That's an amazing graph. But don't let New Scientist see it. They'll use it as evidence that economic growth is destroying the planet.

It's always salutary in the age of the talking point to see that people can still think for themselves. But in this case Zo's thinking has led him to conclude that the American government has committed a genocide of black people by the means of abortion. That's not an association McCain wants.

Hip-Hop Republicans and Red-Neck Obama backers are interesting phenomenon. Its basically taking the building blocks of social identity and recombining them in counterintuitive ways. It still seems largely about building a personal identity out of prefab components, only the combinations are new. However the mere fact that cracks start appearing in these ideologically homogenous culture structures is promising. Customizing society's identity templates is the first step toward throwing the stencil set away entirely.

"Zo's thinking has led him to conclude that the American government has committed a genocide of black people by the means of abortion."

The roots of that one go deep -- but lead back to a place that would surprise many "progressives/liberals".

Charles Darwin's articulation of Natural Selection resulted in the intellectual class realizing what dirt farmers had known for millenia -- the benefits of Unnatural Selection, or selective breeding; the pathway to improved animal stock.

The Eugenics movement was an effort to improve human stock through selective breeding. And that is where Planned Parenthood came from -- encouraging those whom the progressives/liberals saw as less desireable to abort their substandard babies. To this day, a disproportionate number of abortions are minorities.

Alice, I think that it is much more complicated than that. I think that the main reason that the 'non-minorities', or 'upper-class', or whatever, are having fewer pregnancies (resulting in either births or abortions) is the use of contraceptives. On the other hand, at least anecdotally, minorities are where you mainly see 'babies having babies'. It may be true though, that at the same time minorities are having more abortions, but it seems to me that this is due to the lack of use of contraceptives.

Seeing as abortion is a personal choice, I cant see how this "Genocide" works. It would have to be forced abortion to be that.
On the other hand many pro lifers would like to see the opposite enforced.

The Eugenics movement was an effort to improve human stock through selective breeding. And that is where Planned Parenthood came from -- encouraging those whom the progressives/liberals saw as less desireable to abort their substandard babies. To this day, a disproportionate number of abortions are minorities.

Indeed, here we have just had a postage stamp issued here to celebrate the life of a woman who did just that.

But, I think the unmissable point here is, as RAB has already said, that abortions are not forced upon people. It's a culture that encourages too many pregnancies to occur in inimical and dissolute circumstances that has caused the disproportionately high number of black abortions. The availability of 'family planning' is a necessary precursor to the economic development of these poor communities; it's not a secret plot to get rid of them.

Ham:

The availability of 'family planning' is a necessary precursor to the economic development of these poor communities

Why not encourage contraceptives instead of abortions?

Why not both?

Because obviously abortion is much more problematic from a moral POV.

Staying on the present and very interesting subject of the black-bloc-vote for the Democratic Party: it is well documented that one of the fundamental causes of poverty is the proliferation of dependants, particularly when one does not have the means upon which they can depend. Not having children when you're a young single woman on a low income is a very bad idea, and preventing the cycle of destitution it brings is a moral duty. It's a moral duty which, I might add, the Democratic welfare programmes have mostly failed to meet, so Zo's far from out of his mind to, as a black American, take a look at conservatism.

Wal-Mart has been less successsful outside the US than in. (Read this Reason article for instance). It works quite well in other parts of the Americas, but not so well in Europe and Asia. Wal-Mart owned Asda tends to get its clock cleaned by Tesco in the UK. I don't mind shopping in Asda, particularly for non-food stuff - there are lots of good things for sale cheaply - but Tesco does this too and manages the food stuff better. And Tesco are masters of working their way around planning laws and other regulations and placing stores exactly where customers want them. It often feels like Wal-Mart doesn't really understand the necessity of doing this, which makes sense given its plae of origin.

That said, Wal-Mart is going to emerge stronger from this downturn than it entered it. "Always Low Prices" as your main selling point really comes to the fore in such times.