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They are born in France and called Louis, Laurent or Marie but they want to become Abdel, Said or Rachida. Such requests from immigrants’ children for name changes are mounting in the French courts and worrying a state that lays store on melding a single national culture. In a sign of a new assertiveness, children with families from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are reversing the old custom in which immigrants from the old colonies gave French names to their children. Driven by a feeling that they do not belong to their Gallic Christian names, the applicants are meeting resistance from...

The voting shift in this nation is largely about two dynamics: safe seats and the Carolina blues. To get a really good close-up glimpse of what demographic problems the Republican Party is facing in the national electorate, one has to look no further than the North Carolina Senate race lost by Elizabeth Dole. The loss by Dole was not simply a result of the headwinds (self-inflicted as they were) that all GOP candidates faced in 2008, though that was a factor. The Dole loss was more than that. Dole lost a senate seat held by Republicans since 1972. Dole lost...

With a majority voting for the proposition (that would ban gay marriage overriding a State Supreme Court ruling) there's lots of finger pointing in the gay community. But, there are also maps of which areas voted for and against. The Sacremento Bee reports that areas with many domestic partnerships (via state records) voted against, and provides a map. The LA Times provides maps with no interpretation. It also offers a bubble map of funding. KCRA provides a green and red map of the results. (I thought those were not high on the cartographer palette because of color blindness issues. See...

[T]he greatest Kennedy legacy to Obama [is] the Immigration Act of 1965, which created the diverse country that is already being called Obama's America. ... It transformed a nation 85 percent white in 1965 into one that's one-third minority today, and on track for a nonwhite majority by 2042. Before the act, immigration visas were apportioned based on the demographic breakdown that existed at the time of the 1920 Census - meaning that there were few if any limits on immigrants from Western and Northern Europe, but strict quotas on those from elsewhere. The belief that the United States should...

The big question that everyone is asking is whether this month's general election marked the beginning of a political realignment that will create a new dominant party. Have Americans shifted their loyalties and fundamental assumptions about the parties and about the government, or did we just witness a short-term reaction to years of bad news? Let's be clear: The election results in 2006 and 2008 constitute the kind of one-two punch that is rare in modern American political history. It would be silly to portray this year's election as a minor hiccup. The nation elected a liberal African-American Democrat from...

If it took 143 years after the Congress abolished slavery for Barack Obama to reach the White House, the journey from here on for another non-white aspirant to high office may happen a lot sooner as a demographic upheaval transforms the American landscape. The emerging race map of US is clearly indicating a decline in the dominance of the white vote and though it would stretch things to say Caucasians will cease to matter politically, America is turning distinctly less white than it has been. This is slowly giving rise to voting blocks that are proving increasingly decisive in tilting...

Democrats last night won the grandest political victory since the Reagan Revolution of 1980, not only electing a president but also scoring gains in both houses of Congress. When the final tally is counted, we will likely see that Obama owed his victory to two shifts: a large increase in turnout by ethnic minorities and a big increase in Democratic preference by college-educated whites. In the wake of their bruising defeat, the Republican Party faces an excruciating and divisive choice between two very different futures. The first is on display at the excited rallies that cheered Sarah Palin. This is...

Where can I find information on party affiliation? By state, great! By county, even better! I want the raw numbers, and thus far Google isn't helping me.... Thanks for any help given! CA....

Muslim hate fanatics plan to take over Britain by having more babies and forcing a population explosion, it has been revealed. The swollen Muslim population would be enough to conquer Britain from inside, they claim. Fanatics told a meeting of young Muslims on the anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity, that it would then be easy to impose Sharia law on the population, the Sun newspaper reported. Speaking at a meeting in London, Anjem Choudary, right-hand man of exiled preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, said: "It may be by pure conversion that Britain will become an Islamic state. We may never need...

I recently read a manuscript about Gen X in the workplace, and as I did so, I was struck by how much of a transitional generation we are. Perhaps because of all the flux that has occurred (and continues to occur) in our time, we have always struggled to have a positive identity; so many of the experiences we share are negatives. In no particular order: -3 Mile Island -AIDS -Tylenol scare -Drinking age went up from 18 to 21 -Existential self-awareness of grunge -Emo bands before them -Cobain’s suicide -Bush’s famous broken promise, “No new taxes” -Clinton’s impeachment Even...

