"Hey humans, that asteroid is really harshing our mellow," said XXX49-Cheeze-Whiz.

"Really?"

"Yeah, coudl you like do somethign about it," continued the alien.

"I mean, sure, if that is a formal request," said the human starship.

Glorblax frowned at XXX49-Cheeze-Whiz, "If you think we are going to be impressed that the human starship cuts that asteroid apart with its lasers or maybe fires a missile at it, you are going to be disapointed."

XXX49-Cheeze-Whiz shook his tentanacles, "I've never been dissapointed by humans before."

Glorblax swizzled his nizzles, the audacity of the Produplacians brining in the humans was one thing, but the mighty doom fleet was ready to lay waste to their latest colony. The single human ship was not even half the lenght of one of their cruisers. If they thought that destroying a single asteroid was going to impress the doom fleet they had something going. Certainly it would take the entire fleet a minute or so, but it was well within their capacitties.

In fact, Globlax though, let us just end this. "Target the asteroid."

"It is already gone, sir, swallowed up by a wormhole."

"A wormhole can't move things," said Glorblax.

"Science thinks it was attached to a black hole, they saw spagitification before the asteroid vanished."

"Their main weapon can do that," asked Glorblax.

"Science believes that was one of their secondary weapons. I don't even want to guess what their primaries can do."

"Can we target the human ship?" asked Glorblax.

"With those shields, what are we going to do give them a light show? Our main weapons are just partical beam cannons. "

"I think we'll leave," said Glorblax.

Normally I'd be against renaming a ship as it is bad luck, but having a ship named after an enemy victory is bad luck to begin with. Smalls is a great example of what it is to be an American.

To be blunt, I don't see any way Cleveland stays. They are already pretty upset at the OhioGOP, and this is just repressing them writ large. The other thing would be a massive depopulation of some of the cities, and if even 5 to 10 % of the population leaves, that city is going to be having a massive recession.

Blue governor probably translates to a popular governor win. If the states dont' lean one way or another, I think we'd see chunks of them break off rather than the whole state go one way or anohter.

Another big problem is that if you take the GDP of the areas that are voting blue, it represent 80% of NC's economy. NC is going to be very rough, and if it goes red and there is a mass exedos of even 5% of the cities population, they will all go into instant and massive recession, and frankly it would probably be more.

I'd be really curious to see what happens there, but I tend to think people vote with their pocketbooks as much as for politics, and NC would probably go blue if it meant they were going to get crushed economically almost instantly.

I don't see NC going red either, quite frankly. They have a blue governor and two blue senators. A state wide vote is going to put them into the New England catergory. That gives Georgia a land border to the New England portion of the map.

That leaves a cut off south carolina... one of the most federally dependent states in the union. I doubt that the new confederacy is going to try to get them back without a land border.

If Georgia swings blue, I'd bet Jacksonville and Tallahassee would both break free from Florida to join up with the blue states.

GA already flipped.

Not likely. At all. The crux of the problem here is that the main issue politically is a urban vs rural divide, so breaking it up on state lines isn't going to work but even entertaining breaking it up state by state, this map doesn't work.

AZ and NM would probably lock in with Pacifica, you need ocean access as a nation and they are the better economy to hitch your star to so to speak. Co also swings blue, so they are also likely to go that way.

NC and Georgia join up with the east coast, GA votes blue with a few exceptions and so does NC. They aren't going to hitch themselves to the new america. SC is such a non-entity economically that they'd probably flip just to keep up the tax incentives that new england could afford.

If anyone goes alone it would be Texas, and they would.

Next you'd see all the big cities trying to break free of the 'new america', so places like Cleveland are going to do anything they can to get out of the red states, border cities would have a reasonable time of it. . Literally any city is going to want to get clear of New America.

Ohio's big 3 C's (Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland) are all overwhelmingly blue, and would likely have massive issues joining this new US of MTG. Realistically, Ohio shatters in this scenario with Cleveland joining up with the New England states, Toledo joining up with Michigan, and Columbus trying to break free but probably failing and there being an absolute mass migration out of there. Gary Indiana is going to try to stick to Chicago, they don't make sense otherwise. Pretty much the whole shoreline over there is full of people who work in Chicago/Gary and they are going to want to stick with Chicago.

Other issues include things like Rural NY is largely red, as is most of PA, just most of the population lives in cities that are blue.

Texas is going to stand alone if the nation divorces as New America will drain it dry, and if they are removed from New America that nations economic prospects dim considerably.

The short of it is dividing everything by state lines isn't going to work here. It would be more a west virginia situation where everyone starts bailing to join up with the side they want.

So what I actually would expect to happen is Ohio loses the Cleveland/Elyria corridor to the New England government because they don't like how the GOP is managing the state already, then the 'new england' government would probably bribe Toledo into shifting over, and you'd have a continuous land based nation containing all of New Canada and New England, plus Georgia and the Carolinas (again South Carolina would be bribed)

Pacifica includes 'New Mexico' and Colorado. Texas stands alone.

LOL. Back at you.

Your explanation is lying with extra steps so you can self rationalize.

I see. I'm using it in the psychological sense of actually forgiving someone, and you are just lying to make the other person happy. That's super unhealthy.

This is a very hopeful view of human interaction. My wife hasn't forgiven me for things I did while we were dating, they just don't come up anymore.

If you could forgive something like this in less than 24 hours, you wouldn't have that significant of a reaction to its loss. There are few things in my life that merit getting bent out of shape over, and none of them are currently possessions. 130 hours of life and memories are a lot to this guy, and I don't even have 100 hours on any game save I'm currently playing. I have a book I'm working on that I'd be upset if it got deleted, but I have that worked backed up in triplicate so if there is a problem it is mine.

