Longest Interval Between Adding a New State

 The interval between adding each state, since the original 13.  We are presently in the longest interval ever, 61 years and counting.   The second longest was between Arizona and Alaska

Hawaii  21 Aug 1959  61 yrs 1 month before present

Alaska  3 Jan 1959 8 Months before Hawaii

Arizona 14 Feb 1912 46 yrs 11 mo before Alaska

New Mexico 3 Jan 1912 1 month before Arizona

Oklahoma 16 Nov 1907 8 yrs 1 month before New Mexico

Utah    4 Jan 1896   11 yrs 10 mo before Oklahoma

Wyoming 10 Jul 1890 5 yrs 5 mo before Utah

Idaho 3 Jul 1890 7 days before Wyoming

Washington 11 Nov 1889 10 yrs 9 months before Idaho

Montana 8 Nov 1889 3 days before Washington

South Dakota 2 Nov 1889 6 days before Montana

North Dakota 2 Nov 1889  same day as South Dakota

Colorado   1 Aug 1876 13 yrs 3 mo before North Dakota

Nebraska 1 Mar 1867 9 yrs 5 mo before Colorado

Nevada 31 Oct 1864 2 yrs 4 mo before Nebraska

West Virginia 20 Jun 1863 1 yr 4.5 mo before Nevada

Kansas 29 Jan 1861 2 yr 4.5 mo before West Virginia

Oregon 14 Feb 1859 1 yr 11.5 months before Kanasa

Minnesota 11 May 1858 1 yr 9 months before Oregon

California 9 Sep 1850 7 yr 8 mo before Minnesota

Wisconsin 29 May 1848 2 yr 3 mo before California

Iowa 28 Dec 1846 1 yr 5 moth before Wisconsin

Texas 29 Dec 1845 1 yr before Iowa

Florida 3 Mar 1845 10 months before Texas

Michigan 26 Jan 1837 8 yrs 1 mo before Florida

Arkansas 15 Jun 1836 6.5 mo before Michigan

Missouri 10 Aug 1821 15 yrs 2 mo before Arkansas

Maine 15 Mar 1820 1 yr 5 mo before Missouri

Alabama 14 Dec 1819 3 mo before Maine

Illinois 3 Dec 1818 1 yr before Alabama

Mississippi 10 Dec 1817 1 yr before Alabama

Indiana 11 Dec 1816 1 yr before Mississippi

Louisiana 30 Apr 1812 4 yrs 7 mo before Indiana

Ohio 1 Mar 1803 9 yrs 2 mo before Louisiana

Tennessee 1 Jul 1796 6 yrs 8 mo before Ohio

Kentucky 1 Jun 1792 4 yrs 1 mo before Tennessee

Vermont 4 Mar 1791 1 yr 2 mo before Kentucky

Time before election for supreme court nominations

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died today, less than 2 months from the election and 4 months from the inauguration. About 5 years ago when Justice Scalia died, Senate Majority Leader McConnell announced that he would accept no nominee to replace him due to the proximity of the election, 9 months later.

Between WWII and today, there has only been one Supreme Court seat made open nearer to the election than Scalia's.  It came when Sherman Minton retired in Oct, 1956, just a month before the 1956 election, for health reasons.   President Eisenhower quickly made a recess nomination of William Brennan.    Eisenhower chose Brennan substantially because he was a liberal democrat, to assure acceptance by the opposing party.  Ike was extremely popular and won that election in a 57.4 to 42 % landslide, with only 73 electoral college votes going to his opponent.  Nevertheless, hearings were deferred until two months after the inauguration, at which point Brennan was confirmed by acclimation.  He would go on to be a very popular justice.

The columns here are the name of the new justice, the name of the justice replaced, the date the new seat became open, and how many months prior to the subsequent inauguration that opening occurred.  

