Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Government

  • Bad Signs

    I spent most of the day preparing my Federal income taxes so I’m not in much of a mood to think of anything profound. I swear the tax code gets more complicated every year. My brain has nothing left to give. Come back in a couple of days and I promise I’ll have a topic…

  • Nasty Commutes

    The Washington Post published a recent article on bad commutes, “A Dubious Distinction: The Longest Ride in U.S.” This was considered so significantly newsworthy that it appeared on the front page of their print edition on February 3, 2009. They determined that the sufferers of the worst average commute in the United States live in…

  • State of Franklin

    The State of Franklin never existed, at least not officially, but it came amazingly close. Its territory extended across a swath of northeastern Tennessee and its borderlands along western North Carolina. The United States got off to a rocky start with burdensome debts remaining from the Revolutionary War and a weak central government formed under…

  • Mysterious Plum Island

    Plum Island sits off the northeast coast of Long Island, New York. Throughout the last two centuries it has vacillated between civilian and government use. Colonists began settling here in the late seventeenth and into the eighteenth centuries, and named it for the abundant native plum trees. British raiders bedeviled the island during the Revolutionary…

  • Bolivia’s Landlocked Navy

    Bolivia meets the definition of landlocked. Its South American neighbors, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, completely surround it. There is no way for Bolivia to reach the sea without crossing through the territory of one of its neighbors. Yet, somewhat inexplicably, Bolivia has a robust Navy with upwards of 5,000 sailors. It’s not all…

  • (West) Wendover: What Time? What State?

    It’s my lucky day. I found both a time zone anomaly and a (potential) border anomaly all wrapped up into one neat little package. Even more exciting, if the border does change then the two anomalies will occur in opposite directions! Those of you who have spent any time on the Twelve Mile Circle realize…

  • Lockdown

    Twelve Mile Circle is getting ready for Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009. Everyone is excited. Even one of the local brewpubs is getting in on the action. The Looming Traffic Nightmare I’ve watched in amazement as officials have leveraged the local geography to establish a security perimeter. From Virginia it’s a simple a matter of…

  • USA Time Zone Anomalies, Part II

    I outlined a couple of odd time zone anomalies within the United States in Part I. So here I continue the effort with several more examples. While none of these are quite as extreme as the Idaho instance discussed in the last installment — although one comes pretty close — they all represent places where…

  • What Happened to the Handle?

    I spend a lot of my free-time reading, researching and writing online. Nonetheless, I freely admit to one guilty pleasure: I enjoy curling up with a daily newspaper at the end of each day. There’s something about the feel of paper, the ease of use, and the depth of coverage that makes me happy. The…

  • Bibb-Monroe Border War in Georgia

    I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of the citizenry of the State of Georgia. They just don’t seem comfortable within their borders lately. They’ve been tugging, pulling, cinching and stretching their ill-fitting suit, maybe hoping to address some ancient wrongs or remove old annoyances. Certainly, plenty of opportunities exist. They’ve had the…