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Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory systems (such as mechanical, physical, biological, cognitive, and social systems) their structures, constraints, and possibilities. Cybernetics is applicable when a system being analyzed is involved in a closed signaling loop; that is, where action by the system generates some change in its environment and that change is reflected in that system in some manner (feedback) that triggers a system change.
- Quotes are arranged chronologically
- Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
- Norbert Wiener, title and subtitle of his groundbreaking 1948 book.
- In 1956 W. Ross Ashby stated in An Introduction to Cybernetics that "cybernetics was defined by Wiener as the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine." Yet, in his original book Wiener doesn't use this exact phrase. Wiener spoke of cybernetics as "control and communication in the animal and the machine."
- The concepts of purposive behavior and teleology have long been associated with a mysterious, self-perfecting or goal-seeking capacity or final cause, usually of superhuman or super-natural origin. To move forward to the study of events, scientific thinking had to reject these beliefs in purpose and these concepts of teleological operations for a strictly mechanistic and deterministic view of nature. This mechanistic conception became firmly established with the demonstration that the universe was based on the operation of anonymous particles moving at random, in a disorderly fashion, giving rise, by their multiplicity, to order and regularity of a statistical nature, as in classical physics and gas laws. The unchallenged success of these concepts and methods in physics and astronomy, and later in chemistry, gave biology and physiology their major orientation. This approach to problems of organisms was reinforced by the analytical preoccupation of the Western European culture and languages. The basic assumptions of our traditions and the persistent implications of the language we use almost compel us to approach everything we study as composed of separate, discrete parts or factors which we must try to isolate and identify as potential causes. Hence, we derive our preoccupation with the study of the relation of two variables. We are witnessing today a search for new approaches, for new and more comprehensive concepts and for methods capable of dealing with the large wholes of organisms and personalities.
- Lawrence K. Frank (1948) "Foreword". In L. K. Frank, G. E. Hutchinson, W. K. Livingston, W. S. McCulloch, & N. Wiener, Teleological mechanisms. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sc., 1948, 50, 189-96.
- The concept of teleological mechanisms however it be expressed in many terms, may be viewed as an attempt to escape from these older mechanistic formulations that now appear inadequate, and to provide new and more fruitful conceptions and more effective methodologies for studying self-regulating processes, self-orienting systems and organisms, and self-directing personalities. Thus, the terms feedback, servomechanisms, circular systems, and circular processes may be viewed as different but equivalent expressions of much the same basic conception
- Lawrence K. Frank (1948) "Foreword". In L. K. Frank, G. E. Hutchinson, W. K. Livingston, W. S. McCulloch, & N. Wiener, Teleological mechanisms. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sc., 1948, 50, 189-96.
- … Norbert Wiener of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a brilliant mathematician who recently won fame with his invention of cybernetics, a new science of communications... His prolonged studies of the striking analogies between the control systems in animal bodies and those in complex machines became the basis of his newly created cybernetics, a science of communications.
- "How U.S. cities can prepare for atomic war" in: LIFE. Vol. 29, nr. 25 (18 dec 1950). p. 77.
- CYBERNETICS. Catch on to this word now. It's a new coined to label the fast-growing electronic brain system of industry which mat have more effect on the way we live than will atomic energy.
- "Cybernetics" in: The Rotarian. Sept 1953. p. 14.
- The celebrated physicist and mathematician A.M. Ampere coined the word cybernetique to mean the science of civil government (Part II of "Essai sur la philosophic des sciences", 1845, Paris). Ampere's grandiose scheme of political sciences has not, and perhaps never will, come to fruition. In the meantime, conflict between governments with the use of force greatly accelerated the development of another branch of science, the science of control and guidance of mechanical and electrical systems. It is thus perhaps ironical that Ampere's word should be borrowed by N. Wiener to name this new science, so important to modern warfare. The "cybernetics" of Wiener ("Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the animal and the Machine," John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1948) is the science of organization of mechanical and electrical components for stability and purposeful actions. A distinguishing feature of this new science is the total absence of considerations of energy, heat, and efficiency, which are so important in other natural sciences. In fact, the primary concern of cybernetics is on the qualitative aspects of the interrelations among the various components of a system and the synthetic behavior of the complete mechanism.
- Hsue Shen Tsien (1954) Engineering cybernetics. p. vii: About the Origin of the Word 'Cybernetics'.
- Cybernetics is likely to reveal a great number of interesting and suggestive parallelisms between machine and brain and society. And it can provide the common language by which discoveries in one branch can readily be made use of in the others... [There are] two peculiar scientific virtues of cybernetics that are worth explicit mention. One is that it offers a single vocabulary and a single set of concepts suitable for representing the most diverse types of system... The second peculiar virtue of cybernetics is that it offers a method for the scientific treatment of the system in which complexity is outstanding and too important to be ignored. Such systems are, as we well know, only too common in the biological world!
- W. Ross Ashby (1956) An Introduction to Cybernetics. p. 4-5.
- Cybernetics is one of the youngest sciences in the world. Generally speaking, it was born in 1948, when the American mathematician Norbert Wiener, the pioneer of modern cybernetics, published a book under that title. The name soon became a fashion in the West, where even science is an object of fashion. Cybernetics, as such, is a concept that dates back many, many centuries. In ancient Greece it meant the art of steering, the skill of sailing ships — a skill so highly esteemed in that land of seafaring people that there were special festivities in its honour. In 1834 the famous French scientist Andre Ampere classified 128 branches of science, among which he named cybernetics as the science of steering, alongside with others for which he invented names. Wiener, thus, did not think up a new name. He simply applied the old one to a modern science.
- "The international Congress on Cybernetics" in: New times. (1956) Nr. 27-52. p. 62.
- [Cybernetics is] the art of ensuring the efficacy of action.
- Louis Couffignal (1958), as cited in: Andrzej Targowski (2011), Cognitive Informatics and Wisdom Development, p. 68.
- The word 'cybernetics' is still new to many people, even though it has now been an accepted word of our language for some ten or fifteen years. Speaking generally, cybernetics is the scientific study of control and communication. It is an attempt to give an integrated account of both physical and biological systems in terms of their capacity to communicate between different points of the system, and in terms of their control.
There has been considerable research into general methods of communication in recent years, and this has been primarily the work of communication engineers, who are trying to discover in general terms what they themselves are doing.
- Frank Honywill George (1958) "Cybernetics and biology" in: M.L. Johnson Ed. New biology. Ns 26-31. p. 106.
