Boris Yeltsin and over-population

Russian leader Boris Yeltsin is a sick and dying man who still controls nuclear weapons. The horror !

Today's " Issues and Ideas " ( Oct. 10 ) warns us that " 12 billion miserable human beings will suffer a difficult life on Earth ".

Of course over-population can be quickly checked by nuclear holocaust. Imagine India and Pakistan - both with nuclear weapons - with double their present population.

Modern medicine is truly both a blessing and a curse. You are still young for just a few decades but you can be old and sick and slightly crazy for 40 or 50 years - and it seems that most tyrants live to a ripe old age - with a WILL to live forever!

Will Boris Yeltsin kindly exit from the world ? Or as a question : Will he exit KINDLY from the world ? It seems to be true of Great Leaders that they are great just for a few years - a very limited period. Then they become a nuisance or a calamity.

The only practical way to deal with over-population is to make the world less young - for decades . perhaps a century. But imagine a world where most of the people look more like Boris Yeltsin than JFK - the image of eternal youth ?

There are big problems facing us in the next millennium that have no happy solutions.

I'm inclined to opt for over-population - the more the merrier - of course ! God help us !