Republican Todd Akin brought some sunshine on the republican ideology and ignorance regarding abortions, and now we all know that what this party really wants is to ban all abortions and give a fetus the same legal rights as us out-of-uterus people. This is pretty interesting stuff as this would actually lead to that in-uterus people that causes the death of the uterus carrier, could be sentenced to death, and reversed if the uterus carrier causes the death of an in-uterus person, SHE could be sentenced to death, pretty darn smart for t-bag carriers to lobby for this.
These platform ideas might even create jobs, jobs, jobs, when a new profession will be required, the fetus whisperers. Those who are educated and trained in communicating with the in-uterus people, I mean if I was an in-uterus person, I would be quick to sue the uterus carrier if SHE smoked, drank alcohol or took drugs, or ask to be transferred to another uterus.
Flip-flopper extraordinaire, Romney, did what he does best, quickly tried to figure out the best stand point for winning the election so the Republicans can abort Obama from his presidency. During his time serving as a Mormon bishop, he tried to persuade a woman was recommended an abortion for medical reasons, to save her life, to not have an abortion. If Romney wasn't such a flippety-floppety he would have called Tim Tebow's mother who against her doctor's recommendation went through her pregnancy and produced little miracle Tebow, and have her crusade for the in-uterus people with him. If you are a true pro-life person, you should stick to it and ban all abortions or murder of in-uterus people if you will, no matter raped 11-year-old GIRLS, deadly sick GIRLS or WOMEN, GIRLS being raped by their fathers or uncles shall of course not abort the in-fetus person. Because we all know now that the FEMALE body has built-in system to uninpregnate herself if she is legitimately raped. Wow, God, not the others' God but our God, figured all this out in his intelligent design plan.  

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My oldest daughter Charli graduated high school last Friday. Little did we know when she begun first class in Bälinge skola in Sweden that she would graduate Magna Cum Laude from an American high school. She came to the US in 6th grade and now she is going back to Sweden for university studies. Thanks to the help of the Swedish Consular in Tampa she could do her Swedish language test here and her transcripts are being sent to Sweden this week, so hopefully we will know in July if she is accepted. Swedish university is free for Swedes and you are accepted on your grades only.  

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The Finland House, located on the east coast in Lantana offers activites during the winter season October through May including Finnish performers, Finnish and English language classes as well as the monthly Finnish Pancake Breakfast and Rummage Sale held the first Saturday of every month. The Finland House was built by Finnish men and women together in 1948 and now also serves as a hub for the Finlandia Days where they offer Finnish movies, art exhibitions, theatre performances Taste of Finland and more. Great for the Finnish people living in Florida to have their own house where they can celebrate their culture! Being half-Finnish myself I will make sure to visit  Finlandia Days 2012, February 11 to 19 I really look forward to the Taste of Finland competition!

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Last night I heard strange whistling sounds from our lake, and this morning my husband caught the whistling birds with his Canon EOS-1D Mark II N. We could not identify them from our usual source the Audubon Field Guide to Florida, we had to search the web to learn that our new beautiful guests are actually called Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. They are pretty large birds that does not seem to be afraid of us. Its appearance and habits have been described as most un duck like by an American ornithologist. We hope our un duck like ducks will stay for a long time and have little ducklings soon.

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                       Photo Pontus Hook/Aftonbladet

Swedish Queen Silvia and princess Madeleine visited a sermon held by Church of Sweden in Boca Raton yesterday. More than 450 people showed up to see our Queen and beautiful princess Madeleine. The editor did not have time to scoot over to the east coast being swamped by work but an article about the visit was actually published in Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet.

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Swedish UN worker Joakim Dungel


Norwegian UN worker Siri Skare

 
Two Scandinavians, Norwegian leutenant Siri Skare, 52  and Swedish international law expert Joakim Dungel, 33 were amongst the UN workers killed today in Afghanistan. Already in September, General David Petraeus warned Terry Jones that the burning of the Quran would be detrimental and dangerous top the US troops fighting in Afghanistan. It has now been proven that such a disgraceful act of an American Christian extremist has caused the death of UN workers. The former hotel manager turned into a pistol carrying pastor who thinks he is entitled to insult a world religion only to prevent his church to go bankrupt, now bears the responsability for damaging to the peace process and for the loss of lives of curageous people that committed their lives for a better world. Shame on you Terry Jones, you are a disgrace. My condoleances to the families of our Scandinavian brothers and sisters that lost their lives today.

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The snake in the nest

I have the pleasure of working a lot from home, and as a part of my morning routine I feed the hens and take in the eggs before my second cup of tea. This morning I went out and saw a very concerned hen trying to get into her favourite nest to lay her egg, when I looked into the nest  a big corn snake stared at me, the the big yellow snake had swallowed one of our eggs and looked dazed from just having fed. I panicked, I was alone at home and could not think of any of our closest neighbours being around either, the snake was there and was obviously going to come back for more if I left it there to escape, and our hen, Greta, really needed to be in that particular nest to lay her egg. I must admit that in our house my husband is the killer of pests such as mice, rats and snakes that are bothering us.  

