Which is the worst state in the United States of America

there are things to love about all the states

Matter of taste, really. I went with Delaware.

http://www.househunt.com/washington-dc/washingtondc-neighborhoods/images/map_washington-dc.gif

am0n you want this:

Worst American-controlled territory left off of the worst state poll

florida but maybe virginia

I don't think I've ever been to any of the really awful states, so it is hard to say. I've heard bad things about Arkansas.

I would say Texas has the most pernicious effects on the country as a whole, but that's only because it's so huge.

Glad this is getting a second go. I hope the two fucks who voted LA last time around have dropped off the board. I was really torn b/w TX and MS, but ultimately had to go with MS b/c the Butthole Surfers, Galveston, and Roky are pretty rad and Stennis Space Station somehow managed to be a school field trip letdown every year.

fwiw a really awful family tragedy has basically made it impossible for me not to look at LA extremely negatively; I don't remember if I voted for it last time or not

there are things to love about all the states

otm

yeah. just ask sufjan stevens.

what is there to love about New Mexico

xxp yeah yeah there are definitely a lot of things to love about all the states but im feelin south carolina as worst right now

but if ppl are voting TX or FL because of righty dirty tricks they might also want to take a look at OH and the shit it pulls every four years

parts of new mexico are beautiful!

what is there to love about New Mexico

breathtaking natural beauty? may not compel you tho in which case my bad, there is also good food

what is there to love about New Mexico

― Wrinkles, I'll see you on the other side (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, February 18, 2010 4:40 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

food, landscape, funny taos new-agers

but if ppl are voting TX or FL because of righty dirty tricks they might also want to take a look at OH and the shit it pulls every four years

I'm voting texas cause it's texas

can't imagine new mexico being in the top third of this poll tbh

i like all the states, really.

hey I was just asking

xp: JD truth bomb right there, my in-laws drive people to polling locations every year and have many stories about how polling stations for ppl who might vote lefty are put in inaccessible places and will get moved at the last minute without any notification

xpost to iatee man take a walk through Lubbock & think of Buddy Holly in his garage listening to blues records and thinking "man I gotta play music like this somehow" and making those beautiful records

Texas is sweet whatever else it has to answer for and there are a lot of awesome creative people from there & still there doin awesome things.

florida but maybe virginia

Uh, VA is awesome, used to go hiking all the time in Shenandoah when I lived there. Also, my mom's family first settled there, in what eventually became West Va., back in the 1710s.

it would be nice to have a thread where we all had to find three good things about each state

and south Texas is so weird and cool too, has one of the best & raddest recording studios in the country

xp to dan - You said on the original thread that you went with Florida. If you're going for LA this time I can totally understand given the circumstances. My ire is more directed towards people like the guy who said he voted LA b/c of Katrina.

I am voting LA because of Mardi Gras.

it would be nice to have a thread where we all had to find three good things about each state

Yes, all of the negativity is boring.

haha my trip to Tallahassee must have been way worse than I remembered

also I am totally fine with this thread being a total US State lovefest regardless of the title/poll results

This is why you can't vote TX, despite all of the despicable things about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnx3fWJHkUo

Shakey Mo, do you dislike NM, and if so, why?

Was that jokez, Laurel??!

Probably 60% joeks.

Delaware isn't a state, it's the Grand Duchy of Citibank.

Rather than blame a place for a natural disaster that it didn't deserve, and after which it got totally screwed by the supposed "support systems" it was counting on, I'm blaming LA for hosting a giant drunk-fest and encouraging tourists to behave like animals regularly. Also I dislike crowds and loud noises. And fun.

noodling and whatever traces remain of woody guthrie's "spirit" are not enough to save you from my vote in this poll, oklahoma

hmm, connecticut maybe

Shakey Mo, do you dislike NM, and if so, why?

nah I just don't know much about it apart from a trip to Santa Fe as a child

New Mexico – is that the one with all the sand?

gut feeling is florida

i kinda impulsively voted for RI even though i can find plenty of nice things to say about providence at the least

delaware's probably worse tiny-state-wise but i haven't spent any time there, only driven though it.

im feelin south carolina as worst right now

Charleston is fantastic – some of the best restaurants and best-looking people in the country. I dunno about the rest of the state.

My first instinct is to say my home state of NC. However, my view of it is skewed from having lived there for so long and under such dire circumstances. And they have good BBQ, so that's a plus.

Delaware has tax free shopping and nice beaches.

I would have to go with Oklahoma.

Wow, kind of funny that the deadly combination of a big yearly celebration of life and one street's worth of girls-gone-wild-frat-fest located in a neighborhood with one of the richest musical traditions in world history is the worst thing that America has to offer.

makes you think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWmVTbWHgFc

I might have to pick Wisconsin/Iowa because of lol state rivalries

Don't worry, I'm blaming LA for other things, too. Like okra.

I might have to pick Wisconsin/Iowa because of lol state rivalries

it's why I voted for both Minnesota & Missouri lol

I'm blaming LA for other things, too. Like okra.

Okra is from Africa, I thought.

Much like everything else that people like about Louisiana!

Okay, jazz. I don't know about anything else really. Voodoo?

Indiana really doesn't have much going for it (sorry people from Indiana.)

Also thinking that Idaho is pretty bare, but I could be convinced otherwise I guess.

Really the I states in general (outside of Illinous) are no great shakes.

idaho does not have one single mellencamp, only a handful of cougars and a decent selection of johns

Indiana really doesn't have much going for it (sorry people from Indiana.)

OTM - that's why this sorry person from Indiana voted for it.
(nb - I don't live there now and visit as infrequently as possible.)

yeah, it's not like Ledbelly, gumbo, ca$h money, boudin, Britney Spears, Tabasco, Lil' Wayne, the Meters, or boiled crawfish are really anything worth mentioning, since giving the world jazz isn't enough to redeem anything.

My knee-jerk reaction to this is usually Florida; my family's from Orlando and growing up it just seemed like the worst place, terrible weather, nasty bugs, strip malls, no culture. But embarrassingly reading "The Orchid Thief" helped me appreciate Florida's unique aspects a lot more, and last time I was in Orlando it didn't seem as bad I remembered. So yeah, probably like Indiana I guess.

Voted Oklahoma.

(PS, I'm not ever going to spend a lot of energy defending Mississippi, but people who slam it based on stereotypes and not on personal experience are the worst kind of disgusting savages imho.) (PPS, Fetchboy I don't mean you.)

hosting a giant drunk-fest and encouraging tourists to behave like animals regularly. Also I dislike crowds and loud noises. And fun.

― Let's see how tough Aquaman is once we get him in the water. (Laurel), Thursday, February 18, 2010 3:52 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Good thing you live in NYC, an area devoid of drunken parades/celebrations, tourists, crowds and loud noises.

My first instinct is to say my home state of NC. However, my view of it is skewed from having lived there for so long and under such dire circumstances. And they have good BBQ, so that's a plus.

Delaware has tax free shopping and nice beaches.

I would have to go with Oklahoma.

― Jeff, Thursday, February 18, 2010 10:00 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

NC would be a seriously ridiculous answer. beautiful mountains, BBQ, credit unions, indie rock, and like way more progressivism than the rest of the former CSA.

Exactly!

does your family still live in Orlando, n/a?

florida and texas have some good stuff going for them, yeah, but they have SO MUCH bad stuff going for them. indiana-type places have no good stuff going for them but significantly less bad stuff too. it's like...serial-killer who's also a fantastic novelist vs. petty crook w/ pretty much nothing going for him.

Tupelo, MS is the only place I've been where someone has explicitly told me that I was not the right kind of person to move into the ritzy neighborhood. I was partially offended and partially like "wtf, this is Tupelo"

A lot of my extended family does.

South Florida seems a lot more fun, don't know why I've never made it down there.

xp to myself: your "ritzy neighborhood" is basically just like Burnsville, stfu

Isn't that DFW essay about watching 9/11 on TV set in Indiana? It's the only sympathetic portrayal of IN that comes to mind, and I think I'm more sympathetic to DFW and his viewpoint in all of that than the locale itself.