The face of women who have abortions has shifted significantly in the past 30 years, with relatively fewer white childless teenagers and more mothers of color in their 20s and 30s opting to terminate their pregnancies, according to a report being released today. In the first comprehensive analysis since 1974 of demographic characteristics of women who have abortions, researchers found that the overall drop in the abortion rate has been marked by a dramatic shift, declining more among white women and teenagers than among black and Hispanic and older women. "There's been a real change in the picture of women...

PIAZZE, Italy — On a sultry Saturday night in this quiet Tuscan town, it's the elderly, not teenagers, who are checking out the scene along the main strip. Dubbed "cane brigades" by residents, these squads of gray-haired men and women routinely hang out and gossip — and not just on Saturday night. Piazze represents a challenging reality facing Italy and other European countries whose fertility rates have plummeted in the past few decades. Much of Europe is growing older, creating a ripple effect of social and economic problems. Fewer young people means there will be fewer workers to fund the...

I think I have a crush on Sarah Palin. She intrigues and intimidates me--two necessary ingredients for a crush. I admit, she could kick my ass. But maybe that's what I need. She would provide the kind of structure I need. My mom sometimes mentions my check register. I haven't seen my check register in a long time. When I write checks, I just hope that they clear. No rhyme or reason to that strategy. I'm late to a lot of engagements. I over sleep my alarm clock quite often. I need to be whipped into shape. Sarah Palin is...

One speaker at the meeting, held on the anniversary of the attacks in America, told the assembled crowd that the West should "listen to the warnings." The most incendiary speech was delivered by Saiful Islam, from Luton, Bedfordshire, who praised Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda for their "courage" in retaliating against the "dictatorship and oppression" of the West. He said: "The blame of 9/11 belongs to no one but the American government. They are the terrorists. [...] Mr Islam warned that unless British and American troops were withdrawn from "Muslim lands" they would be to blame for the consequences, saying...

I am seeking sources on the internet that describe the real demographics of conservatives. I am to give a presentation and want it to be a fact based discussion of how we really are (not as the media portrays us - red-neck, gun toting, racists or blue-blood elitist, country club WASP's). Please direct me to data that I can use to tell them who we are....

The birthing center at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital has seen an increased number of babies born this year. But that seems to be becoming more rare at hospitals across the Granite State. "I think we are bucking the trend by what we do offer as a small community hospital," says Arlene Patten, of Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. According to the U.S. Census bureau, in 2006, New Hampshire had the lowest birth rate in the country with only 42 babies born per every 1,000 women. Vermont was not far behind at 42.2 babies. The national average is almost 55...

IT WAS A SPECTACULAR LATE-MAY AFTERNOON IN SOUTHERN ITALY,but the streets of Laviano — a gloriously situated hamlet ranged across a few folds in the mountains of the Campania region — were deserted. There were no day-trippers from Naples, no tourists to take in the views up the steep slopes, the olive trees on terraces, the ruins of the 11th-century fortress with wild poppies spotting its grassy flanks like flecks of blood. And there were no locals in sight either. The town has housing enough to support a population of 3,000, but fewer than 1,600 live here. SNIP The figure...

Governor Sarah Palin's debut as Vice Presidential incumbent on the Republican ticket drew 37 million viewers, dramatically outstripping the 24 million that watched Senator Joe Biden, the VP incumbent on the Democratic side. Her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) also eclipsed the audience for Senator Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), in which Clinton put full support behind Senator Barack Obama's bid for Presidency, Nielsen Media Research finds. In fact, viewership drew dangerously close to figures for Obama's acceptance speech for the Presidential bid on the Democratic ticket, which attracted 38.4 million viewers. Coverage...

Most of my Chinese friends as is the case with many Americans, know very little about Governor Sarah Palin, John Mcain's choice for running mate in the 2008 Presidential Election. When they do learn more about her, there is one aspect of her life that will undoubtedly catch the attention of many people here. Earlier this year, Governor Palin gave birth to a baby boy despite the fact that doctors told her that he would have Down syndrome. Making the same choice in China is nearly unheard of. If a Chinese mother finds out that her unborn baby is afflicted...

