Toilets for Africa are great. It's a shame the bad guys there will prevent their deployment or simply steal or destroy them just like they're preventing food aid from reaching the starving population.
Our focus should be on defeating the folks causing the problem, not just giving food and toilets to their victims. If we're not willing to get involved in a meaningful way, what the heck are we pretending to care for? These bastards steal aid and sell it to the people, or sell it to another country to buy guns so they can continue to conduct atrocities against their neighbors.
But hey, I'm a suburban racist and not a real man, so what do I know?
Feel free to post suggestions for a solution to the plight of Africa, or at least what you see as the problems those countries face. Try to focus on cause and not effect.
Creatively crafted toilet jokes are also welcome, for those looking to poop on someone's thread.
Well, I was asked to stay out of the thread, and I have honored that request. However, my interest has not waned, and I'd like to hear what others think might be practical solutions to the plight of Africa.
We seem to be playing whack-a-mole with starvation, roving gangs of rapists and murderers, and state instigated genocide. Throwing money and food at them doesn't seem to help long term. Much progress has been made in terms of sustainable farming techniques, sanitation, and wells, but that all gets shot to hell the next time the militias come through, burn the fields, kill the farmers, and throw feces in the well.
Libs are so skin color sensitive they spurt out racist labels at anyone who doesn't agree with their white guilt ideas. They've laid the groundwork and social normalcy for people like sharpton and j.jackson to take full advantage of.
The spoon: A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.
Last week, we took some friends to a new restaurant, 'Steve's Place,' and noticed that the waiter who took our order a spoon in his shirt pocket.
It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils, I observed that he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket.
Then I looked around and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup inquired, 'Why the spoon?'
'Well, he explained, 'the restaurant's owner hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all of our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour.
If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.'
As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he replaced it with his spare. 'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now. I was impressed, and then noticed that there was a string hanging out of the fly.
Looking around, I saw that all of the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string hanging from your fly?'
Oh,certainly!' Then he lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also taught us how to save time in the restroom.
By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39%.'
I asked quietly, 'After you get it out, how do you put your 'you-know what' back in your pants?' 'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon.'
Well you know who is the first to raise the race card The real racists Old story blame others to hide your guilt or actions I love the comment You havent been there so you dont know what its like. Very similar to the Alky druggy " you havent been where I have so YOU dont know" El toro poo poo. I dont have to do the Stupid stuff you did to know it was stupid. Same attitude Contessa Brewer used with a Congressman WHAT DO YOU HAVE A DEGREE IN ECONOMICS. His reponse was yes I do with honors! That type of statment is a sign of Intellectual bankruptcy they have no real response so they slur and attack the person. Typical of pseudo educated college graduate of today.
take a look a Seattles Public Flush toilet experience... a 3 year fisasco for 'self' flush toilets in the down town corridor - that were a 100K per unit, in an effort to reduce public urination, clean up down town, and provide 'decency' to the homeless population.... they were used for prostitution, sex, drugs, grafitti, and plauged with plumbing issues that far exceeded the cost of purchase. Enjoy.
Hoot, I wish I had a better answer than benign neglect and forced regime change when some kleptocracy acts up.
No "nation building" is going to work, unless you are willing to be an actual Empire, like the Brits were once, and bring manifest destiny to bear on civilizing barbarians and making them little copies of modern man.
It's a system that has it's drawbacks. I do notice that in Africa, if you were an English colony, you are probably better off than your neighbors, and a light year from a former French colony. ( excepting ones taken over by people like Mugabe, who use the exact same class envy tactics used by Obama....then stole the wealth of the nation and gave it to cronies..... Not that that could happen here... http://www.nachumlist.com/goldmansachsobama.htm }
Takes a heavy hand and serious commitment to be an Empire. Given the last few decades of leftist schools and fake guilt, not going to happen.
All politics aside, a toilet system that works off the grid is a needed thing. Modern sewage systems are equally responsible to modern health as modern medicine.
In villages with no underground pipes, shantytown slums with insane population densities, or eco-friendly camping, no grid toilets would save millions of lives.
Now while I lean towards Sam's comments on hunger... ( It's SAND! ) this seems ok to me.
I think that as it's presented in the form of an X-prize for scientific advancement Bill Gate's cause is in keeping with capitalist, libertarian, and rational thought as a good thing.
I bet there is a big federal committee and budget to study the disparity of Shiat and the inequity of poor people to not be able to effectively shiate as rich people, and heaven forbid the EEOC notion get into it.... The solution is of course a four year grant, to the tune of millions.... the resultant will be something like this http://www.redflarekits.com/hbk/12-115
nice,, but i think we should just worry about our own problems (we do not have that many) maybe we could be doing better if this country actually cared about what is going on herer not everywhere else.. and the black man does not help much in this situation(( i am not racist just hate oboma)
Don't crap where you eat. Don't use the free toothbrushes the NGOs hand out by dipping them in the little poop creek running out of the village before brushing. Everyone and every animal up river is sending poop down, watch what you drink.
Well ok you give them toilets. What about what happens next? I watched a toilet paper infomercial while in Turkey. Turkey is light years ahead of most of Africa. If Turkey is still stuffing a left hand up its ass to wipe what do you expect other nation to do with this? While living in the PI as a kid we gave our furniture to the locals. They dont sit much as most of them squat. The chair and couch made a nice place to store things while they squatted.