I can't believe they wouldn't let you move there just cause you went to college :( xp

I'll tell you what sucks about Miami: remove South Beach and you've got Anytown, USA. Miles and miles of suburban dreariness. It's amazing that a city this big boasts only a couple of independent bookstores and record shops.

That does not surprise me in the least about Tupelo, Dan. Horrible place, nearly indefensible.

Isn't that DFW essay about watching 9/11 on TV set in Indiana?

Illinois

i think mississippi sounds ok

I was born in Columbus, MS.

Also thinking that Idaho is pretty bare, but I could be convinced otherwise I guess.

Idaho, even when it's boring, is at least strange.

I can't believe they wouldn't let you move there just cause you went to college :( xp

Ha, the "best" part is that the dude who said this to me was an alum hosting some of us as a stop on a choir trip

This was the same stop where the mother of our host told us a delightful story of how her daughter had moved to Boston and "jewed" her landlord down on the rent; the two Jews I was rooming with were not particularly appreciative.

I've never heard anyone say "Jewed" for reals, I only know the usage exists from cautionary tales like that one!! I think the forbiddenness makes me think of it more often that I would otherwise.

54,400 google results for "oklahoma sucks," divided by oklahoma's population of 3,687,050 produces a per-capita suck index of 0.01475 for oklahoma, of which i challenge any other state to beat

Anyway, Tupelo: proven LAME.

oklahoma is one of the ugliest places I have seen w/ my own eyes

still, your suck index is flawed because it mostly contains the opinions of texas football fans - and if you're a texas football fan, your opinion on just about anything in the world is most likely wrong

Idaho is probably boring and has a reputation for crazies (deserved or not) but holy crap does it have some unbelievably beautiful stuff in it.

oklahoma is rough. nevada is possibly worse, depending on how much mileage you get out of vegas. i am not a fan of nebraska, either. grand island was the most depressing city i've ever been in.

"depending on how much mileage you get out of vegas"

Oh come on the state has to get points just for having legalized prostitution.

iatee you are very right, there needs to be a control for the NCAA bias, i'll get on that

Mississippi and Lousiana and even Florida may get by just on local color and charm. Idaho scares me, but it also has some amazingly beautiful landscape. My paternal grand-parents were from SW Oklahoma and it never sounded too interesting to me, though apparently there are spots near Arkansas which approach not suicide-worthy but I am going to vote Indiana just 'cause it did nothing for me when I drove through and has continued to do nothing for me since. At least Texas has a kind fo culture.

faux culture is right

Ha, joygoat, when I said Idaho was "boring" I meant geographically. At least SE Idaho, where I grew up, you could drive through miles & miles of sage & cheat grass (boring) and then something like this pops up:

http://www.visitusa.com/idaho/images/attractions/moonriftpic.jpg

Northern Idaho is frigging gorgeous.

^^ this

NC would be a seriously ridiculous answer. beautiful mountains, BBQ, credit unions, indie rock, and like way more progressivism than the rest of the former CSA.

― 69, Thursday, February 18, 2010 4:24 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

You're opinion may be different if you had lived in rural Eastern NC from 1979 to 1999. Although there may be a few enclaves of niceness, pretty much anything east of Raleigh is a wasteland. Well, we had BBQ, but I mentioned it before.

what is there to love about New Mexico

― Wrinkles, I'll see you on the other side (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Gila Cliff Dwellings are really cool. Also, there are Aztec ruins in New Mexico.

Having BBQ automatically makes you better than any state that has no notable regional cuisine.

^^^^ this

I love MN to death but when I think of MN cuisine I think bratwurst (yay!) and lutefisk (oh HELL NO)

NM is pretty if you like desolate... (i went w/ NJ, btw)

As a westerner, I couldn't vote NJ 'cause of the forests.

I love Philadelphia so much, but if Western PA was an option I'd vote for that in a heartbeat. Pittsburgh is just horrible.

I have to say that I just voted Texas, not because I don't find that it has some amazing things going for it, but because most everything about it is directly in opposition to what I think is awesome.

(except music, etc)

oh and bbq

You people voting Texas when Utah exists are nuts.

i rafted the middle fork of the salmon river in Idaho a few years ago, one of the most beautiful parts of the country. Probably gonna go with ND (for the place) or NJ (for the people) but man some days it's California no contest.

Utah, too, was spared 'cause of its beauty.

xpost utah is gorgeous tho

no kansas hate?

oh and Utah isn't even in the running. Southern UT is one of the best parts of the country, the mormons are a minority group in SLC, and skiing is A++ there.

it is a travesty that oklahoma is so constantly overshadowed by texas in the race for last. oklahoma shares all the bad stuff about texas and absolutely none of the good. they can't even piggyback a claim to texas's bbq reputation because they're too preoccupied with their slimy seafood dredged from shit-colored water.

The Mormons are a minority group in SLC but you wouldn't know that talking to an SLC citizen!

And the rest of Utah is Mormontacular.

yeah, Mormons, as fascinating as they might be, are also completely horrifying to me. So, Utah

I would say southern Idaho is even more Mormon that UT but I'm biased.

it is a travesty that oklahoma is so constantly overshadowed by texas in the race for last. oklahoma shares all the bad stuff about texas and absolutely none of the good. they can't even piggyback a claim to texas's bbq reputation because they're too preoccupied with their slimy seafood dredged from shit-colored water.

Do go on. I have this morbid curiosity about Oklahoma, especially its panhandle.

The only reason Mormons settled in Utah, btw, is once Brigham Young & co. hit the Great Salt Lake, they saw big salty body of water + gulls & thought they'd reached the ocean. So if it wasn't for this freak inland salty lake, Mormons wld be yet another California-based bunch of crazies.

i think any state on an ocean or a great lake should be eliminated from the running.

That eliminates Indiana, which would be my choice.

As for Mormons, New York can also lay claim to birthing their insanity.

Oh Indiana has what, like 6 miles of coastline? Doesn't count.

Idaho is probably boring and has a reputation for crazies (deserved or not) but holy crap does it have some unbelievably beautiful stuff in it.

― joygoat, Thursday, February 18, 2010 4:40 PM (42 minutes ago)

oh hai, it's the little town where one of my uncles lives.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/canyon1_exposure_exposure.jpg

yah st. george area is brutal but UT might be the best state for National Parks, which makes it one of my faves. Also the main library in SLC is amazing and I ate dinner at a Cracker Barrel with Gary Coleman sitting behind me, who complained to the waittress "i ordered six sugars with my darjeeling tea" so lotsa love for the state.

xpost to abbott

Do go on. I have this morbid curiosity about Oklahoma, especially its panhandle.

well, politically, oklahoma consistently votes as the second most republican state in the union (top honor goes to utah of course) and their policymakers are notorious for bullying abortion-seekers, and then of course you've got their star senator James Inhofe, the godfather of climate science cynicism.

oh and don't let Broadway fool you, when they sing about how the wind "comes sweeping down the plains" what they're really referring to is how it "violently annihilates you and everyone you care about"

ok indiana's coastline is all steel mills and body dumping sites afaik so a vote for that is ok by me.

indiana truly is a horror. even driving through it is like being in some post-apocalyptic horror film...which doesn't save it. Detroit may be a post-apocalyptic hellhole, but it also has a fabulous wealth of culture, still, somehow....

oklahama hope it gets carried away in a fukken tornado

If I was going to be a pop-horror novelist like Stephen King would use Ohio like he uses Maine. I like Ohio, but once you get off the interstates it's pure American Gothic.

having only lived in ny, nj, tn and fl
i am going florida

Results 1 - 10 of about 447,000 for indiana serial killers

I'd rather live in Detroit than lots of other places in MI including every single Detroit suburb.

Florida would have been my knee-jerk vote too if all you've ever been to is the Orlando tourist corridor and several zillion strip malls. Had some good meals there and there's still some examples of great tropical deco architecture.

In short: FL panhandle >>> the rest of FL

Voted Nebraska cause it's between me and cool places in the mountains I want to go to and is flat and featureless and conservative and the food sucks and even the name sounds unpleasant. Nebraska. Ew. Oklahoma was in the running, too. Man does that place have some trash, people-wise. North Dakota, you just have to feel sorry for.

