Why state secession is a bad idea

Several petitions are under way for various states to secede from the Union.

Be careful what you ask for.

What the proponents of secession ignore is that the United States is and has always been a country with a mobile population.  Not only was the United States started by people who moved from other countries or their descendants, but these people kept moving west, often overrunning people already there.  In the Twentieth Century people moved in almost every direction.  Small town people went to the big city.  People moved from one city to another to seek different opportunities.  Corporations moved people from state to state for many reasons.  I myself have lived in three states and my wife in six.

If a state were to secede, what would they do about "immigration"?  Would business people from other states need a passport to do business in the independent state?  Would tourists need a passport?  If no passport were required, what would the independent state do about "illegal immigration".

What about people in the seceded state?  Would they need passports to work or vacation in other states?

What about all the wars that the United States has been involved in?  Would seceded states continue these wars?  Often the states with secessionist movements have a significant portion of their populations who are bellicose.  If the seceded states were involved in their own foreign wars, would they drag the United States into their wars?

Speaking of war, wasn't it a Republican who led a war against states seceding from the union?  Isn't it ironic that some of the major proponents of secession call themselves Republicans?  Did Lincoln "die in vain"?

I did half of a New York Times crossword in less than a minute

Today I bought my wife a new iMac and proceeded to transfer her files from her laptop to the iMac.  The process itself is worth a blog I may never write.

After finding all the needed cables, the "migration" supposedly took less than two hours.  I'm not sure, it started with "1 hour 59 minutes remaining", dropped to under one hour, bounced up to over one hour, and so on.

Sometimes around "20 minutes remaining" I did the SuDoKu puzzle and the New York Times crossword puzzle in the Monday's Star Tribune.

When I was about half-way through the crossword puzzle, there was "less than a minute remaining" for the migration.  Every couple of clues, I'd look up and see "less than a minute remaining".  When I finished the puzzle, there was still "less than a minute remaining".

So, I must have done half New York Times crossword is less than a minute.