Guns, Germs And Steel

Fraggle has another go at explaining Ricardo's Law of Rent, using access to a limited supply of water to illustrate the point (as well as explaining why rents in the centre of town go up exponentially when the town expands) and says "... historically just about every settlement ever founded starts near a fresh water supply."

The post is well worth a read, but I'm glad he caveats this with "just about", because it reminds me to mention the cracking TV programme called Guns, Germs And Steel which they showed again on Saturday evening. The author presents the theory, backed up with lots of historic evidence, that part of the reason that the Europeans managed to colonise large parts of the world was because we Europeans had built up an immunity to various animal-borne diseases, which wiped out the natives in central and south America (and probably Australia).

(This doesn't explain why the Indians weren't even better at colonising than we were, as they live in even closer proximity to their domestic animals, but there you go).

When whitey got round to colonising tropical Africa, the tables were turned, because of mosquitoes. To some extent, the native Africans and their livestock had built up an immunity to malaria, but more importantly, they knew perfectly well that there are more mosquitoes near rivers etc, so they tended to settle on higher ground where it is drier and there are fewer mosquitoes. To reduce infection rates further, they lived in smaller isolated settlements (so all the people in one settlement might die, but the people in other settlements were largely unaffected).

Point 1: the next time a charity wails on about people in Africa having to walk for miles to the nearest well, remember that there is a good reason for this - having to waste an hour a day fetching water is the price they pay for reducing the incidence of malaria (and other water-borne diseases).

Point 2: the programme explains that whitey tried farming closer to rivers (and failed badly, wrong crops) and imposed his model of building larger towns and cities closer to rivers, thus condemning disproportionately large numbers of Africans to die of malaria for ever more (as well as not allowing them to use DDT, which they have done in other tropical parts of the world - he mentioned Malaysia/Singapore as good examples).

Victimhood Poker

The bansturbators over in the USA have decided, for reasons best known to themselves, that menthol cigarettes are worse than normal cigarettes and should be banned first. It turns out that Afro-Americans tend to smoke menthol cigarettes more than white people and/or that most menthol cigarettes are smoked by Afro-Americans.

The co-founder of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, in an article titled Hysteria can Lead to Bad Policy*, said:

Another fine example is that of tobacco. This industry is as old as Columbus. However, they want to eliminate it by a “death of 1000 cuts”. They attack snuff, cigarettes, and cigars in various fashions. They have taxed cigarettes so much that they have actually created a very lucrative counterfeiting industry that is worldwide.

Like illegal drugs, our law enforcement agencies cannot keep up with the pace of the counterfeiting. Thus, bullying the tobacco industry actually promotes crime. If they eliminate snuff, they will soon come after cigarettes. Then, after doing that they will come after my cigars and I will fight that with every breath I take. Ice cream is not healthy so will that be next?

They are even becoming racial about this. The latest rage being kicked around in Congress and at the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is to eliminate menthol from cigarettes. Menthol flavor is the favorite of African Americans who smoke cigarettes. Nearly 80% of all cigarettes in that are bought by African Americans are menthol. The brand Newport is the king of sales. Yes, they want to strike a big blow directed at us Black folks. How brazen can they get?

But the race card can be played by either side, how about this for logic:

Lorillard [the main manufacturer of menthol cigarettes] has courted African American groups to help make its case. It has even enlisted a consultant to get prominent African Americans to speak out against the ban. How crazy is that?

So basically, Lorillard is saying that it is racist to take a product off the market that can kill black smokers. Does that sound right to you? Honestly, it sounds racist to keep a product on the market that is targeted toward African Americans and can ultimately kill them. Now that's racist.

* The article is well worth a read. On malaria, he has this to say:

It is 2010 and malaria is the number cause of death in Africa. The chances of a village child making it to adulthood are very low. There is a big initiative going on about funding mosquito nets. Oh yes, let the children sleep under these mosquito nets and the mosquitoes, number one source of malaria, will not be able to infect them. They are spending millions of dollars on these nets and you see countless ads on television pleading for you to donate towards the purchase of them. I guess the manufacturer of these nets is spurring this hoopla.

Has anyone ever wondered what happens when these children wake up and leave the nets? That’s simple. The mosquitoes will be there waiting to bite them. It does no good! What we need to do is eradicate the mosquitoes like we did in this nation about 100 years ago. Malaria has not returned to the US and that is a model to emulate in Africa as well as other places. It is just too simple! Kill the mosquitoes.

Fun Online Polls: Cheryl Cole née Tweedy & Pakistan

You really are a cynical bunch. The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll question, "Did Cheryl Cole née Tweedy really have malaria?" were as follows:

Who's Cheryl Cole née Tweedy? - 69%
Nah, she just wanted an excuse for a few weeks off work - 21%
Yes, she caught it while doing something for charity in Africa - 10%

FYI, Cheryl Cole née Tweedy is the little Geordie lass with dimples who's on the telly and in celebrity mags a lot. And the official version is that she caught malaria while doing something for charity in Africa.

So in future, when the do-gooders start wailing on about what a terrible killer malaria is, just remind them that Oor Cheryl came down with the disease on or about 6 July 2010, but by 16 August 2010 she was back on top form, flying out to Los Angeles to appear in a new telly program.

It's interesting to note that the Yanks don't seem to have any sort of immigration restrictions for people carrying potentially infectious diseases, and for those doubters who reckon she was ill with an eating disorder (NewSpeak for 'starving herself to death to comply with some modern fad or other'), the later reports informs us that "rather than devour the food and feed her dramatically decreased appetite, Cheryl chose to chain-smoke and down cocktails instead."
-----------------------------------------
Staying vaguely in the same theme, this week's Fun Online Poll asks "Have you donated (or will you donate) to charities collecting money for the Pakistan flood relief thingy?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Breakthrough in malaria fight"

On one level, this is excellent news, of course.

But as far as Africa* is concerned, will it really make that much difference**?

* There are nearly one million malaria deaths a year in Africa.

** There were also over a million deaths from AIDS, caused by "the might of greed and inhumanity over morals and virtue", apparently. Crikey, that's a new on on me. Plus around ten million children who die in civil wars, or in the famines that those civil wars cause or are sold into slavery.

See also: "You know aid money works"