The 51st State? No, the 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th, 58th and 59th States!

 

 

President Trump famously began his second term by threatening inviting our good neighbor Canada to become America's 51st state. The idea seemingly came out of somebody's butt thin air, and the reaction on both sides of the border was a mix of incredulousness and hilarity.

But we think the idea wasn't given enough consideration – by either President Trump or his detractors. At 41.5 million people, Canada would become America's largest state, by area and population. California, currently our most populous state, comes in at about 39-40 million. Accordingly, the Golden State has 52 seats in the House of Representatives. (Texas is next, with 38 seats.) So of course the 435 House seats would need to be reapportioned nationally to provide our newest state with more Representatives than either California or Texas.

But admitting Canada as just one state would be a great injustice to our friends and neighbors to the north. Wyoming, our least populous state, has a population of about 587,000. Eight Canadian provinces, each the governmental equivalent of an American state, have populations greater than Wyoming's:

Ontario-16 million

Quebec - 9 million

British Columbia - 5.7 million

Alberta - 5 million

Manitoba - 1.5 million

Saskatchewan - 1.25 million

Nova Scotia - 1.1 million

New Brunswick - 860,000  

Newfoundland and Labrador (pop. 550,000) and Prince Edward Island (pop. 183,000) have populations lower than Wyoming, as do Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut (non-provinces).

Obviously, reason demands that each province be admitted separately and independently. This would divide the House seats among more states and leave California and Texas in their commanding positions. Newfoundland and Labador could be combined with Prince Edward Island to make a 59th state, and citizens in the territories could be disfranchised the way we already do with people in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. 

Plus, and this is the best part, we would have 18 additional members of the Senate to accommodate! Maybe they could time-share their desks. 

 

Unheeded, Prophetic Words

In a June 12, 1967, column in I.F. Stone's Weekly, Stone wrote:

Israel's swift and brilliant victory only makes its reconciliation with the Arabs more urgent. Its future and world peace call for a general and final settlement now of the Palestine problem. The cornerstone of that settlement must be to find new homes for the Arab refugees, some within Israel, some outside it, all with compensation for their lost lands and properties. The world Jewish community, already girding itself for a huge financial effort to aid Israel, should be thankful that its victory has come with so little loss of life or damage to either side. The same funds may now be diverted to a constructive and human cause. It was a moral tragedy – to which no Jew worthy of our best Prophetic tradition could be insensitive – that a kindred people was made homeless in the task of finding new homes for the remnants of the Hitler holocaust. Now is the time to right that wrong, to show magnanimity in victory, and to lay the foundation of a new order in the Middle East in which Israeli and Arab can live in peace.

This alone can make Israel secure. This is the third Israeli-Arab war in 20 years. In the absence of a general settlement, war will recur at regular intervals. The Arabs will thirst for revenge.

Marine Traffic

There is a nifty application that we keep on our phone, and look at only occasionally, called Marine Traffic.

Most ships at sea use GPS not only to keep themselves on course, but to let others know where they are. Marine Traffic picks up those signals and maps the positions of the reporting ships. You can touch a ship's icon, and the program will tell you the ship's name, its speed, whether it's a tanker, a cargo ship, or whatever, where it started from, and where it's going.Very cool. 

The other day we took a look at what's going on in the Atlantic Ocean, and saw this:

Click on map for a larger view.

This is actually a "summary" picture. There are far more ships than this, as you discover when you zoom in to the picture. But even so, we found one thing to be rather startling:

Those purple ships? Those are yachts.

Now take a look at the Indian Ocean:

Click on map for a larger view.

The red ships are tankers. The ones that appear to be black are fishing vessels. Cargo vessels are green.

Just thought that was interesting.

The Red Wave

There's nothing we can add to the unending commentary of the talking heads about the mid-term elections. But we did want to share this postcard, found lying in an alley beside a recycling bin:

(Tee-hee.)

Okay, I will add one observation. A billionaire named Dick Uihlein set fire to $50 million in an effort to get this alleged Christian, Darren Bailey, elected.

We're still smiling.

Where Could This War Go?

For those with the time, this discussion of the outlook for the war in Ukraine is very informative. The first 50 seconds or so is just an outtake from later in the discussion; i.e., it repeats itself. The whole thing is about 18 minutes.

Where else have Iranian drones been used by one side, and Turkish drones by the other?  It could be significant down the road.

What NATO country is most likely to wimp out this winter? His guess is the same as ours.