January 29 – Kansas Celebrates the Anniversary of its Statehood

nPostednon January 29, 2016

nBynthe numbers, out of the 50 states Kansas is:

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nthen 34^th state in the U.S.

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nthen 34^th largest state, by population

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nthen 15^th largest state, by area

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nthen 43^rd best economy

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nthen 35^th best quality of life (according to CNBC)

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nthen 1^st in average number of F3 to F5 tornadoes!

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nNamednfor the Kansa Native American tribe, Kansas was home of a lot ofndifferent Native American groups. It was such a battleground betweennslaveholders and abolitionists, it was called Bleeding Kansas duringnthe Civil War.

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Kansasnis known for agriculture, The Wizard of Oz, Brown v. Board ofnEducation, evolution hearings, the birth of Pastafarianism (aka thenChurch of the Flying Spaghetti Monster), cowboys, and of coursentornadoes.

nAlso,nKansas is known for being flat. Supposedly, scientists determinednthat Kansas is flatter than an IHOP pancake.

Luckily, flat can benbeautiful:

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nNow,nabout that science-saying-Kansas-is-flatter-than-a-pancake thing.nApparently, the “study” done by three scientists showed that thenpancake was 130 millimeters wide, and the relief (the differencenbetween the highest and lowest places on the pancake) was 2nmillimeters. Now we have to compare the 130-to-2 ratio to Kansas: thenstate is 644 kilometers wide, and so it would need to have a mountainnthat is at least 9,908 meters tall in order to NOT be flatter than anpancake. But the very highest mountain in the entire world, MountnEverest, is only 8,848 meters tall. So – given the way thenscientists did the study – everywhere on Earth is actually flatternthan a pancake!

nInthink it’s wise to point out that the scientists WERE doing theirnstudy with their tongues firmly in their cheeks!

nHere are a couple of photos that show that Kansas is not, indeed, totally flat!

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nDidnyou know…?

nAccordingn to multiple sources on the internet, it is illegal to hunt whales inn Kansas.

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nIt’sn probably really hard to break that law, since Kansas is as prettyn much as far from an ocean as you can get, in the U.S.! Kansas is then very center of the “lower 48” states.

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nApparently,n it is ALSO illegal to hunt whales in Nebraska and Oklahoma (two moren states with no contact with the ocean).

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nItn turns out, there is no specific mention of whales in those states’n laws. Instead, Kansas, like most states, has a law against huntingn threatened species. Quoting from Oklahoma’s code, “‘Threatened’n refers to any wildlife species or subspecies in the wild or inn captivity that, although not presently threatened with extinction,n are in such small numbers throughout their range that they mayn become an endangered species within the foreseeable future or thatn they may be endangered if their environment deteriorates.”

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nItn seems that someone realized that that could pertain to whales (theren are, in fact, very few whales in that state), and that someonen started the whole “it’s illegal to hunt whales in Oklahoma”n thing, which of course soon spread to other states.

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