Go in peace, my former countrymen

ABC News: Love it or Leave it -- Record Number of Americans Flee to Canada:

"In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies.
"Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way. Yet, that imbalance is shrinking. Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005."

If, as the article says, the reason for so many Americans heading to the Frozen North is politics, then let them go and good riddance. They can't make Canada much worse and they might help the real Americans keep this country from becoming another Canada.

Americans heading to Canada for political reasons has much deeper roots than the article's mention of the tens of thousands of vacationers who preferred the tundra to the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. All the way back to the American Revolution, people unhappy with the political trends in this counrty have made Canada their preferred destination - it's not far away and they speak English - most of them, anyway, albeit with a funny accent.

ABC uses the word "flee" in the headline even though one of the two persons quoted admitted to keeping an American Flag on his wall in Canada and having no intention to renounce his citizenshp here to become a Canadian. The Tories who went to Canada in the 1770s and 1780s were fleeing. One might even say that of the draft resisters of the 1960s and 1970s. But the word seems an odd choice in the present context.

A little perspective is in order here. ABC's idea of perspective is to say that the numbers of Americans moving to Canada are starting to catch up to the niumbers of Canadians following the sun southward. This is true, but less instructive than it might seem.

Canada is a huge territory with a small population - only a little more than one-tenth the population of the US. Using 2006 population estimates from the TIME Almanac and the figures given in the article for immigration each way in that year yields a very different picture.

So easy a caveman could do it. But not, it seems, easy enough for an ABC reporter. The bottom line: a Canadian is about 20 times more likely to move to the US as an American is to move to Canada. QED

The artist still known as Elton John explains what's wrong with Al Gore's invention

The Sun Online - News: Why we must close the net:

"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span."

Sir Elton is, of course, entitled to exercise his right of free speech even when he chooses to say things that ate stupid, silly, or downright wrong as his remarks are this time. For some reason this is a common failing of artistic types, especially those on the left.

I won't bother giving this latest rant by an aging pop star a detailed analysis. It will suffice for me to endorse the following comment, addressed to Sir Elton by his birth name, posted by a reader on The Sun website:

Reggie Dwight, stick to music! One minute he wants to ban religion, the next the net. Funny he never wants to ban knighthoods for pop stars, gawdy clothes, bad hairdos or tax loopholes for the rich Posted_by: Proudanglosaxon

Population control has a new, high-profile cheerleader

We need fewer people to halt global warming - Telegraph :

"'My position on population is that I am disturbed that no one will talk about it,' [Chris] Rapley [head of the UK's Science Museum in London] says."

Maybe they aren't talking about over-population in Antarctica (Ripley's last job was running the British Antarctic Survey), but it is discussed elsewhere. I have even heard a high school girl bring up the subject in a casual conversation.

China's population controls have been widely publicized - and often criticized. When I was a young man, there was considerable attention given in the public prints to India's population control efforts. And, of course, there are many voices speaking of population control in Africa - from UN-funded family planning programs to hysterical claims that AIDS in Africa is a plot by white people to keep Africa backward.

Ripley's real problem is that effective measures to accomplish his goal are viewed with repugnance by so many people.

Meanwhile, birth rates have fallen below replacement levels in most of Europe. Even Mexico's birth rate has been falling rapidly. And the latest responsible demographic studies predict that world population will peak within this century and then slowly decline.

Ckicken Littles like Ripley and his pal Al Gore need a constant barrage of fear-mongering to drum up support for their coercive utopian visions.