US Population to Hit 303 Million on January 1 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Census Bureau expects the nation's population to be 303.15 million on New Year's Day, up 0.9 percent from January 1, 2007, it said on Thursday.

In 2008, the country will add one person every 13 seconds, the bureau said. That will come from one birth every eight seconds, one death every 11 seconds, and one migrant arriving every 30 seconds.

The other title of this story could have been "The Slow Agonizing Death of Mother Earth Trundles On."

One thing nice about knowing that I'll be dead in 20 years or less is also knowing that I will not have to endure the stresses on whats left of the earth like my 2 daughters will or if they have children, their children will. It saddens the hell out of me when I think about how just 150 years ago the skies blackened with migrating ducks and geese and Bison roared across the prairies. Grizzly Bears lived near Grand Island Nebraska and Bighorn Sheep may have munched on South Dakota's finest native prairie. Today they are all pushed back into the mountains. Consider what the countryside might have looked like then with what it looks like now. Then think of what will be here (if anything) 150 years hence. If we have wrought this much environmental damage in 150 years working up to 303 million mouths to feed, think of the damage that will be here with continuing exponential population growth and the pressures that will be brought to bear on whats left.

Christmas 1981 in Jamestown North Dakota I was visited by a couple of Mormon missionaries. Normally I kick them out but this being the 'christians' holiday I let them in. After all I had not had a good religious argument or discussion in quite some time.

After all of the "have you accepted J C as your savior" stuff was out of the way I asked these two women why the Mormons just like the Catholics are opposed to birth control. I was told that "god" wanted the fecund Mormons to reproduce like rabbits to fill up the earth (something that all religions are doing at warp speed now). I said that was all well and good but that there was a finite land base out there and just so much countryside that could be used to grow more crops to feed more fecund little Mormons. The answer back was that "If 'god' wants there to be more children then 'god' will find a way to feed them."

What? Some cosmic diety whom nobody has ever seen is going to create food out of the air? Just like that? Presto changeo and there's more land to grow more crops on? I wonder what they were smoking?

Regardless, that mentality seems to be present even today. Repignofascists are making a huge deal out of trying to stop women from legally obtaining an abortion to rid themselves of a fetus they don't want. Yet once that fetus is brought to term and becomes a human, the Repignofascists could care less about its health or welfare or if it has enough food to eat. That only adds to the population problem.

I still remember the day in 1967 when President Lyndon Johnson was on CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite standing in front of some counter that rang 200,000,000 when the 200 millionth American was born. Now just 40 years later we have increased that population by 1/3 more. With all those fecund people running around out there it will be far less than 40 more years before we increase by 1/3 again. And again, and again.

And the earth suffers each time another doctor slaps another newborn on its Cheney.