The Atlantic Wrongly Calls California Largest State

March 21, 2015 - The Atlantic's editorial staff seems to be geographically challenged. The headline of a March 21 article is "The Economics of California's Drought," and has the unfortunate subhead of "What happens when the country's largest state runs low on water?" And there's the problem.

The article's author, Matt Schiavenza, might have meant to call California "the country's most populous state," but that's not what was written. Perhaps he meant to say, "the state with the country's largest population," but he didn't write that either.

Misleading subtitle in The Atlantic Wire

To be fair, headlines are often not written by the author but by an editor. Regardless of who writes them, headlines should not be vague, ambiguous or confusing.

In any case, the subtitle calls California "the country's largest state." Without qualifying that, by specifying population, it is misleading and unclear at best.

California has a lot more people than Texas and Alaska combined. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Demographic Profile:

California had a population of 37,253,956 (ranked 1st).

Texas had a population of 25,145,561 (ranked 2nd).

Alaska had a population of 710,231 (ranked 47th).

But although California may have the biggest population of the 50 states, but in terms of geographic size it ranks third, behind Alaska and Texas. The U.S. Census Bureau says that the three largest states in 2008, by total area, were as follows:

Alaska had a total area of 664,988 sq. miles (ranked 1st)
Texas had a total area of 268,597 sq. miles (ranked 2nd)
California;had a total area of 163,694 sq. miles (ranked 3rd)

Alaska is waaaaay bigger than California

California was clearly a distant third in terms of size as recently as 2008. I strongly suspect that the total land areas of have not changed enough to have altered these states' size rankings. And to repeat myself, "largest state" and "largest population" are two very different things.

Of course, Schiavenza was writing about the water crisis in California, not about the size of the state. But he referred to another article with some probably-unintentional irony. "Earlier this month," he wrote, "the title of a Los Angeles Times op-ed published by Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor at UC Irvine, got right to the point: California would run out of water in a year. This headline—as Famiglietti himself pointed out—isn't exactly accurate."

Irony: Schiavenza's headline "isn't exactly accurate." And Schiavenza should know that LA Times op-ed was not "published by Jay Famiglietti." He wrote it. The LA Times published it.

Also See:
States Ranked by Size and Population ipl.org

Is the U.S. Giving Away Several Alaskan Islands to Russia?

February 20, 2012 - Under any other President, this would seem unbelievable. Under the current psychocratic regime, however, it seems to be just another way to bring America to its knees.

"It appears Congress had nothing to do with this 7-island giveaway with tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds. The Department of the Interior says these islands are a source of BILLIONS of barrels of oil. Our president and the State Department can just give away American sovereign land – Alaskan land," says Maggie's Notebook on February 18. Maggies gives an excellent report, and notes that this issue pre-dates the Obama Administration.

"The longer story is that this covert mission began under G.W.H. Bush," says Maggie, "but the thing to remember is that no he, nor any president following made the giveaway reality."

It would seem that the Obama Administration has every intention to make it reality.

The islands to be given away, says Joe Miller, include Wrangel, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. Miller was the unsuccessful 2010 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alaska. Miller "broke this story" in a post that was published on February 16 on World Net Daily's website, and reposted about at Gateway Pundit. Included in the deal, says Millier, would be billions of barrels of oil.

Here is an excerpt from Miller's post at WND (emphasis added):

Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.

The State Department has undertaken the giveaway in the guise of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia. Astoundingly, our federal government itself drew the line to put these seven Alaskan islands on the Russian side. But as an executive agreement, it could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by President Obama or Secretary Clinton.

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

A quick review: The State Department supervised this giveaway. The head of the Department of State is Hillary Clinton. It is inconceivable that this deal was made without Obama's knowledge and consent. Furthermore, this is not a new issue. The idea of giving these islands to Russia dates back to the days when Russia was still the Soviet Union.

At the end of the World Net Daily piece, there is an "Author’s addendum" that notes that both the Bush and Clinton administrations failed to act to resolve the question of ownership of these islands.

"A maritime agreement negotiated by the U.S. State Department," says the addendum, "set the Russian boundary on the other side of the disputed islands, but no treaty has ratified this action. Consequently, it is within the president’s power to stop this giveaway. The Alaska delegation’s failure to put pressure on the administration is inexplicable. State Department Watch, an organization that assisted with this article, has confronted each administration and is currently confronting the Obama administration — and has been met by silence."

Indeed, World Net Daily has previously covered the issue of giving away Alaskan lands to Russia, as has NewsMax.

Related articles

• Obama State Dept. Giving U.S. Territory to Russia -- in exchange for nothing (bokertov.typepad.com)
• The Destruction of a Nation (loopyloo305.com)
• Obama's giveaway: Oil-rich islands to Russia (genomega1.wordpress.com)
• The Us Is Giving Away 7 Strategic Islands to Russia (disclose.tv)