Kavanaugh  <-Kennedy 31 Oct 2018  27 months

Gorsuch <- Scalia 13 Feb 2016   12 Months

Kagan <- Stevens    29 Jun 2010  31 Months

Sotomayor <-Souter 29 Jun 2009 43 Months

Alito <- O'Connor 31 Jan 2006 36 Months

Roberts <- Rehnquist 3 Sep 2005 40 Months

Breyer <- Blackmun  3 Aug 1994 30 Months

Ginsberg <- White   28 Jun 1993  43 Months

Thomas <- Marshall 1 Oct 1991   16 Months

Souter <- Brennan  20 Jul 1990   30 Months

Kennedy <- Powell 26 Jul 1987   18 Months

Scalia <- Rehnquist 26 Sep 1986  28 Months

Rehnquist <- Burger 26 Sep 1986 28 Months

O'Connor <- Stewart 3 Jul 1981   43 Months

Stevens <- Douglas 12 Nov 1975 14 Months

Rehnquist <- Harlan 23 Sep 1971 16 Months

Powell <- Black 17 Sep 1971  16 Months

Blackmun <- Fortas 14 May 1969 45 Months

Burger <- Warren 23 Jun 1969 44 Months

Marshall <- Clark 12 Jun 1967 20 Months

Fortas <- Goldberg 25 Jul 1965 42 Months

Goldberg <- Frankfurter 28 Aug 1957 42 Months

White <- Whittaker 31 Mar 1962  34 Months

Stewart <- Burton 13 Oct 1958 28 Months

Whittaker <- Reed 25 Feb 1957 35 Months

Brennan <- Minton 15 Oct 1956 4 Months

Harlan <- Jackson 9 Oct 1954 28 Months

Warren <- Vinson 8 Sep 1953 39 Months

Minton <- Rutledge 10 Sep 1949 30 Months

Clark <- Murphy 19 Jul 1949 31 Months

Why Large Scale Communism is Impossible

For purposes of this discussion, communism a method of of social and economic organization such that all means of production is controlled by the public.  Socialism is quite different, in that some of the means of production is publicly controlled, but some is controlled by individuals or limited groups.  Laissez faire is a form of society where none of the means of production are controlled by the public.   Capitalism is a means of doing trade, and is at least nominally a part of all of these.

Just as there have been no successful large scale societies that have been Laissez faire, there have been none that have been communist.  The nearest are Castro's Cuba and Mao's China.  Provided that the dictator is benevolent, people can have good lives in them, and if the dictator is willing to share most of his or her power, they can even be successful at some level.  But without a strong leader, there are too many people in a large society that lust for power, that benevolence cannot last long.  All successful communist societies, such as the Kibbutzes of Israel or small communes around the world, have been small enough that the lust for power can be overcome...generally by a leader who is both strong enough and benevolent enough to keep it in check.   Just about all communist groups have a dominant leader--whether life in the commune is good or bad depends almost entirely on that person's benevolence and degree of influence.   I am far from the first to make this point. The earliest I know of is Will Durant, writing about 100 years ago about the then brand new Soviet Union, but I'd be surprised if he was the first.

Laissez-faire is even worse: an excess of Lassez-faire quickly leads to corruption and banditry.  Individual groups attempting to create something useful invariably need to put a very large share of their resources into basic security, and there's nobody building basic infrastructure.  It is fair refer to Laissez-fair as equivalent to Anarchy or a Dark Dark age.

What I'm calling socialism is the only compromise that can work for a group of more than a few hundred individuals or the political lifetime of an individual.  All successful societies, ancient and modern, have some central authority providing security, standards of trade, judiciary, etc.    How much of that is optimal varies with history and psychology.  All we really have to figure it out is trial and error.  When there are market failures, we need a little more government intervention.  But when this happens, there are losers, so we want to minimize this intervention, and where possible, realign things so that the old participants play fairly and productively without losing too much.


There are lots of cases where this was successful: the consent decree that allowed AT&T to retain a strongly regulated monopoly, the USRA that rebuilt the railroads and restored them to profitability during WWI, the breakup of Standard Oil, many, many more. 

Is it Duct Tape or Duck Tape?

One of the most useful inventions ever is called Duck Tape or Duct Tape.  The earliest version appears to have been made from cotton duck cloth sealed with linseed oil and used to water proof things, and first appeared in the 1890s.  Later versions used rubber or various other flexible, water resistant coatings, mostly over cotton duck.  The Revolite division of Johnson and Johnson made a version that was easy to tear, so you didn't need to use scissors or a knife, and was used to waterproof ammunition cases during World War II, and became widespread among the troops for this and many other uses.  This stuff was found to be so useful that other manufacturers started making copies.