- Cybernetics is the science of the process of transmission, processing and storage of information.
- Sobolew (1958) Woprosy Psychology, cited in T. C. Helvey (1971) The Age of Information. p. 6.
- All this (the early excitement of Cybernetics) is now history, and in the decade which elapsed since these early baby steps of interdisciplinary communication, many more threads were picked up and interwoven into a remarkable tapestry of knowledge and endeavour: Bionics. It is good omen that at the right time the right name was found. For, bionics extends a great invitation to all who are willing not to stop at the investigation of a particular function or its realization, but to go on and to seek the universal significance of these functions in living or artificial organisms.
The reader who goes through the following papers which constitute the transactions of the first symposium held under the name Bionics will be surprised by the multitude of astonishing and unforeseen connections between concepts he believed to be familiar with. For instance, a couple of years ago, who would have thought to relate the reliability problem to multi-valued logics; or, who would have thought that integral or differential geometry would serve as an adequate tool in the theory of abstraction? It is hard to say in all these cases who was teaching whom: The life-sciences the engineering sciences, or vice versa? And rightly so, for it guarantees optimal information flow, and everybody gains...
- Heinz von Foerster (1960) as cited in Peter M. Asaro (2007). "Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s,"
- Cybernetics is still headline news, and increasingly we hear about its applications to new fields of scientific and industrial endeavour. Stafford Beer's new book Cybernetics and Management is an admirable account on the relation that exist between cybernetics and the problems of management in industry [and]... covers a range of applications that have not previously been dealt with in print.
- F.H. George (1960) "Automatic controls in industry" in: New Scientist. 7 jan 1960. p. 48.
- Cybernetics is the general science of communication. But to refer to communication is consciously or otherwise to refer to distinguishable states of information inputs and outputs and /or to information being processed within some relatively isolated system.
- Henryk Greniewski (1960) Cybernetics without mathematics. p. 53.
- Cybernetics is concerned primarily with the construction of theories and models in science, without making a hard and fast distinction between the physical and the biological sciences. The theories and models occur both in symbols and in hardware, and by 'hardware* we shall mean a machine or computer built in terms of physical or chemical, or indeed any handleable parts. Most usually we shall think of hardware as meaning electronic parts such as valves and relays. Cybernetics insists, also, on a further and rather special condition that distinguishes it from ordinary scientific theorizing: it demands a certain standard of effectiveness. In this respect it has acquired some of the same motive power that has driven research on modern logic, and this is especially true in the construction and application of artificial languages and the use of operational definitions. Always the search is for precision and effectiveness, and we must now discuss the question of effectiveness in some detail. It should be noted that when we talk in these terms we are giving pride of place to the theory of automata at the expense, at least to some extent, of feedback and information theory.
- F.H. George (1962) The Brain As A Computer Pergamon Press. p. 2.
- A great deal of the thinking [in Organizational Development] has been influenced by cybernetics and information theory, though this has been used as much to extend the scope of closed-system as to improve the sophistication of open system formulations. It was von Bertalanffy (1950) who, in terms of the general transport equation which he introduced, first fully disclosed the importance of openness or closedness to the environment as a means of distinguishing living organisms from inanimate objects.
- Fred Emery and Eric Trist (1963) "The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments". In: Human Relations, 18: p. 22.
- In 1946, a Macy Foundation interdisciplinary conference was organized to use the model provided by "feedback systems," honorifically referred to in earlier conferences as "teleological mechanisms," and later as "cybernetics," with the expectation that this model would provide a group of sciences with useful mathematical tools and, simultaneously, would serve as a form of cross-disciplinary communication. Out of the deliberations of this group came a whole series of fruitful developments of a very high order. Kurt Lewin (who died in 1947) took away from the first meeting the term "feedback". He suggested ways in which group processes, which he and his students were studying in a highly disciplined, rigorous way, could be improved by a "feedback process," as when, for example, a group was periodically given a report on the success or failure of its particular operations.
- Margaret Mead (1964) Continuities in Cultural Evolution p. 272-273.
- If cybernetics is the science of control, management is the profession of control
- Anthony Stafford Beer (1966) Decision and control. p. 239.
- Cybernetics is the science or the art of manipulating defensible metaphors; showing how they may be constructed and what can be inferred as a result of their existence.
- Gordon Pask (1966) The Cybernetics of Human Performance and Learning. Cited in: George J. Klír (2001) Facets of Systems Science. p. 429.
- As an anthropologist, I have been interested in the effects that the theories of Cybernetics have within our society. I am not referring to computers or to the electronic revolution as a whole, or to the end of dependence on script for knowledge, or to the way that dress has succeeded the mimeographing machine as a form of communication among the dissenting young. Let me repeat that, I am not referring to the way that dress has succeeded the mimeographing machine as a form of communication among the dissenting young.
I specifically want to consider the significance of the set of cross-disciplinary ideas which we first called "feed-back" and then called "teleological mechanisms" and then called it "cybernetics," a form of crossdisciplinary thought which made it possible for members of many disciplines to communicate with each other easily in a language which all could understand.
- Margaret Mead (1968) "Cybernetics of cybernetics", as cited in: Heinz von Foerster (1991) "Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics".
- Perhaps the most important single characteristic of modern organizational cybernetics is this: That in addition to concern with the deleterious impacts of rigidly-imposed notions of what constitutes the application of good "principles of organization and management" the organization is viewed as a subsystem of a larger system(s), and as comprised itself of functionally interdependent subsystems.
- Richard F. Ericson (1969) Organizational cybernetics and human values p. 14-15.
- The theory of information became the cornerstone of cybernetics because the latter deals with "the study of systems of any nature that are capable of receiving, storing and processing information and utilizing it for control".
- Aleksandr Kondratov (1969) Sounds and signs. p. 67.
- The meaning of the term "cybernetics" is today somewhat different from that used when Wiener, McCulloch, Rosenblueth, Bigelow and others used the Greek word "Kybernetes," or helmsmen, to describe an automatic computer... the definition, which I first gave in 1966:
"Cybernetics describes an intelligent activity or event which can be expressed in algorithms. Algorithms, in turn, refer to a system of instructions which describes unambiguously and accurately an interaction which is equivalent to a given type of flux of intelligence and a subsequent, controlled activity. The development of cybernetics aims, among other things, at the design and reproduction of functions which are peculiar to intelligent organism."
- T. C. Helvey (1971) The Age of Information: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Cybernetics. p. 6.
