According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the land of the free and the home of the brave officially hit 300 million at 7:46 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 16, 2006.

The Census Bureau, which uses administrative records and surveys to estimate monthly averages for the births, deaths, and net immigration that occur between its decennial surveys, has a “population clock” that estimates a birth every 7 seconds, a death every 13 seconds, and a new immigrant every 31 seconds, for a total of one new American every 11 seconds.

The growth rate of the United States is less than one percent, with the population increasing by about 2.8 million people per year. Around 40 percent of our growth comes from immigration — the Census Bureau includes illegal immigrants in its official population estimates — while the rest comes from births outnumbering deaths.

America’s population reached 100 million in 1915, and 200 million in 1967. During the last 39 years in which the U.S. population increased by 100 million souls, the entire world population grew from 3.5 billion to 6.5 billion.

In its population growth, the U.S.A. stands alone among industrialized nations, having grown by 13% during the 1990s, which is five times the average of other developed countries.

We are the world’s third most populous nation, behind the burgeoning economic superpowers of China (1.31 billion) and India (1.09 billion).

According to Census Bureau estimates, the U.S. population is expected to reach 400 million by 2043.

Celebration

When America’s population reached 100 million in 1915, the milestone was celebrated as a sign of the nation’s economic and geopolitical might in the world.

When our population surpassed 200 million in 1967, cheers rang through the lobby of the Commerce Department, and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s celebratory speech was interrupted by many bursts of enthusiastic applause. Life magazine found a baby boy born in Atlanta at the exact moment, and dispatched photographers and reporters to anoint him as the 200 millionth American.

Now that we’ve reached the 300 million mark, Census Bureau employees observed the occasion with cake and punch.

Today’s population growth is driven by immigration almost as much as by births and many are speculating that the 300 millionth American did not arrive in a maternity ward, but from across the Mexican border.

In light of the past year’s controversy over how to handle the estimated 11 to 12 million immigrants here illegally, and the midterm elections being only weeks away, the lack of government-sponsored hoopla is somewhat understandable.

Doomsayers

Environmentalist and anti-immigration groups do not see America as a robust and flourishing nation, but rather as one whose growth and consumption are spiraling out of control, threatening the purity of our air, water, and food — and the complexion of our demographics.

The environmentalists lament that our wildernesses are being paved over to make room for “urban sprawl.” They are concerned that more traffic burning fossil fuels will cause an increase of greenhouse gas emissions that are widely believed to be a cause of global warming.

Anti-immigration groups complain that many of our communities appear to be changing almost overnight as schools and roads become increasingly crowded with Spanish-speaking people. They are worried because immigrants, legal and illegal, account for about 40% of our population growth, and that Hispanics from Latin America account for the largest share of immigrants. Some fear that these trends could result in “Anglos” becoming a minority here — as if that would be a Bad Thing.

Internecine Immigration Incongruence

The ongoing immigration controversy is a product of politics, not economic pragmatism, which is why there are between 11 and 12 million illegal immigrants working here, regardless of immigration policies that serve the ambitions of politicians whose constituencies are not quite ready to embrace the ethnic and cultural and plurality that is America.

Few people will argue that illegal immigration isn’t a problem that needs to be reduced, not only for the sake of the rule of law, but for the welfare of the workers who are exploited by unscrupulous businesses looking for cheap labor that is unregulated, undocumented, and unprotected.

Dealing with the 11-12 million illegal immigrants who are already here filling 11-12 million jobs should, in theory, be a manageable problem, considering the basic laws of supply and demand, and the fact that when America absorbed large waves of immigrants in the past, our economy and culture were enriched.

However, the notion of granting some form of amnesty to illegal immigrants — no matter how economically beneficial that could be — presents a moral conundrum. Is it fair and just to show clemency toward those who broke the law to enter America after so many other people immigrated here via the proper, legal channels?

Of course it isn’t fair! But that doesn’t solve the actual economic problem at hand, which is that our immigration policies are in need of realistic and practical reform so that jobs that need to be filled can be filled legally, and with workers who enjoy the protections and benefits of documented work.

A workable compromise would be a system in which illegal immigrants and the businesses that hire them are fined, and then given a chance to comply with the law or face increasingly severe penalties for repeat offenses.

