Free Republic

...But why not? For a population to hold steady, every woman must give birth on average to 2.1 children. When the birthrate drops below 1.5 and stays there for any time, it's almost impossible to recover, given the momentum of demographics. Below 1.3 is considered "lowest-low." China is at 1.7 and dropping. Japan last year clocked in at 1.25. As a result, Japan's population, now about 128 million, is expected to fall to about 100 million by mid-century. Big deal, you might say. Wasn't Japan happy enough 50 years ago, when it blew through the 100 million mark on the...

Germans are getting used to a new kind of immigrant. In 1998, a pack of wolves crossed the shallow Neisse River on the Polish-German border. In the empty landscape of Eastern Saxony, speckled with abandoned strip mines and declining villages, the wolves found plenty of deer and rarely encountered humans. ..Wolves returning to the heart of Europe? A hundred years ago, a burgeoning, land-hungry population killed off the last of Germany's wolves. Today, it's the local humans whose numbers are under threat.. Home to 22 of the world's 25 lowest-birthrate countries, Europe will lose 41 million people by 2030 even...

While the latest performance of Albany lawmakers was breathtakingly destructive on its face, the damage is even worse when compared to fiscal policies in other states. Rarely inclined to remember - or even to care - that the Empire State must compete economically with 49 other states, New York lawmakers have once again failed to improve the state's attractiveness for taxpaying individuals and businesses. Little wonder why New York is losing more residents than any other state - and why businesses are fleeing, upstate especially. Other states are only too happy to woo New Yorkers and New York businesses... Albany...

Boston, as well as the state, has been losing population in the past few years. If those numbers are confirmed by the 2010 federal census, Massachusetts could lose up to two congressional seats, as well as federal money for highway, education, and development programs that are tied to population. Responding to concerns raised by the state's congressional delegation, local mayors, and Secretary of State William F. Galvin, lawmakers included $100,000 in the $25.7 billion state budget last week to pay a University of Massachusetts think tank to start researching the numbers to make sure that as many residents as possible...

Most cities in New York State have lost population in the last five years, with especially large declines in major Upstate cities, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse lost population, around 4 percent in each city, during the year ending July 1, 2005. All three cities have lost population each year since the last nationwide census in 2000, according to the bureau. The new data appear in the Census Bureau's Annual Estimates of the Population for Incorporated Places. Among 61 cities in New York, 42 lost population from 2000 to 2005. Twenty-six counties in New York have...

euphemism Main Entry: eu·phe·mismPronunciation: 'yü-f&-"mi-z&mFunction: nounEtymology: Greek euphEmismos, from euphEmos auspicious, sounding good, from eu- + phEmE speech, from phanai to speak -- more at BAN: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant; also : the expression so substituted- eu·phe·mist /-mist/ noun- eu·phe·mis·tic /"yü-f&-'mis-tik/ adjective- eu·phe·mis·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb -M. Webster The government works hard to put a positive spin on the bad news that what they want to do is kill all our livestock. They use words like depopulate: depopulate Main Entry: de·pop·u·latePronunciation: (")dE-'pä-py&-"lAtFunction: transitive verbEtymology: Latin depopulatus, past participle...

Main Entry: vol·un·tary Pronunciation: 'väl-&n-"ter-E Function: adjective 1 : proceeding from the will or from one's own choice or consent 2 : of, relating to, subject to, or regulated by the will —vol·un·tari·ly adverb -Merriam-Webster's Dictionary Voluntary means voluntary, right? You know, you get to choose. But in the Brave New World Order where words are being redefined. A very relevant example for small farmers, homesteaders and pet livestock owners (e.g., horses) is the April 2006 USDA document which talks about the USDA's proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) being voluntary (page 1, paragraph 3). This is a switch from...

(AgapePress) -- Anyone know where we can find some Etruscans? You know, members of the Etruscan civilization that existed in ancient Italy, predating even Rome? Well, there aren't any. The Etruscans were absorbed by the Roman civilization and ceased to exist as a distinct people. Ominously, if a growing number of experts and cultural observers are right, it's entirely possible that the same question may be asked 100 years from now -- only about Italians or Spaniards or Russians. As writer Mark Steyn glumly put it in The New Criterion, "Much of what we loosely call the Western world will...