- The essence of cybernetic organizations is that they are self-controlling, self-maintaining, self-realizing. Indeed, cybernetics has been characterized as the "science of effective organization," in just these terms.
But the word "cybernetics" conjures, in the minds of an apparently great number of people, visions of computerized information networks, closed loop systems, and robotized man-surrogates, such as "artorgas" and "cyborgs."
- Richard F. Ericson (1972) "Visions of Cybernetic Organizations". p. 427.
- Now "cybernetics" is the term coined by Wiener to denote "steersmanship" or the science of control. Although current engineering usage restricts it to the study of flows in closed systems, it can be taken in a wider context, as the study of processes interrelating systems with inputs and outputs, and their structural-dynamic structure. It is in this wider sense that "cybernetics" will be used here, to wit, as system-cybernetics, understanding by "system" an ordered whole in relation to its relevant environment (hence one actually or potentially open).
- Ervin László (1972) Introduction to Systems Philosophy: : Toward a New Paradigm of Contemporary Thought. p. 38.
- The main object of cybernetics is to supply adaptive, hierarchical models, involving feedback and the like, to all aspects of our environment. Often such modelling implies simulation of a system where the simulation should achieve the object of copying both the method of achievement and the end result. Synthesis, as opposed to simulation, is concerned with achieving only the end result and is less concerned (or completely unconcerned) with the method by which the end result is achieved. In the case of behaviour, psychology is concerned with simulation, while cybernetics, although also interested in simulation, is primarily concerned with synthesis.
Most of the major developments in models and theories of artificial intelligence have taken place in the western world — mostly, indeed, in the US and Britain — and it was only relatively recently that "core developments", as opposed to more peripheral developments and applications, have spread over Europe and the Soviet Union.
- Frank George (1973) "Soviet Cybernetics, the militairy and Professor Lerner" in: New Scientist (March 15, 1973). Vol. 57, nr. 837. p. 613.
- During the 1950s and 1960s most of the work which was called cybernetics tended to focus on control systems in engineering or on applications of the concept of feedback in fields ranging from mathematics to sociology. At the 1970 meeting of the American Society for Cybernetics in Philadelphia Heinz von Foerster sought to redirect attention to the original interests which had led to the founding of the field of cybernetics. In a paper titled "Cybernetics of Cybernetics" he made a distinction between first order cybernetics, the cybernetics of observed systems, and second order cybernetics, the cybernetics of observing systems.
- Stuart A. Umpleby (1991) "Strategies for Winning Acceptance of Second Order Cybernetics." In George E. Lasker, et al. (eds.) Advances in Human Systems and Information Technologies. Windsor, Canada: International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics, 1992. pp. 97-196. (paper).
- The cybernetics phase of cognitive science produced an amazing array of concrete results, in addition to its long-term (often underground) influence:
- the use of mathematical logic to understand the operation of the nervous system;
- the invention of information processing machines (as digital computers), thus laying the basis for artificial intelligence;
- the establishment of the metadiscipline of system theory, which has had an imprint in many branches of science, such as engineering (systems analysis, control theory), biology (regulatory physiology, ecology), social sciences (family therapy, structural anthropology, management, urban studies), and economics (game theory);
- information theory as a statistical theory of signal and communication channels;
- the first examples of self-organizing systems.
This list is impressive: we tend to consider many of these notions and tools an integrative part of our life...
- Francisco Varela (1991) The Embodied Mind p. 38.
- An opportunity for cybernetics to change the course of the philosophy of mind was missed when intentionality was misinterpreted as "the providing of coded knowledge".
- Igor Aleksander (2001) in: New scientist. Vol. 169. p. 56 cited in: Jacques Vallée (2003) The Heart of the Internet. p. 8.
- Many of the core ideas of cybernetics have been assimilated by other disciplines, where they continue to influence scientific developments. Other important cybernetic principles seem to have been forgotten, though, only to be periodically rediscovered or reinvented in different domains. Some examples are the rebirth of neural networks, first invented by cyberneticists in the 1940's, in the late 1960's and again in the late 1980's; the rediscovery of the importance of autonomous interaction by robotics and AI in the 1990's; and the significance of positive feedback effects in complex systems, rediscovered by economists in the 1990's. Perhaps the most significant recent development is the growth of the complex adaptive systems movement, which, in the work of authors such as John Holland, Stuart Kauffman and Brian Arthur and the subfield of artificial life, has used the power of modern computers to simulate and thus experiment with and develop many of the ideas of cybernetics. It thus seems to have taken over the cybernetics banner in its mathematical modelling of complex systems across disciplinary boundaries, however, while largely ignoring the issues of goal-directedness and control.
- Francis Heylighen & Cliff Joslyn (2001). "Cybernetics and Second-Order Cybernetics". Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology, 3rd ed. R. A. Meyers. New York, Academic Press. p. 5.
- Cybernetics is the study of systems and processes that interact with themselves and produce themselves from themselves.
- Louis Kauffman (2007) as cited in: Andrzej Targowski (2011), Cognitive Informatics and Wisdom Development, p. 68.
- For me, as I later came to say, cybernetics is the art of creating equilibrium in a world of possibilities and constraints. This is not just a romantic description, it portrays the new way of thinking quite accurately. Cybernetics differs from the traditional scientific procedure, because it does not try to explain phenomena by searching for their causes, but rather by specifying the constraints that determine the direction of their development.
- Ernst von Glasersfeld (2010) Partial Memories: Sketches from an Improbable Life. p. 136.
- In the late 1950s, experiments such as the cybernetic sculptures of Nicolas Schöffer or the programmatic music compositions of John Cage and Iannis Xenakis transposed systems theory from the sciences to the arts. By the 1960s, artists as diverse as Roy Ascott, Hans Haacke, Robert Morris, Sonia Sheridan, and Stephen Willats were breaking with accepted aesthetics to embrace open systems that emphasized organism over mechanism, dynamic processes of interaction among elements, and the observer's role as an inextricable part of the system. Jack Burnham's 1968 Artforum essay "Systems Aesthetics" and his 1970 "Software" exhibition marked the high point of systems-based art until its resurgence in the changed conditions of the twenty-first century.
- Edward A. Shanken. Systems, 2015. Overview
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- Defining 'Cybernetics', Stuart Umpleby (1982), revised 2000 at asc-cybernetics.org


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Sunoco, 4440 EASTON AVENUE, BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania, 18020
Store Hours of Operation, Location & Phone Number for Sunoco Near You
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Open 24 hours
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The map and information below will help you find the closest Sunoco near you. Need to know what time Sunoco in BETHLEHEM opens or closes, or whether it's open 24 hours a day? Read below for business times, daylight and evening hours, street address, and more.
