"HOWEVER, when polled, people assumed that about 25% of our budget went to foriegn aid"

No they didn't. Unless it was a really small poll of a bunch of really stupid people without even the faintest grasp of how the world works. Still, that's beside the point.

Two major issues. Firstly the $5 billion price tag is a huge underestimate. I don't know where you pulled that figure from but, even assuming cooperation from malaria infected nations, $5 billion won't come close.

Secondly you can't assume cooperation. All you need is a single nation to get paranoid about letting teams of American funded scientists, agents, and their security into their territory (and I can think of several off the top of my head), and your efforts and money will largey be wasted. Eradication needs to happen everywhere or not at all.

A synical person might also say that those who are saved from malaria will just die of something else anyway.

I'll be Octavious' cynical person. Malaria tends to exist mostly in tropical countries, many of them with pretty low standards of living, and it is far from the only issue in those places...AIDS, for instance, has ridiculous infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa. And the tropics are full of heavy handed regimes who don't want US assistance no matter what. Myanmar, for instance, refused all foreign aid after the Indian Ocean tsunami a few years ago.

We won't get rid of malaria until we allow developing countries to develop, but it's much too lucrative to make sure the world has some resource rich shitholes.

Because every time we have a great chemical to eradicate disease, such as DDT, the environmentalists get it banned...typically based upon false data. Even IF the claims on DDT were true...which they were proven not to be...millions of lives have been lost to supposedly save a few birds.

THAT is why disease eradication is not a high priority....well....it isn't why it isn't a priority. it IS a priority...it just isn't allowed to take place due to whack-jobs. Another grat example of environmentalism gone wrong: Freon....that great chemical we USED to use in air conditioners....supposedly was "killing the atmosphere" was replaced by some less-effective shit chemical R-12) that is not as effective and thus USES MORE ENERGY (I.E. C02!!!) to use! Way to go dumbass environmentalists.

The list goes on....but the bottom line is some "activist" always gets in the way. "Eradicating" disease generally means eradicating a carrier....and eradicating a carrier means poisoning something in favor of saving a man...and generally speaking, environmentalists would rather see a man die than a bug.

Even the author of Silent Spring was not for the banning of DDT, she just suggested some moderation. It was taken way out of proportion by all-or-nothing trends in legislation.

@Sacred -- Dude.. Aids has nothing to do with low-standard of living in the sub-tropics. It has everything to do with a bunch of illiterate, immoral jackass having unprotected sex every time they drop their pants with someone new because they don't believe in condoms. In fact, there was an African leader that openly spoke against condoms when the west wash pushing protected sex. it is fucking ignorance.

That being said, most of the people on this web site believe in Evolution...so why the hell shouldn't we let stupid, ignorant, immoral cultures die off because they are too retarded to slip on a rain coat before fucking a whore. Let 'em die, right? It's natural! It's evolution, right? Why mess with nature....?

It's hillarious when Evolutionists insist that evolution should be stopped becuase they decided that the way things are TODAY is the way they should be always. Maybe the world is destined to be without African tribal people who will all die of AIDS otherwise?


(Haaaa ha ha....waiting for all you ignorant fools to totally miss the sarcasm/irony/mockery and pretend I want Africans to die because you are too stupid to get the joke...)

@Sacred -- She may have been to moderation, but the Left-Wing environmental whacko Earth-First Green Earth morons exaggerated it to hysterical ends until DDT was banned, and this has resulted in millions of deaths. This is SOP for the left-wing environmental movement....and it generally focuses on killing successful corporations that they have some beef with.

The eradication of krellin, by way of contrast, would be relatively straightforward and extremely cheap. Indeed, I dare say a number of people may volunteer to do it for free.

Literacy rates are part of what assigns the HDI, which is what most people use to judge standard of living. So you list a component of a low standard of living as part of the rationale for why a low standard of living isn't responsible.

Also, of course we don't want them to die completely, someone needs to mine our diamonds and uranium and grow our cocoa. We just prefer them to have low life expectancies so they continue to be uneducated and have issues organizing.

Octavious...once again ignoring valid arguments in favor of personal attacks. You are SUCH a loser. Just once in your life have a valid reply that addresses a point. JUST ONCE! You show how stupid you are when you can never reply to someone argument points, but simply result to personal attacks. But....there it is....you are a typical, died-in-the-wool Liberal. Mindless. Moronic. Pathetic. Stupid. Yes...those were personal attacks because you wont' address my points, and you only seem to thrive upon insults.

@Sacred....being a typical liberal, you excuse the immoral from their behavior and claim it isn't their fault. Sorry....the UN and others have spent plenty on education campaigns, sex ed, condoms, etc to teach idiotic Africans to stop fucking every dripping pussy that walks by. They respond by claiming it is against their culture to wear condoms, and continue to do what they want.

This is not a result of illiteracy. This is a result of an immoral culture that is evolving itself out of existence. If a culture is too stupid to protect itself....let it die. It's natural. it's evolution....and YOU DO believe in evolution, don't you??

Be enough of a Man to answer: DO YOU believe in evolution???/ DO YOU????