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Why waste a lot of land to wild life and the general public to enjoy Florida's beautiful nature? Governor Scott and his buddy Jack Nicklaus recently failed to pass a bill that would allow Nicklaus to build golf courses in Florida state parks. The project named "Jack Nicklaus Golf Trail of Florida" proposed to build golf courses in many of Florida's most fragile parks and wetlands. Jack Nickaus lobbyist, former Attorney General and Secretary of StateJim Smith, even suggested, believe it or not,  that if the state parks couldn't be used they would be happy to build golf courses all over university campuses and land owned by water districts!! Environmentalists headed by the Audubon Society and Floridians alike with the support of golf legend Arnold Palmer protested this obvious attempt to abuse the beauty of Florida and it's residents' rights to enjoy the untouched nature of the state for a quick business deal. One wonders though, if Rick Scott is as business savvy as he wants us to believe and that his ideas and corporate friends are realistic about what is good for our state.  

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Kathleen Passidomo

Some weeks ago I read about the horrible gang rape in Texas, an 11-year old girl was raped by 18 men and teenagers. The Florida Republican Kathleen Passidomo blames the parents of the girl for allowing her to go to school dressed "as a prostitute" and thinks that Florida should learn from this horrible incident by enforcing dress codes in schools to avoid such things happening here.

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Today is the International Women's Day and time to remember all the heroes that have worked for women's rights and made us almost equal to men. I am very grateful to be a well educated woman that can make my own decisions on who to live with, how many kids I want to have, who to vote for, basic human rights that we must protect. When we still lived in Sweden and wanted to move to a warmer climate we considered Ireland for a while, but decided not to as I promised my daughters and myself that I would never live in a country where a government or priesthood control the female body. Ireland has a law against abortion so therefore Ireland was scratched from our list. I am deeply concerned about the fundamental republicans ideas of restricting the rights of women to have an abortion. To me it is a step back towards the caves left thousands of years ago and very much against the Teabaggers own ideals of "not having the government telling you what to do" and against US Declaration of Independence  "the Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"  

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To much progress for a tea bagger!

Tea Party fundamentalists such as the new Florida governor Rick Scott are a bigger threat to the US than terrorists and natural disasters. This group of madhatters are now running amoc all over the US suggesting the one crazy bill after another, here in Florida Rick Scott who was elected on promising jobs, high quality education and a business friendly climate has decided to stop the most progressive project in the Tampa Bay and Orlando area, the $2.4 billion high-speed rail project that will employ 24 000 people and attract many business to an interconnected two attractive business sites, Tampa Bay and Orlando in a environmental and people friendly way. And this project is funded by federal dollars! These tea baggers do not get it, progress costs! The business community of Tampa Bay and Orlando are not happy about Rick Scott's decision at all and I am sure that the contruction workers that had been looking forward to go back to work again are not to happy with our new governor. Good news though that the Democrats and other sane people have come together to try to stop this guy from wrecking Florida's economy even more.  
Read more about the high-speed rail project here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_high_speed_rail

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The monkey that is running for mayor in Tampa has been described as "extremely intelligent and very, very street- wise, the monkey checks for traffic by looking both ways so he doesn't get hit." No one has ever called Palin "The Mama Grizzly" extremely intelligent and I am not sure she would understand why one has to look both ways before one crosses the road. I realised that I have lived in Florida for a while now as I am not that surprised to see a monkey running for mayor, especially after Rick Scott was elected governor. I rather have a smart monkey in charge than a criminal Tea Partyist.
Read and vote for the Monkey here http://monkeyformayor.blogspot.com/

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Tomorrow, Thursday, February 3 at beautiful Curtis Hixon Park in Tampa there will be a free concert with three Tampa bands,  November Foxtrot Whiskey, the Sun Society  and Hana-li will perform 6.30 - 9 pm. The Tampa Museum of Art (right by the park) offers free entry during the event. We went last time in January and had a great time, a lot of people bring chairs, blankets food and drink, last time it was a great crowd!

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Our village celebs

The only celebs living in our tiny village Darby, the Bellamy Brothers, are accusing Britney Spears of having stolen the lyrics from their song If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold it Against Me. I actually first read about this Bellamy Brothers vs. Britney Spears drama in a Swedish tabloid so our celebs are obviously involved in a global scandal. I didn't see any paparazzis driving down Darby Road yesterday though.  

