party had not held a majority in Congress even once. When, in 1994, the Republicans finally regained the legislature, they called it the Republican Revolution. With it came the end of the Conservative Coalition and for all intents and purposes, any form of bipartisanship. Newt Gingrich took control of the House and instituted a policy of complete conservative isolation from the liberal side of the aisle, giving birth to modern partisanship.

Fast forward to the 2008 elections. As the extremely unpopular Bush Administration enters its golden years, the Democrats are nursing a majority in the House and a split in the Senate (with tie-breaker privileges going to the most evil man alive, Darth Cheney). The writing is on the wall at this point; the Democrats are about to absolutely clean house in the coming elections. The Republican congress had more than overstayed its welcome, and in one of history's greatest examples of choosing poor timing to fuck up, the Republican administration had mired itself in two costly wars, one of which was unpopular enough to all but guarantee change in party regardless of who ran.

If the Republican party wanted us to think they didn't realize this, they wouldn't have nominated the single most moderate member of their party, John McCain, as their potential President elect. Of course, his team screwed it up by talking him into Sarah Palin, repelling any and all moderates, and the rest is history. And now we find ourselves with Democrats in control of 2 and a half of the 3 branches of government. The GOP must be wondering where they went wrong...or are they?

The Republican Gambit, as I refer to it, is the GOP's all-in strategy to regain power of as much of the government as possible. It is a get-rich-quick scheme, and like all schemes of that type, it carries with it considerable risk and a high liklihood of failure, which seems like an odd course of action for a party that describes itself as conservative.

The Republican Gambit is simply this: sacrifice everything, EVERYTHING, to see that Obama fails. As a person, Obama became a symbol of hope and change for the people of America. And when he won, the Rpublican party no doubt saw it coming, because they already had a plan in place to confront it. That plan was and still is to stonewall everything and to label Obama as failure from the start.

This is kind of like a football team claiming it has won a game when it leads the opponent three to zero at the end of the first quarter. Unfortunately, there are three quarters to go and anything can happen. If the gamble pays off, the braggart team look like geniuses brimming with confidence. If not...well, the term "laughing stock" comes to mind, as does the phrase, "death rattle."

The GOP has chosen to declare Obama the worst President this nation has ever seen. Most of the fringe right were making this statement as early as March. I think most polite people with a modicum of intelligence would find this to be premature and odd behavior. Those of us with less manners would describe it as batshit insane. Football games don't end after one quarter and neither do Presidencies end after one year.

But the GOP will stop at nothing to convince those in the middle that Obama has already failed. They lead tea party rallies and cover them substantially via puppet network Fox News, implying that 50,000 people represent the majority of America (population 300 million if you were curious). The somewhat more sensible ask simply, "what has he done so far?" Or, if they are feeling daring, they tell us, "Obama has accomplished nothing, even with a Congressional majority." But it sounds less like a statement of fact and more like a desperate grab at the fleeting wisps of power.

What some in the GOP must realize is that they are facing a very grim set of circumstances. America sent a very clear message in the last election; Democrats are, well, Democrats. Moderates and Independents had grown weary of the dishonest methods of the supposed party of personal responsibility. And the Republican base? Well, as a minority, they've split off and gone the other way, wanting to be given free reign over their money and power and seemingly nauseated that they must share this nation with the common man. The result is a party with no identity, no support and potentially no hope. And so they make the only move that they think they have left. They active the propaganda machine and try to destroy what stands in their way.

As Democrat numbers slowly ebb away, Republican numbers also continue to dwindle. The GOP doesn't care. Times are too dire to worry about the nuisance of public appearance. There is only once chance. Act as dead weight and ensure that Obama accomplishes nothing, then run on that as the only thing you have resembling a platform come election time. Conservative values are last decade. Liberalism has a huge head of steam. If the GOP can just make Obama look like an underachiever, they might have the slim chance of retrieving the power they so crave, the power the grew drunk on and addicted to. But the penalty for failure is huge. If the GOP cannot claim either the White House or at least a split in power in one of the House of Congress by 2012, then the gambit has failed. The results could be as tame as decades of irrelevance or as dire as the death of the party and the birth of a new, likely socially moderate, conservative party in its stead. After all, the lifeblood of the conservative fringe is the prominently older generation, those that can remember strong careers under Reagan, as opposed to those of us only learning about him in school.

The GOP has to go all in because they've been bled dry of new life. They have to hope that by declaring victory now, they will be vindicated in a few years and look like the prophet saviors of Patriotic America. The consequence of failure is probably utter destruction.