Maybe Oklahoma was spoiled for me because they arrested me 30 seconds after crossing the Arkansas state line.

Maybe I would have enjoyed my visit if I didn't have to sit around in a dingy police station with a teenaged wife-beater (he had been beating her up inside a Wendy's) with whom the local cops were all on an incredibly chummy, first-name basis. They made plans to have a party with the beer they confiscated from him.

Perhaps I would have felt inclined to stop by the visitors bureau if ... OH HELL I GIVE UP! FUCK A BUNCH OF OKLAHOMA! FUCK IT!

That's just how I feel, man.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Monday, June 4, 2007 11:14 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

I stand by my opinion.

In short: FL panhandle >>> the rest of FL

wtf. I've only feared for my life once, and that was in the Panhandle.

I'd rather live in Detroit than lots of other places in MI including every single Detroit suburb.

Like anyplace not on a body of water, tbh.

I have fond childhood memories of the UP.

i dunno which state i'd vote for, to be honest. i'm glad no-one is talking shit about New Jersey though (i've expected a Jersey Shore/Jersey-Love-in-the-2000s backlash for the longest time).

i'm kinda tempted to vote for South Carolina, though. i really can't think of anything positive about that state -- not even Myrtle Beach (which is like "Jersey Shore" w/t the charm [read: oompa-loompa guidos]).

i voted delaware just because i don't even know how much money i've paid to that state in credit card $$$ plus tolls on i-95 for the privilege of driving through. i don't like connecticut either.. but from what friends of mine who went to school there have told me, prob should've voted indiana

everyone likes maryland right? maryland is awesome

yeah, delaware is a piece-of-shit on the whole -- on the other hand: (a)rehoboth beach is pretty awesome; (b) i still remember the time during the early 2000s when philly and NJ slapped taxes on cigarettes but DE didn't thereby making a quick SEPTA trip to wilmington a necessity for my nicotine addiction; (c) george thorogood; (d) wilmington is like a super-condensed version of all that's bad & wrong about philly and baltimore, w/t any of either city's redeeming qualities; and (e) i had a real odd Aspie-esque fascination w/ the Delaware Memorial Bridge when i was a little kid.

yeah i looooOOOOooove driving over the del. mem. bridge! it's like flying. other than that delaware's not so great but it's def not the worst. it has the ocean.

well so does florida, but it's not florida

delaware is no florida, it's true

i kind of think of Connecticut the same way that non-NJers think of NJ: nothing interesting enough there to justify a trip or living in the damn place. probably wrong, but there it is.

Wayne Campbell truth bomb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pvUOrxAlbg

Do go on. I have this morbid curiosity about Oklahoma, especially its panhandle.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 19, 2010 7:18 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

lol and O_o at this

I really can't hate on any state that has its own subculture, even if it's a reprehensible one. lol exoticism. TX is probably on the top of my 'must visit states' list.

on the other hand, I do hate states with no discernible culture or attraction. I lived in CT for 4 years and jeez there was nothing there. eisbaer otm.

CT=New Haven pizza

lol new haven pizza is overrated imo

gimme a cheesecake with a tastykake in it covered in rita's plz

never had it but my ex-haircutter lady would bitch about how nothing in chicago was anywhere near as good as it. strike against CT for pizza snobbery i guess.

New Haven Pizza really is the best - that's not snobbery, it's the truth

It is pretty good tbh.

if you want better 'za go to japan

; D

Indiana because there's no good reason for Indiana to be as bad as it is.

rehoboth beach is pretty awesome

rehoboth, dewey, the whole delaware shore is underrated. it's a nice place. plus one of the nicest people i know lives in delaware, and she brings up the state average all by herself.

i voted texas because even though you can make a long list of awesome texas things, the combination of oil money and the bush family is a brutal combo that i can't think of another state matching.

Kansas is essentially 400 lateral miles of dirt.

actually wyoming is a close second because they're massively overrepresented in congress and they used that clout to give us dick cheney. assholes.

Wyoming is beautiful and awesome (wingnuts aside).

It took a bajillion posts to see one mention of fuckin KANSAS.

Kansas.. Easy Fail.

Kansas has very little culture of note but it has cryptic desert landscapes and anonymizing winds. I think it's a good place to wipe away your sense of connectedness, which it seems to me is an essential part of the American dream. (Maybe that's a reason to vote for it?)

I voted Indiana because it has everything that's horrible about Michigan: closed-minded West Michiganders, ravaged industrial wastelands, and latent Juggalos everywhere; without any of Michigan's remarkable natural beauty. Except for a few isolated places in the south of the state, the landscape is corny (and it's not even flat enough to be interesting à la west Texas and Oklahoma). The silly time zone intransigence when I lived there was frustrating. THEY TRIED TO LEGISLATE THAT PI = 3 THIS IS UNFORGIVABLY STUPID.

what's the matter with Kansas?

it gave us Barry Sanders and the Embarrassment. Oklahoma has to take this in a walk.

I think this came up before, but it is plainly New Jersey - an entire state that is a suburb to a city in another state.

once you live in new jersey you realize it's actually really awesome and pbbbbbt to the haters tbh

Indiana is FANTASTIC, as close to American-ness as any state I've been to (and I've been to most of those "middle America" states. Good place for escaping for a week / weekend. Huge parts of it are stuck in the fifties / sixties. I could never bring myself to vote for it. I can understand voting for it because of wasted potential. You might say the same for Ohio.

I hate being down on America, I think most stereotypes are unfair. Iowa can't help not being a traveler's paradise. With that in mind, I have to vote Nevada. I hope no one is offended, I had a great time there, it's just that when you have casinos in the frigging toilets you're kind of asking for it.

?

Please tell me what parts of Indiana you've been to, u s steel. Because your descriptions are not representative of most parts of Indiana. Bloomington is one of the few areas I would spend any time defending. Most of the rest of the state is a slowly degrading horror and should be turned into a parking lot for the surrounding states.

once you live in new jersey you realize it's actually really awesome and pbbbbbt to the haters tbh

JERSEY'S WHERE AMERICA'S AT!

My car broke down in a snow storm on the Indiana toll road in the middle of the night while driving two foreign exchange students to Maryland. We were out for a while, but didn't see any cops, so we decided to try hitchhiking. We were picked up by a guy who was happy to drop us off at a hotel for the night, but who explained very calmly and patiently that we were going to roast in the fires of damnation for not believing that Jesus Christ was the son of god. Granted, you could get this anywhere.

The town we stayed in, Chesterton, seemed very nice in the small town 1950s style that us steel describes, but going along with that was a well-founded suspicion that we were being looked at funny because some of us had brown skin.

Again, that could happen in many, many places in America though.

once you live in new jersey you realize it's actually really awesome and pbbbbbt to the haters tbh

RILLY, stop judging NJ because you fucking took the train through Newark, y'all. The true, real, correct answer is Delaware. New Jersey's New Jersey.

Uh....my family lives there and has lived there for, like, decades. I think asking someone where they have "been to" when their family lives there is kind of inappropriate. Not to be rude or hurt your feelings or anything.

but going along with that was a well-founded suspicion that we were being looked at funny because some of us had brown skin.

Well, this is an offense that would've gotten the cops called on you if your car had broken down in front of my high school. There are many parts of Indiana that I would be terrified of if I weren't white (but which still manage to horrify me nonetheless).

Most of the quaintness to be found in Indiana is of the tourist trap, Epcot-esque variety: very knowing and well-maintained. Which is not to say that genuine quaintness can't be found. It's just pretty effing rare in my experience.

The forests and hills and general nature scene in southern Indiana is gorgeous and awesome and worth exploring, if you can manage to evade the hillfolk.

Um, my family lived in places that weren't "tourist trap". What places are these? Not everything about America is about enticing tourists. Rural life is nice to some people, no? It's not about abusing "authentic" looking communities to cater to tourists. I mean, let's just bomb Kansas already.

I don't use the word "quaint" either. I am neither an outsider nor a tourist.

