9:15 p.m.

• Woo-hoo, I'm sticking it to the European nations by getting Mrs. kkk preggers.

Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years.

But how many of these births are from Mexicans?

The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births.

Wow. I thought that number would be more.

ATLANTA (AP) - Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years.

 

The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too.

 

An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the end of the baby boom. An examination of global data also shows that the United States has a higher fertility rate than every country in continental Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and Japan. Fertility levels in those countries have been lower than the U.S. rate for several years, although some are on the rise, most notably in France.

 

Experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.

Huh -- Poor education? And LOL regarding the poverty and abortion reasons.

9:30 p.m.

• A nearby town made the big-time. In a bad way.

Amid the bleak, run-down brick buildings, drug dealers drive around in shiny SUVs, Cadillacs and convertibles, the sun glinting off their chrome-plated spinning hubs.

 

Drugs and money are exchanged on street corners. Addicts crash in crack houses, some of them right downtown. Gunfights erupt between drug dealers jealously guarding their territory. Rival gangs—the L's and the G's—deal the crack that flows into this riverfront town from New Jersey, New York, Detroit and Washington.

 

In Rust Belt cities like Aliquippa, drugs moved in after steel moved out.

 

In 10 of 14 Rust Belt towns in six states surveyed by The Associated Press, all with populations of 30,000 or less, drug-related arrests more than doubled in the past 15 to 20 years, even as the number of residents declined in every community.

This is one media story I believe. Aliquippa is a shit hole.

• As if gas prices weren't high enough.

A U.S. panel created to recommend ways to fund road construction plans to propose that federal gasoline taxes rise as much as 40 cents per gallon over five years, a person with direct knowledge of the plan said.

 

The group will suggest that the current tax of 18.4 cents per gallon increase by 5 cents to 8 cents annually and be indexed to inflation after the five years, said the person, who didn't want to be named before the report is made public.

 

The panel, called the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, is scheduled to release its recommendations including the federal fuel-tax increase Jan. 15 in Washington. Congress created the panel in 2005 for the purpose of issuing the report.

 

The findings may bolster efforts by members of Congress who have tried unsuccessfully to raise fuel taxes over the objections of President George W. Bush. The tax increase wouldn't go into effect until after Bush leaves office in 2009.

 

The commission will also recommend that state fuel taxes rise by an amount slightly larger than the federal increases, according to the person. The U.S. tax on gasoline was last boosted in 1993, by 4.3 cents a gallon.

You know, when don't we have a "looming crisis"? Well, there's one good thing to all this. If the federal gas tax would happen, the media and Democrats would lay off talking about high gas prices. After all, these increase are for the greater good. And I'm sure all this extra money wouldn't be wasted. No siree.