Founded in 1886, Sunoco operates as a popular gas station chain that spans nearly half the United States. With over 1,000 locations, Sunoco primarily operates in Southern, Midwestern, Northeastern, and Mid-Atlantic states. A premiere fuel retailer, Sunoco sells traditional automotive fuels, such as regular, plus, premium, ultra 93, and diesel fuel as well as propane, kerosene, and racing fuel. In addition to fuel, Sunoco offers cold drinks, groceries, coffees, craft beer exchanges, and snacks through APlus convenience stores. Select locations offer auto repair services, car washes, and ATMS. A public company, Sunoco trades on the NYSE as SUN. Company headquarters reside in Philadelphia, PA.
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"Busboy" from Albuquerque hipped me to this blog–and to its author's recent series about traveling through the Pacific Northwest without a car. I haven't read the posts about Portland [ahem] or Vancouver yet, but his impressions of the Seattle transit/transportation landscape are pretty spot on. Check it:
Seattle's new star for public transit is the recently opened Central Link, a light rail line which operates in a subway through downtown before emerging south of the stadiums and running out to the airport. And to be honest, as a visitor the only real use I got out of it was to go the airport (and the neighborhoods along the way didn't seem that dense, so I can't say how many commuters it serves). But it's just one line; when other lines are built (and my understanding is that they're already under way), it will be a very valuable addition to Seattle's transit system.
But for now, the real movers and shakers of Seattle's transit system are its buses. Its insane number of buses – an incredibly complex network of routes that provide very thorough coverage of the city. And the buses are actually quite nice – fairly comfortable, pretty clean, with many running on electricity. But here's the thing I found difficult about Seattle's bus network – it's not very intuitive to people who don't know it. [Hello!] As I said, the network is very complex, and no route really stands above the others to tell you "Take this one!"
But here's the real question, Mr. Carfree in 'Burque: Which city in the PNW did you love best? No pressure, of course.


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Sen. Joe Lieberman Asks Google For A 'Report Blog As Terrorist' Button
from the clicking-our-way-to-a-safe-and-secure-nation deptSenator Joe Lieberman, taking a break from his usual schedule of trying to stamp out all things Wikileaks-related, returns to his old anti-terrorism stomping grounds, sending out a letter to Google CEO Larry Page, expressing his concern that not enough stuff is getting labeled "terrorism."
He bases his request on the old "because someone did something once" argument that has served the DHS and TSA so well. (See also: "See something. Say something." because that one time a guy reported a vehicle with a bomb. See also: please remove your shoes and step into the Pornoscan because one time that guy tried to light his shoes on fire and that other time a guy had bomb-laced underwear.) Recent "lone wolf" terrorism suspect Jose Pimentel was, like so many other people in the world, a blogger. Lieberman apparently believes that the prevention of future acts of terrorism should be turned over to the blogosphere in the form of an option to "flag" a blog as containing "terrorist" content.
Talking Points Memo has more info:
"Pimentel's Internet activity - both his spreading of bomb-making instructions links and his hate-filled writings - were hosted by Google," Lieberman wrote.Lieberman also points out that Youtube already has this option (thanks to Liberman's tireless complaining), so it would logically follow that Blogger enforce the same limitations. In fact, he pretty much states that the same people that can prevent forest fires can also prevent terrorism (i.e. "You," meaning "all of us"), only in this case it can be done with a simple click of the mouse.
"On his site www.trueislam1.com, Pimentel stated, 'People have to understand that America and its allies are legitimate targets in warfare. This includes facilities such as army bases, police stations, political facilities, embassies, CIA and FBI buildings, private and public airports, and all kinds of buildings where money is being made to help fund the war.' As demonstrated by this recent case, Google's webhosting site, Blogger is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content," Lieberman continued.
"The private sector plays an important role in protecting our homeland from the preeminent threat of violent Islamist extremism, and Google's inconsistent standards are adversely affecting our ability to counter Islamic extremism online."Oh, wait. We can't actually stop terrorism. We can only flag "Islamist extremism," which for some people could mean the site quotes the Koran. For others, all it might take is a few angry words delivered by certain foreign types. And for others, all they need is the urge to start pushing buttons.
This is another attempt by a politician to shove the culpability for terrorist acts onto the shoulders of hosting platforms. By all means, Google could add a "Report as TERROR" button to its blogging platform, but does anyone not named Lieberman actually believe that this will ever prevent a future act of terrorism? I'd rather potential terrorists bogged themselves down in the minutia of blogging (endlessly checking stats, rescuing legitimate comments from the spam container, arguing with pesky commenters, following incoming links back into malware deathtraps, gaming their Technorati rating, etc.) than actually, you know, doing terrorist stuff.
There's also the fact that "flagging something as something" has got to be the most ineffective deterrent ever devised, whether you're trying to stomp out spam or to do something more difficult, like save the world from "Islamist extremism." Not only will whoever's policing this new banhammer have to deal with a new set of false positives, this also puts Google in the awkward position of trying to decide if the blogs reported are actually harmful or just some random person spouting a bunch of untargeted nonsense.
And if Google does decide to start doing this, odds are that there will be a bunch of racially-motivated clicking going on, which will only add to the "noise" side of the signal-to-noise ratio. Once you start shutting down a particular religion based on clicks -- all because the federal government demanded it -- you're asking for all sorts of trouble in the First Amendment arena. Uglier than this is the fact that asking for a "Report" button is yet another punt by those in charge of keeping this country safe. The implicit statement seems to be "We can't figure out how to stop terrorists so we're leaving that to you," which would make this no different from every previous foiled terrorist attack. It's not the DHS, TSA or air marshals that stop terrorists. When they're not being foiled by their own incompetence, they're being taken down by fellow passengers. A plea for a "Report as Terrorism" button has all the hallmarks of another windmill tilt in the hopes of appearing to be doing "something."
Filed Under: blogs, joe lieberman, terrorism
Companies: google


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The special congressional election in New York on May 24 should have been a sleepy affair. The 26th District, in the western part of the state, is solidly Republican, and is likely to disappear anyway in the 2012 election due to redistricting.