I'm thinking of places like West Baden and Brown County. Places that very heavily cater to tourists and which are surrounded by poverty and rampant bigotry. Any small-ish towns I'm aware of that isn't a tourist trap have been slowly falling apart in recent years and are mostly just depressing. Rural life is fine if that's for you, but I'd argue that hardcore, livin' in the country rural life is pretty much the same no matter where you are, so I'm not harshin' on those people's buzzes.

Ugh. 'isn't' = 'aren't'. See what a Hoosier education gets you?

My parents visited Parke County, Indiana recently for a covered bridge festival and had a really good time. They took pictures of a place called Turkey Run State Park, which looked pretty damn cool.

Of course they are "depressing". "Depressing" and economically strapped but still quite pleasant, i.e. quiet, not congested and less polluted. Nature is not about mountains and stuff, there are other amenities like BIRDS, trees and flowers, but then again if you like birds and plants you must be some miserable retiree. I like being able to go some place without a lot of tourists and traffic and just get some R & R.

I like Ohio, but once you get off the interstates it's pure American Gothic.

u madd dogg

Is there anything good about North Dakota?

It isn't South Dakota?

also THEY TRIED TO LEGISLATE THAT PI = 3 <--- mind blown

p sure thats an urban legend

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state-legislature-once-pass-a-law-saying-pi-equals-3

Fargo (the movie)? The source of Klosterman's shtick?

a really long time ago--i'm sure every state in the USA has done dumb shit like that--i mean it went to the "Committee on Temperance." LOL

haha yeah; I heard a talk on it in undergrad, by a wacky Hoosier mathematician, who explained that though the bill was couched in "Biblical" terms, the reality was that by legislating a value of Pi, the state could (evidently) charge a tax on anyone using this "official" value; and in particular that would let them charge farmers building silos (since you need to compute their circumferences).

but then again if you like birds and plants you must be some miserable retiree.

Yes, because this is exactly what I was saying.

I won't argue the fact that there are nice places in Indiana for a day's outing. Just try living there sometime, is all I'm sayin'.

Which he has apparently. You guys should take a daytrip together and hug it out.

We should. I ain't mad atcha, steel!

South Dakota - anyone cool from there has run screaming to the Twin Cities, they kill Planned Parenthood OB-Gyns, they let reservations become cesspits of despair. Carry on listing!

No, I never have tried "living there" and I don't know anyone who has! But I don't want to monopolize this thread with an argument about one state which no one I know has so much set foot in, let alone lived. Because that is exactly what I said upthread, that no one I am closely related to has EVER lived there for decades.

Fortunately for you, some of my "quaint" relatives died, so I don't have "proof". So remain convinced I know nothing of it, never knew any honest to god small town people there EVER.

OMG fuck all of you for voting for Delaware! I don't even like it but at least I spent most of my life there so I have a good reason not to like it. All you I-95 drivers and long-distance haters can stick it right in your ear.

us steel, wtf are you on about? You said: Uh....my family lives there and has lived there for, like, decades., but also No, I never have tried "living there" and I don't know anyone who has!??? fwiw, I lived in central Indiana - rural, suburban, and city areas - for 30 years. It's one of the most polluted states due to not caring about industrial or agricultural run off. It's reliant on the most heavily polluting soft coal power plants in the country. The mayor of Indianapolis is thinking about building a "chinatown", so "those people will have somewhere to go" (according to my mom, who still lives there). The "grand dragon" of the KKK lived in Martinsville when I was growing up. For all the pastoral loveliness you find there, it is underpinned by a high level of not-nice. The best thing I ever did for my children was moving away and never looking back. It is rotten at the core.

Jenny delivering a http://nodeli.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/delawarepunchpq7.jpg

Jaq OTM (aside from some of the particulars about pollution, which I don't know enough about to comment on). I lived in various parts of Indiana for 20+ years, so I kinda feel like I know what I'm talking about, just a little. And yes: getting out was the best thing I could've possibly done for myself.

I am thinking about votin' North Dakota, but I don't really know anything about it

I would like to hear a Dakotan sell the appeal of their state

I've driven across ND a couple of times now and have found absolutely nothing to like about it.

wind farmin

at least the DE Parkway isn't phenomenally ugly, like that infamous 10-15 mile stretch of the NJ Turnpike from Elizabeth to the GWB that everyone and their brother is convinced is the "real" New Jersey.

I"M FROM NEW JERSEY

O RLY WHAT EXIT

F U

i wub u

XD

I voted for Florida because I believe it is the Devil's Chamber.

flying a kite on a delaware beach, wondering how anyone can vote for this fine state

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/IMG_2105.jpg

Alabama. the people are stupid, there's a lot of dirt and rednecks, the music sucks, and the girls look like dudes. place makes me go limp instantly even if in mid-snogging upon crossing state lines

Florida does suck but it has nice areas. also hard to argue with a place i've lived 29 yrs, even if not all good ones

I can't think of a single good thing about Kansas. Nothing in terms of natural beauty, any cool places to visit, anything of note to ever come from Kansas. It's got to be the worst. I dunno maybe North Dakota is worse but I don't remember ND ever trying to teach Creationism in schools in the 21st century...

Also, Oklahoma is very terrible and I shall never forgive the Okies for the dust bowl.

never forget

love this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qo4LZOfsD0

Viceroy, you're wrong about Kansas; cf. what I wrote about it here and I think on the "list 3 good things" thread. It's by no means the best state, but just plain and average. In a nation that includes the Rust Belt and the mid South, average is good enough.

Yeah, I've been to Lawrence and it's totes charming. Also, Wichita was better than expected.

Kansas possesses more of the cozy, bucolic beauty of the American plains than any other of the plain states imo

Not enough of this thread has been devoted to discussing the wretched Pennsylvania.

i dunno how anyone could willingly live in Hanover, PA ... yet my little sister does. one of the most dire towns i've ever visited in my life, it's Johnstown w/t the history or charm.

and Johnstown is pretty shit, too.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Yeah, a coworker and I have been talking about the industrial wastes of his Western PA childhood recently, including a ghost town that has been on fire underground for decades.

including a ghost town that has been on fire underground for decades.

That would be Centrailia

i've been there, that's eastern pa. though. is there another one?

or does all the rest of pa that's not philadelphia count as western?

this is easy, Wisconsin

tho that is my UP bias talking but still, so much cowshit

or does all the rest of pa that's not philadelphia count as western?

― this is awful I want Togo home (harbl), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 9:23 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

more like the rest of pa that's not philadelphia doesn't count!!

hurrr

more like the rest of pa that's not philadelphia doesn't count!!

except Pittsburgh ... which actually really IS a pretty nice place. time hasn't been kind to a lot of the surrounding old steel mills towns (like McKeesport), though.

have never been to Pittsburgh. I do like how PA's character changes utterly as you drive towards the middle. feels like its own country. spent a summer at penn state and boy it was weird.

Is it Alabama? It's the first choice, maybe it's that easy

Which state spawned the snorg girl?

Probably NJ or IN

Not enough of this thread has been devoted to discussing the wretched Pennsylvania

Poconos, bitches. Don't you ppl like to go outside?

I dare any of you to spend a year in Nebraska.

I dare any of you to spend a year in Nebraska.

Spent two weeks near Crawford, Nebraska digging up fossils. Liked Nebraska a lot and will defend it here.

Will either vote Iowa or Indiana here.

this is easy, Wisconsin

― i am under no illusions that my opinions are even that interesting to me (dan m), Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Come on. Visit Madison and get back to me.

back to PA: there is something uniquely depressing about those old steel-mill/coal-mining towns that have been gutted by economic changes from the 70s onwards. esp. if you are old enough to remember a city like Allentown before it really hit the skids. and reading may be one of the most depressing places in the USA -- it's become crack/meth heaven in the middle of Amish Country.

Allentown's like 30-40 miles from Amish Country, tho

oh i see

you didn't capitalize Reading--i was reading too fast

anyway, i've spent time in the Allentown area and it doesn't seem that much more depressing than say, Gary Indiana (which seems much more depressing)

but Gary is the gold standard for depressing, failed industrial towns

yes but did it not also spawn world-famous singer and guitarist toriano "tito" jackson?