But that idea is unappealing to those whose pride, prejudice, and pretentiousness make them more concerned with demographics than current economic realities. For such people, the ingredients in America’s melting pot have taken on too much of a Latino flavor.

Thus the ongoing immigration controversy that actually has very little to do with securing our borders against a surplus of labor, and more to do with fear of the minority-majority state.

Environmental Efficiency

The hand-wringing pessimism of environmentalists and city dwellers who complain that humanity is crowding out and paving over Mother Nature belies the fact that America still has plenty of wide-open spaces.

A mere 84 people per square mile means we have a lot of room left for growth inside our 3,537,438.44 square miles of land area. Considering that there are about 300 people per square mile in the European Union, and almost 900 people per square mile in Japan, the U.S. is comparatively under populated.

It’s not the actual size of our population that causes environmental problems, but rather how people are distributed. A little more than half of the U.S. population is clustered in cities and along the coasts, while large swaths of the country are struggling to keep their populations from shrinking. For example, there are 6 million people living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, which is nearly twice the entire population of the nearby state of Oklahoma.

As more people move away from crowded cities and into the suburbs, land use is becoming less efficient. Single-use zoning and low-density land use have created car dependent communities, which have lead to more traffic and emissions.

The solution to the environmental impact of our increasing population is not the limitation of growth, but more efficient planning, such as the implementation of “smart growth,” policies that encourage compact land use patterns, optimal access to public transportation, pedestrian-friendly and bicycle-friendly roads, and mixed-use development.

Smart growth principles are focused upon the total long-term economics of development, rather than the short term profits of improving individual parcels of land, so they are a hard sell to developers whose priorities are minimizing costs and maximizing revenues for their investors, not preparing environmental impact assessments that may oblige them to cover the potentially high expense of mitigating the environmental impact of their development projects.

Policy-makers, in their efforts to challenge obsolete ideas of urban planning (such as the need for more single-family homes that necessitate more prevalent automobile usage), must provide financial incentives to developers in order to negate any perceived need for authoritarian restrictions on free enterprise.

If smart growth is profitable to developers, they will not only implement those techniques in their future projects, they will promote the idea in their marketing collaterals.

Auspicious Abundance

Contrary to popular pessimism, America’s growth is a Good Thing. Many demographers believe that our reaching the 300 million milestone shows that America, in spite of our image around the world being momentarily tarnished by the inconsistent progress of the war in Iraq, is an economically powerful republic that is admired in most of the world.

“As almost nothing else can, immigration-led growth signals the attractiveness of the American economy and polity,” says Kenneth Prewitt, a former head of the Census Bureau and now professor of public affairs at Columbia University. “You don’t see large numbers of immigrants clamoring to move to China.”

Stagnant populations, such as those of Japan and some European countries, will face severe retirement crises in the future. Sub-replacement fertility rates are leading to a situation in which there will not be enough young workers to support retirees. It should also be noted that their populations are not growing as fast as ours through immigration because they are not creating as many jobs.

The fact that the U.S. population is growing faster via immigration than other developed nations will allow us to better deal with the financial pressures of an aging population whose life expectancy has climbed from 71 to 78 years since 1967. Immigrants and their children will help reduce funding shortfalls for Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs that benefit older people.

In the past 80 years, America has experienced both explosive population growth and unprecedented prosperity, in spite of major wars and a decade-long economic depression. In more recent times, our resilient economy has survived the September 11 attacks, rising oil and commodity prices, increased global competition, corporate scandals, and the geopolitical risks associated with the war in Iraq and nuclear proliferation.

On Wednesday October 18, 2006 the Dow Jones industrial average rose above 12,000 for the first time in its 110-year history. And if history is any indication, the stock market will continue to grow at a significantly faster rate than the population because businesses and workers are steadily becoming more productive due to the accelerating rate of our technological progress.

American innovation, a product of our ever-expanding diversity, has brought us prosperity, even through the toughest of times. Our technology has improved our overall quality of life, with advances in medical science that have increased our longevity while decreasing our infant mortality rate, and exponential progress in transportation and telecommunications that has made us smarter and more efficient and productive.

In the future, it will be our inventiveness and entrepreneurial spirit that will see us through to the 400 million milestone, and beyond — regardless of the foreboding exhortations of doomsayers, crepehangers, defeatists, and cynics who think pessimism is synonymous with realism.