You break something someone loves you gotta pay for it, one way or another. Frankly, you don't want a partner that lets you walk over them like this without any repercussions. That's unhealthy. Forgiveness is well and good, but you have to see that the other partner is genuine and their acts and behavior go a long way to demonstrating that. Actual forgiveness takes time. If you see genuine remorse, that time can be shorter, but to forgive another who's done nothing to change their behavior is foolish.

My wife sold my childhood and some rare games I was keeping in a locked box for that she had to find. I forgave her in a few weeks, 20+ years ago.

The trick is you want actual forgiveness, not claimed forgiveness. Saying I forgive you is easy to someone you don't interact with often. Its harder when it is someone who you interact with frequently. A bit of claimed forgiveness will fester, and make the relationship harder. You are seeking the words "I forgive you" but in my experience those will be thrown back in someone's face unless they actually mean it.

This is on you. I wouldn't want to redo that much time into a pokemon game again. Fortunately, bribery has a way of fixing thing so pretty much be prepared to eat 140 hours of 'misery' to pay him back.

He gets to pick all the restarants for a while, go see his choice of movies, be extra nice to him. If he loves you, he'll eventually forgive you. I know I did when my wife sold my Final Fantasy II and III in box, plus my in box Chrono Trigger, for 15 dollars at a yard sale.

The fear effect was killing most of them. The sight of a demon terrified humans and so when he stomped around the room, most of them just had heart attacks and died on the spot. That made sweeping tough, but I had a little time left before my stamina ran out for the day.

He pull out Jerry's spine, through his nose. Good work. Still took Jerry one minute and seven seconds to die, and that was some quality demonic murder if I ever saw it. Of course, Jerry would leave another mess.

I pushed the broom, gathering up some stray trays when someone stepped infront of me.

"Excuse me, Sir," I began looking up at the nine foot tall demon. To a mortal, he would have looked terrifying, to me he looked curious.

"I'm Morgath, the hell bearer, boo?" said Morgath.

"And if you could please step to the side, I need to sweep this area up before closing," I replied. Morgath moved, and looked around.

"Everyone is dead, I don't think you can close," said the demon.

"I still get the points as long as I complete my closing checklist," I replied pushing the last few trays and a whole hamburger into the dustbin. 'Animals'

"Points?" asked the demon, walking to the counter as I stepped behind it and opened up the utility closet. Janet put the mop bucket in half full again, meaning I'd have to dump it before I cleaned the floor. I glared at her, but she was face down in the fryer so she didn't respond.

I'd bring the whole thing up with Jerry, but the spine thing. Thankfully, Morgath dropped that behind the counter and that was Frank's job, not that it would get done either but hopefully Frank would fall out of the ceiling before ravens pecked out his eyes. Or pigeons, more likely.

Carrying the bucket to the back of the store, I poured it out into the utility bin as the demon strode up behind me and raised his arm, "Look, I'm sorry man but I said I'd kill everyone."

He struck faster than a cobra, his hand ended in razor sharp claws and the demon could easily shove his arm through a piece of steel. Obviously, he nearly broke his hand as it skittered off of my chest, and the bucket sloshed slightly. I didn't need to refill it, but I'd probably have to put up the wet floor sign, which was back near Janet and covered in blood.

"Do you mind," I asked. Morgath stepped aside.

"You're a dragon," he said after I grabbed the mop.

I nodded, and started mopping the floor.

Morgath drew out his sword, bathed in infernal flames, and held it up. I flinched, "Hey, new uniform."

"I need to kill you," said Morgath apologetically as he brought the sword down on my shoulder. It pinged loudly as it impacted, splitting the shoulder of my uniform badly.

"I'm going to have to patch that," I grunted as I lifted off the blade and continued mopping. "Look, my shift is over in two minutes. Can you just pretend you tortured Jerry longer than you did?"

"I guess, if you are immune to physical damage does that mean you are an elder dragon," asked the demon as he leaned up against the counter. He grabbed a cup.

"That costs 1 dollar," I stated watching him. He left a gold coin on the counter that was worth $122, which should be fine. Jerry would just keep the gold anyway. Except for the spine thing.

"So," asked the demon as he poured himself a mixture of sprite and coke.

"Yeah, I'm an elder dragon," I replied.

"So why work here," asked the demon.

"Ever play Stardew Valley," I replied as I continued mopping.

"I was more into Animal Crossing," said the demon. Of course he was, those guys loved Nintendo.

"Well, I realized that just being an all powerful dragon on a massive pile of treasure was kind of taxing, and I wanted to relax, so I got a job like in Stardew doing something mundane," I said finishing and checking the floor. I pressed Miss Sanders back with the mop and touched up that corner.

My assigned area was perfect.

"But here?" asked the demon.

"Its relaxing, don't have to worry about anything," I said walking over to punch out. Jerry was going to complain about the shoulder, except the spine thing.

"Huh, you just do a simple job and then go back," said Morgath, "That does sound relaxing."

I looked around, "We are hiring."

If you told me Woody Harrelson was going to be one of the best character actors of this generation when he was on cheers, I would have laughed in your face. Now I can't get enough of the man. He flips between zany to serious like he has a switch.

Depending on what specific laws are used, he can claim parts of Mars. You can't claim the whole planet certainly. But if you had a robot colony that was mining a section of the planet making structures on it you could certainly claim that.

The big trick is enforcement, you need to be able to reasonably stop the use of your property for it to be your property. Normally on earth this just means that a government will use its framework of laws to do that, but US courts cannot enforce territorial claims outside of US sovereignty.

Right now what we are seeing is a big game of kick the can down the road. Until you get livign human beings onto a celestial body, anyone's guess is fair game. Perhaps you'll see some movement if asteroid mining becomes a thing in the near future, but I think we'll see a permenant outpost first due to the legal quagmire.