Rather than redraw a bunch of map details I backed away, and I'll just say that the thing to do here is for _you_ to secede, and likely to join Canada since you'd be positioned, literally, to do that.

If you claim there's no explicit provision in the Constitution to address secession, then you have a similar problem with explusion. (Repeal of admission legislation may not be bulletproof.)

It's most stark in Washington and Oregon, but is also true in California: The western side of the Pacific Crest is wetter and more populous and more liberal, while the eastern side is another state (and state of mind) altogether. The West Coast states should really be divided at the Pacific Crest (including, ideally, the Peninsular Range south of the Transverse Ranges).

California could be divided into two, three, or four states north to south, plus shearing away the land east of the Sierra crest.

A true Cascadian zone would include western Washington and Oregon and extend along the Cascade Range into northwesternmost California, on the coast as far as Cape Mendocino. A cruder extension would take the Cascadian territory down the coast beyond Fort Ross to the Golden Gate (a strait), and inland include the Sacramento River watershed.

Nevada is not an adjunct of California any more than the other neighboring states and even Utah and Salt Lake are. People have left California for locations throughout the West, not limited to Nevada.

Virginia is in the South[east] culturally, historically, and politically (though the DC zone has changed) but would lie in the Northeastern zone if we wanted a natural boundary (and the VA-NC boundary would be changed so the Chesapeake Bay watershed were entirely in the Northeastern zone). This would also assure the entire Delmarva Peninsula was in the Northeastern zone.

New England is sclerotic as well as nobably more blue than mainstream and probably couldn't exist on its own. Include it in the Northeast. Besides, this then makes the entire Northeast equivalent approximately to California, so it is viable as an on-going concern (even if it were to join Canada).

The Great Lakes area you present makes some sense but is not limited to the Great Lakes, but extends all the way to the boundary between the East and the West (Red River Valley, somewhat east of the humid-arid boundary). They might or might not manage, but might do better if they joined Canada and combined with Ontario and Manitoba.

Both Texas and Florida are fit for partition, while Texas-haters probably view Texas as seeking to regain New Mexico and the “stovepipe.”

[example]

http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-3…

A simple, radical thing is just to take the extent of ice-age glaciation and surrogate, suitable substitutes (the Ohio and Missouri rivers on either side of the Mississippi in the east central part of the country, is the best example) and have the north side be Blue and secede from the Red side to the south. On the West Coast, use the Transverse Ranges or the “border” I use that is a river within the Transverse Ranges, the Santa Maria-Cuyama River watercourse.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-162-00/

You haven't visited many places, or even understood maps when looking at them, based on what you state above, Don.

I'll run out for a sandwich and may just illustrate a real partition of the USA into separate nations when I come back to munch on it. I've been interested for ages in reform and rationalizing the states (in practice it is limited to idealism — it won't ever happen — but it is intriguing, more so if you, as I, have been all over the USA and other places in North America and not only read maps and literature but see things as they are).

So it is Kansas or Oklahoma's fault that Liberals have no morals or values? Is that what your saying?

Blinded by hate on both sides and the great Uniter has managed to continue to divide us.

You spent thirty years calling us Left Coast Liberals, Eastern elitist liberals, Taxeshusetts, talking about our San Francisco Values, etc… And those were the nicer things…

We got the point, you want our money and you want to tell us how to run our lives cause we're just a bunch immoral bastards with no ethics nor values.

So to all of you red-staters, you can't have our money without our values, and if you don't like it, well don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Reminds me very much of the poison atmosphere that circled the republic in the years leading up to the South's succession from the Union. Blinded by hate on both sides and the great Uniter has managed to continue to divide us. Not because of what he has done or not done but because he cannot control the hate that exudes from both sides towards each other

And that folks……..was the point of my post not a suggestion that the states should split up from each other.

But go on. Cherry pick my posts.

As far as Texas goes, I figure that the average Texans has to much sense to listen to the fine people of Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama, so they will go off on their own and create their very own Banana Republic. Ditto for Florida, other possibility, the Florida Pan-Handle and the northern part of the state could join JesusLand, and the Southern part could become NORTE CUBA, either way good riddance.

Perhaps it was a sonic boom like they had in Texas a few days ago… I understand that no one still knows what that was (apparently it was not the pieces of the two satellites that recently collided).

Maybe the end of days is upon us and we should all head to Alaska! I'll wait until the spring thaw.

For y'all living in California earthquake-land, does it ever sound like a big boom, or like somebody dropped something in the attic?

