xps
But i suppose Pakistan and India did both have the opposite of a post-war baby boom after the disastrous partition left millions dead on both sides.
― calzino, Sunday, 7 June 2020 22:16 (four years ago) link
That the population of Ireland has only just reached and surpassed what it was in 1855. And is still some way short of what it was in 1841. In contrast the population of England is over 4 times what it was in 1841.
― Captain Beeftweet (Tom D.), Sunday, 7 June 2020 22:28 (four years ago) link
the problem after the mass flight of the famine was that of the male peasants that stayed behind, many of them had freakishly distended forehead syndrome (see brendan o'neill) which led to a population crash!
― calzino, Sunday, 7 June 2020 23:03 (four years ago) link
San Bernardino County in California is larger in landsize than Switzerland.
And neither is a member of the E.U.
― pplains, Monday, 8 June 2020 13:42 (four years ago) link
today i was shockingly old when i learnt how ginormous san bernardino cty is-- that would be the 42nd biggest state. i am trying hard to resist looking into this further.
― inveterate practitioner of antisocial distancing (Hunt3r), Monday, 8 June 2020 14:18 (four years ago) link
As big as 20 Rhode Islands, iirc.
― nickn, Monday, 8 June 2020 17:27 (four years ago) link
Picturing 20 Woonsockets out in the desert somewhere, just chilling.
― pplains, Monday, 8 June 2020 18:41 (four years ago) link
the bloke who wrote the 'who'd break a butterfly on a wheel?' piece about the rolling stones' drug arrests was J Rees-Mogg's dad.
― koogs, Monday, 8 June 2020 19:10 (four years ago) link
Shame i thought taht was getting semi liberal. Not read it recently but i thought it was arguing against stentorian drug enforcement landing on the Stones at th etime of the Redlands bust. I think there's a tie in tv interview taht I have on video somewhere.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 10:28 (four years ago) link
Just had it confirmed that New York is not part of New England. Always associate it with being part of it because the name comes from the UK obviously and its geographically almost right next to what is considered to be New England proper.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 10:30 (four years ago) link
"Debrett's single sourceless sentence on the subject describes the charter of 1439 as a writ, although Cokayne denies that Ireland recognised the creation of peerages by writ; some websites have copied Debrett."
― mark s, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 10:33 (four years ago) link
Washington DC is not a state. For some reason I always thought it was one.
― the grateful dead can dance (anagram), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 10:35 (four years ago) link
i've been hearing the expression "it is always darkest before the dawn" all my life and it wasn't till about a week ago that i thought about it for more than a second and realized that it is not, in fact, true from a scientific pov
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 10:38 (four years ago) link
― the grateful dead can dance (anagram), Tuesday, June 9, 2020 11:35 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
I think this tied in with teh deployment of troops there. If it had been a state t would have had to ok deployment with the state leadership.I've heard a lot of people wanting to try to get DC State status because its residents don't have the same representation without it.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 10:41 (four years ago) link
Correct. Unlike the 50 states that each get two senators, DC, not being a state, gets no representation in the Senate.
The baseball team in DC until 1971 was called the Senators. When the Montreal Expos moved to DC after decades of no baseball in the city, many wanted to revive the traditional Senators name, but others including DC's mayor objected to a city with no senators being called the Senators, so they became the Nationals.
xp Yeah it actually makes me bitter that I live in a borough of NYC that has 5x the population of Wyoming yet my ENTIRE STATE - let alone my city, let alone my borough - has the same number of senators as fucking Wyoming
― Josefa, Sunday, June 7, 2020 6:12 PM (two days ago) bookmark flaglink
This is one of the many reasons right-wing Republicans stay in power in the U.S. - most of the rural states with low populations are more conservative whereas high-population coastal states like New York and California are more liberal, but nonetheless Wyoming and Montana get as much Senate representation as California and New York.
― Lee626, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 11:43 (four years ago) link
D.C. also has no voting representation in the House. meanwhile its electoral-college representation is capped at the same number of electors as the least populous state, although i don't think that actually changes anything at current population levels.
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 13:58 (four years ago) link
DC is perpetually fucked, although arguably less so than Puerto Rico
― mh, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 14:30 (four years ago) link
i mean, i've come to terms with it by this point tbh
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 14:39 (four years ago) link
Feel like Puerto Rico has a better chance of being admitted as a state before DC.
Some people just can't get their head around a city being a state, no matter how much sense it makes. "Well why can't they just make it part of Maryland?" etc.
― pplains, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 15:42 (four years ago) link
That is one of the more actionable/feasible suggestions tho
(That is, retaining the "monumental core" as a voteless Federal district, while retroceding the places where people actually, y'know, LIVE to a state that has representation.)
FWIW the Virginia portions of the District already did precisely that. In 1847. So there is precedent.
