If this isn't proof of my theory, I don't know what is.

http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=50&load=PortalModules/ViewPressRelease.ascx&itemid=1221

These children wouldn't be left fatherless if "entrepreneur" Larmondo had to get a license before having kids.

Afghanistan’s fertility rate of 6 children per woman is the highest in Asia, and the country is second only to Sierra Leone in maternal mortality rate

This problem would be solved...

Broaching Birth Control With Afghan Mullahs

NY Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/world/asia/15mazar.html?ref=world

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — The mullahs stared silently at the screen. They shifted in their chairs and fiddled with pencils. Koranic verses flashed above them, but the topic was something that made everybody a little uncomfortable.

Afghan religious leaders attended a workshop on birth control, birth spacing and breast feeding in Mazar-i-Sharif last month.

A nonprofit group works with mullahs in Mazar-i-Sharif.

“A baby should be breast-fed for at least 21 months,” said the instructor. “Milk is safe inside the breast. Dust and germs can’t get inside.”

It was a seminar on birth control, a likely subject for a nation whose fertility rate of 6 children per woman is the highest in Asia. But the audience was unusual: 10 Islamic religious leaders from this city and its suburbs, wearing turbans and sipping tea.

The message was simple. Babies are good, but not too many; wait two years before having another to give your wife’s body a chance to recover. Nothing in Islam expressly forbids birth control. But it does emphasize procreation, and mullahs, like leaders of other faiths, consider children to be blessings from God, and are usually the most determined opponents of having fewer of them.

It is an attitude that Afghanistan can no longer afford, in the view of the employees of the nonprofit group that runs the seminars, Marie Stopes International. The high birthrate places a heavy weight on a society where average per capita earnings are about $700 a year. It is also a risk to mothers. Afghanistan is second only to Sierra Leone in maternal mortality rates, which run as high as 8 percent in some areas.

“If we work hard on this issue, we can rescue our country from misery,” said Rahmatuddin Bashardost, a doctor who helps lead the mullahs’ classes.

The mullahs were reluctant participants. Truth be told, they were paid to show up. But surprisingly, they seemed to emerge from the session invigorated.

“This was a useful and friendly discussion,” said Mullah Amruddin, a tall man in a dramatic turban. “If you have too many children and you can’t control them, that’s bad for Islam.”

Maybe they were so receptive because a mullah led the class, using their own language — scripture from the Koran. Or maybe it was because some attitudes are starting to change.

Syed Wasem Massoom, 29, a mullah and one of the trainers, said urban Afghans were looking for ways to have fewer children. Afghanistan was changing, he said, especially its cities, and mullahs had better be thinking about these issues.

“People kept asking us how to have less children,” he said....

More Schools, Not Troops [in Afghanistan]

This problem would be solved...

Schools, not troops in Afghanistan
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: October 28, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29kristof.html?th&emc=th

"Dispatching more troops to Afghanistan would be a monumental bet and probably a bad one, most likely a waste of lives and resources that might simply empower the Taliban. In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.

It’s hard to do the calculation precisely, but for the cost of 40,000 troops over a few years — well, we could just about turn every Afghan into a Ph.D."

My note: There's research that there's a strong positive relationship between intelligence and athiesm.

http://jonathanturley.org/2008/07/06/researcher-links-high-intelligence-with-atheism/

I'm not a proponent of atheism, not being one myself, but I think it not much of a stretch to suggest that there would be perhaps a stronger inverse correlation between intelligence/education and fanaticism.

And of course, the world would be a better place if they taught parenting skills in these schools. All the problems would be solved if parenting were licensed. Needless to say, being an extremist of any sort would be grounds for denying a parenting license.

Detained Iran Hikers' Families Write of Heartache

This problem would be solved...

Detained Iran Hikers' Families Write of Heartache
August 11, 2009 5:04 PM


http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/11/world/worldwatch/entry5235000.shtml

The families of the three American hikers apparently detained by Iranian authorities after mistakenly crossing the unmarked border from Iraqi Kurdistan into Iran have put out a statement calling for the hikers' release.

The three Americans – Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal – have now been missing for 12 days.

"As loving parents, nothing causes us more heartache than not knowing how our children are, and not being able to talk to them and learn when we will hold them in our arms again," the families write in the statement.

This wouldn't happen if kids were taught compassion and a little common sense by their parents.

Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow (NY Times article)

This problems would be solved...

Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow (NY Times article)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/22food.html?th&emc=th
NY Times, October 21, 2009

Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow

The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, despite a 12-year concentrated effort to cut the number.

Easy to see how licensing parents would solve this problem. At to the test--ability to feed children.

The Solution to All the Problems of the World

The Solution to All the Problems of the World is...

...parents should be licensed before they have kids.


The kid license test would include the following:

• The value of Education
• Ability to teach Compassion
• Ability to teach Work Ethics
  

Think about it... What would problem wouldn't be solved by good parenting? (And preventing poor parenting.)

Help me out here. What else should be on the test?

Scott