What's Going On in Somalia

It appears now that the Ethiopian Army has had some help from U.S. forces in subduing the Islamic militants in Somalia. Here's a take on the subject from Austin Bay, who served as a colonel in Iraq. Here is a roundup on Pajamas Media. CBS News's David Martin broke a story on U.S. forces' involvement. And here's an Associated Press report on hunting down Islamic militants.

Population Growth in the U.S.

While I should have been working on something else, I made a few calculations based on the census estimates of population for the states on June 30, 2006. I calculated the total national population increase between the 2000 census figures and those estimates: 17,976,578. Then I calculated the increase (or in the cases of Louisiana and North Dakota, decrease) in 2000–2006. It turns out that half the nation's population increase came in only five states. More than two thirds came in just 10 states. Here's a table of the 2000–2006 population increases.

Population increase is awfully concentrated, isn't it? Also, note that 25 percent of the total national population increase since 2000 has come in just 100 counties. That is, those with populations over 10,000; in very lightly populated counties, a very small population increase can produce a huge percentage increase, and so the Census Bureau excludes them.