your opinion of the phillipines?

[opebo]

Considering I learning Tagalog, I have to vote paradise.    It is a very diverse country, with each island having their own culture, and in some cases, their own dialects.  I will get back there one of these days.

Sex tourist eh?

You would flip if I said Yes.  hahaha . . . unfortunately to disappoint you, no.  I have friends out there which I would like to go visit again.

In all seriousness, it is a safe assumption that about 98% of single males traveling to the Philippines are sex tourists.

[MasterJedi]

Option 2, would have been better if they stayed a colony and then became a state.

Wow, you are willing to give them their 100 electoral votes (that's, roughly, what they would have if they came in as a single state). Not bad for our xenophobic age!

If they were ever in play in a presidential election, imagine how much time both candidates would have been spending flying from Manila to Mindanao! Who needs California, if you can have Philippines! I'd love that campaign!

I'd probably break them into 3 states but yes, they can still have all their electoral votes. Just like we should have kept Cuba and all of Mexico.

good to see we're in agreement here. If I had a time machine I'd go back and shoot nicholas trist(the idiot ambassador who only asked for the current southwest to save time because he knew he was being recalled to washington D.C.)

Well northern Mexico would have been nice, Baja, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo Leon, Taumpalis (sp?), but Mexico south of the Federal District was living in such a backwards state I don't believe that any amount of assistance would have made them a functioning part of the United States. Only Northern Mexico, which has always had less people and been richer, should have joined the United States. Cuba should have joined as well along with the Dominican Republic, which actually asked to be admitted as a state when it gained independence in 1844 but was denied.

Didn't El Salvador ask to become a state at some point as well?

To add to that there was also a plan between the US and the Mafia to make Sicily a state.

[MODU]

Considering I learning Tagalog, I have to vote paradise.    It is a very diverse country, with each island having their own culture, and in some cases, their own dialects.  I will get back there one of these days.

Sex tourist eh?

You would flip if I said Yes.  hahaha . . . unfortunately to disappoint you, no.  I have friends out there which I would like to go visit again.

In all seriousness, it is a safe assumption that about 98% of single males traveling to the Philippines are sex tourists.

hahaha . . . Maybe only 10 percent.  You are in that minority.

[Bono]

(2) They are one of only two majority Christian countries in Asia (guess the other)

Easy, East Timor.

What about Russia or Armenia?

[Bono]

Option 2, would have been better if they stayed a colony and then became a state.

Wow, you are willing to give them their 100 electoral votes (that's, roughly, what they would have if they came in as a single state). Not bad for our xenophobic age!

If they were ever in play in a presidential election, imagine how much time both candidates would have been spending flying from Manila to Mindanao! Who needs California, if you can have Philippines! I'd love that campaign!

I'd probably break them into 3 states but yes, they can still have all their electoral votes. Just like we should have kept Cuba and all of Mexico.

good to see we're in agreement here. If I had a time machine I'd go back and shoot nicholas trist(the idiot ambassador who only asked for the current southwest to save time because he knew he was being recalled to washington D.C.)

So, you'd rather have even more statist mexicans voting?

[they don't love you like i love you]

(2) They are one of only two majority Christian countries in Asia (guess the other)

Easy, East Timor.

What about Russia or Armenia?

Well, one typically excludes Russia because a majority of their popualtion lives in Europe.

Armenia is correct though, as is Georgia. People typically just only think of East Asia. Interestingly, one could argue neither the Phillipines or East Timor are part of Asia either, since they are off the Asian continent.

[WMS]

Question for ag: Where does the always-rebellious Yucatan stand in your alternate history?

Pretty much as it was: ladino Yucatecans couldn't do it alone, but it is hard to believe that whoever would control Mexico City would let Merida fall to the Mayans, and equally hard to believe that anybody whatsoever would decide that they had resources to spare to get the moskito-infested low-growth jungle back into the civilization (they didn't realize the value of Cancun beaches back then). The only alternate possibility is that while Mexico is being fought over, Merida actually falls and is not reconquered (unlikely - too important), so the bulk of the peninsula "dematerializes" from the international consciousness for a while (as it happened with its Eastern half anyway).

Thanks for the interesting reply. I remember reading about their long, long, guerrilla wars against Mexico (and their getting military supplies from the Republic of Texas ).

Didn't El Salvador ask to become a state at some point as well?

To add to that there was also a plan between the US and the Mafia to make Sicily a state.

Now that one I haven't heard of before...

[Colin]

(2) They are one of only two majority Christian countries in Asia (guess the other)

Easy, East Timor.

What about Russia or Armenia?

Well, one typically excludes Russia because a majority of their popualtion lives in Europe.

Armenia is correct though, as is Georgia. People typically just only think of East Asia. Interestingly, one could argue neither the Phillipines or East Timor are part of Asia either, since they are off the Asian continent.

Well South Korea is a plurality Christian though it is nowhere near a majority since they have around 30% Christian, 35% Nonreligious and 25% Buddhist.