Ordering policy from the kids' menu

In his State of the Union Address this week, in addition to name-calling back at Dick "The Dog-Faced Boy" Cheney, Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to highlight the country's shrinking population as its most salient national worry. And of course, instead of working to reverse the trend by battling the country's escalating death rate or trying to decrease emigration to other countries, the government is going to try and use money to convince women to have more children. Right.

An editorial in today's New York Times also had this helpful suggestion:

Perhaps another approach would be to see whether the population could be increased through improved democratic institutions. If corruption and greed among the elite were curbed somewhat, and if Mr. Putin started worrying less about throwing Russia's weight around and more about allowing a greater part of the population to share in the country's governance, riches, debates and dreams, maybe the drinking and poverty would give way to larger families. There's no guarantee, of course, but unlike the measures Mr. Putin outlined, this approach has never been fully explored.

Apparently Scott McClellan has joined the editorial board. And yes, good old democracy is the remedy for everything–we've (allegedly) got it and we certainly don't have any problems with poverty or alcoholism within our glimmering borders. (And come on, if anything, larger families are causes of more than cures for both.)

We've also got plenty of wailing national posterity despite all our rampant corruption and greed. And we certainly don't ever throw our weight around, or concern ourselves too heavily with letting the population share in governance, debate or especially riches:

The overwhelming share of the tax cuts the Senate voted to extend will flow to the wealthiest taxpayers. People earning $1 million a year would save about $42,700, and reap about 22 percent of the total tax cut, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group in Washington. People earning $40,000 to $50,000 a year would save about $47 and receive less than 1 percent of the benefits.

Oh, but at least we've still got our dreams.

Unless perhaps we want to be scientists and we were unfortunate enough to go through a creationism-happy public school system. As stated eloquently by Holden Thorp:

Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school.

Wow, who would have thought that medical schools and cutting-edge research corporations might not want you if you believe diseases are intelligently designed components in some incomprehensible divine plan, meant to teach us lessons or punish us for tolerating the gays?

And they call this the land of opportunity.