So here’s to 300-plus American souls, among whom could be the doctors who will discover the cures for cancer, diabetes, and AIDS; the engineers who will negate our need for fossil fuels, and the national leaders who will diplomatically and peacefully spread the American vision of freedom and prosperity throughout the world.

Now I shall blog about the House of Representatives election in my district, Florida’s 10th. It’s not a terribly exciting race as the GOP incumbent, who won 69% of the vote in 2004, is very popular and favored to win.

But we’re purple down here in Pinellas County, Florida — in 2004, 51% of us voted for President Bush and 48% for John Kerry. And since the current political climate seems increasingly hostile toward Republican incumbents, we don’t really know how many of us are planning to vote for “The Other Guy” (even if he’s a “gal”) who doesn’t have an “R” beside his name.

Samm Simpson a political newcomer who has never sought public office before has set her ambitions very high for her first campaign: she’s running for 10th U.S. House District Congressman C.W. Bill Young’s seat.

Like many Democratic candidates who are challenging Republican incumbents in the upcoming midterm election, Ms. Simpson, a 52-year-old grandmother from Dunedin, is hoping that public disappointment in President Bush and the Republican-led Congress will develop into votes for her.

Congressman Young, an 18-term incumbent, has not faced a serious challenger since 1992, and his seat, which CQ Politics lists as “Safe Republican” is likely unthreatened this time, too.

The latest campaign finance reports show Ms. Simpson has raised $9,189 in contributions, with $1,992 cash on hand. Rep. Young’s reports show that his campaign has $475,823 cash on hand.

But that rather wide financial gap doesn’t matter to Ms. Simpson because she is running a grass-roots campaign. “I kind of expand the definition of winning,” she said. “Winning is also helping people to understand the truth. That is winning in addition to winning a seat and being able to change course in America.”

Ms. Simpson, rather than pay what she called a “reprehensible” entry fee of $9,276, was able to qualify for the November 7 ballot, with the help of volunteers who gathered 4,088 petition signatures.

“People need to know there is choice in this election,” she said.

Born in Iowa, Ms. Simpson moved to Florida in 1982 to work in television. She has managed radio and television programs for Pinellas County government and was a marketing executive for Raymond James & Associates, Inc., from 1984 to 2001.

Ms. Simpson, who said she decided to run for Congress after hearing the president’s state of the union speech in January, currently hosts a monthly television program, “Media is Propaganda,” on Pinellas county’s public access channel.

Citing issues such as the war in Iraq, global warming, America’s dependence on fossil fuels, the lack of affordable health care for seniors, veterans and the working poor, and the widening gap between rich and poor, Ms. Simpson said, “Our country is in such dire straits, I had to do something to help save my country.”

Because a small, but significant, number of conservatives have become frustrated with Republican governance; and independent swing voters are turning against GOP candidates, Democrats appear to be edging closer to gaining a majority of House seats.

Just four weeks before Election Day, numerous polls — all taken after the surfacing of the Capitol Hill page sex scandal involving former Republican congressman Mark Foley, but before North Korea’s announcement of its first nuclear test — show Democratic candidates with huge leads over Republicans.

Going into the final 26 days of the midterm-election campaigns, the pundits and the analysts are moving more and more Republican-held congressional seats out of the “safe” column, and laying improving odds upon the Democratic Party’s chances of seizing control of at least the House of Representatives.

Republican campaign officials are now saying that they expect to lose at least seven House seats, and perhaps as many as 30 in the November 7 elections. In order to achieve majority control of Congress, the Democrats must pick up 15 seats in the House, and six in the Senate.

Amazingly, and very much unlike most past elections, every Democratic incumbent is favored to win re-election and the Democrats are spending money to defend only a few seats, which means that their party’s candidates are far less vulnerable to the GOP’s campaign finance advantage.

An October 6-8 USA TODAY/Gallup poll showed that Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans on which party’s House candidate would get their vote — the Democrats’ greatest advantage among registered voters since 1978, and twice the lead the GOP had one month before they gained control of Congress in 1994.

However, a Democratic Party takeover of the House is not a foregone conclusion because of congressional redistricting plans that have given huge advantages to Republican incumbents. Additionally, internal Democratic polls show that the effects of the “Foley Factor” are confined to only a half-dozen races.

