Before we wade into the rapids this week, how bout a hearty huzzah for the 247th anniversary of the day 13 colonies officially told King George to stuff it. In near perfect penmanship, too.
Please try not to blow yourselves up this weekend celebrating.
You can always depend on the highly paid bots at Paddlin Upstream to scour the mundane stuff on the web to bring you things you probably don't care about anyway. Here's a tidbit that might torment the fact averse.
The U.S. Census Bureau analysis of population data since early 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, shows that the population that identified as white would have declined without immigration. Death rates exceeded birth rates during this period. But with immigration, there was a .1 percent rise in white population.
Immigration also drove the rise in the Asian identified population in the United States during that time, but their birth rate still slightly exceeded death rates.
The Black, Hispanic and Native American identified populations all had birth rates that well exceeded death rates in the U.S. Their immigration rates accounted for only about 1/3 or less of each group's population growth.
Of course, the population of the United States rose during that time, but only the white identified population's growth depended totally on immigration. For those of you wondering, the population of the colonies in 1776 was about 2.5 million. Primarily immigration driven, btw. Now there are over 333 million in 50 states.
Our bots aren't saying what these numbers mean to them, but it does make me wonder what they mean for the anti-immigration crowd. The far right has a tendency to have noseless faces and they may double down on ending all immigration. But it looks like ending immigration at this time wouldn't have the effect they fantasize about.
Maybe birth rates not keeping up with death rates is a sign of something else in the white population. If you go by TV commercials, it's gotta be low T.
It could be something else. Maybe MAGA hats aren't really aphrodisiacs. There could just be lots of less than enthusiastic wives in that demographic. Could be too much grabbin and not enough groovin.
Speaking of groovin, a bunch of killer whales off Spain and Portugal have been doin the Orca two step with high dollar yachts. Scientists have been at a loss to explain why these whales are aggressively bumping against passing sailing ships. Most of the offending whales are adolescent aged. They might just be playing.
Or the Joker might have taught them to Eat the Rich.
Because this is a relatively new phenomenon I'm thinking they're trying to tell somebody to turn down the heat. That ocean's getting hot.
Did someone say ocean? Not to return to last week's babble, but it's pretty disappointing to learn that more than one entity pin-pointed the sound of the violent implosion of the doomed sub. Unfortunately, there are still hand-wringers demanding body recovery.
It's true those original thirteen states weren't in complete agreement on much of anything since that day 247 years ago. But I hope most of us in the current fifty can still agree it was a good idea.Imm