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Florida is the odd state of the USA and we certainly experience a lot of the weirdness here, living in the twilight zone between the plastic, fantastic themeparks, the palm dotted beaches and the deliverance themed countryside of the Sunshine State. We own large pets so we need some acres and we also need a pickup truck to haul feed and other stuff you need on a small animal farm. When I travel south, towards Tampa I am the Volvo driving, latte drinking, liberal (it used to be feminazi but since the Assange scandal I cannot, even, jokingly label myself feminazi anymore, I know that I should add Brie eating as well in combination with liberal, but I never eat Brie whilst driving the Volvo.) I think we are the only Volvo owners in our neighbourhood and if you want to deal with the people in the countryside, they are much more comfortable if you approach them driving your truck. So when I travel north, I use my truck mostly to buy groceries and pick up stuff for the animals. I refuse though to wear t-shirts with any cowgirl or John Deer print, cowboy boots or even worse, a cowboy hat.  

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Charli Crist, our governor, wants to pardon the Door's legendary singer, Jim Morrison from a 1970 conviction of misdemeanor charges of profanity and indecent exposure for allegedly have exposed himself after a concert in Miami in 1969. Jim Morrison died in 1971and had appealed his conviction. Charli Crist now wants to pardon Jim Morrison as he "thinks it is the right thing to do. In some ways it sems like a tragic conclusion to a young man's life to have maybe this be his last legacy, where we're not sure that it actually occured."
Well, I love Jim Morrison and I had no clue that he had been charged in Miami for allegedly having exposed himself and I do not care. I am disappointed in this action taken by Charli Crist who has served as a clever and careful governor for this state for eight years. Why not work on your own legacy mr Crist and do something good for the living?  

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Today the 435 members of the House of Representatvies of the US Congress are elected as well as 37 of the 100 senators of the Senate. In Florida we elect a new governor of totally 37 new governors will be elected.
The members of the House of Representatives represent a district while, and is appportioned among the states by population, while each state regardless population is represented by two senators. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process. Obviously a Republican dominated Congress will consitiute a challenge to Obama.

The most likely outcome of the elections is that the Democrats will lose their majority in the House and the Democrats will stay in control of the Senate.

The Tea Party, will they fail or succeed?  This mongrel and unlikely mix of grassroots and big corporation will probably grab some seats, however, the most scary human expression of the Tea Party, Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Carl Paladino of New York will hopefully be crawling back amongst the grassroots after the election. Rand Paul with his head stomping fans in Kentucky might as well win and proudly carry the teabag (coming from Kentucky I guess the teabag will be dry) all the way into the Senate.

A wet dream for Republicans and Teabaggers equally is to regain control of House oversight committees, for us the birther nightmare will continue with endless investigations launched to find out where Obama really was born.....sometimes not even a teabagger will hesitate to waste taxpayers money.

In my county, Pasco, there are still more pickup trucks than Volvos and I am sure we will continue to be a Republican county. Now back to monitor the Mosquito Commissioner election.    

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Media has been buzzing about today's election and its effect on the next presidential election, it has been sane rallies against crazy rallies, wingbat Tea Partyists against liberal intellectuals. Toxic campaigning with poisonous, stupid TV-ads. And I have seen enough of the beautiful Florida countryside being littered with ugly, cheap, voting signs.  
In crazy Florida they even elect a commissioner for some of the smallest bloodsuckers amongst us, the mosquitoes! Not as fancy as being a bank tsar controlling the big bloodsuckers, but still.
For some odd reason, the manager of Mosquito control here in Pasco county is an elected position. The Mosquito Control Commissioner is responsable for a 6 million dollar budget and to keep more than 46 species of mosquitos in control here in Pasco county.  Five people are fighting over one seat that pays $400 a month. The age range of the applicants is from 18 year to 74 and one young girl has raised more than $16 000 in campaign money. American youth learn early on, that it is all about the money.

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The owner of the McDonalds franchise sent a message to the employees that if the Democrats win they will ge lower wages and benefits. It is not difficult for our family to boycott McDonalds, they sell horrible food and now they intimidate their employees just like any old dictatorship regime.  Instead of sponsoring the processed food mekka we will save the money and donate it to WikiLeaks.

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University of Florida student, Tim Tebow, earning college credits.
It is not the name of his boyfriend smeared in his face it is a reference to a bible verse.

In some senses the USA is so – exotic – to a Swede.  Let us look at football. Football is big in Sweden and big in Europe. Football is gigantonormous in the USA.  The football in the USA though is not the same as our football. Actually in the USA they use their hands – to play football. The so called American football resemble more the Roman gladiator fights than football. So called big heads, are dressed in comic body protection gear and ram into each other in full force and the pile themselves upon each other trying to catch an oblong leather trophy.  The gladiators play in teams and if anyone manage to crawl out under the pile carrying the leather trophy, he needs to put it onto the other teams turf.

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Swedes know how to swing it in Florida.
The Swedish Masters was initiated in 1993 by the Swedish athletes Jan and Martin Olofsson. Jan is a former Swedish soccer player of famous Swedish team Djurgarden as well as handball in the most successful Swedish national team, Hellas.  Martin played handball with the Swedish national team Malmberget. Today Jan and Martin, who are both engineers, run their own businesses and of course play golf in Florida during the long and dark Swedish winter. Not a bad lifestyle at all!

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