Moveon.org, the Progressive activist powerhouse, is presently in some hot water with the usual suspects for having the astonishingly poor taste of telling the truth, in the New York Times, no less.

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In a short article in The New York Times, you'll find a snapshot of New York State's biggest challenge: the withering of an entire region, upstate New York, by a slow process of industrial decline, economic stagnation and, flowing from that, population loss.

Buffalo, the state’s second-largest city, lost 16,114 residents, or 6 percent of its population. Rochester, the third-largest city, lost 10,352 residents, or 5 percent. Yonkers, the fourth-largest city, grew by 1 percent, or 1,524 residents. Syracuse, the fifth-largest city, lost 5,574 residents, or 4 percent.

That kind of population loss normally occurs only in wartime. By way of illustration: if New York City had lost six percent of its population of eight million since 2000, that would work out to a bit less than half a million, a catastrophic loss. That's what's happening upstate.

Ha Ha, Newt Gingrich.

The New York Times has an interesting piece on the front page today, about the leftward drift of the younger generation.

Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.

They have continued a long-term drift away from the Republican Party. And although they are just as worried as the general population about the outlook for the country and think their generation is likely to be worse off than that of their parents, they retain a belief that their votes can make a difference, the poll found.

More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.

Now would be a good time, I suppose, to trot out the over-used Churchill quote that a young person who is not liberal has no heart, an old person who is not a conservative having no common sense, or something to that effect. That wouldn't do this justice, however.