DEMOS wrote:

"capitalism forbids population control."

What on Earth are you talking about?

This sounds like poppycock.

The evidence, BTW, points in the opposite direction. When communist East Germany was reunited with capitalist West Germany fertility in East Germany plunged to the same low levels as those in W. Germany.

When Egypt, as part of its free market reforms, stopped subsidising babies fertility began falling.

Many religions, esp Catholicism and Islam, do for bid population control. But that's a different matter.

Fertility all over the world is falling. In India the total fertility rate (average life time babies per woman) dropped from 5 in 1970 to 2.8 today. Still much too high but the trend is in the right direction. Fertility in China is below replacement and even if the one child policy was dropped I doubt it would rise above replacement.

Even in then Islamic Republic of Iran total fertility has dropped to 1.7, well below replacement.

The worst case country was Saudi Arabia where total fertility was running at 6 in 1990. It is now below 4.

Simply saying there are too many people is not an answer. What do you think we should do about it? Shoot the surplus? Compulsory sterilisation after the second child?

Get real DEMOS.

Capitalism, the wealth it brings, the choices it offers, seems to be a good contraceptive

"Much of Syria and Iraq's water originates in Turkey which has dam plans of its own. Turkey is also selling water to Israel."

Without doing any searching, was there a "Gap Treaty"(?) about the water from Turkey?

I believe that that is suppose to be the trigger for armageddon (according to some vague memory of prophecy stuff).