Less than 50 of the 435 House seats are actually competitive, and House races are usually shaped by local issues and personalities, with the closest often being decided upon which party can turn out more of its loyal voters.

The Republican Party is urging its candidates to stress local issues that could make their Democratic opponents into unpalatable alternatives; while the GOP leaders attempt to mitigate the “Foley Factor” by accusing Democrats of trying to politicize it.

In the hope of shifting the national conversation away from congressional controversies and war casualties, the White House plans to highlight national security, especially terrorism, after North Korea’s reported nuclear test.

Downfall

The plummeting poll ratings appear to have befallen the GOP due to an ill-timed series of unfortunate events and revelations; giving Democratic candidates the opportunity to argue that; the Republicans have bollixed things up, the country needs a new direction, and they are the viable alternatives.

Reports of increased violence and mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq were already adding to the American people’s doubts about the progress of the war. Making matters worse was the widespread publication of leaked conclusions from a classified National Intelligence Estimate that said the Iraq war had actually increased terrorism in the region. Then, on September 28, a CNN poll revealed that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Iraq to be in a “civil war.”

That same day, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner of Virginia — upon returning from his eighth trip there — said that Iraq is “simply drifting sidewise,” and that he believes the new government is trying, but its departments and agencies “are simply not living up or not able to meet just the fundamental responsibilities of a government.”

While he urged Americans not to give up hope, Sen. Warner described a critical two to three month period ahead, and said if the Iraqi government can’t perform better and reduce sectarian violence, the U.S. government ought to determine, “Is there a change of course that we should take?”

Then the news of Mr. Foley’s resignation over his misadventures in cyberspace hit the airwaves on September 29, just in time to upstage — but not completely overshadow — the September 30 release of Bob Woodward’s new book that, according to its Amazon.com description, “examines how the Bush administration avoided telling the truth about Iraq to the public, to Congress, and often to themselves.”

Foley Polling

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted October 5-8, almost 80% of Americans think the Republican Congressional leadership put the protection of their political standings ahead of the safety of teenage pages, and 62% believe the GOP leaders knew about Mr. Foley’s sexually explicit messages to pages long before they were made public.

Two-thirds of the respondents to the USA TODAY/Gallup poll said they were following the page scandal very or somewhat closely, and 54% believed that the GOP leadership knew about Mr. Foley’s inappropriate communications with congressional pages for months or years and did not act against Mr. Foley sooner “for political reasons.” Forty-three percent said that House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed that 7 in 10 Americans are following the Foley scandal very or somewhat closely, but only 2 in 10 said it would be very important in deciding their votes on November 7. The poll also showed voters were evenly split over whether Speaker Hastert should step down.

The political fallout appears to be mixed, with almost two-thirds saying that the Republican leadership tried to cover up the scandal, but about the same percentage saying they believe that the Democratic leaders would have done the same — and more than 3 in 5 thought the Democrats were criticizing the GOP leaders for political advantage.

Evaluating Moral Values

While the Republican Party has been scurrying, scrambling, and scuttling about in its efforts to contain the fallout from the “Foley Factor,” the polls are finding that support for the GOP on its familiar winning issues, such as moral values and the war against terrorism, is deteriorating under the duress of a national and international political climate that has become increasingly hostile toward the status quo (3 in 10 registered voters in the USA TODAY/Gallup poll said their representatives don’t deserve re-election).

A new group of “values voters,” seems to be emerging as the American people, likely having heard their fill of news about corruption and malfeasance in government, are beginning to value honesty and responsibility over piousness and passing the buck.

Forty-seven percent of the respondents to the New York Times/CBS News poll named the Democratic Party as coming closer to sharing their moral values, and only 38% named Republicans. Surprisingly, 43% of people who live in the South, and 26% of conservatives, believed that Democrats come closer to sharing their values than the GOP.

That poll also found that 69% of Americans think members of Congress do not live by the same rules of behavior as they do, and 69% believe that members of Congress consider themselves above the law.

The USA TODAY/Gallup poll showed Democrats as having a 21-point advantage on government corruption, one of the three most important issues, along with Iraq and terrorism, according to the poll.