Here's the problem; the Republicans want to convince the rest of us that the Democrats are failing. But are they? Let's take a look at what Bush II accomplished in his first year as President.

• June 7: Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
• September 18: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists
• September 28: United States-Jordan Free Trade Area Implementation Act
• October 26: USA PATRIOT Act
• November 28: Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act

Five bills signed into law, three of which are directly related to 9/11. Let's see what Obama has accomplished 10 months in.

• January 29: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
• February 4: Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act
• February 11: DTV Delay Act
• February 17: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• March 30: Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009
• April 21: Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
• May 20: Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
• May 20: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009
• May 22: Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009
• June 22: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
• August 6: Cash For Clunkers Extension Act
• October 22: Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act
• October 28: Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
• October 30: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act

If we want to be fair, we can argue that 9/11 changed the priorities of the nation, so we can compare just the records from September 10 and earlier, but that still puts Obama up 11 to 1. The Conservatives making the "too much too fast" argument at least have numbers on their side. But the "what has he done" Conservatives...well, they just aren't paying attention.

The only thing left to debate is quality of law, since quantity clearly favors the current administration. The former will of course be highly subjective. For some, neutering the freedoms of America in the name of preventing future domestic terrorism trumps the rights of women to receive equal pay, gays to receive protection from violent discrimination, AIDS/HIV positive individuals from traveling freely in the country, and every American's right to be treated fairly by their credit card company. Others do not actually have their heads up their asses.

But one fact is clear: the GOP's kamikaze attack against Obama is not only likely to fail, its already failing. It was an ill-advised strategy to begin with because it is so transparent. But now, as much as the fringe right will try to convince us otherwise, it is in the process of eroding at the foundation, and the structure of propaganda and misdirection above is threatening to topple. If the GOP needs one more reminder why, just think about the legislation listed above being signed into law. Obama was elected by a clear majority to pass exactly the things he is passing above. His support may be dwindling a bit, but the voters voted for those laws. Come election time, what makes you think they are going to do an about face and vote for someone who is going to tear that down as opposed to someone who is building, just slower than was hoped? Think about it, or think about anything at all for a change instead of just talking out of your ass. It would do you all some good. Sphere: Related Content

Iconoclast: Part Deux

By Ellipses

A couple of weeks ago, I thoroughly demolished the notion that Canadians are coming to the US en masse for health care. Using the same powers of mathematicking, I will today take on the second rail of conservative anti-health care reform: "Like OMG! America has TOTALLY the best health care in the UNIVERSE, bitches!"

This will get really boring and "numbery," so I will state the conclusion up front and then pick up back at the beginning (kinda like "Memento" but without the tattoos)...

Conclusion: "INCORRECTAMUNDO!"

I chose a relatively random selection of countries: Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Spain, Sweden, and The United States of America. How did I select these? I scrolled through an alphabetical list and picked places that seem relatively civilized. Then I added Israel because conservatives are completely gay for Israel. Then I added the US because, well, that's the point of this post.

Next, I picked diseases that I could get data on that would be consistently methodologicalized across that spread of countries. I did NOT cherry-pick diseases that cast America in a bad light... in fact, I picked the diseases before I had the data regarding the performance of each country in the category. For all I knew at the time, America would be W00t and the rest of the world would be Suxorz.

Finally, I put the lime in the coconut, spun around three times, and wiped Larry David's piss off of Jesus' chin.

Before we look at diseases on a case-by-case basis, I want to just lob a data grenade toward Sean Hannity, who is convinced that if we have evil socialized medicine in America, then all the doctors are going to quit and become plumbers or cashiers or something like that.

Medical Doctors per 1,000 People
Finland 2.6
France 3.4
Germany 3.4
Israel 3.8<------------- First!
Spain 3.2
Sweden 3.3
United States 2.3<-----------Not first! (nor 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th)

And now for a second auxiliary point... dental care for children. I would posit that a family that does not have regular health insurance is probably not getting routine dental care. For those "slippery slope" folks who think that socialized dental care would be a frivolous act of overt Stalinism, I would point to the causal relationship between gum disease and bacterial induced heart disease. Dental health is an indicator of overall health and early detection of oral health problems prevents extremely expensive cardio-thoracic, emergency care. So, how do we do when it comes to our mouths?

Number of Bad Teeth Per Child
Finland 1.2
France 1.2
Germany 0.7<-----------First!
Israel 1.66
Spain 1.12
Sweden 1
United States 1.19<---------- Not First! (not last, either, so... yay?)

