How many states are there in the United States of America?

They made fun of Obama for referring to 57 states in the presidential primaries of 2008, but the reason he came up with that number is that there are 57 states that send delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

What's more, the US Postal Service thinks there are more than 57 states. Just check their website and you'll find the abbreviations for all 59 states.

Of course, if you subtract the four self-styled Commonwealths from the fifty so-called states, that gives us 46.

The Pennsylvania constitution refers to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but it establishes the elective office of state treasurer. Maybe Pennsylvania is a a semi-state?

I figure we need to pull in the experts on this one. Can anyone find me a phone number for the chairman of the Department of Geography at Pennsylvania Commonwealth University?

(Anyone complaining about this post is invited to send a copy of their complaint to the US Naval Observatory, official keeper of the nation's time. When you take away an hour of sleep in winter and don't let people catch up until late in the year, this is what you get.

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57 states - Commonwealth - Daylight Savings Time - Naval Observatory

I drove a dark red Pontiac Sunbird once, for about three months. It was sort've a fun car, and it was pretty inexpensive as a new car, as I remembered it, but if you got into the least bit of trouble on a curve, it would lead you further astray, and what was even worse, it was dying of terminal cancer at a very early age.

At the time, it sorta reminded me of some of the relationships I'd had. Cheap women that got me into trouble, and led me furtherous atray, and left me with gaping sores on my soul. I can't blame the women for being what they were; and they didn't pretend to be anything other than what they were. It was my own damnable fault that I ended up in those situations.

Adventures In Tater Husbandry

Later on, I raised a season of Red Pontiac potatoes. At the time, I didn't know anything about varieties of potatoes, and it being planting season, I didn't have time to stand there in the garden shop, reading descriptions and mulling over the purchase for hours on end. I has some space in the garden to fill, potatoes sounded like a useful crop, and Red Pontiac was a variety I'd heard of before, something my father had grown, or at least something that had been sold back home.

As it turns out, Red Pontiac is a highly productive cultivar, and it's rather attractive. It's mid- to late-season, though, and I'd prefer a really short-season potato for a waxy variety. It tolerates the muck pretty well, which would have been more a more valuable trait in the Black Swamp where I grew up, but it bruises awfully easy, which is problematic if you're going to be harvesting it when everything else is coming ripe as well. It's also not very resistant to potato problems, like black leg, tuber net necrosis, scabbing, and verticillium wilt. That is, it leads the gardener further astray if he gets into the slightest bit of trouble.

If I Planted Taters This Year

All in all, it's probably a variety I ought not be planting - but if I planted potatoes this year, I'd probably plant Red Pontiac. The heart loves what the heart loves, and there's no arguing with the heart. Maybe "tramp" is a term applied by jealous women (and jealous potatoes) to those with which they cannot effectively compete. I keep hearing people talk the praise of Golden Yukon, and of skinny women with no hearts, and I know they're supposed to be highly desirable, but I just can't get into them. Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, the Lord God loves them all. But maybe God has a special place in her heart for the tramps I hold so dear.

Em and I lived for several years just a few feet from the woods. That's not a good idea. The house was in poor condition, and I knew that, but I didn't realize how poor until we lived there for a while. I could walk into the basement and press my thumbnail into the joists above me, the dry rot was so terrible, and I kept wondering if I was going to be sitting on the toilet some day and find myself falling through to the basement, plumbing and all.

Fighting With A Tiller

I was fighting with a borrowed tiller, trying to get it started, nothing at all like the Mantis I have now, when Bill was driving by. He stopped his Case right in the middle of the stone road, but well, there wasn't a whole lot of traffic on the road anyway.

He loped over, and said, "You've been having trouble for quite a while, trying to get that thing to start." I nodded to him. I said I thought the shear-pin was half sheared through, and the timing was off, but I couldn't get the thing apart. If you can get it apart, replacing the shear pin is no biggie, a five minute job, but if the pin is half-sheared, it's almost impossible to get the thing apart. "How big did you want your garden?" I told him. He went back to the tractor, pulled into the yard, and swung down the flying wings of the disk.

He pulled forward, the length of the garden, and in 30 seconds, it was tilled. He swung around, and gave it another disking in the opposite direction, then swung around again and gave it a second pass in each direction, doing in less than five minutes what would have taken me five hours. He shut off the tractor, jumped down and asked me if that was about right. I laughed and thanked him. I helped swing up the wings of the disk, and reached for my wallet to pay him, but he wasn't having any. That's the way farm folk are. They are generous to a fault.