But the Democrat, Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul, has the Republicans running scared, as she pounds Republican state Assemblywoman Jane Corwin over Washington Republicans' plan to fundamentally change Medicare. If Ms. Hochul pulls off an upset, watch the Democratic candidates duplicate her message across the country.
"Jane Corwin said she would vote for the 2012 Republican budget that would essentially end Medicare," a Hochul ad warns darkly.
The ad is referring to the plan put forth by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan that would end Medicare as a fee-for-service program and instead give seniors a fixed sum to purchase insurance on the private market. Democrats say that over time, the vouchers would not keep up with the rising cost of insurance. Republican members of Congress have faced angry constituents at town hall meetings over the plan.
Third candidate a big factor
But in fact, analysts say, the bigger factor in the NY-26 race threatening Assemblywoman Corwin is the presence of a third-party candidate, businessman Jack Davis, who got himself listed on the ballot as a "Tea Party" candidate. Mr. Davis has run for the seat three previous times as a Democrat, and he has little organized tea party support. But polls show he is siphoning more support away from Corwin than from Hochul.
The recent Siena Research Institute poll puts Corwin at 36 percent, Hochul at 31 percent, and Davis at 23 percent.
"Davis is kind of anti-Washington, anti-major parties, so that does resonate with a lot of tea party people," says James Campbell, political science chair at the University at Buffalo. "If Jack Davis were out of the race, I don't think the Medicare issue would be making this close."
Davis's populist message – he opposes free trade – and regular-guy demeanor, despite his wealth, contrasts with his well-groomed and highly managed opponents, says Mr. Campbell.
As the competitiveness of the race has become clear, both national parties have jumped in with money and support. This week the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee committed $250,000 worth of TV ads in the race. The National Republican Congressional Committee and other groups pledged $900,000 for TV ads for Corwin. On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner appeared in the district on Corwin's behalf.
Stakes are high for GOP
The stakes are high for the GOP. A Corwin loss would be portrayed as a slam against the party's proposals for dramatic deficit reduction, and could slow Republican momentum following the party's big victory last November in congressional, state, and local races. True, NY-26 is just one congressional district, and the result will inevitably be over-interpreted. But the Republican Party has had a bad stretch with special House elections, losing six out of the last seven since 2008, and it wants to turn that trend around.
The NY-26 seat – once held by the late Jack Kemp – opened up following the resignation of Rep. Chris Lee (R), who quit after sending a shirtless picture of himself to a woman on Craigslist.
At first glance, the race may seem to be a repeat of the NY-23 special election of 2009, in which a Democrat won a Republican-held seat with the inadvertent help of a tea party candidate. But this race is different, notes David Wasserman, House-watcher for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
"Corwin is a much stronger candidate [than the Republican in the NY-23 race] and her vast personal fortune ... [is] helping her self-finance the race," Mr. Wasserman writes. "She is also much more of a down-the-line conservative."
In NY-23, Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava was a moderate, opening herself up to a challenge from the right. The tea party-backed Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, siphoned away support, leading Scozzafava to quit the race and making Mr. Hoffman the effective GOP candidate. Democrat Bill Owens won the election, and he was reelected last November.


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Great ideas compromised by bad picture quality
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Helping Christian parents raise wholehearted children.
Since 1994, our mission has been "to encourage, equip, and enable Christian parents to raise wholehearted children for Christ." That original mission continues to be our daily motivation and our ongoing vision for the future of Whole Heart Ministries as we "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." We are committed to "keeping faith in the family."


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Latest News
Lennar: Buyers will find value at our new Homestead communities
The secret is out about The Isles at Oasis and The Vineyards' lifestyle and the value of Lennar's new communities in Homestead, a company spokesperson says.
The neighboring master-planned communities offer the type of luxurious living home buyers dream of, at a fraction of the cost, says the spokesperson.
As Homestead's premier builder, Lennar wants to give buyers a chance to be a part of the growing excitement, says the spokesperson. The two master-planned communities offer unbelievable homes with large square footage, beautifully designed elevations, and the value and quality they can only find in a Lennar home, says the spokesperson.
For a limited time, new home buyers can receive $10,000 towards closing costs, options and/or upgrades, adds the spokesperson.
At the Isles at Oasis, residents can enjoy a resort-style clubhouse amongst meandering sidewalks that grace the tropical, lush, landscaped grounds.
Clubhouse features include a large fitness center, a private party room with prep kitchen ideal for hosting family parties. Outside, the community offers a grand pool with expansive sun deck, covered barbeque area, separate kids pool and tot lot.
Elegant new townhomes await buyers at Martinique, Lennar's newest community inside of The Isles at Oasis. Martinique offers three floor plans that boast up to 1,440 square feet of air-conditioned living area. Prices start in the mid $100,000s With a number of waterfront home sites available, the two- and three-bedroom townhomes feature a warm façade of stone, decorative exterior shutters, and Spanish-style roofs with interior features such as convenient breakfast bar kitchens, his-and-her master closets, separate family room from formal areas or secondary bedroom with private bath, depending upon the floor plan.
Sonoma, Lennar's newest single-family home community at The Vineyards, is currently celebrating its grand opening. Beautiful stone elevations and warm tones will immediately make your family feel at home in the intimate neighborhood of only 108 single-family homes. Buyers can choose from four floor plan designs of three- to five-bedroom homes with up to nearly 2,500 square feet of air-conditioned living area.
Starting in the upper $100,000s, homes in the private community feature one- or two-story home designs with two-car garages, master bedrooms with coffered ceilings, and bathrooms with his-and-her sinks. Other design features may include vaulted ceilings, cabana bath, or split bedroom designs, as well as brick-paved driveways or covered rear terraces. Homes overlooking the lake are also available.
Brand-new charter schools, top golf courses, modern movie theaters and great shopping are all right at your doorstep at Sonoma and Martinique.
The communities also offer easy access to Florida's Turnpike and U.S. 1 for easy commuting or leave it all behind by also being in close proximity to an island getaway to the Florida Keys.
As with all of Lennar's premium homes, designs at Sonoma and Martinique come with Lennar's "Everything's Included" package, that includes thousands of dollars in interior features plus a builder's warranty, all included at no additional cost, says the spokesperson.
Lennar homes feature 18-inch ceramic tile floors; General Electric appliance packages, including washers and dryers, and Nexia remote access home automation systems.
To learn more about the two communities, visit Lennar's Welcome Home Center at 128 SE 28th Ter., on SW 320th Street and SW152nd Avenue. The Welcome Home Center is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For more information, call 866-201-5560 or visit www.lennar.com/floridadeals. Realtors are welcome.


