Misers No More?

Cross posted at Monkey in the Middle

Saudi Arabia Pledges $500 Million to the World Food Program

Two weeks after a FOX News investigation showed oil-rich Saudia Arabia had donated nothing this year to help the United Nations World Food Program feed the world's hungry, the globe's number one oil exporter is finally opening its checkbook.

How nice. All it took was 2 weeks of begging by the world. Please Mr. Arab with the Money give some to the starving of the world. And now they want to be considered a wonderful nation for this "generosity".

UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed on Friday the "landmark" 500-million-dollar contribution by Saudi Arabia to the world body's food agency to help fight the global food crisis.

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"Landmark" $500 million contribution? And what did the US give? $1.6 Billion. That's Billion with a 'B'. 5 times as much as the nearest contributor.

The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices.

The only other major oil exporter who made the WFP list of 2008 donors was the United Arab Emirates, which kicked in $50,000. UAE oil revenues in 2007 were $63 billion.

By contrast, the poverty-stricken African republic of Burkina Faso is listed as donating more than $600,000, and Bangladesh, perennial home of many of the world’s hungriest people, is listed as donating nearly $5.8 million.

The starving people donate $6.4 million and OPEC donates $1.5 million. Somethings just don't add up, does it.That's all the nations of OPEC, some of the richest in the world. You know: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

And guess what? They don't pay the most in UN dues either. Actually they pay very little dues. I wonder how they get away with that? Is it because the majority of members of OPEC are all members of the Arab League? That nice League with the following members: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt. Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. A nice bunch. They vote in a bloc, never voting against a fellow member. And they have a wonderful Charter filled with wonderful ideas in it. They don't need the UN, they can have their own little Lovefest without the rest of the world.

Actually the time has come to leave the UN. And you can do your part to convince our lawmakers.

There is now a petition of Withdraw the United States from the UN. By clicking on the lovely flag below, you too can give your voice to it. It is easy to do and takes only a few minutes.

There is no place at the UN for the US and the US is tired of paying for the UN.

Americans Deserve to Consume More Resources

Maybe if Our National Anthem
was "America the Beautiful..."
Photo by: TW Collins

In nature, the entity that supplies most of the benefit to a community gets most of the resources. Let's take the example of the Queen Bee. A queen develops from the same egg or larva as any other bee; the only difference is that she gets vastly greater amounts of royal jelly than the average worker honey bee. Because of this the queen develops into a sexually mature female.

It is the Queen Bee that ensures the survival of the hive and despite the communist misconception that it is the workers that contribute the most to society, nature itself makes the value judgment by allocating the greatest resources to whom she considers the most important. Of course, worker bees never complain that her Highness is only one bee yet consumes a greater proportion of resources than the rest of the hive. They know she deserves it.

Since I was a child I have heard, read, and seen reports about how much of the world's resources we few greedy Americans consume. Here's one:

Solar Energy International, Energy Consumption

• Though accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world's energy.


• In 1997, U.S. residents consumed an average of 12,133 kilowatt-hours of electricity each, almost nine times greater than the average for the rest of the world.


• America uses about 15 times more energy per person than does the typical developing country.

Here are some interesting but meaningless facts:

Mindfully.org, Consumption by the United States

On average, one American consumes as much energy as

• 2 Japanese


• 6 Mexicans


• 13 Chinese


• 31 Indians


• 128 Bangladeshis


• 307 Tanzanians


• 370 Ethiopians

So Average Joe American uses as much energy as 370 Ethiopians, so what? What the hell do Ethiopians contribute to the world? Nothing but more Ethiopians who consume the Earth's oxygen, beg us for money, food, and medicine and then bad mouth us for helping them.

We deserve to use more resources. It is Americans who have contributed the most in medicine, physics, and chemistry (38% of all Nobel Prizes); we are the most generous people on this planet; when there is a disaster somewhere the world expects us to help.

If you read the previous article posted today at Reject The UN, Who is Selfish? by An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings you would learn:

The overwhelming bulk of the burden in feeding the world’s starving poor remains with the United States and a small group of other predominately Western nations, a situation that the WFP [United Nations World Food Program] has done little so far to change, even as it has asked for another $775 million in donations to ease the crisis.
...
Donor listings on WFP’s website show that this year, as in every year since 1999, the U.S. is far and away the biggest aid provider to WFP. Since 2001, U.S. donations to the food agency have averaged more than $1.16 billion annually — or more than five times as much as the next biggest donor, the European Commission.

