Book My Flight To Sydney

I’m sorry, but I need a break from all of the misery in which we currently find ourselves (take your pick…the Iraq war, the Israel-Hezbollah war, the tragedy in Darfur, just about anything from Bushco, etc.). So, after doing extensive research for all of about five minutes, I found this (describing an issue we dealt with here a few months ago).

(Actually, concerning the “Get Busy, Liberals!” post, I always thought there was more than a hint of fear mongering in the Longman column in light of this story, which points out that, though U.S. population growth is steady, immigrants are doing more of the “begattin’” than current residents…no big deal as far as I’m concerned.)

I thought this excerpt from the Yahoo News article was noteworthy.

(Australian) Prime Minister John Howard's government prides itself on being family friendly.

(Treasurer Peter) Costello last urged Australians to have more children in 2004, when he unveiled a 3,000 dollar (2,250 US) maternity payment for every newborn baby in what became known as his "go forth and multiply" budget.

The incentive, which increased to 4,000 dollars in July, appears to be working and while much of the Western world struggles with declining birth rates; Australia is in the grip of a mini baby boom.

The Australian newspaper reported Monday that 261,404 babies were born in 2005, the highest number since 1992.

The natural fertility rate -- the number of children a woman has during her lifetime -- has also increased from 1.75 in 2003, to 1.77 in 2004, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

And this quote from Howard appears near the end.

"I am very pleased about that because the best possible investment any government can make in this country is in the future of children," he said.

If Dubya tried to utter words like that, he’d choke on them.