Go north young man.

I may be the last person in the blogosphere to write something about the outcome of the election, but frankly it's been too depressing until now to sit down and think about it. That and I've been focusing my energies on the keg left over from our post election party. No one seemed to be in the mood for a party after it became painfully clear that, in the words of Jon Stewart, John Kerry had suffered a public de-pantsing.

I'll spare you the reasons why it depresses me. (Except one: I discovered today that we elected a man who sees fit to give his dog Barney its own Web site at our expense). You know them already and I went through that at about 3:30 the morning after the election with the editor of my paper. The same guy who endorsed Bush. The same guy who forced me to admit I'd pulled the "D" lever when, in my Yuengling addled state, I couldn't remember who I'd voted for in the House race.

What I've been thinking about these last few days is how to negate W's mandate. The "A" word is right out. Carnivore would pick up this blog in second and I'd be off on an extended camping trip in sunny Cuba. In fact, a van marked "Flowers By Irene" just pulled up outside.

Other ideas I've seen have been civil war, a boycott of the red states and simply packing up and moving to Canada. But adapting to the Canadian way of life would be a lot of work.

There's a better idea out there:



Now let me make it clear, I'm not claiming this idea as my own. Someone saved me a lot of time making this map. The editors of the Toronto Sun even like the idea. I discovered they're thinking along the same lines as me as I was writing this.

Let's take a look at the numbers, shall we?

The 20 blue states have a combined population of about 137.4 million. They have a land area of 2.2 million square kilometers. Add them to Canada and suddenly it becomes the largest nation in the world, area wise. Population wise, at a little less than 169.6 million, we'd fall between Brazil and Pakistan, but would be larger than than the flat, dusty region that picked Bush.

From political and cultural standpoints, the benefits are clear. We get to keep all of the good parts of the United States. Canada would take possession of the financial and media capitals of the world and a nice place to vacation. We'd get a moderate government with a progressive social agenda and a smart attitude toward the environment, national health insurance and we'd kick ass at hockey.

Let the NASCAR watchers and Wal-Mart shoppers of middle America carry on with their fundamentalist dogma, war, squander and arrogance until Omaha, Houston and Memphis look like something out of Mad Max.

I'm serious about this. As a heart attack.