Iraq, Terrorism, Taxes, and The Economy

The war in Iraq continues to take its toll on President Bush and the GOP, with two-thirds of respondents to the New York Times/CBS News poll saying it is going somewhat or very badly, and only 3% saying it is going very well. Two-thirds said they disapproved of Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq, and 83% thought Mr. Bush was either hiding something or mostly lying about how the war was going.

The USA TODAY/Gallup poll showed, for the first time in Mr. Bush’s presidency, that Democrats have surpassed Republicans on the issue of handling terrorism, 46% to 41%, and have a 17-point advantage on Iraq.

When asked whether the war in Iraq has been worth fighting, 63% of the respondents to the Washington Post/ABC News poll said, “No.” But only one-fifth of those surveyed said they support the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and 51% agreed that Iraq is a front in the global war against terrorism.

Mr. Bush’s ratings on terrorism, his signature issue, are at the lowest of his presidency, with 53% saying that they disapprove of his performance. Fifty percent believe that America is safer now than it was before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but 42% think the nation is less safe today.

The “Foley Factor” appears to have also derailed the GOP’s messages regarding taxes and the economy. Republicans had sought to discredit Democrats as big spending advocates for high taxes, but 52% percent of respondents to the New York Times/CBS News poll thought that Democrats would make the right decisions on how to spend taxpayers’ money, and only 29% said Republicans would.

In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, 41% said they approve of how Mr. Bush has handled economic issues, which is about the same rating he received in August. Americans appear to be somewhat positive about the economy, likely due to the recent decline in gasoline prices, with 47% of respondents describing the economy as good or excellent, and 53% saying it is not so good or poor.

Final Fundamentals

It is widely believed and hoped, among many Republicans and some Democrats, that the “Foley Factor” will soon turn into “Foley Fatigue,” that the scandal will not have the legs to last four weeks, and that everybody will find something else to talk about — like the news that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test on October 6. The U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a 4.2 magnitude tremor in North Korea at 10:35 local time. However, thus far, there has been no independent confirmation that it was caused by a nuclear device. And now, U.S. hopes are waning for a quick United Nations vote on North Korea, which has called U.S. pressure to rein in its nuclear program tantamount to a “declaration of war.”

White House spokesman Tony Snow stated the obvious very well when he said: “It’s pretty clear that the Foley story has had an impact on public opinion but whether it is going to have an impact on the elections is something the voters will have to decide.”

Indeed, there is no magical crystal ball that foretells a future that is four weeks away, poll numbers are well-known for their volatility, not their usefulness in forecasting close races, and the “Foley Factor” is a prime example of how the fickle finger of fate can cause fortunes to fluctuate in a flash.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that the active ingredient in marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), may prevent the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by preventing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down and blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s patients.

The researchers said their discovery could lead to more effective drug treatment for Alzheimer’s, the leading cause of dementia among the elderly.

People with Alzheimer’s suffer memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished language and movement. Although it is believed to be hereditary, the cause is unknown.

Further reading:

Marijuana may stave off Alzheimer’s - U.S. study, Andy Sullivan October 5, 2006, Reuters.

Potheads send Alzheimer’s up in smoke, Leigh Dayton, Science writer, October 6, 2006, The Australian.

This is a sort of public service announcement for the numerous people who have found this web site via Yahoo, Google, or some other search engine using “the difference between ethics and morals” or some variation thereof.

(This is the third most frequent referral. References to the obvious closing lines of the first verse of our National Anthem are second. And rounding out first place, of course, are the obvious requests for free breasts, nudity, and/or sex.)

Ethics are a set of principles of right and wrong conduct, the actual written rules by which we try to work, love, play, fight, and live, according to our circumstances and beliefs, whatever they might be.

Morals arise from conscience, our inherent sense of right and wrong. We use our morals when we judge good and evil according to our perceptions. Morals are not written, but felt.

Making rules, and then sometimes breaking them (ethics), is intrinsic in our human nature, but it is our consciences (morals) that make us feel guilt, sanctimony, regret, satisfaction, remorse, or nothing at all, for having done so.

Ethics are external, morals are internal. Sometimes the two live in harmony with one another, but more often than not, it seems, they are in conflict, such as when the ethics say you can’t and your morals say you have to.

I do hope this PSA was helpful. Of course, if anybody disagrees, please feel free to educate me.