If so....then you have no problem with people killing themselves through personal choices. Because THAT, by definition, is evolution.

@keel in: just because one knows the scientific basis of evolution and accepts that it is most likely true (there's no belief involved), that doesn't mean one has to like its consequences - I.e. the killing off of an entire culture.

That was to "krellin", not "keel in". Stupid autocorrect.

@TBroadley - Nobody asked you to LIKE the consequences, but you ought to embrace them. After all, if we are all godless creations of chance, then having this poor, stupid culture self-destruct will only improve mankind as a whole....that IS the basic concept of evolution, is it not? The weak and the stupid die off???

So....really....you SHOULD like the idea of stupid African cultures killing themselves off through immoral, moronic behavior, because it improves the remaining species overall.

And...for that matter....the Africans that KNOW how to keep it in their pants....or at least know how to select a *clean* mate...will survive and thrive, and generations down the line, Africa will be populated by a healthier, more moral culture that is less focused on fucking every last dripping pussy and more focused, perhaps, on survival. It's all good! EMBRACE the AIDS epidemic in Africa if you are a TRUE evolutionist!

Oh, krellin, I'm afraid there simply isn't enough time to sieve through your confused, if enthusiastic, rantings in the slim hope of finding a coherent point to argue against. Indeed, I'm not even sure if we're on opposite sides in this instance.

Oct...the point is *quite* clear if you actually have an 8th grade reading level or above...Maybe you should address your concerns with your prior English teachers.

@krellin: have you considered that maybe we have something to learn from these cultures? Many of today's drugs come from places like Africa, where the local people have known about them for a long time. Take a look at the long list in this journal article:

http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/23494/Documents/african%20plants%20as%20a%20source%20of%20drugs.pdf

And this article is from 2000, so advances have probably been made since then.

Let's fix that URL.

http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/23494/Documents/african%20plants%20as%20a%20
source%20of%20drugs.pdf

Yeah....here's the thing to learn: Kepp you junk in your pants when you don't know the bitch you are about to fuck. 'cause otherwise things get drippy and hurt and maybe fall off. Or maybe you die. You think maybe they could have looked at each other and figuered that out as well....but, alas, they are a bunch of ignorant fucks that have a broken culture that does not deserve to survive and thrive.

As far as advances in AIDS medication coming from Africa....or advances in ANYTHING....Ahhhhhhhhhhh haaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaa haaaaa haaaa! You have GOT to be kidding me!!!! This is a fucking joke, right? Oh god....the fools abound on Wedip...and I see you have joined their ranks.

You ****WILL***** note that thes article is ****NOT**** from an African university. It may study plants FROM Africa....but that has ***NOTHING***** to do with the self-destructive African cultures.

You FAIL! AGAIN! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

Oh, and chlorofluorocarbons? They actually are destroying the ozone layer.

http://ozone.unep.org/Assessment_Panels/SAP/Scientific_Assessment_2010/03-Chapter_1.pdf

In fact, the people studying these plants no doubt risked their lives even by stepping foot on the god-forsaken continent....and, of course, as you don't believe in god, but evolution, they risked their lives by stepping onto this morally-forsaken continent

@TBroad.....CFC's.....snore.....yawn.....whaaaa? what? did he say something else stupid? CFC's are destroying the Ozone layer? Ahhhhh ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Oh god...Ozone hole!!!! Ahhh ha ha ha haha!!!! I haven't heard that one in YEARS!!! Even Al Gore gave p on the Ozone Hole myth!!!! Ahhh ha ha ha!!!! Wow....that's funny!

Please, dig up some more bogus old studies for me. They are giving me a good chuckle tonight.

Hey....pull out that "Hockey stick" chart....that's a good one. and tree ring data is always fun to look at if we want to examine cherry-picked data that was manufactured to support a pre-determined conclusion. Keep going!

By the way....we *reallly* need to kill ALL the cattle....because that methane...you know....cow farts....THOSE are the REAL culprits in CO2 release. But..you know...Al Gore likes his steaks....

@krellin: wasn't talking about AIDS medication actually, just medication in general. The point is, these medicines have only been discovered by Western medicine in the past couple of centuries. And they were known by African cultures long before that.

e.g. Plants of the genus Stropanthus were used as arrow poisons.

Actually, that study is from 2010. And methane from cows accounts for only 16% of world emissions. Not an insubstantial number, to be sure, but not the majority by far.

Well, it's been fun, but I'm always a little behind in the argument when using a mobile phone. Toodles!

I believe in evolution, and to continue our evolution as uranium needing diamond liking chocolate eating people, we need to make sure at least some of the culture survives so we can get that shit cheap and mark it up.

Hey A.I.D.S.(a.k.a. The Wrath of God) kills fags DEAD!

Just like the commercial says.

It's a good disease.

Wow....

This might be the first time I read a comment from mapleleaf, then read the rest of the thread, to find find out the latter is more offensive then the former!

@Mapleleaf: I read your comment and lauged, because (based on your other comments) I assumed you were mocking some of the more rabid right-wingers known to troll forums.
If I was wrong...then you should burn. Fire cures all.

Hey!

You people are making me feel bad about myself.

That's not politically correct.

Shame.