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   5 Stars RMS Titanic set sail on April 12, 1912.  She is the largest ocean liner to date and considered the most luxurious and the safest.  Unsinkable is what the Titanic was considered.  There were watertight compartments that were to keep the ship afloat, even if one or two filled up with water.  The [...]

If you’ve been reading the headlines on just one news service in the past few days, you’ve probably come away shaking your head and wondering what the future holds for you and yours.

Here are some examples of things in the news.

• A legislator in California has proposed that the 13 counties south of Los Angeles be separated from the main body of the state and granted statehood, to become the country’s 51^st. The apparent reason behind the proposal was that the state is simply too big to govern efficiently and needed to be pruned, so to speak. The proposed new state would be called “South California.”
• The huge iceberg that calved from a Greenland ice shelf last August is now in Canadian waters—Labrador, to be exact. Curious how it went west rather than east as common thought would expect, isn’t it? It’s being monitored by satellite from a beacon planted on its surface. Its original size was one-quarter of its parent ice shelf. That’s many billions of gallons of fresh water floating around desalinating the North Atlantic as the berg melts.
• All of those extended unemployment benefits and past government tax cuts will expire in January, leaving millions without any available income.
• Immediate results of Minnesota’s government shutdown due to lack of finances are beginning to come to the front. The Minnesota Zoo will suffer greatly if not funded soon, for instance. 

These are just a few of the headlines from yesterday and today. Granted, the Minnesota Zoo’s problems don’t seriously affect any of those living outside that state. Its fate does point to those smaller and less visible victims of gross financial distress plaguing each of the states this year.

 Costs of everything have risen, populations have increased and revenues have fallen due to the housing crunch and employment downturns.

 With unemployment benefits being suspended in January, Minnesota may not be the only state taking a leave of absence in the coming months. Those states hardest hit may follow suite in alarming numbers. And your state may just be one in the flock.

Canada is the one having to deal with the iceberg and its potential for danger—for now, at least. As the berg dissipates in the Atlantic’s northern waters the cumulative effect of all that fresh water in the Northern Atlantic will affect everyone. It’s become a favored climatological theory that desalinization of those waters helps bring about the slowing of the oceanic conveyor belt and hastens the cooling of the Earth to the point of a little ICE AGE.

And the one headline that really should clue the populace as to how shaky things are, both socially and economically, centers on the California issue. For a state—any state—to propose a split of both territory and legislation to the point of putting the motion before the state government is a rare event. It puts the spotlight even more brightly on the condition of some states to conduct business and remain solvent.

For any state to suggest such a territorial split encourages others to consider their own situations and conditions. The social ramifications are staggering for the coming year. At the moment it’s not important if the motion passes. The idea has already fallen ou