"296.5 million--Projected number of U.S. residents on this July 4th. Back in July 1776, there were about 2.5 million people living in the colonies.

"Democracy is a method, not a solution.  It is a ground where there is a place for a measure of pluralism and individualism, but only as long as there are common principles to which all of the diverse parts and people give allegiance.  As the late Hans Millendorfer said, democracy works well when there is a common, shared understanding of the good. We had this once in the United States; do we still?

...'Be fruitful and multiply' is God's first command to human beings (Genesis 1:28).  Homosexual behavior does not reproduce, and abortion negates reproduction that has already taken place.  A society that not merely tolerates but extols and praises both - as our society does - has clearly repudiated the reality of nature as well as the teachings of religion.  No animal species exchanges reproductive sexual behavior for sterility. Only Homo sapiens are clever enough to see this as a "right" to be enjoyed and praised.  Throughout the Western world, the rate of human reproduction is not sufficient to preserve the society.  The individual has no duty to society, no more than to God.  She or he is autonomous, a law unto self.  Individualism taken to this extreme is solipsistic.  When solipsistic man dies, he dies alone.  There is no one to mourn him, for there will be no one to come after him."

Family size is often negatively correlated with child outcomes, particularly education attainment, leading social scientists to theorize that having fewer children enables parents to channel more attention and resources to their offspring, allegedly boosting child quality. Not content with this suggestion of a causal relationship between the two variables, three economists in the Quarterly Journal of Economics analyze Norwegian data only to conclude "that there is little if any family size effect on child education" and that "children may not necessarily be better off than if their family had been larger."

Using data from Statistics Norway that covers the entire adult population of that country and provides details on birth order, twin status, family size, and educational attainment, the researchers did find a negative correlation between family size and the educational attainment of offspring. These negative effects of family size, however, were cut in half in regressions that controlled for parents' education and were reduced to almost zero in tests that controlled for birth order. Even though the correlation remained statistically significant (p< .05), the small effect (a linear coefficient of -0.01) of family size when both controls are added "suggests that family size has very little effect on educational attainment."

In place of family size, the economists found "very large and robust effects" of birth order on education, even when controlling for family size, family structure, and parental education. Separate regressions for particular family sizes, for example, found a large and negative effect of being a second child for all family sizes. They estimate that the difference between the first and the fifth child in a five-child family is the same as the educational difference between blacks and whites in the 2000 census.

The only exception to the birth-order effect is their finding that "only" children achieve much lower educational attainment than the average child in two- or three-child families. Yet because the only-child effect disappeared in their intact family sample, the researchers attributed this effect to family structure. In contrast, the birth-order effect was the same regardless of family structure, suggesting that birth order exerts an independent effect in educational attainment.

While the researchers do not offer explanations for birth order effects, their study puts to rest the argument that when it comes to children, quality and quantity are mutually exclusive.