OPEC Countries with gazillions of dollars of oil revenues donated diddlysquat. Perhaps that's why Arabs introduced the concept of zero (from the Hindus) to the Western world: so they could give zip in humanitarian aid.

We contribute more to the world than we get back; if the world was fair we'd be consuming 75% of the world's resources and no one dare complain. When the rest of the world bitches about it it's because they are ungrateful wretches - without America the world would still be living in 1910 (although it should be noted that Muslim countries still live in 632 A.D.).

Related:

SFGate, 9 May 2008, UN to resume food aid flights to Myanmar

The United Nations says it will resume food aid flights to Myanmar on Saturday.

It also forecasts heavy rains next week in the country already devastated by a cyclone.

The U.N. food program says it will send two planes with goods to feed hungry survivors. The World Food Program had suspended help after Myanmar's junta seized U.N. aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors.

I wonder if the United Nations Human Rights Council will officially condemn the junta or will it blame Israel for somehow causing the natural disaster?

Planck's Constant: For Gods Sake - Stop Helping Africa

Planck's Constant: Africa better off under Colonial Rule

Cross-Posted at Planck's Constant

U.N. to Teach Americans How to Change their Behavior

Cross-posted from Faultline USA

Here are some excerpts from articles this week that should make anyone frightened. When it comes to our national sovereignty, our safety and our food supply should be number one! But it looks like the U.N is well on its redistributive way to take what’s left of our food.

According to USA Today, Surplus U.S. food supplies dry up

"Worldwide, food prices have risen 45% in the past nine months, posing a crisis for millions, says the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Because of the current economics of food, and changes in federal farm subsidy programs designed to make farmers rely more on the markets, large U.S. reserves may be gone for a long time.

The upshot: USDA has almost no extra food to supplement the billions in cash payments it spends to combat hunger at home and in developing nations. "

Could the global food crisis impact America?

"NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, in a recent meeting here with Bretton Woods Institution organizations, called for immediate and long-term measures to tackle a growing global food crisis.

The rapidly escalating crisis of food availability has reached emergency proportions,” Secretary-General Ban said April 14. He was referring to food riots taking place in different parts of the world, from Italy to Yemen and Mexico to the Philippines. Tanks were deployed in parts of Yemen April 4 after five days of protests by 1,000 people, mostly youth, angry about the rising price of food. Wheat prices have doubled since February, while rice and vegetable oil jumped 20 percent. . . .

While international leaders gathered to find solutions to the world food crisis, analysts in the United States braced for the April 16 Consumer Price Index Report. Analysts say the U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years because of sharply higher costs for wheat, corn, soybeans and milk as well as higher energy and transportation costs. . . .

“It’s hard for most Americans to even conceive of the idea that food could become scarce in this country,” said Raj Patel, a writer, activist and former policy analyst with the advocacy group Food First and analyst for the World Bank, World Trade Organization and the United Nations. “Few of us are paying attention to the close relationship between bio-fuel, grain crops and price inflation,” Mr. Patel told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman. He was appearing on her Pacifica Radio show, to push his new book, “Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.” The book is due out April 25. Competition between corn and other crops for planting acres has driven up the price of food in the U.S., as the government mandates more acreage for corn, wheat and soybeans, ingredients needed for ethanol production. . . .

“We are studying ways to communicate to people in the U.S. that they have to change their behavior. Americans are too complacent, believing there never would be a food shortage, which could be caused by a drought,” he said. “From my academic position, I can say that people are having a hard time finding food in America, so we have to change our thinking.”

This from What is Running Through Our Minds

". . .President Bush in mid-April drew $200 million from the Emerson Humanitarian Trust, named after former congressman Bill Emerson, a Missouri Republican. Bush's action followed a desperate plea from the United Nations for food aid. Thursday, the president announced he would ask Congress for $770 million in separate, additional funding to meet international needs.

But Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, at a recent food aid conference, says his agency faces tough decisions about managing the rest of the reserve in times of widespread hunger. "How far do we draw down?" he asked. "Do we take it down to zero because we need it? Do we hold some in there, because who knows what's going to happen, for emergency purposes later?"