Remember That I Said That

Remember that I said that. There are times when I get wound up pretty tight about ignorant niggardly bigoted assholes, the kind of fundamentalist so-called Christian neo-conservatives that have hijacked the Republican Party.

And I don't mean to suggest that I'm wrong about any of that, because that is who they are. On the other hand, they are the same people who are generous to a fault when it comes to helping out a neighbor. Neo-cons are haters with broad groups, and extremely nice with individuals, while neo-liberals are extremely nice to broad groups, and hateful when it comes to individuals.

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Thank God for the Red Pontiacs of the world!

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Case New Holland - dry rot - garden shop - generous to a fault - liberals - neo-cons - Pontiac Sunbird - potato diseases - Red Pontiac - rototiller - waxy potatoes

Having so many different businesses in different cities, I have a large number of acquaintances from all over. I think I met Dana, who is from New Orleans, when I lived in Cincinnati.

He gave me a phone call yesterday, said he was back in New Orleans, but he found himself in Harrisburg on Tuesday, and thought about my raving about fasnachts. He didn't have my phone number with him - it was an impromptu trip to Harrisburg - and all he could remember was my street name, not my street number, so he thought it was worth trying to find me.

As I explained to Blondie, Dana had stopped and bought all the fasnachts he could carry, and then started on my street, going down one side of the street and then back up the other. He started a couple of blocks one side of me, and got a couple blocks past me before coming back.

He Knocked On Doors

"He just knocked on all those doors?" Blondie asked me.

I shook my head. "He said I'd described it as like Mardi Gras, only with Fasnachts instead of beads," I'd told her, "So he knocked on every door, and when I didn't answer the door, he'd tell the lady who answered the door that he had lots of fasnachts, and he'd give her one if she's show him her breasts."

"Oh, my goodness," Blondie said. "Was he arrested?"

"No," I replied. "In fact, of all those houses, there was only one house he went to where the lady didn't play along, and that was on this block."

And WHERE Was This?

And where, Blondie wanted to know, did he go? I told her that he had gone along our street, every house on both sides, for a couple of blocks each way, Tuesday afternoon.

"Must have been that stuck up Mrs. Landis, across the street" Blondie offered.

Gotta love 'er.

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beads - breasts - fasnachts - Mardi Gras - New Orleans - Shrove Tuesday

A losing lottery ticket was auctioned for $9,663 on Wednesday night.

The ticket bears John Hancock's John Hancock at the bottom, as one of five Boston Selectmen. It is dated June 1765. Proceeds from the lottery - fifth in a series - were used to repair fire damage sustained in 1761 to Faneuil Hall. The building was later used by Sam Adams and others to organize the overthrow of the government.

Another Lottery Ticket

In an episode of Pawn Stars that first showed in February 2024, Rick is presented the opportunity buy a similar lottery ticket dated 1758, signed by George Washington.

The customer thinks it is worth between $8K and $10K. Rick wants it, you can see him salivating, but he's a little wary that it's in such good condition. Time to call in an expert.

I thought you might find this as interesting as I did.

They're always telling us that if you eat less, you won't get diabetes. That's based on the idea that obesity causes diabetes. In fact, if you have diabetes, your body produces more insulin to compensate, and if you have excess insulin in your blood stream, your body lays down fat in the abdomen. In other words, fat is caused by diabetes, rather than causing it in the first place.

Anyhow, here is a county-by-county diagnosed diabetes rate map. It's new, from the CDC, never before been developed. Pennsylvania has two really bad counties for diabetes, Philadelphia county and Fayette county.

One of the risk factors for developing diabetes is having a poor education. Another one is being black. Aha! They win on both scores. Diabetes is much more a problem in the US Southeast than in the rest of the country. Most counties in Alabama and every county in Mississippi in the really bad category.

The risk factors include having a high obesity rate (32.9 percent of diabetics versus 26.1 percent nationally), sedentary lifestyles (30.6 percent versus 24.8 percent), lower education levels (24.1 percent with college degrees versus 34.3 percent) and more non-Hispanic blacks (23.8 percent versus 8.6 percent). Interestingly, the diabetes rate is higher in the really bad counties even for people with none of those risk factors.

The complete study was published in the Population Health Metrics scientific journal.

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counties - diabetes - Pennsylvania