The 51-star US Flag

On Tuesday, the majority of the voting citizens of Puerto Rico who indicated they wanted a change in status said they would like the island to become the 51st state of the United States. That's a long way from statehood, but it is a step. The immediate question arose as to what a flag with 51 stars would look like. Redditors were eager to suggest designs, the best of which you can find at The Daily Dot. My favorite is the Pac-Man flag, which sadly, was later determined to have only 50 stars. Link

(As commenter


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The Pacman and mathematical designs are funny, but it wouldn't pass congress anyway right now. Too much politicking going on with having to redo the House of Representatives.
http://51starflag.com/blog/puerto-rico-statehood-initiative-congress

And as Gil points out, statistically a minority of people voted for statehood. Would Obama even think that's the will of the people? He says he supports a “a clear decision”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/politics/15obama.html

I don't think this a clear decision, for better or worse, right now.
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Thank you so much for asking. I have a deep appreciation for the U.S.. Though born in Puerto Rico, I spent 10 of my first 11 years and later 10 more living in several States. But Puerto Rico is my country, the nation in my heart. Only once in its 500+ year history has it had any form of autonomy: a 3-month period in 1898 that ended with the U.S. takeover. We are a talented, passionate people with extensive achievements, but we've never had the chance to develop our country and whatever resources we may have in our own way. It's as if we've lived an extensive childhood or adolescence, and I believe it's time we grew up, stood on our own two feet and forged our destiny.

We may fail. We may even fail miserably. But success is guaranteed to no entity that takes on a supreme challenge. The only guarantee is that if we never try, if we never get the chance, we will never really know what we can do.

Sadly, I am in a tiny minority amongst my own people. That will almost certainly be the biggest obstacle to becoming our own nation. I hope I'm wrong.

Thank you again.
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Thanks for clearing that up. The two-part vote made it very confusing to an outsider. I couldn't tell whether those who voted for statehood only came from those voters who indicated they wanted a change, or if it came from the total who voted on the referendum.
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No no no no no. I hope I made my point. We didn't have a majority vote for statehood, we had a majority vote AGAINST the current status and a 45% vote supporting the idea of statehood for Puerto Rico. The trick pulled by the statehood party (one of many) was saying 61% voted for statehood, but that percentage came from a much-reduced pool of votes (about 74%) rather than the true total. When you look at the numbers, you get 45% and nothing more.

That isn't a majority and in fact, is a decrease from an earlier plebiscite, which like all of these electoral farces, was non-binding. Like it has before, Congress doesn't have to do anything with this and given the sub-50% "support", most likely won't even discuss the matter beyond the bare minimum to table it.

One would think that in the midst of the avalanche of political lies We just endured, this lie would be much easier to pick off. Then again, it did lead to some cheeky redesigns of the U.S. flag, so it ain't all bad.
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