What the world needs now is...

...more babies. I probably should have caught this a while ago, but Benedict made his announcement in the middle of the Katrina coverage, so my mind was on other things. The pope wants people to have more babies. I'm not sure why I'm surprised - I mean, the Bible is pretty explicit about this kind of mandate with the whole "go forth, be fruitful and multiply" thing. But today the world is quickly approaching overpopulation in some places. If a country actually manages to have a negative population effect on the overall surplus, then I think they should get some extra tax breaks, or maybe something really useful like free coffee. The point is, the world's population is still growing at an alarming rate. The poorer countries are the most over-populated because of a lack of medical knowledge and birth control. So let a few countries get a little behind on the baby-making process; the rest of the world will need the extra space. Or better yet, people could adopt the children that are at thousands of orphanages around the world - those children need love and support too. In fact, most of Europe has gotten it's population under control (their kids are taught things a little more useful than "just don't do it"). Even Zimbabwe has managed to cut it's birth rate almost in half in the past 20 years; how was one of the poorest countries in the world able to do this?

"The major reason for this drop is seen as a result of measures taken soon after independence to ensure all children, including all girls, had access to a full education coupled with the development of a wide and effective primary health care network."

Hmm...so with education and health care, women can learn to protect themselves and keep their family healthy? What a novel idea! So the point is, I think it's a little irresponsible of the Pope to say that just because the more developed countries are beginning to see a lower birth rate than they have to play catch up with the rest of the world. These countries are getting it right without any help, and the Pope is trying to throw them back in the dark ages. Or is he maybe trying to just counterbalance the Muslim population?