People in the South don't have winter, so less heart attacks.

@1 They eat more, so more heart attacks.

States don't have sovereignty, unless Texas seceded recently that we haven't heard about.

I think if the south tried to succeed at this point, the rest of the country would say good riddance.

Oops, secede.

@4,5 it would also be good if they tried to succeed.

@MR M -- You actually had it right the first time!

@1:

Bailo, you really don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Take a look at this map from the CDC. See that great big dark splotch? The one centered on the lower Mississippi Valley and reaching west to Oklahoma, east into Alabama and Georgia, and north to Kentucky and the Ozarks? That's the region of the highest heart disease death rates. In other words, the South.

But hey, you don't need facts (with their well-known liberal bias) to spout your inanities, do you?

Rick Perry is a maggot. Never fear about any looming civil war, though; he's very brave and determined when it comes to turning down money that might help the state's many, many poor, but he's spineless as a worm about anything that might actually have any consequences.

He's all bark, no bite (At least when it comes to anyone or anything that might even conceivably be able to fight back. He's been more than happy to fuck over kids, undocumented families, and virtually all types of minority, racial, sexual, or whatever.) He just happens to be barking to the tune of all the ignorant, prideful, lower-middle-class conservatives that populate most of Texas and have been told since birth that they're a superior race by simple virtue of geography.

Ugh. Ugh. I just can't think about this. It makes me too angry. How did my home get so completely politically fucked up in the span of my lifetime?

Paul, the point would be a lot more effective if you had any skill at rendering dialect in print. It undermines your very good point about Rick Perry being a jackass of the first order -- a trait which is not solely determined by the region the jackass comes from.

I say set the south free. I just saw the movie Doomsday and they split Scotland off from England by erecting a giant steel wall with automated gun turrets. I'm sure something like that would work. Give the rest of conservative America a couple of months to move to the new independent states and then just shut the door.

@4 for the South Shall Secede Again win. Of course, that means I would need 3 passports ...

Great idea, @11. (Um, you do realize that most of the country would be OK with doing that to the Left Coast too, right?)

@13: The difference is that if the west coast were no longer part of the country, it would have major effects on GDP, culture, brain-power, international prestige, etc. The south... not so much.

@11, just go ahead and google "urban archipelago" for me, will you?

They voted for this sack of shit.

@13 & @15 - I honestly can't tell if you took me seriously or are being snarky. If people will readily believe that extreme progressives such as I plan to build a giant steel wall with gun turrets in an effort to isolate a portion of America, I am OK with that.

@Balderdash (15) That feature deserved a Pulitzer. Wotta epic piece of work.Best alt-weekly cover evar, too.

#8

Very bizarre data. The state disease of Mississippi seems to be cardiac arrest.

But then all of Long Island shares the same high rate (not Manhattan which is a notch lower).

However Texas and Florida seem better off than California and Michigan.

#8

Heart attacks more common in winter; tips to lower your risk

You probably know from experience that winter brings a surge in colds and flu. But did you know winter is also the season for heart attacks?

Frigid air causes blood vessels to constrict as the body tries to prevent heat loss, said Dr. Holly Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010…