(rhetorical question, you don't have to answer)

From the latest o_0 mailout I got from Feministing - it has to be Utah, for attempting to criminalise miscarriage. Um. I can't make my emoticon go o_0 enough for that.

wait waht

that can't be right

okay, based on what I've been able to find about this, saying that this bill criminalizes miscarriage is gross distortion of the bill

having said that, the bill itself is incredibly gross and shouldn't even be under consideration

Yup. Because SOME WOMMENS might be using "miscarriages" as a way of trying to give themselves abortions.

http://www.feministing.com/archives/020151.html

x-post

that's crazy, but it also seems like the kind of thing that will get shot down in court

so looking at this some more, this is totally introducing a massive legal quagmire that is going to haunt women in Utah for years

good job, Utah!

i never planned on going to Utah, anyway. yet another reason why not to do so.

que: i don't doubt that Gary is more depressing than Allentown. i've just never been to Gary, and i've gone to Allentown and other old PA towns a lot since i was a kid so what i was getting at was my own personal experience.

If you don't go to Utah because it has more than its fair share of morans, you're only doing a disservice to yourself.

I was born in Pittsburgh. I come from a long line of steelworkers, my dad being the last of that generation. Pittsburgh, and its surrounding areas, were kind of drab. But I heard the city has changed since I moved in '82. I read in some money magazine, maybe Fortune, maybe Forbes, that Pittsburgh is one of the least hit by the economic crises of all the major cities in the US.

**was kind of drab**

I was recently in Pittsburgh and, while I couldn't really figure out what business were there that were keeping the city running, it had way more of a carefree sports party vibe than I was expecting. I'd love to go back during football season.

Big businesses here are UPMC, Highmark insurance and the universities. Alcoa, PPG, Bayer and a bunch of other materials companies have presence here but not in the city, this means the city has almost no business tax base.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2093/bugssawsofffla.gif

ed u forgot US STEEL

I didn't forget US Steel, it hardly classes as major industry round here, the US Steel Tower has UPMC on the top of it nowadays.

cultural activity is limited to setting fire to things after steelers/pens games

plus the symphony

violins make good kindling, its true.

cultural activity is limited to setting fire to things after steelers/pens games

ok see now this makes me pretty enamored w/ your fine city

also there are pierogies

unfortunately, there is also scrapple

fortunately, there is Primanti Brothers

lol at minnesotans zinging other ppl's food

when ppl with bad food tell you "wow, that piece of cuisine you have is really bad", you should feel ashamed IMO

also lutefisk is almost completely offset by the MN State Fair "everything fried and on a stick" style of cooking

what the HELL is wrong with scrapple?!?!?

is that a serious question max??????

http://www.phoodie.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/scrapple.jpg

it looks like old spam

there's nothing wrong with scrapple

who cares what it LOOKS like

it is not ART

weirdly, i don't think i've actually had scrapple. but i do love my corned beef hash

someone's fired up about scrapple

its just... why would you hate SCRAPPLE of all things

maybe you don't know what scrapple is

i wanna know what scrapple is

i want you to show me

p sure i know what scrapple is bro

i grew up in a scrapple state

The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf,

ok among other things harbl you dont like bacon

you also are a frequent poster on the nutrition nazi thread

so

i also don't like mushes formed into a loaf

I love scrapple.

harbl you didn't like coffee until recently--how can we trust you

sCRAPple

At a restaurant here in Chicago, I had a version of scrapple that they created. But it didn't have head, heart, liver, and other scraps. They used like, normal parts of the pig. It was not up to par.

¿que i have liked coffee a long time?

scrapple more like crap hole

harbl more like hair balls

what a horribly formed "loaf"

Scrapple is typically made of hog offal, such as the head, heart, liver, and other scraps, which are boiled with any bones attached (often the entire head), to make a broth.[citation needed] Once cooked, bones and fat are discarded, the meat is reserved, and (dry) cornmeal is boiled in the broth to make a mush.[citation needed] The meat, finely minced, is returned, and seasonings, typically sage, thyme, savory, black pepper and others are added.[citation needed] The mush is formed into loaves and allowed to cool thoroughly until set. The proportions and seasoning are very much a matter of the region and the cook's taste.[1]

I know where gelatin comes from and all but I kind of am not down with meat jello

yes I've eaten spam, shut up

we need some scottish ppl up in this bitch

offal more like awful

also lol at wikipedia for implying that pig livers have headbones attached to them

offal loaf

scrapple is better than nutraloaf

citation needed more like excretion needed

citation needed, emesis imminent

lol at minnesotans zinging other ppl's food

― mookieproof, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 8:54 PM (22 minutes ago)

home of the juicy lucy you terrible, terrible man

basically it's fat-free sausage, only instead of being cased, it's mixed with corn meal? sounds ok in theory.

I am wondering about the person who edited that page

"I don't believe that scrapple is boiled into a mush; I'm going to need to see a citation on that."

also I think just reading the words "juicy lucy" has boosted my cholesterol levels to dangerous new heights

dangerous exciting new heights

from which you can look down on other states and sneer greasily

It's the cornmeal I don't really like in scrapple.

I had scrapple once, in Phila. -- it didn't taste like innards, it just tasted like any other sausage.

i eat a lot of chorizo, so i dont think i can really get fancy about any sausagey anything that i might consume

scrapple is different wherever u have it but basically tastes like any other breakfast meat ime. salty, porky, etc.

i figure that the whole purpose of sausage is to get rid of the stuff that otherwise ends up in the butchers slop bucket. and i am ok with that!

the noble butcher uses every part of the buffalo pigcow

new york

^^^^

^^^except for your precious yankees

new york is the scrapple of america, if you will

i figure that the whole purpose of sausage is to get rid of the stuff that otherwise ends up in the butchers slop bucket. and i am ok with that! Waste not, want not and all that, plus if you make it tasty...

"precious" yankees

I have not had scrapple in pittsburgh, I feel I am missing out, besides it can't make me feel worse than last friday's foolish late night trip to the 'O'.

The (Foolish) Story of 'O'

I'm actually very excited for the poll results!
I still can't believe some people are voting for states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Delaware... u crazy!

yeah those are kinda baffling to me too. pennsylvania especially, it's just a normal state imo

I can't believe all the hate for Florida here. I lived there for 20 years (Tampa specifically), and I loved it! Culturally speaking, yeah there isn't much there, but it had everything I wanted from a city. I lived in a 15 mile radius from 2 indie record stores, an arthouse theater, Ybor City (a sort of Mardi Gras-lite for those who haven't been there), and pristine beaches!

Not to mention I prefer their weather to most northern cities I've lived in(I never minded the humidity, which can be brutal in the summer).

Oh, and if you wanted to torment some scientologists, their headquarters was about a 25 minute drive away!

But yeah, Florida's clearly the worst state.

wait waht?

Florida isn't quite hatable for seafood reasons.

People ragging on MN food, fie! I could probably live on a diet of wild rice soup.

people bagging on new york can eat a dick

http://www.equalitygiving.org/States-of-Equality-and-Gay-Rights-Scorecard
Lowest scoring (least protective of equal rights for gays and lesbians): ARKANSAS, FLORIDA, IDAHO, MISSISSIPPI, OHIO, TENNESSEE

Florida has too many old people who think since gays were in the closest 70 years ago that they should be now,

isn't scrapple more of Philly/Amish Country thing than a Pittsburgh thing?!? maybe it's just that family out there doesn't eat the stuff.

also, i've started to rag on Minnesota more for "hot dish" than lutefisk after finding out exactly what "hot dish" IS. that bit of knowledge also has the added benefit of making a lot of the riffs on MST3K more understandable when i watch them again.

voted for texas but meant to vote for florida

theres a hanging chad joke in there somewhere

tater tot hot dish is tasty tasty comfort food imo

it's just too damn hot in Florida, which is my main beef with the state. also, for the first part of the 2000s the state was being run by the most whacked-out wingnuts imaginable (i.e., the whole Terri Schiavo mess).

