Make a Difference
via Instapundit.
These low tech, fuel efficient wood burning stoves are a renewable energy project that will save lives, by leaving more time for mothers to spend with their children, and more money to be spent on food and medical care.
You can help – just follow the link.
Of course, if we really want to help people out of poverty, nuclear power would be better. But this is a good start.
The People’s Republic of San Francisco has decreed that happiness is no longer permitted. At least, not in the form of happy meals. Or any other meals that include toys and TOO MANY CALORIES. Such meals are now banned.
Meanwhile, back in less ‘liberal’ and consequently, less authoritarian, Australia, a professor of health education and nutrition has pointed out that fears about childhood obesity have been exaggerated by the media. She goes on to say that restrictions on the availability of junk food will do lttle to resolve the problems that do exist:
“People have to stop exaggerating the numbers about childhood obesity – that’s not to say that it is not an issue but you know, hysteria, fear campaigns and exaggeration are not very scientific,” said Dr O’Dea.
Professor O’Dea also points out that childhood obesity is largely a problem for the poor. Tackling poverty, she suggests, is the best long-term way to tackle childhood obesity and many other children’s health issues.
But it seems to me that childhood obesity is evidence of one of the key attitudes that keeps some people poor.
There is nothing wrong with take aways as an occasional treat. But good quality day to day food; fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, fish, lean meat, etc, is cheaper than McDonalds or KFC.
Of course, such meals take a little longer to prepare, and need some thinking in advance.
So if take away food (take-out if you’re an American) is more expensive, why do people on low incomes eat more of it?
It is easy to claim that poverty is caused by structural injustices. And some is. The anti-development policies of organisations like Greenpeace, and their lobbying of governments and organisations like the Word Bank, have kept incomes and life spans in some third world countries much lower than they would otherwise be.
But in wealthy western countries this is less often the case. Poverty, and the disadvantages to children it causes, cannot be changed by acts of government.
‘The poor will be with you always’ Mt 26:11
This is both funny and tragic because the words put into Obama’s mouth are true, and the plan would work. But it will just never happen.
Imagine the posibilities, the hopenchangen. But, instead, real hope, and real change.
Darn. The more I think about it, the sadder I feel.
From Scott Ott’s Scrappleface:
Delegates to the global climate conference in Copenhagen sat in stunned silence today as President Obama solved the global warming crisis with a single 25-minute speech.
“While the challenges we face may seem insoluble,” the Nobel laureate said, “the solution is actually quite simple. It’s historically reliable. It works every time it’s sincerely tried.”
“Basically, the problem is that poor nations are broke,” Obama explained, “and rich nations don’t want to throw their money down a totalitarian rathole, into the hands of tyrants who see this treaty as a gold mine and who have no intention of reducing carbon emissions. Since we need trillions of dollars to fund development of speculative green technologies, the only answer is for the poor nations to get rich fast.”
Obama said the broad outlines of his plan included having poor nations “adopt the time-tested Protestant work ethic, free-market capitalism and equal justice under law.”
“Once you see your vocation as a calling from God,” he said, “you work diligently toward excellence, to bring glory to your creator. If your property rights are guaranteed under law, you work to improve yours, and to acquire more, by serving others. Under my plan, within half a century, the less-developed nations will go from being pathetic dependents to equal trading partners.”
While skeptics said the president’s plan would put off a solution until the world’s coastlands were under water, Obama said, “Free men and women solve problems for profit, for accolades and for inscrutable personal purposes … but they do solve problems. If, in five decades, there’s still a climate crisis, we can all get together, kick in an equal share per capita, and hire someone to fix it.”
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