The Baby Bust In the 1970s, sociologists warned that overpopulation was the greatest threat facing humanity. Today, birth rates are dropping around the globe, and experts speak darkly of “depopulation.” What’s wrong with fewer people? 11/11/2005 How quickly is the birth rate declining? The global fertility rate now stands at 2.9 children for every woman of child-bearing age—a decrease of nearly 50 percent since 1972. According to the latest U.N. projections, the world’s fertility rate will fall below “replacement” levels by 2045, meaning that the human population will start shrinking. For a population to remain stable, the fertility rate must...

In 1920, Winston Churchill spoke of a group of Enlightenment conspirators who had produced a system of morals and philosophy "as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible."  He observed that this malignant worldview "has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century.  This worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality has been steadily growing"  (Zionism versus Bolshevism).   This malevolent system of warped morals and anti-human philosophy entered...

The first snowfall on this part of the world has claimed one life and caused extensive damage to properties. Puntland, northeastern part of Somalia has never recorded snowfall before last night when snow storms with high winds destroyed homes in Rako town. The storm left a blanket of snow on the ground, something residents had never seen in their lives before. Aside from this unexplained snowfall on this tropical land, Somalia has experienced very strange weather in the past few months. Floods killed people and forced rivers to overflow banks in almost all parts of the country. Many cities from...

Japan’s government is expected to adopt a plan that includes increased paid leave to boost falling birth rate and improve family life.Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Japanese government is increasingly concerned the country’s plummeting birth rate will, on the long run, spell social and economic disaster. To counter it, it plans to insist workers take longer leaves, this according to leaked information reported in the daily Yomiuri. The set of measures the Ministry is expected to take has been dubbed ‘Angel Plan’. Although the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has refused any comment, officials are worried about the effects of...

<p>FARGO, N.D. -- Alana Bergman grew up on a farm in Jud, N.D. (pop. 74), about 130 miles from here. She raked hay, rode horses, shot baskets by herself in the summer and read constantly during long, cold winters.</p> <p>She loved it. Sort of.</p>

Demographers say that to keep a population's numbers stable, the magic number is 2.1. That is the birthrate needed in any society to replace the number of deaths. CBN.com – BRUSSELS, Belgium -- You can feel the anticipation in the city of Brussels. When the European Union enlarges in May, it will become the world's largest economic superpower: 455 million people in 25 nations, with a combined economy that Europeans enjoy telling Americans will be even larger than that of the United States. The prospect of pushing around the United States has some Eurocrats drooling. The vision is not of...

WASHINGTON — Medical and women's groups are asking the government to allow a morning-after pill to sell without a prescription, saying easier access could prevent more than a million unplanned pregnancies and hundreds of thousands of abortions every year. If fertilization already has occurred, it prevents the egg from implanting into the uterus, the medical definition of pregnancy. If a woman already had become pregnant, emergency contraception would have no effect. So it hasn't proved nearly as contentious as RU-486, the abortion pill.

The declining population is causing ever more concern for Russia's government. Some 25 million ethnic Russians found themselves "abroad" when the USSR collapsed. The outflow from the Asian part of the country, which takes up 74.8% of its vast territory, has grown immensely, as local residents head for European Russia to seek better social and economic conditions. As a result, the density of the population on the eastern side of the Urals is as low as 2.4 per 1 sq.m. Russia's population is plummeting "owing to the high death rate and a birth rate as low as 1.25 births per...

If Russia's sharply declining birth rate is any indication, depopulation, and not an overabundance of humans straining Earth's resources, is the real threat humanity faces. Russia, writes Dr. Herbert London, president of Hudson Institute and the John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University, is providing a lesson for the world of the dangers of depopulation. And the problem of depopulation isn't merely Russia's - the whole Western world is facing a crisis of declining populations. Canada's National Post columnist Mark Steyn recently wrote that Italy's population decline matches Russia's. "Because the state needs a birth rate of...

As a result of reduced death rates, there are more people in their non-productive years than ever before. More children and more elderly people unable to participate in the world's work force increase the burden on the productive age group. [...] The National Academy of Sciences has said: Either the birth rate must go back down or the death rate must go back up. Earth Resources and Populations—Problems and Directions Report and Recommendations of the Republican Task Force on Earth Resources and Population. House Republican Research Committee House Republican Research Committee Robert Taft, Jr., Ohio, Chairman Task Force on...