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I know you're a troll, but I'll bite.

Cuba had the lowest malnutrition rate in Latin America from 1979-1992, before the US intensified sanctions. Its estimated number of malnourished as of the report date (2000) was 1.8 million, i.e. ~5%. This is almost completely due to the increased embargo; not being able to buy from the US (its nearest potential supplier) increases costs by about 30%; caloric intake during the time dropped 38%. Even still, for comparison, about 30 million Mexicans (~%28) are malnourished. Who is crying them a river?

As for your "ex-cuban" relatives, you are staring in the face the classic example of "selection bias". If they weren't anti-castro/anti-communist, they wouldn't have fled to the US, now would they?

Well, if the UN can manage CEB, CTBTO, ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA, FAO, UNCTAD, HLCM, MA HREF="http://ceb.unsystem.org/hlcp/default.htm">HL CP, IACSD, IANWGE, IAPSO, and about 5 times as many more, I think they can handle one more. :)

UN's record isn't that great IMHO

Oh really? Of the organizations I listed (in alphabetical order), how many are bloated and overbudget? How many have involved scandal of any kind? How many have been largely ineffective? Etc?

Honestly, I think that this is just going to turn into a big OFF-bashing thread.

Yes but your $2.90 for a Big Mac could pay for enough beans, rice and veggies to feed a family for at least a few days (more if stretched). So, on that note, I have to tell you that your McDonald's purchase was the height of waste and rich indulgence. Your money and the money that McDonald's spends to mass-produce food product could have been better spent.

As a Christian, I believe that homosexuality is sinful

According to what? The Bible? Or what your hate-mongering preacher spoon-fed you?

If you are planning to hate gays based on the the Old Testament purity laws in Leviticus, then you'd better follow all of them, including no blood transfusions, no clothing of mixed fibers, eating kosher, and not clipping off the edges of your beard. Otherwise you're cherry picking which parts of the Bible to follow, and that's hypocritical. Furthermore, passages in the Bible indicate that adherence on the Levitican purity laws is contrary to Jesus's teachings

Killing babies, though... man. That's a moral issue, not a religious one. Even the most vocal proponent of "choice," which is just a euphamism for "death,"

I hear something like this and I think of a kid who cries when Bambi's mother dies and later munches on a hamburger. The cute deer gets the tear in your eye while you ignore the fact you're eating the entrails of probably 200-300 different cows for your mealtime. Your heart's in the right place, but you suffer from moral myopia -- you don't take into account the larger picture involved. Mourning the death of unwanted babies while sentimental, really does nothing to fight the world's suffering.

Tell you what, instead of sensationalistic bemoaning of the unborn children, why don't you work on the following causes first?

- According to estimates, there are 800 Million people who go hungry worldwide. 1 child dies every 7 seconds from hunger.

- Over one million children were homeless in nice warm months - like October and February.

- In Africa, 16 million children are homeless due to the AIDS epidemic there.

- over 3 million children were abused in 2001 . 1300 died from abuse, amounting to 3 per day.

So why don't you work on helping the kids people actually want first before harassing women facing a difficult choice?

Mrs. Roe is now wishing that she hadn't had an abortion.

Hmmm... wouldn't you have second thoughts if you'd become the nationwide target of assholes telling you how to live your life? That's succumbing to peer pressure, not a moral revelation.

Not only is it mindless killing, it is also a psychological burden to most would-have-been mothers.

Ummm... bullshit.

Lastly, unless it's your body that's carrying the baby, it's really none of your fucking business. It's the woman's body; the woman has the right to chose to have a kid -- when she's ready, and no sooner. If you can't respect that, then you have no right to have your grubby hands (much less your penis) in a woman's womb.

Umm, I think you are attacking some unrelated generalization you've heard in the past, not the actual poster's comment. He made no statement about hydrogen or solving fossil fuel dependancy.

But, since you are on that topic, there are a number of avenues besides fossil fuel for generating the electricity or heat or whatever for creating hydrogen:

Bacteria. Some scientist at UCLA did some calculations, and determined that a decent sized canyon in the Mojave desert covered 2 feet of water and a sheet to collect the hydrogen produced by the bacteria would be enough for all of Southern California.

Geothermal

Photovoltaics

Tidal

Convection

Fission

Fusion

Biomass Fuels

Solar Thermal

Wind

Hydroelectric

So, who are you swinging your fists at? Certainly not the original poster?

LS

Photosynthetic organisms make excellent use of this energy

Anyone who has bought bulk rice is familiar with the fact that harvested rice is contaminated with bits of debris and wild rice. Speaking in a practical sense, it is clearly inevitable that this GM rice will get mixed in with the food supply.

What is the difference between white and brown rice? Brown rice is unpolished whole grain rice that is produced by removing only the outer husk. It becomes white rice when the bran layer is stripped off in the milling process. source

There is no difference between white rice and wild (Brown) rice. Actually, in other countries people thing that there is something wrong with white rice, since it is white and not brown. So, you have not case in those two getting mixed up.

Not being a good student of chemistry, I can't tell you that yes teaine and caffeine are definitely chemically the same (or not.) I was assuming, based on the fact that there are two different words (even though the chemicals engender similar physical responses) that the two chemicals are in some way different. Also, some of the websites I looked at seemed to imply that the two substances are different,"aiming to produce tea without teaine, cafe without cafeine, etc?" else, why make the distinction?

