Found your comments on Russia very interesting. European countries are facing the population number problems. Europeans are not repopulating while Muslim immigrants migrate to the EU. The Netherlands faces harsh reality when 50% of those under 18 are Muslim, although Muslim population in that country is much, much less.

European government officials have considered giving special tax breaks to couples who have more than one child.

Seems to me about 20 or so years ago everyone was saying the biggest crisis facing mankind was overpopulation...growing demands for food, water, natural resources. The world was doomed!

Now global warming.....

Thank you for the h/t, Joe. In a bit of a digression, it's interesting when one thinks of the various European nations as troubled parts attempting to make one great whole through the EU. In a sense, it is a collective form of imperialism, by definition, lacking one stable core state propagating outward.

Without that core strength, it will be interesting to see what comes of the experiment. And it's at least fair to suspect that many troubled or diseased parts will not combine to make one great healthy whole anytime soon.

And if Chinese influence grows, then the Jewish Autonomous Region on the Amur River will become an even odder place. They already have a Chinese section on their website.

Maggie: The Netherlands faces harsh reality when 50% of those under 18 are Muslim, although Muslim population in that country is much, much less.

Do you have a cite for that, or are you making the statistics up?

Regarding Russia, that country will only start getting better when it overthows the Putin kleptocracy.

I can't resist another mention of the JAR, one of the weirdest creations of the Soviets... Their photogallery has some pictures of the Chinese presence (though I think the captions are screwed up).

Notice the fountain at the train station? Only about 5% of the population is Jewish. The religion section of the site starts out with a discussion of the Orthodox Church.

When I visited Khabarovsk, I almost got the sense that the only thing that the locals got from the rest of the country was a legal code. People drove secondhand cars from Japan and the markets were full of Chinese goods.

Do you have a cite for that, or are you making the statistics up?

There appear to be many references out there to the effect that "Within 20 years, according to some estimates, half of all people under 18 in the Netherlands will be Muslim." See, e.g., here.

Can't the source of those "some estimates" right now.

The July 2000 estimate was that the Muslim population of the Netherlands is three percent.

Even allowing for continued immigration, having half of the population under 18 in twenty years would appear to me to require Muslim families to have at least 15 more children each, wouldn't it?

Something tells me this "estimate' is nuts.

Phil Hunt: "Regarding Russia, that country will only start getting better when it overthows the Putin kleptocracy."

Vladimir Putin has made ashes of all my hopes that he might rise to his responsibilities. Part one of his response to Beslan was suppressing excessive democracy in Russia, in order to implement the second part, which was - evidently also to oppose excessive democracy in Russia's near abroad, starting with the Ukraine election theft and poison fiasco. Double "wonderful". As long as Russia is governed by a man who thinks that democracy is the disease, not the cure or even an essential means for the cure, it stands to reason that the news from Russia is going to be bad, worse and terrible. The fact that this guy continues to be politically acceptable says terrible things about Russia today.

But Russia was in big trouble before Putin took power, and evidently it will be in much, much worse trouble even after he leaves power. The way the linked story describes Russia's situation is how I see it too. The weight and power of Russia's demographic nose-dive makes Putin look minuscule.

Muslims are 2 million out of a total of 16 million in the Netherlands. Not 2%. Just over 10%. And growing.

If you look at the link that "Lazarus" provided, the data he cites is from 1991. Not nearly current enough for the rapid demographic changes taking place in Holland. Try a 2004 source next time. I found mine from Google. You probably could too.

Let's consider the demographic calamity of Russia. I've kind of made my peace with the fact that countries like France have swallowed the demographic face-hugger and will be gone. (As Dan notes, taking their fantasy of a united European paradise with them.) But Russia - that's not so easy to write off!

People say it's wealth and comfort that makes people less interested in having babies. You can fit the Netherlands into that frame, so in that sense the Netherlands is not very interesting.

But what about Russia? Does anyone here want to argue that it's increasing wealth and comfort that's driving the increasing demographic disaster in Russia?

Or is the Pope really right about "a culture of death" versus "a culture of life"? I'm far from laughing at his ideas at this point!

Or what?

Here is a huge thing: the population of Russia going the way of its armed forces: bye-bye, with a whimper, not with a bang. When you consider the history of Russia, this is not only horrible but seriously bizarre. Is anybody going to argue, oh this is not so abnormal, this doesn't really demand a big explanation?

Or what is your opinion?

I won't pursue my own ideas on this, because it's boring to be a one-note fanatic on "pro-life" issues prominently including but not limited to abortion. But I would like to hear more on what the smart people here think on this non-trivial topic.

Very interesting question, David Blue. As a lifelong atheist on the socialist end of the liberal democrat spectrum, it truly makes me wonder. Russians seem emotionally ill as a nation, terminally depressed. Ravaged with venereal diseases--which either doom the next generation to congenital disease, or often make it almost impossible to give birth without heroic medical assistance that Russia largely lacks.

Dying by the droves of alcoholism and its complications in their 40s and 50s. Using abortion as a primary means of birth control, without regard to the physical and emotional scars that result, with both making future childbirth less likely. A national malaise, as J. Carter might say.

A Russian Mafia-ocracy has taken over from the rigid authoritarianism of communism. The Russian people are not really free, because if they ever truly challenged the mafiaocracy they would receive jail time or a bullet in the head. So they have given up. What's the use? Iraqis may soon be freer than Russians. Afghans already are.

Joe, I don't think that the most relevant comparison for Russia is Turkey. I think it's Palestine. Has anyone other than the Palestinians had a more consistent history of wretched leadership than the Russians? Over the period of three hundred years they've gone from incompetent tsars (and I do mean that in the legal-psychiatric sense) and rapacious boyars through bloodthirsty dictators like Stalin and his sycophantic commissars to the present-day kleptocracy. And—again like the Palestinians—they're being abetted by Westerners with agendas of their own who are consistent only in the ghastly advice they give.

When the term was used to refer to the Ottoman Empire, it referred to a decadent and economically weak society. When used to refer to Russia, I used the phrase "sick man of Europe" literally, in a public health sense.

"...has anyone other than the Palestinians had a more consistent history of wretched leadership than the Russians?"

I'd say Russia isn't even close to the level of the Palestinians, who would have to advance in order to be called medieval. The Chechens might compare to the Palestinians, and Turkmenistan's leadership of apparatchiks followed by megalomania may also qualify, but even Russia on a bad day would have to sink a lot lower to be counted in that league.

Russia is in bad shape, but let's keep some perspective.

Others as bad? Oh, yes. Many Latin American countries. Africa after colonialism, with almost no exceptions. Many Mideast nations. In fact, if I had to pick good analogues to modern-day Russia in terms of leadership deficits, consistent cultural/ political pathologies, and wasted potential I might pick Egypt and Argentina.

You have said it! They are not the only ones who have a barbaric history. Remember the Spanish guys that invaded South America and took from there almost everything they could. Now the civilized people came to our countries for holidays and are very interested in our ancestor's culture that they destroyed. Interesting thing, isn’t it?