All the nuts roll down to Florida.

* New Jersey 3

;_;

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

and nobody hating on West Virginia, interestingly enough

(not that i DO hate it ... just kind of surprised, since it doesn't have a great reputation or anything.)

how times change

wow kind of shocked at all the MN votes

You five ILXors are on my list.

I mean last time we did this poll Cali was in the top 10 - but now that things are arguably the worst in the state than they've ever been, it doesn't even come close lolz

fuck u guys seriously

are WORSE

xp

yeah, WTF is up w/ the MN hate?!? it's actually one of the more benign states (from my east coast vantage point, anyway)!

really! what's wrong with minnesota?

brett favre destroys everything he touches.

alabama shoulda had 1,373 votes and a condemnation from the attorney general

besides michelle bachmann and da vikings w/favre, yeah..

alabama -> TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY dude

hey you, lurker who voted for Washington, please out yourself so I can suggest ban you

Yeah what is with all the MN hate? Unlike other 'winners' it is an outpost of civilization and you flock to clog your arteries at our glorious state fair, so STFU about our food.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2093/bugssawsofffla.gif

http://s.ecrater.com/stores/32152/4a9de31e8680f_32152n.jpg

lurker who voted for Washington, please out yourself so I can suggest ban you

X 2

alabama -> TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY dude

i like auto racing about as much as i like getting a handjob from a dead clown

at least one of our beloved moderators is a native MN, so maybe he can swing around his banning bossy-stick for the MN haters.

lol Ballistic

much like the olympic winter games, ilx moderation has a disproportionate MN representation.

WE WILL BURY YOU

that, or the MN hate is some kind of hiveminded challops experiment gone terribly wrong.

the only thing that sucks about Minnesota is the Twins, and that animosity is only there due to the 1991 world series...

I'm guessing some people voted minnesota just to piss off the minnesota people who like to talk about minnesota

^^^^that sounds like I was one of them, but don't blame me, I voted texas

Texass

Florida has too many old people who think since gays were in the closest 70 years ago that they should be now,

― Ballistic, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 3:49 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

LOL if you think Florida's the most bigoted state. I'm sure Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas are mad open minded about gays. At least Florida has a nice mixture of cultures and races. I think I've seen two black people in Oregon. It's creepily white here.

i guess that we have a lot of ILX regulars and lurkers who were 1991 atlanta braves/terry pendleton fans, then?!?

blaming oregon for not having black people is like blaming mongolia for not having black people.

Not blaming Oregon. Just saying it's a negative in living here (not that in any way do I think Oregon's one of the worst states).

The MN haters are just jealous of our higher literacy rates and relative superiority in health care. Also, pronto pups.

blaming oregon for not having black people is like blaming mongolia for not having black people.

you could say the same about Vermont as well, for that matter. (and no, i don't hate VT. it's just that there are, like, maybe 5 non-caucasians who live in the entire state.)

Which is the whitest state in the United States of America

poll result is crazy

i WOULD like to hear an MN hater's rationale for their vote (if they dare show their faces, that is).

oh jeez dat reminds me, minnesotans. i (honestly!!) got dis email from my dadz de other day doncha know.

Government surveyors came to Ole's farm in the fall and asked if they could do some surveying. Ole agreed and Lena even served them a nice meal. After their surveying was finished, they came back to Ole and said, "You
were so kind to us, we wanted to give you this bad news in person instead of by letter."

Ole replied, "What bad news?"

The surveyors answered, "Well, after our work we discovered your farm is not in Minnesota, but is actually in North Dakota!"

Ole said, "That's the best news I've had in a long time. I was just telling Lena this morning, I don't think I can take another winter in Minnesota!"

results from the 2007 poll:

Florida 17
Texas 15
California 8
Indiana 5
Alabama 5
Oklahoma 5
Delaware 5
Utah 5
Kansas 4
New Jersey 4
Mississippi 3
North Dakota 3
Pennsylvania 2
Wyoming 2
Nebraska 2
Ohio 2
South Dakota 2
South Carolina 2
Missouri 2
Louisiana 2
Iowa 2
Connecticut 2
Virginia 1
Arkansas 1
West Virginia 1
Wisconsin 1
Oregon 1
D.C. 1
Georgia 1
North Carolina 1
New York 1
Minnesota 1
New Hampshire 1

2007 poll result is crazy

florida expanding its lead

at least one of the previous NJ haters switched their vote to MN, maybe?!?

I'm assuming that people are voting based on weird prejudices or negative experiences. Because I don't really know what the worst state is, but I can tell you that it's not minnesota or new jersey or new york or connecticut or deleware or pennsylvania. what kind of justification can you come up with to say any of those places are worse than utah or alabama or wherever?

why would anyone vote for any reason other than weird prejudice or negative experience?

why would anyone vote for any reason other than weird prejudice or negative experience?

i agree. i'm just having a hard time figuring out WHAT weird prejudice or negative experience wr2 MN certain voters have that they would hate on the state more than, say, OK or MS?!?

I like my theory about the MN posters talking about MN stuff too much

it is really fucking cold here, so theres that as well

also possible self-loathing lutheranism creeping into the mn results

or maybe they wanted to vote 'canada' and went w/ the closest thing

glad to see that ultimately dans m & p decided against voting for wisconsin. i think we all know that wouldn't have been very cool now would it have.

LOL if you think Florida's the most bigoted state. I'm sure Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas are mad open minded about gays. At least Florida has a nice mixture of cultures and races. I think I've seen two black people in Oregon. It's creepily white here.

― musicfanatic, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 4:27 PM Bookmark

I'm black and live in Oregon and see tons of black people regularly.

I'm guessing you probably aren't in Portland, though.

(I think the stat I heard is that 2/3 of Oregon's black populace lives within Portland City limits.)

why would anyone vote for any reason other than weird prejudice or negative experience?

because they honestly think that the state they voted for is the worst state in the union?

I was just being a smart ass with the "2 people" comment, Reverend. It's just drastically different from Florida.

i imagine that the stereotypical MN accent would drive me crazy if i had to hear it everyday, as opposed to only whenever i watch MST3K or Fargo.

got no problems with the accent at all, but the whole 'parking ramp' thing is unacceptable

there was a girl in my study abroad program who had a really strong accent. parisian french spoken with super minnesota accent = lolz.

i became a fan of the mst3k in the first place because of randomly turning on the tv during.. either 'viking women' or 'day the earth froze' when they were goofing on minnesotans

I want to know if the same five motherfuckers voted for DE in 2007, too.

didn't vote for it, but considered DE just because of the bullshit tolls on their 5 miles of I-95

i would chalk up at least some DE hate as not-so-disguised credit card company hate -- which may also explain the 2 votes for SD.

and though NJ didn't "win" this poll, i can certainly understand why someone would vote for NJ even if i think that the usual reasons for NJ hatred (e.g., NJ Turnpike/NJ Shore-Guido hatred, NYCers' traditional disdain) even if i think that those reasons are unfair.

may also explain the 2 votes for SD

Possibly, since anyone ill-disposed toward the Dakotas would be well-advised to cast their greater enmity on ND. SD has the Black Hills, at least.

I'm sorry. As a Minnesotan, I voted for Minnesota. I just wanted it to win a poll, any poll.

interesting that california got fewer votes this time despite being by almost any measure a much worse state now than it was in '07.

glad Wyoming didn't get any votes, as while it isn't necessarily the most progressive state, its scenery is so breathtaking that whenever i'm there i forget about the whole Mathew Shepard thing.

yeah, the CA is surprising, but still, people like it here. i don't know a single person irl who wouldn't want to live in the Bay Area, for example, but i'm a total bay area stan, so eh.

What kind of people vote for Minnesota? That is just baffling.

In retrospect, can't believe I didn't vote North Dakota.

people like it here so much because they can be around other people who are also better than everyone else.
xpost to table

i rilly rilly liked CA when i was out there for work over a year ago -- and i was mostly in Stockton, which i gather is the armpit of California.

it is!

cosmo, i don't always get that vibe. i get it more from people i know in Bkln, who are all like, 'so when you move here after yr done in california...' and i'm like, 'fuck you and yr presumption it is rockin out here go drink some east river water shitheads'

What kind of people vote for Minnesota? That is just baffling.