Ok, how about we look at behavior-related diseases. HIV is primarily transmitted through a behavior (sex). So, how do those bad, liberal, socialist countries do compared to us on sexual health, specifically, HIV among 15-49 year olds?

% of 15-49 year olds infected with HIV
Finland 0.07
France 0.35
Germany 0.11
Israel 0.11
Spain 0.46
Sweden 0.07
United States 0.64<---------- Last again... damnit already!

Ok, so I hear a lot about how the US does better with breast cancer than Canada or England. Too bad Canada and England aren't on my list. Let's see how we do on breast cancer among our sample countries:

Breast Cancer Deaths/100,000 Women
Finland 15
France 18
Germany 19
Israel 22
Spain 15
Sweden 15
United States 17<---------- 4th place...

Good news is, 4th place gets a ribbon... Bad news is, the ribbon is pink, and it's because your mom's dead of breast cancer.

Let's go downtown to Cervixville:

Cervical Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Women
Finland 0.86
France 1.4
Germany 2.2
Israel 1.5
Spain 1.5
Sweden 1.9
United States 1.9<---- Fuck! Tied for second to last place!

In all fairness, though, only 1 in 8 Finnish women actually HAVE a cervix. Little-known fact.

Maybe we'd have more luck 'round back:

Colon Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Men
Finland 11
France 15
Germany 19
Israel 17
Spain 18
Sweden 13
United States 13<----------- Tied for SECOND PLACE! I feel like I'm cheering for the slow kid just because he fouled one off! "Good contact Sparky!" While I'm thinking "stick to the drama club."

And with the girl's butts?

Colon Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Women
Finland 7.3
France 8.8
Germany 11
Israel 12
Spain 9.7
Sweden 9.9
United States 9.2<---- we slipped... France AND Finland are kicking our cancer-ridden asses

Ok... Liver cancer. We HAVE to beat Germany and France on this one!

Liver Cancer Deaths per 100,000 Men
Finland 4.5
France 10
Germany 4.9
Israel 4.1
Spain 7.9
Sweden 4
United States 4.6<--------- 4th place :-/

Liver Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Women
Finland 2.2
France 2.3
Germany 1.8
Israel 2.1
Spain 2.7
Sweden 2
United States 1.8<------------- Holy Cirrhosis Batman! Tied for FIRST! It's about damn time.

Alright, let's keep the addiction-related ailments train going! Next up: Lung Cancer

Lung Cancer Deaths per 100,000 Men
Finland 31
France 44
Germany 40
Israel 28
Spain 45
Sweden 20
United States 44<------ Tied with goddamn France for second to last? Shit.

Lung Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Women
Finland 8.1
France 8.2
Germany 11
Israel 9.1
Spain 5.1
Sweden 14
United States 26<---------- WTF?

Side rant for a moment... In the United States, smoking is an activity that is enjoyed disproportionately by people with lower incomes and lower levels of education. People who are MOST likely to forgo routine health care due to the expense of the care or the inability to obtain insurance. It comes as no surprise that a demographic segment that overindexes in propensity to smoke as well as propensity to NOT have health insurance or receive routine care would show high levels of death resulting from a smoking-related disease.

Alright, back up the ass:

Prostate Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Men
Finland 18
France 14
Germany 15
Israel 9
Spain 12
Sweden 20
United States 12<---------- another second place finish! Good contact, Sparky!

We have to find SOMETHING that we are good at... How about... stomach cancer?

Stomach Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Men
Finland 6.8
France 5.9
Germany 9
Israel 7.7
Spain 9.5
Sweden 5.4
United States 3.4<--------- Suck it, Finland!

Stomach Cancer Deaths Per 100,000 Women
Finland 4.1
France 2.3
Germany 4.7
Israel 4.5
Spain 4
Sweden 2.8
United States 1.7<----------------- in your MOUTH, France!

Not to piss on your gold medal in Special Olympics Bowling... but on average, a woman is 30 times more likely to get breast cancer than stomach cancer. A man is 18 times more likely to get prostate cancer than stomach cancer. The combined male + female likelihood of getting lung cancer is 50 times the male+female liklihood of getting stomach cancer. So, it's kinda like bragging that the US has the fewest number of soccer injuries...

However, if you are an alcoholic woman who doesn't smoke and has had the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine (decreased risk of Cervical Cancer), then there is no country on earth where you'd rather get liver cancer! Except Germany, maybe. Go to Iconoclast, Part Trois Sphere: Related Content