BRUSSELS, August 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Population statistics and projections were released yesterday showing that European countries are dying out, even with immigration, their populations aging and shrinking.  A report released this week by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical service, showed that by 2015, the number of deaths in Europe will have outstripped the number of births.  By 2060, the ratio of people of working age to those over age 65 will be two to one. None of the countries of Europe currently have a general fertility rate above replacement level and it is predicted that what is being called...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Deaths are expected to outnumber births in the European Union from 2015 when migration will become the only source of population growth, according to an EU report released Tuesday.

A prognosis by the European statistics agency Eurostat concludes that Europe is an aging continent. It says that by 2060 almost a third of the population of the present EU countries will be aged over 65. The current proportion is one in six.

Women are waiting longer to have children, and more women than ever are choosing not to have children at all, according to a new Census Bureau report. Twenty percent of women ages 40 to 44 have no children, double the level of 30 years ago, the report said; and women in that age bracket who do have children have fewer than ever — an average of 1.9 children, compared with the median of 3.1 children in 1976. “A lot of women are not having any children,” said Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, which looked...

Story from the Associated Press, so no quotes.

Britain is now home to more pensioners than children for the first time in the country's history, official population figures have disclosed There are 11.58 million pensioners - classed as men over 65 and women over 60 - compared to 11.52 million under-16s, according to the Office for National Statistics. In figures which illustrate how Britain's population is ageing rapidly, the ONS said that the number of people aged over 80 had almost doubled over the past three decades to 2.7 million. The over 80s are now the fastest growing age group as a result of medical advances and their...

With just a few exceptions, birth rates across the European Union have been declining steadily for decades. Economists warn of the consequences - a dwindling workforce bankrolling a growing elderly population. But from Paris, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA that European governments are awakening to their reproduction problems - and scrambling to put pro-baby policies in place. French university professor Nathalie Martiniere gave birth to her son Francois six months ago, and has been on a combination of maternity leave and summer vacation ever since. In September, she will return to her job as university professor in the city of...

Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050. The main reason for the accelerating change is significantly higher birthrates among immigrants. Another factor is the influx of foreigners, rising from about 1.3...

Census report sees minorities becoming majority by 2042 BY OLIVIA WINSLOW | olivia.winslow@newsday.com 6:11 PM EDT, August 13, 2008 In a new report out Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau projects the nation will become much more diverse by midcentury, with minorities forecast to become the majority population by 2042, experts said. The growing national diversity is also a trend seen locally, particularly among Hispanics, experts said. "Hispanics are primarily drawn here by economic opportunity," Koppelman continued. "If the economy remains robust on Long Island, this population will continue to expand." The Census Bureau projects that minorities, now roughly one-third of...

THE MOST remarkable fact of the 2008 presidential election is that it remains a close race. Democrats have not known such favorable political terrain since 1932, yet what should be a blowout is looking like a blanket finish. The fundamental reason is white men. Like Al Gore in the summer of 2000, Barack Obama is roughly splitting white women. But only 34 to 37 percent of white men support Obama, according to the Gallup Poll's latest weekly index of 6,000 voters. In fairness to Obama, he inherited the problem. Not since 1976, when Democrats last achieved a majority, has a...

What if I told you that all over the world, children are disappearing? There are six million fewer children in the world today than there were in 1990. If current trends continue, by 2050, there will be 248 million fewer children in the world (under 5) than there are today. That's right -- 248 million. By then, in developed nations, there will be two old people for every child! The truth of the matter is that what you have been told by population-control fanatics, the Al Gore/Global Warming crowd, the liberal media and politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton...

IF YOU spend enough time studying election returns, you can start to see politics as just another branch of science - like quantum physics, but without the humanity. Pundits who prefer to psychoanalyze voters are apt to depict campaigns as wild affairs full of plot twists, but the geography of American politics is surprisingly resistant to change, at least in the short term. Thomas Frank can ask "What's the Matter with Kansas?" because it votes Republican, but he can't accuse that state's voters of being fickle or impulsive. Kansas has been one of the country's most Republican states for more...

Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would bury us, but these days, everybody seems to think that China is the one wielding the shovel. The People's Republic is on the march -- economically, militarily, even ideologically. Economists expect its GDP to surpass America's by 2025; its submarine fleet is reportedly growing five times faster than Washington's; even its capitalist authoritarianism is called a real alternative to the West's liberal democracy. China, the drumbeat goes, is poised to become the 800-pound gorilla of the international system, ready to dominate the 21st century the way the United States dominated the 20th. Except...

Denmark: Church pays protection money to Muslims to prevent attacks on church-goers With 300,000 inhabitants, Aarhus is the second largest city of in Denmark. In Gellerup, a multicultural suburb of Arhus, the multicultural problems can be seen openly. There are many Muslims and many Kalaallit (the natives of Greenland, which belongs to Denmark). The Muslim citizens of Gellerup tyrannize the indigenous population of Greenland in the sourrounding areas of Arhus (as well as in Greenland) since the summer of 2007 so much that they no longer dare venture out of their homes. Muslims see the Kalaallit as second-class people who...

There are four things in America for which there is little forgiveness. The first is killing your wife, as O.J. Simpson discovered. The second is allegations of child molestation, as Michael Jackson found. The third is being old, as John McCain is rapidly discovering. And the fourth is having too many children, as I have found. Looking down at primitives with "too many" children is one of the last acceptable prejudices in the West. With our ninth child expected imminently, God willing, I find myself pitied and pilloried wherever I go. "Wow, that's a lot of kids," is a refrain...

... In the 1990s, European demographers began noticing a downward trend in population across the Continent and behind it a sharply falling birthrate. ... More broadly and significant, social conservatives tie the low birthrate to secularism. After arguing for decades that the West had divorced itself from God and church and embraced a self-interested and ultimately self-destructive lifestyle, abetted above all by modern birth control, they feel statistically vindicated. “Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future,” Pope Benedict proclaimed in 2006. “Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present.” In Germany, where...

Sen. Barack Obama’s protracted nomination fight with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton not only seasoned the Democrats’ young standard-bearer for the general election, it also showed the kinds of places where he’s strong ­ and those where he needs to focus his fire if he’s to prevail in November. For a while, in the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, his weakness was portrayed as working-class white voters. As the primaries moved to the more rural states of West Virginia and Kentucky, the name of the group of concern morphed into the related “Appalachian voters. ”But a look at the primary and caucus...

Gay people in Holland have been shocked by a public attack on a gay man in Amsterdam. Model Mike Du Pree was taking part in a fashion show to promote tolerance towards gay people when a gang of ten Muslim youths dragged him from the catwalk and beat him. A right wing Dutch MP has called for the youths to be deported. Mr Du Pree's nose was broken in the attack, which was motivated by homophobia. The fashion event was held on a public holiday marking the birth of Holland's late Queen Julianna. Newspaper Gay Krant reports that a bystander...

In 2006, USA Today ran a lengthy story entitled “How Will the USA Cope with Unprecedented Growth?” The country’s population had just crossed the 300 million mark, up from 200 million in just 39 years. Writer Haya El Nasser listed the many environmental problems made worse by rapid population growth, from traffic congestion to dwindling open space. But El Nasser’s story left one question unanswered: Why is the U.S. virtually the only industrialized country with a rapidly growing population? The key word is “immigration,” but El Nasser never uses it. It’s a pretty big target to miss. More than a...

‘Someone wins, someone doesn’t win, that’s life,” Nancy Kopp, Maryland’s treasurer, told the Washington Post. “But women don’t want to be totally dissed.” She was talking about her political candidate, Hillary Clinton. Democratic women are feeling metaphorically battered by the Obama campaign. “Healing The Wounds Of Democrats’ Sexism,” as the Boston Globe headline put it, will not be easy. Geraldine Ferraro is among many prominent Democrat ladies putting up their own money for a study from the Shorenstein Center at Harvard to determine whether Senator Clinton’s presidential hopes fell victim to party and media sexism. How else to explain why...