IT's that “protectionist” mentality that got the automakers in the mess they're in. The automakers tried to tell Americans what they wanted. Various state governments also tried to regulate the auto-industry by insisting on higher fuel standards, which the auto-makers didn't want to follow. Because the foreign car makers had cars that Americans wanted (and higher fuel standards) Americans bought those cars. If the automakers had followed the states' standards (and had a product that AMerican wanted) then Detroit would be in a better position.

I know the argument about having to build different cars for different states, but I think you just build one car that can meet all the states' requirements. For instance if one state requires 30 mpg, another state 35 mpg, a third state passive seat belts, another state requires carbon monoxide emissions of no more than 1.5%, and a fifth state that requires carbon monoxide emissions of no more than 1%… then I think you build a car that gets 35 mpg, with passive seat belts and carbon monoxide emissions of 1% or less….

At any rate, protectionism will only allow Detroit to continue the bad habits it got itself into…. Detroit definitely needs to change and they're just a bunch of whiners because they don't have any good ideas to compete with the rest of the world.

Too bad Steve Jobs can't take over GM, and with a lot of government cash (with every taxpayer being a shareholder) invent a clean green car that we can sell to the rest of the world. Yes I know it's a huge task, but it can be done in steps… beginning with a “cleaner” and “greener” car. He can call it the iCar.

Do you suppose the 12 democratic states that remained in the government of the USA could then prosper if they were not paying out to say Nebraska?

The Republic of California(CA,NV), the Cascadian Federation(OR,WA), the New England Federation(ME,MA,CT,RI,VT,NH), the Mid-Atlantic Republic(NY,NJ,PA, MD,DE), would do just fine, the Great Lakes Federation (MN, WI, IL, MI, OH) would probably manage, Texas and Florida would probably turn into a couple of Banana Republics, the rest of the US, JesusLand would turn into what it really wants to be, another third world rat-hole.

Initially I was against the bank bailout till I realized wed still have to pay for it in spades

Santelli seems like an Obama hater. which is fine if you don't like him, but let's not have a double-standard where you think the real people are being ripped off by Obama but didn't see a problem when Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, et. al. wanted Congress to give them a blank check for $750bn to give to the banks as they saw fit, with no oversight. I mean Obama's stimulus is much more comprehensive and not really that much more costly than the bank bailout.

By the way, I don't know if Santelli is for or against the bank bailout from last fall… But he did rant about government ripping off people and taxpayers paying for it…. and that was directed at Obama's stimulus.. not at the bank bailout…. which was (is) horrible and is much more of a rip off to the taxpayers since it doesn't create jobs or really give anything to anyone….. except banks.

As for Rick Santelli, he is completely full of it. I say this having listened to a follow-up interview tonight with Mike Barnicle where he claimed that he didn't care if neighboring house foreclosures brought down the values of his house “because his house is a home and not an investment.” He is BSing in the extreme. Anybody that owns a home understands he or she has an investment on their hands. Santelli can't have it both ways and say that we are the pure free market, but there are no real consequences to foreclosures because somehow his house is not an investment.

I also wonder if Santelli was just as outraged at the banks getting re-capitalized for their criminally outrageous decision to securitize subprime loans and build trililons of dollars in faux-wealth.

Oh, and the CME is not the real America.

Look, I don't have much sympathy at all for people who bought McMansions for $1,000,000 on a $70,000/year salary. Nothing infuriated me more than watching tiny townhouses in Old Town Alexandria sell for $600,000. Or watching thousands of monstrously ugly houses sprout up in exurbia just because a bunch of people with little money thought it was just fine and dandy to take out a subprime loan and drive 100 miles a day in a financed SUV to work.

That that bubble popped is their own damn problem.

I understand that anger and resentment and I feel it too. I earn less than $50,000 a year (total household income), own a house worth $200,000 that I financed with a fixed mortgage and a down payment of 40%. I even took a pay cut recently, as did many other people around here in East Tennessee.

But, as much as this ticks me off, I also understand that the consequences of these poor decisions affect all of us. One day I will want to sell this home – or finance a major improvement to it. As long as national housing values plummet, that will be impossible.

Everybody has to take a haircut here. The banks – Citi and BofA in particular – need to be nationalized so the toxic assets can be removed from the books at their real value – zero. Then they should be re-privatized as small banks. The foreclosure cycle needs to stop – especially for people who played by the rules and found themselves underwater and losing their job in this recession (something Rick Santelli can't understand). And taxpayers will have to pay for it over the long haul. I don't see any other alternative.