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JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- FIS™ (NYSE: FIS) the world's largest provider of banking and payments technology, will announce third quarter financial results after market close on Monday, November 5, 2012.
The company will also sponsor a live webcast of its quarterly earnings conference call with the investment community beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET on the same day. To access the webcast, go to the Investor Relations section of FIS' Web site, www.fisglobal.com. A replay will be available after the conclusion of the live webcast.
FIS (NYSE: FIS) is the world's largest global provider dedicated to banking and payments technologies. With a long history deeply rooted in the financial services sector, FIS serves more than 14,000 institutions in over 100 countries. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., FIS employs more than 32,000 people worldwide and holds leadership positions in payment processing and banking solutions, providing software, services and outsourcing of the technology that drives financial institutions. First in financial technology, FIS tops the annual FinTech 100 list, is 425 on the Fortune 500 and is a member of Standard & Poor's 500® Index. For more information about FIS, visit www.fisglobal.com.
Kim Snider, 904.438.6278
Vice President
FIS Global Marketing and Corporate Communications
Mary Waggoner, 904.438.6282
Senior Vice President
FIS Investor Relations
Source: Fidelity National Information Services


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United States State
|U.S. states
Also known as:
Commonwealth (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia)
|Federated state
|United States
|563,626 ‒ 37,253,956[1]
|1,214 square miles (3,140 km2) ‒ 663,268 square miles (1,717,860 km2)[2]
|State government
|County (or equivalent)
Template:Administrative divisions of the United States
A state of the United States of America is one of the 50 constituent political entities that shares its sovereignty with the United States federal government. Because of the shared sovereignty between each U.S. state and the U.S. federal government, an American is a citizen of both the federal republic and of his or her state of domicile.[3] State citizenship and residency are flexible and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders (e.g., paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who are sharing custody).
States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local governmental authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia use the official title of Commonwealth rather than State.
State governments are allocated power by the people (of each respective state) through their individual constitutions. By ratifying the United States Constitution, the states transferred certain limited sovereign powers to the federal government. Historically, the tasks of law enforcement, public education, public health, transportation, and infrastructure have generally been considered primarily state responsibilities, although all of these now have significant federal funding and regulation as well.
Over time, the U.S. Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the federal government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a continuing debate over states' rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states' powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government as well as the rights of individual persons. Debates over states' rights were a contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War.
The United States Congress may admit new states on an equal footing with existing ones; this last happened in 1959 with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii. The U.S. Constitution is silent on the question of whether states have the power to leave, or secede from, the Union, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled[4][5] unilateral secession to be unconstitutional, a position driven in part by the outcome of the American Civil War.
- 1 Map
- 2 List of states
- 3 Federal power
- 4 Governments
- 5 Relationships
- 6 Admission into the union
- 7 Secession
- 8 Commonwealths
- 9 Origin of states' names
- 10 Geography
- 11 See also
- 12 References
- 13 Further reading
- 14 External links
List of states
Federal power
Since the early 20th century, the
For example, Congress can regulate railway traffic across state lines, but it may also regulate rail traffic solely within a state, based on the theory that wholly intrastate traffic can still have an impact on interstate commerce. In recent years, the Court has tried to place limits on the Commerce Clause in such cases as United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison.
Another source of congressional power is its spending power—the ability of Congress to impose taxes and distribute the resulting revenue back to the states (subject to conditions set by Congress). A classic example of this is the system of federal-aid highways, which includes the 203 (1987).
States are free to organize their individual governments any way they like, so long as they conform to the sole requirement of the U.S. Constitution that they have "a Republican Form of Government," that is, each state government must be a republic.
In practice, each state has adopted a three-branch system of government (with legislative, executive, and judiciary branches) generally along the same lines as that of the federal government — though this is not a requirement.
In all of the U.S. states, the chief executive is called the Governor. The governor may approve or veto bills passed by the state legislature. In 43 states, governors have line item veto power.[8]
Most states have a "plural executive" in which two or more members of the executive branch are elected directly by the people. Such additional elected officials serve as members of the executive branch, but are not beholden to the governor and the governor cannot dismiss them. For example, the attorney general is elected, rather than appointed, in 43 of the 50 U.S. states.
The legislatures of 49 of the 50 states are made up of two chambers: a lower house (termed the House of Representatives, State Assembly or House of Delegates) and a smaller upper house, always termed the Senate. The exception is the unicameral Nebraska Legislature, which is composed of only a single chamber.
Most states have part-time legislatures, while six of the most populated states have full-time legislatures. However, several states with high population have short legislative sessions, including Texas and Florida.[9]
In Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court held that all states are required to elect their legislatures in such a way as to afford each citizen the same degree of representation (the one person, one vote standard). In practice, most states choose to elect legislators from single-member districts, each of which has approximately the same population. Some states, such as Maryland and Vermont, divide the state into single- and multi-member districts, in which case multi-member districts must have proportionately larger populations, e.g., a district electing two representatives must have approximately twice the population of a district electing just one.
If the governor vetoes legislation, all legislatures may override it, usually, but not always, requiring a two-thirds majority.
In 2013, there were a total of 7,383 legislators in the 50 state legislative bodies. They earned from $0 annually (New Mexico) to $90,526 (California). There were various per diem and mileage compensation.[10]
States can also organize their judicial systems differently from the federal judiciary, as long as they protect the federal constitutional right of their citizens to procedural due process. Most have a trial level court, generally called a District Court or Superior Court, a first-level appellate court, generally called a Court of Appeal (or Appeals), and a Supreme Court. However, Oklahoma and Texas have separate highest courts for criminal appeals. New York state has its own terminology, in that the trial court is called the Supreme Court. Appeals are then taken to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, and from there to the Court of Appeals.
Most states base their legal system on English common law (with substantial indigenous changes and incorporation of certain civil law innovations), with the notable exception of Louisiana, a former French colony, which draws large parts of its legal system from French civil law.
Only a few states choose to have the judges on the state's courts serve for life terms. In most of the states the judges, including the justices of the highest court in the state, are either elected or appointed for terms of a limited number of years, such as five years, eligible for re-election or reappointment if their performance is judged to be satisfactory.