This has been an active issue my whole life, I have heard almost every argument and almost every proposed remedy and it is still a perpetual stalemate. I suspect it will be so when I die.
― Tom Paine in the membrane (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 15:53 (four years ago) link
One of DC's most popular license plate mottos is "taxation without representation."
Today I learned that Northwestern University got its name because at the time of its founding in 1851, Chicago was the biggest city in the then northwestern, only modestly expanded United States. I mean, duh, but I never thought about it before.
I also recently learned that the phrase "happy as a clam" is truncated from "happy as a clam at high tide;" they're happy because they're harder to catch.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 16:05 (four years ago) link
I assumed "happy as a clam" was because they appear to be smiling widely
― Josefa, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 16:19 (four years ago) link
For something even crazier, look up why Case Western Reserve is in northeast Ohio.
― pplains, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 17:01 (four years ago) link
or why pittsburgh was the 'gateway to the west' before st. louis
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 17:11 (four years ago) link
how about why north parade, a street in oxford (uk) is south of south parade.
― neith moon (ledge), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 18:56 (four years ago) link
Something to do with the Earth's shifting magnetic field?
― Subverted by buggery (Tom D.), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 18:57 (four years ago) link
has it to do with lord north
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 18:58 (four years ago) link
And Joe South.
― Subverted by buggery (Tom D.), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 19:00 (four years ago) link
don't it make you wanna go home.... counties
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 9 June 2020 19:17 (four years ago) link
turns out i was shockingly old when i learned it's another fake etymology. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Parade#Origin_of_the_name
― neith moon (ledge), Tuesday, 9 June 2020 19:22 (four years ago) link
while we're learning late about American geography this week I discovered that
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the American Midwest, the Heartland, Middle West, or simply the Midwest
is the north to north east and not in the midwest
― BRAVE THE AFRIAD (onimo), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 00:18 (four years ago) link
well it's definitely not the northeast
― all cats are beautiful (silby), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 00:27 (four years ago) link
it‘a midway to the west from the east coast, where “the west” kind of changed over time
― mh, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 01:10 (four years ago) link
The Midwest:https://i.imgur.com/KAzZYWD.jpg
The Mideast:https://i.imgur.com/BVKIvLR.jpg
South Central La:https://i.imgur.com/O6HekCa.jpg
― pplains, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 02:59 (four years ago) link
wait till you hear about upper and lower canada
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 03:02 (four years ago) link
Western Canada also begins slightly east of the country's latitudinal centre
― Rik Waller-Bridge (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 03:36 (four years ago) link
https://www.ontariocourts.ca/ocj/files/pic/regionsofthecourt.jpg
― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 04:04 (four years ago) link
v. tricky
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 04:06 (four years ago) link
Image didn't post but yeah, Northern Ontario (Northeast + Northwest) amounts to 88% of the province's land area; Western Ontario is in the eastern third of the province (south of the entire Northeast and further east than some of the Northeast).xp
― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 04:07 (four years ago) link
MY parents met at the University of Western Ontario and my dad drove me and my elder brother up there for its centenary back around 1980. Its in London which seems slightly to the NorthWest of New York State or at least Niagara Falls which we drove through and stopped at.
― Stevolende, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 10:05 (four years ago) link
About 2h straight west of Niagara Falls, NY, yeah; v slightly south if anything; whereas the actual geographically western border of the province borders Minnesota.
― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 10:41 (four years ago) link
About the middle of the "West" region in that map.
― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 10:43 (four years ago) link
Canada regions map reminds me that there are places where you can cross the border from Finland into Norway from the west.
― pplains, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 12:32 (four years ago) link
The Mississippi River normally forms the border between Illinois and Missouri, but the river has an annoying habit of moving around, so there are little bits of Illinois stranded on the western bank, and can only be reached from Missouri.
― Tom Paine in the membrane (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 13:10 (four years ago) link
Think that's weird, head up to Carter Lake, Iowa – only place in the state where you can walk to Nebraska and not get your feet wet.
― pplains, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 13:13 (four years ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_irregularities_of_the_United_States#Separated_by_the_Mississippi_River
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 13:15 (four years ago) link
Norwegian Wood ends in arson.
― Stevolende, Thursday, 11 June 2020 16:35 (three years ago) link
That ain't the only thing that ends with arson!
https://i.imgur.com/Yg4chFY.gif
― pplains, Thursday, 11 June 2020 17:56 (three years ago) link
Italy is smaller than Arizona.
― i am not throwing away my snot (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, June 7, 2020 2:56 PM
https://i.imgur.com/8JcfCkD.png
Well, you'd still have to ball it up first.
(Fun little map.)
― pplains, Friday, 12 June 2020 00:18 (three years ago) link
according to some quick searching, arizona is 3k square miles smaller than italy
― mh, Friday, 12 June 2020 00:24 (three years ago) link