Just admit you hate the US.
Unfortunately for you I don't hate US, nor any country from Europe, as you seems to do.

Usually I would not reply this kind of message, since it seems like a troll answer, but I must do that to make my position clear: I do not like most US government actions taken in under-developed countries in the last 200 years. It doesn't mean I like the way my country is being used by its own politicians, specifically the last dictartorship period (1964-1990), specially the seventies. The same opinion about many european countries in the past.

But there is something I have nothing against: the US people. Why? I have a business visa that allowed me to really know american people, some of them I confess are good friends of mine.

So let me come back to the topic: many of you already knows about Order 39 of Mr. Bremer. If you do not, just google it ;-) This is the kind of action I'm talking about
In the other hand, I really do like the UN plans for the International Year of Rice 2004 and many other UN initiatives. Supporting poor countries in producing their own food is a good solutions instead of distributing food. Anyway I think US may continue this kind of action while not effectively helping to restore peace, nor giving conditions to make the country economicaly independent, what really solves the problem. UN did not have very good results on both in the past, the Security Council is powerful enougth to not care about it. But other members of UN are trying hard on those priorities and I'll give them a chance. Even some people from US staff at UN are trying to do the right thing. And I subscribe to their ideas and efforts.

About da Silva efforts in being an administratively responsible president, I agree that it's not good to see a few billion dollars going to other country for the sole purpose of paying licenses instead of being spent on the internal economy. If Brazil did not have so many problems related to poverty to solve, it would not be a big issue, but it's not the case.

Another issue about poverty: most poor countries were very rich colonies and also the most productive ones. Sadly almost every good administered colony usually became a very poor country, which went through (and still suffers from) dictatorship and civil war periods.

tomato is a fruit. fruit veggie is not a scientific term.
although I did find this page that shows it clearly NOT in the fruit veggie category
fao.org

Here is what defines a fruit:
">ualr.edu

Look at this for a more detailed analysis of its watershed.

I think it's even easier than you say. This UN thingy looks like it's saying the world only uses 133,127 hectares for crops total, and the US (not even North America, just the USA) has 176,950 hectares of unused arable land. It certaintly seems like some random exodus from the rest of the world is possible, you'd just have to abolish golf for the motherfucking waste of space it is.

From here

One possible starting point is to stipulate a minimum amount of renewable water per head of the population, and to treat countries having less than this as "water short". At levels of internal renewable water availability of less than 1,000 cubic meters per head, FAO regards water as a severe constraint on socio-economic development and environmental protection. It has been estimated that 20 countries will be at or below this level by the year 2000 (FAO, 1995). Most of these are in North Africa and the Middle East. At levels of water availability of less than 2,000 cu.m. per head, water is regarded as a potentially serious constraint, and a major problem in drought years. 40 countries will fall into this category by 2000 (FAO, 1993).

For more information see
http://www.fao.org/ag/agl/aglw/homeaglw.stm

From here

One possible starting point is to stipulate a minimum amount of renewable water per head of the population, and to treat countries having less than this as "water short". At levels of internal renewable water availability of less than 1,000 cubic meters per head, FAO regards water as a severe constraint on socio-economic development and environmental protection. It has been estimated that 20 countries will be at or below this level by the year 2000 (FAO, 1995). Most of these are in North Africa and the Middle East. At levels of water availability of less than 2,000 cu.m. per head, water is regarded as a potentially serious constraint, and a major problem in drought years. 40 countries will fall into this category by 2000 (FAO, 1993).

For more information see
http://www.fao.org/ag/agl/aglw/homeaglw.stm

> Acutally I think if you look around you can find that 4 countries could produce all the food needed in the world. Argintina, US, Canada, and Austraila.

Well, they probably could produce all the food needed in the world.

But according to the FAO those are the numbers for some countries:

Cereals in 2001 (metric tons):
China: 404,126,308
EU: 202,424,960
India: 230,611,000
USA: 325,315,236
Rice:
China: 181,514,992
India: 131,900,000

Countries not listed, including Canada and Argentina produced only some 10^7 metric tons.

And everywhere else. This is a standard technique for reducing (not eliminating) an insect population. It is not usually a one-shot. How is the Winnipeg mosquito population rebounding? Or are they still releasing sterile males? (Male mosquitos don't bite.)

How it works... essentially, we aim to reduce the probability that an insect's mating produces offspring. If that drops from say .9 to .1, the next generation is massively smaller. As someone else said, it's called the Sterile Insect Technique, and the Food and Agriculture Organization has a detail item here from 1998.

The SIT was applied over a period of 20 years to eradicate [New World Screwworm] from North America and Mexico, and efforts to eradicate it from all of Central America are now under way.

And everywhere else. This is a standard technique for reducing (not eliminating) an insect population. It is not usually a one-shot. How is the Winnipeg mosquito population rebounding? Or are they still releasing sterile males? (Male mosquitos don't bite.)

How it works... essentially, we aim to reduce the probability that an insect's mating produces offspring. If that drops from say .9 to .1, the next generation is massively smaller. As someone else said, it's called the Sterile Insect Technique, and the Food and Agriculture Organization has a detail item here from 1998.

The SIT was applied over a period of 20 years to eradicate [New World Screwworm] from North America and Mexico, and efforts to eradicate it from all of Central America are now under way.