Among states
Under Article Four of the United States Constitution, which outlines the relationship between the states, the United States Congress has the power to admit new states to the Union. The states are required to give full faith and credit to the acts of each other's legislatures and courts, which is generally held to include the recognition of legal contracts and criminal judgments, and before 1865, slavery status. Regardless of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, some legal arrangements, such as professional licensure and marriages (e.g. same-sex marriages), may be state-specific, and states have not been found by the courts to be required to honor such arrangements from other states.[11]
Such legal acts are nevertheless often recognized state-to-state according to the common practice of comity. States are prohibited from discriminating against citizens of other states with respect to their basic rights, under the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Under the Extradition Clause, a state must extradite people located there who have fled charges of "treason, felony, or other crimes" in another state if the other state so demands. The principle of hot pursuit of a presumed felon and arrest by the law officers of one state in another state are often permitted by a state.[12]
With the consent of Congress, states may enter into interstate compacts, agreements between two or more states. Compacts are frequently used to manage a shared resource, such as transportation infrastructure or water rights.[13]
With the federal government
The states are guaranteed military and civil defense by the federal government, which is also required to ensure that the government of each state remains a republic.
Four states use the official name of Commonwealth, rather than State.[14] However, this is merely a paper distinction, and the U.S. Constitution uniformly refers to all of these subnational jurisdictions as "States" (Article One, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution, concerning the U.S. House of Representatives, in which Representatives are to be elected by the people of the "States"; Article One, Section 3, Clause 1, concerning the U.S. Senate, allocates to each "State" two Senators). For all of these purposes, each of the four above-mentioned "Commonwealths" counts as a State.
Admission into the union
Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50. The U.S. Constitution is rather laconic on the process by which new states could be added, noting only that "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union" and forbidding a new state to be created out of the territory of an existing state, or the merging of two or more states into one, without the consent of both Congress and all the state legislatures involved.
In practice, most of the states admitted to the union after the original 13 have been formed from Territories of the United States (that is, land under the sovereignty of the federal government but not part of any state) that were organized (given a measure of self-rule by the Congress subject to the Congress' plenary powers under the territorial clause of Article IV, sec. 3, of the U.S. Constitution).[15]
Generally speaking, the organized government of a territory made known the sentiment of its population in favor of statehood, usually by referendums. Congress then directed that government to organize a constitutional convention to write a state constitution. Upon acceptance of that Constitution, Congress has always admitted that territory as a state. The broad outlines in this process were established by the Northwest Ordinance (1787), which predated the ratification of the Constitution.
However, Congress has ultimate authority over the admission of new states, and is not bound to follow this procedure. A few U.S. states (outside of the original 13) that were never organized territories of the federal government have been admitted:
- Vermont, an unrecognized but de facto independent republic until its admission in 1791[16]
- Kentucky, a part of Virginia until its admission in 1792[16]
- Maine, a part of Massachusetts until its admission in 1820[16] following the Missouri Compromise
- Texas, a recognized independent republic until its admission in 1845[16]
- California, created as a state (as part of the Compromise of 1850) out of the unorganized territory of the Mexican Cession in 1850 without ever having been a separate organized territory itself[16]
- West Virginia: During the Civil War Virginia had two state governments, a Unionist one and a Confederate one, both claiming to be the legitimate state government of Virgina. West Virginia was created in 1863 by the Unionist state government from areas of western Virginia, after the Confederate state government's 1861 secession of Virginia to the Confederate States of America.
Congress is also under no obligation to admit states even in those areas whose population expresses a desire for statehood. For instance, the Republic of Texas requested annexation to the United States in 1837, but fears about potential conflict with Mexico delayed the admission of Texas for nine years.[17]
Once established, most state borders have been generally stable, with exceptions including the formation of the Northwest Territory in 1787 and the Southwest Territory in 1790 from various portions of the original states, the cession by Maryland and Virginia of land to create the District of Columbia in 1791 (Virginia's portion was returned in 1847), and the creation of states from other states, including the creation of Kentucky and West Virginia from Virginia, and Maine from Massachusetts. However, there have been numerous minor adjustments to state boundaries over the years due to improved surveys, resolution of ambiguous or disputed boundary definitions, or minor mutually agreed boundary adjustments for administrative convenience or other purposes.[16] One notable example is the case New Jersey v. New York, in which New Jersey won roughly 90% of Ellis Island from New York in 1998.[18]
Possible new states
There are several U.S. territories that might become new states.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico referred to itself as the "Commonwealth of Puerto Rico" in the English version of its constitution, and as "Estado Libre Asociado" (literally, Associated Free State) in the Spanish version.
As with any non-state territory of the United States, its residents do not have voting representation in the federal government. Puerto Rico has limited representation in the U.S. Congress in the form of a Resident Commissioner, a delegate with limited voting rights in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, and no voting rights otherwise.[19]
A non-binding referendum on statehood, independence, or a new option for an associated territory (different from the current status) was held on November 6, 2012. Sixty one percent of voters chose the statehood option, while one third of the ballots were submitted blank.[20][21]
On December 11, 2012, the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico has enacted a concurrent resolution to request the President and the Congress of the United States to respond diligently and effectively, and to act on the demand of the people of Puerto Rico, as freely and democratically expressed in the plebiscite held on November 6, 2012, to end, once and for all, its current form of territorial status and to begin the process to admit Puerto Rico to the Union as a State.[22]
On May 15, 2013, non-voting Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi introduced H.R. 2000, the Puerto Rico Status Resolution Act, asking Congress to admit Puerto Rico as the 51st state.[23]
Washington, D.C.
The intention of the Founding Fathers was that the United States capital should be at a neutral site, not giving favor to any existing state; as a result, the District of Columbia was created in 1800 to serve as the seat of government. The inhabitants of the District do not have full representation in Congress or a sovereign elected government (they were allotted presidential electors by the 23rd amendment, and have a non-voting delegate in Congress).
Some residents of the District support statehood of some form for that jurisdiction—either statehood for the whole district or for the inhabited part, with the remainder remaining under federal jurisdiction. While statehood is always a live political question in the District, the prospects for any movement in that direction in the immediate future seem dim.
Unrecognized entities
- See also: Historical regions of the United States
- The State of Franklin existed for four years not long after the end of the American Revolution, but was never recognized by the union, which ultimately recognized North Carolina's claim of sovereignty over the area. A majority of the states were willing to recognize Franklin, but the number of states in favor fell short of the two-thirds majority required to admit a territory to statehood under the Articles of Confederation. The territory comprising Franklin later became part of the state of Tennessee.