There has been an outcry in Belgium over a proposal to convert little-used churches into mosques. A senior official in Antwerp argues too many of the city's churches stand empty most of the time and he has put forward suggestions to convert them into mosques to benefit the city's large Muslim population. Philip Heylen, who is deputy-mayor, says he wants to "break the taboo" over the future of the city's churches, many of which have dwindling and ageing congregations. He shrugs: "It's a looming issue yet it seems impossible to have a debate about this, churches were built as places...

Two Christian preachers in Britain have been told that trying to spread the gospel to Muslims is a hate crime. It's another sign that much of England has given up on being England. British media are reporting that Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, American evangelical ministers who've been living in Great Britain for years, were told by a police community support officer to "stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham."....

On the eve of the final pair of Democratic primaries, a new poll of South Dakota Democrats gives Hillary Clinton a 26-point lead over Barack Obama – a surprise, at least to me, in a state that had the early makings of an Obama stronghold. The survey, from the independent New Hampshire-based American Research Group, shows Clinton pounding Obama by a 60-34 percent spread. The only previous poll in the state, from about a month ago, had Obama up by 12. Because every other state around South Dakota previously went overwhelmingly for Obama, there had been little expectation in the...

Steyn quotes from an article in The Church of England Newspaper: "If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this...." At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departments national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotland's aborting of legislation against...

Senior Bishop Warns - Radical Islam is filling a ‘moral vacuum’ in Britain, a senior Church of England bishop has warned. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, has said that the decline of Christian values has meant that Britain is now gripped by the doctrine of ‘endless self-indulgence’ which had led to the destruction of family life. He warned that the ‘newfangled and insecurely founded doctrine of multiculturalism' has led to immigrants creating ‘segregated communities and parallel lives’. In an article published in the new political magazine Standpoint, Nazir-Ali claimed that the Church lost its influence over...

Dozens of churches have been selected for imminent closure under radical plans to merge parishes and save money, The Telegraph has learnt. The plans have been drawn up by both Church of England and Roman Catholic dioceses and will see some of their most historic buildings made redundant. In one area, buildings with fewer than 100 worshippers are under threat while more than a third of Anglican churches could be lost in one city. The disclosure comes as more church leaders, celebrities and heritage groups give their support to this newspaper's Save Our Churches campaign. Earlier this month, The Telegraph...

Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests. The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers’ pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die. In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased...

Two million Britons emigrate in 10 years By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent Last Updated: 12:59AM BST 20/05/2008 Two million British citizens have left the UK in a decade, the greatest exodus from this country in almost a century, new figures will show. Some historians say the departure of two million Britons in a decade is almost unparalleled in the country's history The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will release figures showing that more than 200,000 Britons emigrated during 2006. That will take the total number who left the country between 1997 and 2006 to 1.97 million. Another 1.58 million foreign...

State Senator John D. Sabini, a Queens Democrat, may find himself in the unusual position of losing the support of the Democratic organization in his borough in his bid for re-election, with leaders of the party likely to back City Councilman Hiram Monserrate instead. Democratic leaders in Queens are scheduled to meet on Monday to determine whether to endorse Mr. Sabini, who was first elected to the Senate in 2002. Normally, party organizations support incumbents, and Mr. Sabini is a former Democratic chairman in Queens. But Mr. Monserrate has put intense pressure on the party officials to gain their support...

What do you call a candidate who wins 90 percent of the African-American vote, between 30 percent and 50 percent of the Hispanic vote and 40 percent of the white vote in a tight Democratic primary race? A general election loser. Apply those percentages to the general election, and the candidate will bomb. In 2004, President Bush won 43 percent of the Hispanic vote, 58 percent of the white vote and 11 percent of the African-American vote. That means that John Kerry did better among Hispanics than Barack Obama has done in the Democratic primaries; better among whites than Obama...

TOKYO — Japan celebrated a national holiday on Monday in honor of its children. But Children's Day might just as easily have been a national day of mourning. For this is the land of a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world. The number of children has declined for 27 consecutive years, a government report said over the weekend. Japan now has fewer children who are 14 or younger than at any time since 1908. The proportion of children in the population fell to an all-time low of 13.5 percent. That number has been falling for...