Fascinating Facts and Trivia.
From the New York Times:
48: The percent of births in the United States to minority mothers in the 12 months that ended July 2008, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by Professors Kenneth M. Johnson of the University of New Hampshire and Daniel Lichter at Cornell University. The 50 percent benchmark could be reached as soon as this year, demographers say. Over all, the Census Bureau estimates that minorities will constitute a majority of the nation’s population in about three decades and a majority of Americans under 18 in about a decade.
Back to elections. Elections in Iraq cannot be held to international standards. There typically are no big public rallies, for fear that they would be blown up by Sunni Arab guerrillas. Candidates can seldom campaign publicly for fear of assassination. For the election itself, the US military declares a curfew and prohibits vehicular traffic for three days. Everyone is reduced to walking to the store to buy bread and other necessities. You can’t drive. This measure prevents car bombings of the polling stations.
U.S. newspaper circulation has hit its lowest level in seven decades, as papers across the country lost 10.6 percent of their paying readers from April through September, compared with a year earlier.
The newest numbers on newspaper circulation, released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, paint a dismal picture for an industry already feeling the pressures of an advertising slump coupled with the worst business downturn since the Great Depression.
The ABC data estimate that 30.4 million Americans now pay to buy a newspaper Monday through Saturday, on average, and about 40 million do so on Sunday. These figures come from 379 of the nation’s largest newspapers. In 1940, 41.1 million Americans bought a daily newspaper, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
–Frank Ahrens, Washington Post