Law professor wants statehood for bird-poop islands

How's that for a bizarre headline? But you can read the article for yourself--the one where Columbia law professor Christina Duffy Burnett says she's "pulling for" statehood for the tiny island of Palmyra. The US got Palmyra (and 100+ similar islands) in the guano boom... when bird poop was a prized fertilizer. Congress passed a law saying that any unclaimed island with lots of guano could be claimed for the U.S. The learned Prof. Christina Duffy Burnett says that US law creates a legal slippery slope that--in theory--should mean statehood for each guano island. Before professor Burnett, I was the only person goofy enough to propose statehood for a guano island (Navassa, in Lost States). Now there's two of us--and one of us actually knows what she's talking about (hint, it's Prof. Burnett.). Before I get carried away, I should mention that Prof. Christina Duffy Burnett was making a point about the law, not the likelihood of statehood for some abandoned rock in the Atlantic. She kiddingly suggested herself as senator of the new state. At least I think she was kidding. Read the whole thing here.