Regarding the Baby Bust.

Interesting (H/T: Hot Air Headlines):

The U.S. fertility rate will rise from its 25-year low of 1.89 children per woman in 2012 to 1.90 in 2013, according to a report released yesterday from the analytics firm Demographics Intelligence. While the increase is slight, it represents the first time the birth rate has risen since the recession hit. In 2007, the rate was 2.12 children per woman.

[snip]

Part of the reason for the turnaround is that religious women are having more babies, the report finds. Women who attend weekly religious services intend to have 2.62 children, while those who rarely or never attend services plan to have 2.1 children.

At the other end of the spectrum, some women are choosing not to have any children at all, according to this week’s Time magazine cover story, “Having it All Without Having Children.” In it, author Lauren Sandler, who has made a name for herself by establishing the case for being and having an only child, argues that more women are opting not to become parents, and instead are looking for new paths of acceptance “in a culture that often equates womanhood with motherhood.”

Continue reading Regarding the Baby Bust.

RedState Gathering Interview: Gov. Rick Perry (R, TX).

The below does not even remotely represent the amount of video that got shot at this year’s RedState Gathering: in fact, it does not even remotely represent the amount of video that RedState shot at this year’s Gathering, or the amount of video shot of Governor Rick Perry. But the Governor had some time to talk with me on some of the issues involving Texas lately, and I was happy to talk with him:

Continue reading RedState Gathering Interview: Gov. Rick Perry (R, TX).

Well, I’m back.

Good weekend, but I’m running right back out again tomorrow with the kids, for reasons that seemed pretty good at the time.  Ach, well, I suppose that an August mini-vacation isn’t so bad.

This is exactly the reaction that I had.

I even said “Wait. WHAT?”  Not that I cared; and I’m sure that I could come up with a plausible reason to explain that sudden revelation away if I was going to bother with distinguishing it from all the other, obviously not really that important, niggling details about Pacific Rim.  This is a movie about giant robots hitting giant monsters. You have to just go live in the Moments of Awesome for this one.

QOTD, The White House Feels Debbie Wasserman Schultz Is Too Self-Centered edition.

It’s going to take a lot to break through the background noise of politics and beer that is the RedState Gathering for me this year, but this will do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is apparently using her position as DNC chair to push her political fortunes, and this is upsetting the Oval Office.

One senior Democratic source said the White House was “absolutely outraged” by Wasserman Schultz’s comments in Politico.
Another said Democrats in the House were just as upset. The source pointed to the number of “I, me or my” statements in the interview and said it reads like Wasserman Schultz thinks “others in leadership now don’t exist.”

Bolding mine.

…The White House really does not have a single clue about their malignant narcissism, does it?

Ed Snowden defects to Russia.

.

MOSCOW — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year and left a Moscow airport Thursday to formally enter the country’s territory, according to his lawyer.

Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s legal representative, told RT, a Russian television network, that the papers issued by the Russian Immigration Service allow him to live, work and travel in Russia for a year.

So, if there was anything that the NSA knew that you didn’t want the Russians to know… yeah, that ship may or may not have sailed. I’d snark about that more, except that I don’t actually think that any of this was or is funny.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: You may safely assume that I am not taking seriously any suggestion that Ed Snowden’s adventures in Russia will be over within the year. Certainly Russian intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies intend for Snowden to have a nice, long visit…