Thursday, April 20, 2006

Worst States

Moved from an insanely long comment, my list of worst states (and Florida doesn't even make the cut):

1. North Carolina--idiots, racists, very screwy state laws. In the 1990s, one municipality still had a curfew exclusively for black males on the books (to their credit, they didn't seem aware of it and immediately repealed it when notified).

2. Indiana--no offense to Wes but Indiana is surrounded by much larger states and state legislators somehow think that Hoosiers need as many state regulations as Illinois, Ohio, or Michigan. This makes their legal system unnecessarily bulky and complicated. Plus, they're all idiots, especially everyone in Carmel.

3. Idaho--I've only had minimal dealing with Idaho but it's been all bad.

4. Wyoming--same as above.

5. California--big states with big populations, multiple climates and landscapes, a wide range of industries, and several national governments have loony state laws. Texas, under Spain, France, Mexico, itself, the CSA, and the USA, has law books that read the junior jumble. But Texans practically fall over themselves apologizing for the problems. To a lesser extent (but less of an initial problem) so do Floridians.

Californian politicians and governmental employees take a perverse pride in the terrible way they run the state. Half of the L.A. charter is devoted to police and firefighter pensions (important, but why in the charter? And why half the provisions of the charter?) San Francisco once paid to change every instance of "he" to "he or she" in its 17 volume set of municipal law even though "he" was already legally defined to include masculine and feminine uses. (On the brighter side, it was the easiest and most profitable legal publishing job in history.)

6. Georgia and Tennessee (tie)--no professional experience with them but just driving through is enough.

7. Mississippi--I wouldn't mind it so much if it didn't suck down tax money the rate it does.

8. Arkansas--Once was enough. Bill Clinton really was the best person ever to come out of this state and I hate him.

9. Oklahoma--all the nitwits of Texas without any reasons to rationalize them.

10. Oregon--sure, they love trees but dealing with their officials is almost as bad as the Hoosiers (but, in fairness, not as bad as the Tarheels). Plus, they don't let you pump your own gas.

Yeah, technically that's 11 but I really wanted to include Oregon. Where's New York? I've never had to deal with New York so I couldn't conscientiously include it.

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