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Quotes

I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Stephen F Roberts
 

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

Tom Lehrer

 

 

Information

Check out the gasoline price differences between the US  and six European countries.

We pay more than two and half times more for gasoline than our friends in the US!  


See my letters to Time magazine which appeared in its international edition .... bio diesel  .... English as the US official language

 


Health
updated April 2009

I have a friend in the US (are you reading this Harold?) who tires of me saying that the quality of life can be better elsewhere.  
These statistics (2009 estimates) from the CIA World Factbook would seem to indicate that living outside of the US can have some measurable health benefits. 

   Infant mortality rates
   
deaths/1,000 live births

 

Life expectancy at birth
total population (in years)

Japan
France
Czech Republic

Germany
Belgium
Netherlands

Australia
UK
Canada

Greece
Cuba
US

2.79
3.33
3.79

3.99
4.44
4.73

4.75
4.85
5.04

5.16
5.82
6.26

 

Japan
Australia
Canada

France
Greece
Netherlands

Germany
Belgium
UK

US
Cuba
Czech Republic

82.12
81.63
81.23

80.98
79.66
79.40

79.26
79.22
79.01

78.11
77.45
76.81

 

 

Rates of Teenage Childbearing in the USA are the Highest in the Developed World


Between 1990 and 2002, the national teen pregnancy rate fell 35 percent, from 116.8 to a record low of 76.4 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19 (Ventura et al., 2006).

The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S., however, is the highest among the most developed countries in the world, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden ("Birth, Abortion...," 2006; National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006). Eighty-six percent of this decline is a result of improved contraceptive use and the use of more effective contraceptive methods among sexually active teenagers, and 14 percent of this decline is attributable to increased abstinence (Santelli et al., 2007).

Another study points out that another cause for the reduction of teen pregnancy is that adolescents are increasingly substituting other kinds of sex play for vaginal intercourse (Weiss & Bullough, 2004).
Source - Planned Parenthood  (The original article has been deleted or moved.  The link now points to a pdf file that contains similar information.)

Teenage pregnancy per capita - Nation Master.com (pdf)

   

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