Yeah, why is Minnesota so high on that list? We totally rule your face.

totally favre imo

Florida has too many old people who think since gays were in the closest 70 years ago that they should be now,

The Panhandle is a different state; it's South Alabama, or an amorphous netherworld called South Piedmont. Most of the Hispanics who populate the rest of the state tend to vote Republican but are socially moderate.

Meanwhile Miami is what Cuba was had the Bros Castro never took power.

*taken

In retrospect, can't believe I didn't vote North Dakota.

North Dakota is fine and falls a little bit better than West Virginia. Iowa and Indiana are much worse

I was born in Columbus, MS.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

I thought you were born in Cuba, Alfred. Was that my imagination (or poor reading skills) or have you a different Cuban connection? Or am I thinking of some other ilxor?

(Just askin')

who the fuck voted for MN

seriously, i want names

I was just being a smart ass with the "2 people" comment, Reverend. It's just drastically different from Florida.

― musicfanatic, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 5:04 PM Bookmark

I'm from suburban Seattle and we were one of only two black families in my neighborhood, so conversely my arrival in Portland has very much been one of, "Hey, there are people who look like me! This is exciting!"

I understand hating Florida - lol Cuban exile pandering, Marilyn Manson, 2000, old people in golf carts, Scarface.

But I had no idea so many people hate Texas.

Texas hate brings me down. For such a maligned place, it sure does have a lot going for it, but I guess that's true of many of the top placers here. (love FL too)

Lyrics to Icarus - Borne On Wings Of Steel :
(Kerry Livgren)

Early in the morning sunlight
Soaring on the wings of dawn
Here I'll live and die with my wings in the sky
And I won't come down no more

Higher than a bird I'm flying
Crimson skies of ice and fire
Borne on wings of steel I have so much to feel
And I won't come down no more

Sail on, sail on, I will rise each day to meet the dawn
So high, so high
I've climbed the mountains of the sky
Without my wings you know I'd surely die
I found my freedom flyin' high
I've climbed the mountains of the sky

Floating on a cloud of amber
Searching for the rainbow's end
Earth so far below me,
I'm here alone, free
I can't come down no more
Minnesota is awesome

who dares argue with Kansas (country-rock band not state)?

Radio Minneapolis - Patti Smith

(Smith/Ray)
Suffer not Your neighbor's affliction
Suffer not Your neighbor's paralysis
But extend your hand Extend your hand
Lest you vanish in the city And be but a trace
Just a vanished ghost And your legacy
All the things you knew Science, mathematics, thought
Severely weakened Like irrigation systems
In the tired veins forming From the Mississippi and Minnesota river
In the realm of peace All the world revolved
All the world revolved Around a perfect circle
City of Minneapolis City of scholars
Empirical humble Center of the world
City in ashes City of Saint Paul
City of Coon Rapids Abrasive aloof
Oh, in Mesopotasota Aloofness ran deep
Deep in the veins of the great rivers
That form the base Of Eden
And the tree The tree of knowledge
Held up its arms To the sky
All the branches of knowledge All the branches of knowledge
Cradling Cradling
Civilization In the realm of peace
All the world revolved Around a perfect circle
Oh Blaine Center of the world
City of ashes With its great mosques
Erupting from the mouth of god Rising from the ashes like
a speckled bird Splayed against the mosaic sky
Oh, clouds around We created the zero
But we mean nothing to you You would believe
That we are just some mystical tale We are just a swollen belly
That gave birth to Sinbad, Scheherazade We gave birth
Oh, oh, to the zero The perfect number
We invented the zero And we mean nothing to you
Our children run through the streets
And you sent your flames Your shooting stars
Shock and awe Shock and awe
Like some, some Imagined warrior production
Twenty-first century No chivalry involved
No Bushido
Oh, the code of the West Long gone
Never been Where does it lie?
You came, you came Through the west
Annihilated a people And you come to us
But we are older than you You come you wanna
You wanna come and rob the cradle
Of civilization And you read yet you read
You read Genesis You read of the tree
You read of the tree Beget by god
That raised its branches into the sky Every branch of knowledge
Of the cradle of civilization
Of the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates
Oh, in Minnepotamia Aloofness ran deep
The face of Eve turning What sky did she see
What garden beneath her feet The one you drill
You drill Pulling the blood of the earth
Little droplets of tacomite for bracelets Little jewels
Sapphires You make bracelets
Round your own world We are weeping tears
Hotdish We offer them to you
We are just Your lutefisk nightmare
We invented the zero But we mean nothing to you
Your krumkake nightmare
City of stars City of scholarship
Science City of ideas
City of light City
City of ashes That the great Caliph
Walked through His naked feet formed a circle
And they built a city A perfect city of Mankato
In the realm of peace And all the world revolved
And they invented And they mean nothing to you
Nothing to you Nothing
Go to sleep Go to sleep my child
Go to sleep And I'll sing you a lullaby
A lullaby for our city A lullaby of Elko Speedway
Go to sleep Sleep my child
Sleep Sleep...
Run Run...
You sent your lights Your bombs
You sent them down on our city Shock and awe
Like some crazy t.v. show
They're robbing the cradle of civilization
They're robbing the cradle of civilization
They're robbing the cradle of civilization
Suffer not The paralysis of your neighbor
Suffer not But extend your hand

Texas' biggest downfall is its pride. Everybody hates the guy who's always going on about how he's better than everybody.
I also have a feeling that at least one of those Minnesota votes was intended for its alphabetical neighbor, MS.

No, I really did vote for MN, but as I said, I just wanted it to win a poll. Blinded by my love.

and we tied for third with indiana. isn't that just the way.

Attn Eric:

MINNESOTA WILL WIN THIS POLL

I like hanging on to my idyllic childhood memories of living in FL (Jacksonville), which basically just involved hangin' out in the suburbs with my friends and riding my bike to the beach. Between that and, like, Disney World, I have a positively-skewed vision of FL that I acknowledge doesn't quite jibe with reality. So I can accept its win.

I am very happy that Indiana placed in the top three. Deservedly so. Buncha trash.

I'm not like the world's Utah stan, but have the 7 people who voted Utah actually been there?

I'm from suburban Seattle and we were one of only two black families in my neighborhood, so conversely my arrival in Portland has very much been one of, "Hey, there are people who look like me! This is exciting!"

tbh if you had moved into Seattle proper you would have felt the same way, actually even more so since Seattle beats Portland 12 - 7%.

* Connecticut 4

haha really?

it's in the way and has crap road signs

Connecticut 4 is my favorite game evah.

CT sucks so much.

Dudes, CT is actually mostly an extremely pleasant place, not sure why people have so much hate for it

Abbott, UT voters were motivated by some miscarriage-as-manslaughter mess of a law going down there.

*voted for CT*

why

mentioned upthread: boring state, no personality (nb: I only considered states I have been to/spent a reasonable amount of time in)

personality if for pussies

I thought you were born in Cuba, Alfred. Was that my imagination (or poor reading skills) or have you a different Cuban connection? Or am I thinking of some other ilxor?

My parents are Cuban, but no, I was born in Amerikay.

I like hanging on to my idyllic childhood memories of living in FL (Jacksonville), which basically just involved hangin' out in the suburbs with my friends and riding my bike to the beach. Between that and, like, Disney World, I have a positively-skewed vision of FL that I acknowledge doesn't quite jibe with reality

Florida is a mirage, as this writer understood too well.

anyway, Connecticut is often fairly boring, sure, but that's far from the worst thing you could say about a state. I live in Chicago now, but there's a pretty good chance I will end up back in CT one day...

tbh if you had moved into Seattle proper you would have felt the same way, actually even more so since Seattle beats Portland 12 - 7%.

― Cosmo Vitelli, Thursday, February 25, 2010 1:17 PM Bookmark

According to census 2000 data Portland has it 8%-7%. I will say Seattle feels somewhat more....segregated than Portland, or at least the black population seems more concentrated in certain areas, not that there aren't areas of Portland that are starch-white.

