Joe Szilagyi

List of nations in North America by 2050-2100:

Canada
Mexico
Cascadia (possibly merged to Canada)
California
New England (including New York)
“The South”
Montana
Various unique, small nations (Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, etc.)
Texas (or possibly joining The South)

Here’s how it’ll break down, give or take:

The former American states north and east of Pennsylvania and New Jersey (New York included) have become their own nation. New Hampshire, being New Hampshire, may tell everyone to screw off so that they can continue being New Hampshire. Maybe they’ll name themselves literally “New England”. Fiscally stable and progressive independent nation. Strong commerce. Strong economy. They’d be wise to retain New York as a member of New England for it’s economic, culturarl, and agricultural firepower.

The mid-Atlantics: PA, NJ, MD, DC, places like that–depending on how local state-level elections flow, they could end up anywhere.

The American south will be their own thing. A conservative, religious, red nation, and the beginnings of a Christian theocracy in North America comparable in many ways to Egypt and to a lesser degree Iran. Florida, insanely, will be the liberal corner of their nation. No idea what they’d call themselves. Couldn’t care less.

The American midwest, from Utah, Arizona, Texas, the Dakotas, Wyoming, et all may or may not align in a southern national strip with the south, bordering along Mexico. If they do, I expect nothing less than economic war between Mexico and this new nation.

Illinois and the upper midwest–Michigan, folks out that way–may or may not form their own nation. Some of them would be an ideal fit for annexation with and merger into Canada as new provinces. Illinois in particular may be appealing.

The rest of the massive midwest? Either small independent nations or alignment with their neighbors depending on the prevailing local politics and trends. None will align south with Mexico. With Texas, flip a coin whether they go solo or join the South.

California: it’s own nation.

Oregon, Washington: either our own nation, or merger into Canada. I prefer Cascadia as a national identity, e.g. Cascadians. At the same time, I think Washington and Oregon would do fine as a new province of Canada. God save the Queen?

Montana: it’s own nation, and they’d probably do fine.

Tell me I’m wrong. It’s happened to every single empire in the history of the world: every single, solitary one, since the Romans. We’re at the approximate long end range of longevity right now, for the United States. By 2150 the former United States of America, on a map, will look like modern Europe.

Just in case you weren’t aware of it, she was indeed a complete raging idiot whose contributions to intellectual thought and theory are exactly on par with that of the great spiritual leader that warned us of the dangers of disembodied alien energy creatures and galactic space overlords that haunt us today after our ancestors failed to blow them up in a volcano laced with hydrogen bombs.

In other words, the tenets of Objectivism are complete hedonistic bullshit and a license for deeply selfish people to piss upon their neighbors. Her teachings if you strip out all the crap that is strategically designed to make it look ‘good’ boils literally down to survival of the fittest and the belief that sheer unadulterated selfishness is a virtue. If Scientology’s belief system is basically a shitty Doctor Who plot from 1971, then Objectivism is basing society’s moral code on Survivor’s All-Star Season. Also, fuck John Galt.

Amazing, that it’s been already one year since hatred and improper out-of-state financial carpetbagging by Mormon extremists conned California into rejecting equal civil rights via Proposition 8. The fact that civil rights, or any human rights, are something that can be voted on is a whole other filthy mess that needs to be legally challenged up to our Supreme Court level. At least in Washington state, when the hatred of Referendum 71 was presented–similar to California’s Proposition of hate–our state voters smartly and overwhelming rejected it despite more out-of-state financial carpetbagging by Christian extremists from Oregon and other areas.

The people of Maine were not so fortunate, where it was reported that some Catholic churches conducted secondary collections to help fund anti-gay voting.

Like women’s rights and interracial marriage, delegating the question of equality to the whims of the state level are fundamentally flawed and unethical. Like what happened with abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and the rights of blacks to marry whites in Loving V. Virginia in 1966, I’m thinking this won’t end until someone can challenge it to the Supreme Court. You simply don’t vote on “rights”. The biases of any religion cannot be allowed to affect the lives of all your other citizens who don’t follow that religion, full stop.

It’s gotten so bad now one year later with dangerous religious extremism trying to sway American legal destiny that the Catholic Church announced it would terminate all charity work in our nation’s capital if Washington D.C. legalized gay marriage locally, in revenge.

We’re now getting closer daily to the desires of the far Right for concepts like dominionism and Christian doctrine to be our version of an American Sharia law. Both ideals are patently dangerous, wrong for a secular multi-cultural nation like ours, and frankly evil if imposed on everyone who doesn’t subscribe to those limited precepts. If it happens, our nation is pretty much doomed to become the next Iran.

There were nationwide protests a year ago this weekend, where millions of people opposed the religious hatred and civil rights violations last year in California. These were my photos from the Seattle protests:

Above: Mayan calendar. Below: Egyptian technology. Consider:

Found in a Slashdot comment. Yes, the youth of today are clearly going to ruin the world with all their Tweeting and Facebooking and e-high jinks.

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint.


– Hesiod, 700 BC

Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.

– Assyrian tablet, 2800 BC

We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect
 their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently
 inhabit taverns and have no self control.


– Egyptian tomb, 4000 BC

The America which Obama described in his speech–that is the America that my parents told me about when I was young, after they came here. That was and is my home.

Good night, America.

Yes, the subject basically says it all. This is just what the United States needs to repair our good name with the rest of the world. A disinformation agency!

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As transcribed in the early period of the ’00s, by Andy “J Metropolis” Khouri (w00t, thank you Wayback Machine!); note this is from before we were actually married, and still lived in Connecticut:

Andi:
Andi doesn’t even know where she came from. Her long term memory was lost in a bizarre celery accident, and most of the night she was soft-spoken and shy, keeping to herself and reading comics in the corner. (except when she was making out with other chicks).

Mine:
Joe — or “Joe Sizzle,” as he is known — actually created the internet. He explained this to me in a very clear, unslurred voice, and he did so for many hours. I honestly did not have the mental capacity to grasp exactly how he created the internet, but trust me, he did. It’s his, and we all owe him a little piece of our souls. I hope that by honoring him here, he will forgive me for my sins and allow me to continue using (abusing?) his property. Before Joe created the internet, he was a regular little kid in 1950s Colombia, riding his scooter around town with a slingshot in his pocket and a twinkle in his eye. On October 25th, 1955, Joe was struck by lightning. He survived, and there was absolutely no change in his body, behaviour or in his thinking. On October 25th, 1956, Joe slipped in the shower and hit his head on the toilet seat and lapsed into a coma for forty years. On October 25th, 1996, Joe woke up with the idea for the internet, even though by then it had already been created. It’s a real shame. Today Joe lives in Connecticut with his girlfriend Andi and lots of comic books.

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/adnd3/message/1836

Something I posted on the Internets in 1999… yes, I’m a nerd.