INTERESTING TIMES

The rate at which U.S. women are having babies continued to fall in 2009, pushing the teen birth rate to the lowest level in the nearly 70 years reliable data have been collected, federal authorities reported Tuesday.

(Graphic by Pamela Tobey / The Washington Post)
( notes from Washington Post article and other sources )

Actually, I obediently filled it out. I'm 44 years of age and I think that may be the first time I've been counted. Unless my parents counted me sometime and I didn't know it.

I do find it amusing how riled up people get about it. I mean sure, worry about it if you're an illegal alien. It's worth worrying about. Fill it out so that the census taker man doesn't come to your door? Or don't fill it out and hide when the man comes. There are a lot of people in the US who want to chase out aliens just like those rednecks chased off the census taker.

I hear that 2010 will be the first year that nonwhite births outnumber white births in the US.

Painting: "Sleepy Hot City" by Fiona Nasr
Notes here from interesting article: ( Urban heat; Cities sizzle as more people move in, by Sid Perkins. )

We're slated to hit 7,000,000,000 in 2012.
We hit 6 billion in 1999.
Thirteen years to add a billion.
We hit 1 billion in 1800.
In 1930, 130 years later, we made 2 billion.
(data from the AP)
So between 1930 and 1999 we added 4 billion in 69 years.