Quote: “With our economy the way it is, with California going to hell in a basket, I should be excited?! Doesn’t make sense to me.”Me neither, lady.
Fact: This Whittier woman, the 87-year-old next door neighbor of the “miracle” octuplets mother would have been about eight years old when the Great Depression hit about eight decades ago. Many of us remember being eight years old fairly vividly. I sure do.
See the short segment on the BBC World News YouTube channel (duration = 1:58) for an example of how this story is being covered abroad.
Yes, this controversy has been festering for a while now, but this lady’s reaction is my favorite aspect of the story so far; she’s such a breath of fresh California air compared to, say, all the back-peddling fertility specialist experts.
Here is some not-so-fresh air. The image at right depicts carbon monoxide (not CO2) emissions over South America in September 2004 as recorded from NASA’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Terra Satellite. See NASA’s excellent Visible Earth portal for more stunning images.
A question: Do crisis refugees have higher fertility rates, on average? Consider the case of the Indian Ocean rim baby boom/boomlet soon after the December 2004 earthquake/tsunami.
This paper might offer some insights: “Mortality and Fertility Interactions” [PDF]. This was published by the Population Research Center, National Opinion Research Center (NORC), & The University of Chicago around 2003.
Now, as far as the octuplets lifestyle saga goes, I wonder if the bread-winning Iraqi grandfather who brags about his wealth plans to support his family with U.S. contract money for Iraq, courtesy of Bush and his neocon crony club of amateur nation builders. (Sorry for that dig, Dubya apologist holdouts. We know your disgraced figurehead has left for the warm climes of Crawford, but his legacy is to be found everywhere nowadays in These United States.)