The fiber reinforcement makes the tape very strong, and the plastic or rubber makes it relatively water resistant, depending upon the adhesive used.  It's traditionally shiny grey although it can be obtained in just about every color imaginable, including transparent, and printed patterns, and it's usually 2 inches (50 mm) wide, although other widths are available.   Some time around 1960, the name somehow became conflated with the tape used for sealing furnace ducts.  This is one of the very few things it's not particularly good at: the heat tends to make it dry out and become brittle over time.   There is heat resistant foil tape which is actually the right thing for this.  Nevertheless the name change stuck, and a company was able to copyright the name "Duck Tape".

Present versions are usually based on a thin "scrim" which is a loose weave of some sort of fabric--all sorts, cotton, rayon, nylon, even fiberglass, depending upon the strength needed, and the grey part is usually Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE--type 3 plastic) colored with aluminum powder.  The adhesive is generally relatively strong, but relatively cheap, and tends to leave a sticky residue behind when it's removed.  Gaffer Tape is a variety that doesn't leave a sticky residue and is reinforced by stronger fabric, so it needs a knife or scissors to cut.   Preservation Tape is a variety that doesn't leave the sticky residue and doesn't have much or any reinforcement, so it's easy to tear.  Speed Tape, sometimes called Racer Tape,  is a variety that has a smooth surface and strong enough adhesive to tolerate the high wind of a racing car or airplane.  There are 100mph, 200mph, etc., versions.   It's sometimes used to make temporary repairs to airliners before a more permanent repair can be made.

There has been at least one roll of Duct tape on every US manned space mission since Gemini, and it played a major role in the rescue of Apollo 13.  It was also used to extend the fenders on the moon rover on Apollo 17 when they sprayed too much moon dust around.   It works, at least for a little while, in the vacuum of space.

It is most correctly called "Duck tape", although because of the copyright, it might have to be called "Duct tape" sometimes.

It is, as Red Green says, the Handyman's secret weapon.

Youngest Doctor

Last night one of the local PBS stations aired two old Dr Who stories from the late '60s, The Mind Robber, and the Krotons, staring Patrick Troughton, Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines.  I'd been under the impression that most of the Second Doctor serials had been lost and was quite pleasantly surprised to see these two delightful stories for the first time.  There is so much less pretense and so much more fun than in the current productions.  One thing that I really noticed was that the second doctor was playing a slightly befuddled but wise grandfatherly character, which really makes sense.  All the modern doctors are played by attractive younger people and the grandfatherly wisdom comes out as strident and juvenile.


William Hartnell, 1908-1975, 1st Doctor 1963-66.  age 55-58.  He seemed much older
Patrick Troughton 1920-1987, 2nd Doctor 1966-69.  age 46-49.  He too seemed older
John Pertwee 1919-1996,        3rd Doctor 1970-74.  age 51-55.
Tom Baker  1934-             4th Doctor 1974-81.  age 40-47.
Peter Davison 1951-         5th Doctor 1981-84.  age 30-34.  The first young doctor.  He pulled it off.
Colin Baker 1943-            6th Doctor, 1984-86 age 41-43.
Sylvester McCoy 1943-   7th Doctor, 1986-89.  age 43-46.
Christopher Eccleston 1974-  9th Doctor, 2005.  age 31.
David Tennant 1971-        10th Doctor 2005-10, age 34-39.  crippled by /terrible/ writing.
Matt Smith 1982-              11th Doctor 2010-14, age 28-31.
Peter Capaldi 1958-           12th Doctor 2014-17, age 56-59
Jodie Whittaker 1982-       13th Doctor, 2017-     age 35-

In order of age:
Matt Smith, Peter Davison, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, William Hartnell, Peter Capaldi.

My favorites:
Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, William Hartnell, Sylvester McCoy, David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith, Colin Baker.

As far as I'm concerned, Colin Baker killed the show, he was so bad.  I'm not sure how much of this was bad writing and how much was the actor and his sidekick, the almost-as-bad Perpugiliam,  played by english actress Nicola Bryant pretending, incompetently, to be an American.   Sylvester McCoy was way better than Colin Baker, but not better enough to recover.  The 21st century reboot has yet to reach the highs of the Tom Baker-Peter Davison era.
  

Impeachments, Near and Far

Three presidents have been impeached, and none have been convicted.  There have been quite a few others that nearly earned this distinction.

