Africans to consider sharing water as population on track to more than double by 2050
"There are countries that progressed in technology and human resources but have a deficit in natural resources, while others have abundant natural resources and lack the technology and human resources," said Wafaa Sahli, director of urban development at the Community of Sahel-Saharan states.
Sahli said that only pooling those resources would allow Africa to end persistent food crises.
Africa's population of 967 million, of whom 53 percent are under the age of 20, is forecast to reach 2 billion in 2050.
[ If you thought AIDS was going to kill all Africans then these statistics will give you negative reality inversion! Meanwhile Europeans are set to dwindle into being an ethnic minority in their own continent. White people can't afford children, because we have to help Africans. ]
nationalist on 12.18.08 @ 09:32 AM CST [more..]
Madoff Ripoff
Steven Spielberg. Elie Wiesel. Mort Zuckerman. Frank Lautenberg. Yeshiva University. As I read the list of people and enterprises reportedly bilked to the tune of $50 billion by Bernard Madoff, I recalled a childhood in which my father received bad news by asking first, "Was it a Jew?" My father coupled sensitivity to anti-Semitism with special sympathy for other Jews. In contrast, Mr. Madoff, it seems, targeted other Jews, drawing them in at least in some measure because of a shared faith.
The Madoff tale is striking in part because it is like stealing from family. Yet frauds that prey on people who share bonds of religion or ethnicity, who travel in the same circles, are quite common. Two years ago the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a warning about "affinity fraud." The SEC ticked off a series of examples of schemes that were directed at members of a community: Armenian-Americans, Baptist Church members, Jehovah's Witnesses, African-American church groups, Korean-Americans. In each case, the perpetrator relied on the fact that being from the same community provided a reason to trust the sales pitch, to believe it was plausible that someone from the same background would give you a deal that, if offered by someone without such ties, would sound too good to be true.
The sense of common heritage, of community, also makes it less seemly to ask hard questions. Pressing a fellow parishioner or club member for hard information is like demanding receipts from your aunt - it just doesn't feel right. Hucksters know that, they play on it, and they count on our trust to make their confidence games work.
[ We are basking in a sense of delicious schadenfreud, but how about a little exercise of the imagination? Here's a plot worthy of a movie: Madoff summons some chums, ie including Spielberg and Wiesel with a dastardly plan he has hatched in his scheming mind. He asks his friends to give him some of their money to start it off - telling them the plan is to rip off gentiles and make $billions for Israel. He tells them their investment will be kept in an account for them in Israel. So then he does his giant Ponzi scheme and sends $billions secretly to Israel out of that. $50 billion would finance Israel comfortably for some years while the financial meltdown causes extreme chaos elsewhere - including starvation in Europe.
When found out - the idea is that Spielberg, Wiesel etc claim they were victims too - thus deflecting "anti semites" from blaming Jews for not only this scandal but the financial crisis on the whole. Meanwhile Israel keeps the money, Spielberg and Wiesel keep their money in addition to compensation from the American taxpayer, and they are all very happy. Meanwhile Madoff fakes his death and flees to Israel where he remains incognitio, protected by the state for his remaining years. ]
nationalist on 12.18.08 @ 08:55 AM CST [more..]