Sometimes I'm embarassed......

[dmbtuxwaddle]

Conversation overheard in the commons:
"Australia, I mean no not Australia... Hawaii is halfway between the US and Japan.  Actually, it is CLOSER to Japan!"
OOOOOK.  Things wrong with this argument.

1. CONFUSING Australia with HAWAII!  Australia is its OWN country!  Hawaii is PART of the United States!
2. How can something that is PART of the US be halfway

Comments

[qui_gon_d]

Let's be charitable (as you were in #2 by granting that they probably meant "the Continental 48" rather than "The US as a whole") and assume that the person is not a geography major and was instead recalling, not quite correctly, a trivia fact or bar bet they had heard somewhere. According to the Nat'l Geographic atlas, "The state of Hawaii includes all islands and reefs in the chain that extends from the island of Hawaii to Kure, except the Midway Islands, which are administered by the U.S.Navy." The island of Kure is just *west* of the Midway Islands, at about 178W (so Midway actually sits inside the greater Hawaiian chain), and is indeed closer to Japan than it is to the closest point in the lower 48. Therefore, the most western part of Hawaii is closer to Japan than to the continental US, but *most* of Hawaii, including all the main islands (located between about 155W and 160W), are closer to the West Coast than they are to Japan. Given that the person also at first confused Australia with Hawaii, I sorta doubt that they