Holey Smokey Chokey Pokey

“Never let a problem become an excuse.” -Robert Schuller

Here is an interesting world statistic tracking site, based on a mathematical algorithm (you can check out their faq for more info on how the information is gathered).  As of this moment, today, apparently 100, 041 people have died, and 143,287 born. Here are some other interesting figures, some of them are dated, indulge me:

• If 0.5 percent of the worlds’ spending on weapons was diverted to agriculture in Africa, then ¾ of that continent’s poverty would be lifted.
• 500 million people most under the age of five will not survive to childbearing age because there isn’t enough food to eat.  That is more than 10 times Canada’s population.
• A few years ago, the world’s 358 billionaires had more assets than the combined incomes of countries representing nearly half – 45 per cent – of the planet’s population.  Currently their are 946 billionares.
• America now has the highest inequality of income in the industrialized world. In 1940 we had the least disparity of wealth with CEOs making about 12 times that of their average worker. Now it is 180 times as much. So this as seen CEO salaries increase 500% since 1980 while wage earners salaries have dropped 5%.
• The United States is tied with Guatemala in having the richest and poorest 20% of the population.
• The Wall Street Journal just put out the 1997 Index of Economic Freedom. The two winners who they give their highest accolades to? Singapore and Bahrain. Right-wing Fascist police states where unions are outlawed.
• In addition to concentrating wealth and power, today’s fossil-fuel-based system has engendered large imbalances in energy use and social well-being. Its benefits have not been extended to roughly 2 billion of the world’s poor–a third of global population–who still rely on biomass for cooking and lack access to electricity. Today, the richest fifth of humanity consumes 58 percent of the world’s energy, while the poorest fifth uses less than 4 percent. The United States, with 5 percent of the world’s population, uses nearly one quarter of global energy supplies; on a per capita basis, it consumes twice as much energy as Japan and 12 times as much as China.
• An expert for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizations said that if food production was organized as it is in Holland, there would be enough food to feed 67 billion people that’s 15 times the worlds population. (An argument to show there is enough food to go round).

Here is also an interesting youtube video with some more interesting figures. The first one is dated, but was more interesting for me.

A final statistic (also very outdated, but still interesting):

Instances of the U.S. dropping bombs since World War II – Compiled by William Blum:   

• China 1945-46
• Korea 1950-53
• China 1950-53
• Guatemala 1954
• Indonesia 1958
• Cuba 1959-60
• Guatemala 1960
• Congo 1964
• Peru 1965
• Laos 1964-73
• Vietnam 1961-73
• Cambodia 1969-70
• Guatemala 1967-69
• Grenada 1983
• Lebanon 1984
• Libya 1986
• El Salvador 1980s
• Nicaragua 1980s
• Panama 1989
• Iraq 1991-99
• Sudan 1998
• Afghanistan 1998
• Yugoslavia 1999

NONE of these bombings have led to a “democratic” government even though this was more often than not the reason given for the aggression 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” -Dwight David Eisenhower