- The State of Superior was a proposed state formed out of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Several prominent legislators including local politician Dominic Jacobetti formally attempted this legislation in the 1970s, with no success. As a state, it would have had, by far, the smallest population, and remaining so through the present day. Its 320,000 residents would equal only 60% of Wyoming's population, and less than 50% of Alaska's population.
- The State of Deseret was a provisional state of the United States, proposed in 1849 by the Mormon settlers in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for slightly over two years and was never accepted by the United States Congress. Its name was derived from the word for "honeybee" in the Book of Mormon. Its territory included most of what is now Utah and Nevada.
- The State of Sequoyah began in the early 1900s during a meeting of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole Native American nations. At the time, the eastern part of what would later become Oklahoma encompassed the Indian Territory. The proposed constitution ultimately failed in the U.S. Congress, which balked at adding two new western states. Instead, the Indian Territory was incorporated into the new state of Oklahoma in 1907, yet many of Sequoyah's principles lived on.
- The State of Absaroka, aka "state that never was," grew out of the political discontent of the Great Depression. Frustrated with the U.S. government a group of politicians and businessmen led by a former baseball player named A.R. Swickard hatched a plan to create a new state they called Absaroka. The statehood movement first began in 1939. The would-be state included large swaths of Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota, and encompassed famous landmarks such as the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. Despite its initial popularity, the statehood movement's novelty quickly wore off, and an official proposal for secession was never drafted. The story survives today largely thanks to the Federal Writers' Project.
- The States of Jefferson
- On July 24, 1859, voters defeated the formation of the proposed State of Jefferson in the Southern Rocky Mountains. On October 24, 1859, voters instead approved the formation of the Jefferson Territory, which was superseded by the Territory of Colorado on February 28, 1861.
- In 1915, a second State of Jefferson was proposed for the northern third of Texas but failed to obtain majority approval by the Texas Senate.
- In 1941, a third State of Jefferson was proposed in the mostly rural area of southern Oregon and northern California, but was cancelled as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This proposal has been raised several times since.
- The States of Lincoln
- Lincoln is another state that has been proposed multiple times. It generally consists of the eastern portion of Washington state and the panhandle or northern portion of Idaho. It was originally proposed by Idaho in 1864 to include just the panhandle of Idaho, and again in 1901 to include eastern Washington. Proposals have come up in 1996, 1999, and 2005.
- Lincoln is also the name of a failed state proposal after the U.S. Civil War in 1869. It consisted of the area south and west of Texas' Colorado River.
The Constitution is silent on the issue of the secession of a state from the union. However, its predecessor document, the Articles of Confederation, stated that the United States of America "shall be perpetual." The question of whether or not individual states held the right to unilateral secession remained a difficult and divisive one until the American Civil War. In 1860 and 1861, eleven southern states seceded, but following their defeat in the American Civil War were brought back into the Union during the Reconstruction Era. The federal government never recognized the secession of any of the rebellious states.[4][5]
Following the Civil War, the United States Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, held that states did not have the right to secede and that any act of secession was legally void. Drawing on the Preamble to the Constitution, which states that the Constitution was intended to "form a more perfect union" and speaks of the people of the United States of America in effect as a single body politic, as well as the language of the Articles of Confederation, the Supreme Court maintained that states did not have a right to secede. However, the court's reference in the same decision to the possibility of such changes occurring "through revolution, or through consent of the States," essentially means that this decision holds that no state has a right to unilaterally decide to leave the Union.[4][5]
Four of the states bear the formal title of commonwealth: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. This is merely a legacy of all four states' history, and their formal name has no effect on their legal status as states.
Somewhat confusingly, the U.S. territories of the Northern Marianas and Puerto Rico are also referred to as commonwealths, and that designation does have a legal status different from that of the 50 states. Both of these commonwealths are unincorporated territories of the United States.
Origin of states' names
Twenty-four of the states' names originate from Native American languages. Of these, eight are from Algonquian languages, seven are from Siouan languages, one is from Uto-Aztecan languages and five others are from other indigenous languages. Hawaii's name is derived from the Polynesian Hawaiian language.
Of the remaining names, 22 are from European languages: Seven from Latin (mainly Latinized forms of English names), the rest are from English, Spanish and French. Eleven states are named after people, including seven named for royalty and one named after an American president. The origins of six state names are unknown or disputed.
Regional grouping
States may be grouped in regions; there are endless variations and possible groupings, as most states are not defined by obvious geographic or cultural borders. For further discussion of regions of the U.S., see the list of regions of the United States.
The northern and southern borders of the Thirteen Colonies on the East Coast were largely determined by colonial charters and anchoring coastal settlements. The western boundaries were determined by the limits of transportation, the infeasibility of settling areas dominated by Native Americans and foreign powers, and the decision to create new states out of western territories.
River borders between states are common. At various times, national borders with territories formerly controlled by other countries (namely the British colonies of Canada, New France, New Spain including Spanish Florida, and Russian America) became institutionalized as the borders of U.S. states. Alaska was formerly the colony of Russian America.
Most borders beyond the Thirteen Colonies were created by Congress as it created territories, divided them, and turned them into states as they became more populated. Territorial and new state lines followed various geographic features, economic units, and the pattern of settlement. In the West, relatively arbitrary straight lines following latitude and longitude often prevail, due to the sparseness of settlement west of the Mississippi River.
Faster transportation also meant that larger states were more feasible to govern from a single capital. Vermont, California, and Texas were each briefly independent nations, as was Hawaii for a more extensive period of time. Some states were previously part of other states, including Maine, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Occasionally the United States Congress or the United States Supreme Court have settled state border disputes.
Statistical areas
- Statistical area
- List of Primary Statistical Areas
- List of Combined Statistical Areas
- List of Core Based Statistical Areas
See also
- List of U.S. states
- List of U.S. state lists
- Comparison of U.S. state governments
- List of regions of the United States
- Organized incorporated territories of the United States
- Political divisions of the United States
- States' rights
- United States territorial acquisitions
- Territorial evolution of the United States
- Territories of the United States
- United States territory
Further reading
- Stein, Mark, How the States Got Their Shapes, New York : Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-143138-8
External links
- Information about All States from UCB Libraries GovPubs
- State Resource Guides, from the Library of Congress
- Tables with areas, populations, densities and more (in order of population)
- Tables with areas, populations, densities and more (alphabetical)
- State and Territorial Governments on USA.gov
- StateMaster – statistical database for US States.
- U.S. States: Comparisons, rankings, demographics
Template:USCensus Geography