John Tyler was the first vice president to be elevated to the presidency by death of a president. The constitution left unclear exactly how this elevation would work, and Tyler arrogated all the powers of his predecessor, which alienated his partisan opponents, and vetoed a number of their bills, which alienated them even further.  He was also a slave holding southerner, which didn't endear him to the abolitionists in congress.  Articles of impeachment were drawn up but were soundly defeated by the full congress.

Andrew Johnson's impeachment was crassly partisan, for violating a law so terrible that it was soon overturned.  He was a terrible president and we owe a lot of the horrible race relations of the present time to his idiotic support of the persecution of ex-slaves in the south.

Warren Harding was perhaps an even worse president than Johnson and probably would have been impeached for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal had he not died.

Richard Nixon came the closest to actually being convicted.  Articles of Impeachment had been drawn up and it was obvious he was going to go down, so he quit first. 

Ronald Reagan unquestionably committed Iran Contra and he probably should have been impeached and removed, but Sen Monyihan judged that his popularity would make that unlikely to succeed and would cause more political strife than it was worth.

Bill Clinton did lie about an affair with Monica Lewinski, but that is nowhere near a high enough crime to justify impeachment.  He was impeached but not convicted in a wholly partisan process.  The country understood that it was just a show, and voted out many of the perpetrators, but they held the trial during the lame-duck period.  As Monyihan had predicted about Reagan's potential impeachment, the broader consequences of the impeachment were far worse than the actual offense.

George W Bush lied us into a war with Iraq and supported torture during that war.  After Trump, he was the most deserving of impeachment of any president.

Donald Trump collaborated with Russian leadership numerous times, to get elected, to undermine intelligence, and more.  He also has been sabotaging the free press, used the military and foreign aid for partisan purposes, and numerous other crimes.   He was deservedly impeached, but he was acquitted--mostly because Trump and his supporters intimidated Republican senators.  Sen Collins rightly explained that Trump had learned a lesson from impeachment, but where she'd thought he'd be chastened, he took it as license to do anything he wanted, no matter how criminal or destructive.

Degrees of Murder

This is mostly intended to pull together the definitions for my own edification.

Murder is the intentional killing of someone.  Intentional-ness is defined by statute.  Killing someone is not necessarily a crime unless it is defined that way by statute.  If you kill someone in self defense or defense of others, it probably not a crime.   Feticide (abortion) is not murder unless specifically defined to be by statute.

First degree murder is killing someone with "malice aforethought".   The killer intends for their victim to be dead and had enough time to consider the ramifications of what they were doing.  If the killing took place during the commission of another felony, it is sometimes considered first degree, although under some circumstances it's voluntary manslaughter.
 
Second degree murder is killing someone in the heat of action, without forethought.  For example a bar room brawl.  The killer may have meant to kill the victim at that moment, but had they had a chance to consider they would probably not have done it.

Voluntary manslaughter is mainly reserved for crimes of passion and for unplanned murders committed during another felony.  It used to be second degree murder but in recent years a distinction has been made.  The standard example is discovering your spouse with another lover and killing them on the spot. 

Killing someone (usually second degree murder but also manslaughter) with depraved indifference is acting in a way that is the killer knows is likely to bring about death, but not specifically intending to kill the person.


Third degree murder is only defined by a few states: MN, PA and FL.  It is basically the same thing as murder with depraved indifference.

Involuntary Manslaughter is the accidental killing of someone while acting in a reckless but not felonious way.  There is no intent or malice, either aforethought or otherwise.  Negligent homicide is essentially the same thing.


It's pretty clear that third degree murder is actually the correct charge for at least some of what happened to George Floyd.   I suspect a lot of the outrage is that most states don't define the crime and people don't understand what it is.  More seriously though, bystanders were yelling at Mr. Chauvin that he was killing him, yet he continued to compress Mr. Floyd's neck for nearly 9 minutes, while he was handcuffed, including a few minutes after he'd passed out from asphyxiation.  I think it became first degree murder somewhere around 3 minutes into this.  I've watched quite a few videos, including one that showed the police arrival at the scene.  Mr. Floyd never did anything in any way violent or threatening, although he was clearly upset at being arrested, which is pretty understandable.  He may have said something threatening and he was a very big, strong guy, so there might be some possible justification in acting defensively, but once he was handcuffed and on the ground, the threat was over, especially since there were 3 other cops on the scene. Ten seconds of knee on neck would have been ample, even had Mr. Floyd been acting violently, which he wasn't.