I didn't move to Seattle proper because it's too damn expensive. My rent in Portland is less than it was back home.

there was a girl in my study abroad program who had a really strong accent. parisian french spoken with super minnesota accent = lolz.

you should come to Quebec.

i didn't vote in this, but florida's reign is justified.

california is really fucked up too... if there were a "worst governor" poll, ahnold would have my vote in a heartbeat.

Illinois would be a contender in that poll.

if someone else doesn't start that poll by the end of the night, i may do it.

David Paterson may give Ahnuld a run for the money in a "worst governor" poll.

if there were no david paterson, there'd be no fred armisen david paterson jokes. :-(

to be totally fair to Paterson and Arnold they are executives of basically ungovernable states

really! what's wrong with minnesota?

the only thing that sucks about Minnesota is the Twins, and that animosity is only there due to the 1991 world series...

I'm guessing some people voted minnesota just to piss off the minnesota people who like to talk about minnesota

I'm assuming that people are voting based on weird prejudices or negative experiences. Because I don't really know what the worst state is, but I can tell you that it's not minnesota

What kind of people vote for Minnesota? That is just baffling.

Yeah, why is Minnesota so high on that list? We totally rule your face.

I also have a feeling that at least one of those Minnesota votes was intended for its alphabetical neighbor, MS.

All right you crybabies. I could write a list of the good things about Minnesota twice as long as what's about to follow. (Those metered lights on the interstate on-ramps during rush hour are a god send.) But you say you can't understand how anyone in the world could possibly vote against your precious North Star State? You ready to have the truth handed to you in a Lutheran casserole dish? Here's the deal:

• It's not so much the Minnesota Nice as much as it as this intense passive-aggressive attitude that burns just as hot as Texas' xenophobia, but gets away with it since it's not as easily noticeable. Behind every smile is a set of clenched teeth, and not because it's cold either. "Ah, it's no problem ta fix your flat far ya. Happy to do it. Now, don't be worryin' 'bout my back tomorrow day while you're havin' fun at the state fair."

• It's cold. You look at the bank thermometer and think, "Oh, good. It's back up above zero now." If you enjoy getting slapped in the face every time you step outside, you'll love Minnesota!

• For every Wellstone elected, you get a Grams, Dayton, Quist, Grunseth, Ventura, Bachman, Pawlenty or Coleman in its place. Face it, take away Ramsey and Hennepin Counties, and let's see just how "blue" this supposedly traditionally liberal state stays.

• You can't park anywhere between Halloween and May Day.

• True, Mpls has one of the niftiest skylines around, but the Twin Cities are just as guilty as Atlanta or Dallas as one of the most sprawl-worthy metros in the country. Spend a week in Edina and then try to tell me again that Minnesota doesn't deserve any points in this poll.

• One good effective way of suicide in the North Star State is to carry a bottle of whiskey with you into the woods, take a seat underneath a tall tree, stare at the moon and stars while you drink your bottle, and in the morning, you will wake up dead, having froze to death.

• Minnesotans can't hold their liquor. Ranks high with Alaska and Nevada as top destination for insufferable alcoholics.

• That said, you can't buy a bottle of whiskey in Mpls after eight on a weeknight or ten on a Saturday. Have fun trying to find some hard stuff on a Sunday. Now that's progressive!

• http://gb.fs.boldernet.net/0/0/217/217706-275.jpg

• Swedes on the prairie amusing themselves with "stunts" such as what happens when a German attempts to catch a chicken or singing "Mine Fair Thee Well" accompanied by a player piano.

• Anything south of I-94 really needs to be evaluated here. Spend a week in Wilmar. Fly to Fergus Falls. Summer in Redwood Falls. If an earthquake hits, don't worry, because nothing will fall upon you.

• Be sure to visit scenic Austin, Minn., where the smell of Spam will overpower and kill you.

• Spam and lutefisk. My gosh, throw a cold Pig's Eye in there and you've got yourself some fine cuisine!

• Sinclair Lewis was right. Also, he was an ornery, grotesque little fuck.

• All road construction is done during a six-week period in late-June, early-July, when the high temperature threatens to break 80. Prepare yourself for an endless supply of "orange barrel=state tree" jokes.

• Oh, hey, a pile of potatoes and onions.

• 10,000 lakes. About half of them are man-made. The rest are what the other 49 states call "ponds".

• Real or not, those lakes attract mosquitos the size of dragonflies.

• 1984 was the greatest year for music. Mpls inspired the rest of the country, and artists such as Janet Jackson to the Goo Goo Dolls carry the influences of that time to this day. Anything that happened after 1984 isn't worth mentioning and if you weren't there in 1984, you may as well just give up the subject.

• You say Bob Dylan is also from Minnesota? Well, I'll be. Guess he loved it so much, that's why he changed his name and never mentioned the state again after leaving.

• The Mall of America. If you ever wanted to walk from a Hooters to a children's playground without stepping foot outside, then this is the place for you. Be sure to bring your GPS.

• I mean, fuck. It's fucking cold.

• Check out the bodies of the cars that pass you on the freeway. See all that rust? Man, it must be great to live in a place where you're driving on salt for half the year. In case you were wondering how indoor car washes stay so busy during winter.

• The Twins won their two World Series because some friendly Minnesotan kept messing with the thermostat. The Vikings have Bret Favre throwing interceptions for them. The hockey team used to be the North Stars before getting moved to Dallas, but have since been replaced with something simply known as THE WILD. And the Timberwolves? Do you really want me to go there?

• They honest-to-God made a statue of Mary Tyler Moore, plunked it down in the middle of Nicolett Avenue and now promote it as a tourist destination.

• The Mississippi River is three feet wide in Minnesota. Had Mark Twain lived there, he probably would've wrote haikus or some shit.

• See that soot-covered snow bank in the corner of the parking lot? It's been there since the middle of football season and you're going to have to look at it every day from now until Easter.

• There was not a damn thing exaggerated in Fargo. People are really like that in Minnesota.

• The Minnesota State Fair is really not that unique. They carve shit out of butter at other fairs. There are plenty of rides at other fairs. You can get a fried twinkie basically on any street corner in St. Louis. Minnesotans think it's neat and nifty just because it's the only time they ever leave the house.

• Didja know F. Scott Fitzgerald's from St. Paul? He's the guy who committed his wife to an insane asylum where she was burned alive.

• Really, it's the Favre thing that earned Minnesota so many votes. That, and it's fucking cold there.

All that said, I still voted for Texas.

Classic ^^

really theres nothing to love or hate about arkansas. actually, it smells good in winter.

Swedes on the prairie amusing themselves with "stunts" such as what happens when a German attempts to catch a chicken or singing "Mine Fair Thee Well" accompanied by a player piano.

Man, I was just talking about Midwestern racial prejudices against Swedes last night. My grandfather hated those damned, lazy Swedes and then his daughter married one.

actually, it smells good in winter

That seriously sounds like damning with faint praise.

Chicago smells good in winter, too, because all the bad smelling things freeze.

kinda hated the welcome card filled with jesus stuff on the pillow of my bed at the comfort inn in little rock tbh

yeah i had a problem with the rampant christianity at first but you learn to live and let live pretty quick.

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/yhst-68136650624333/misc-out-chrismar-quetico2.jpg

The Mall of America. If you ever wanted to walk from a Hooters to a children's playground without stepping foot outside, then this is the place for you. Be sure to bring your GPS.

in fairness, this is a reason why MN is awesome

• Swedes on the prairie amusing themselves with "stunts" such as what happens when a German attempts to catch a chicken or singing "Mine Fair Thee Well" accompanied by a player piano

complete proof that i am going to the wrong parties and wasting my life

There was not a damn thing exaggerated in Fargo. People are really like that in Minnesota.

total truth bomb here

I find the minnesota accent hot, probably because of that movie

Pleasant Plains is very convincing on MN. That picture alone sways my opinion.

Oh, and I suspect a lot of people who say Florida actually mean Orlando. Miami Cubans are funny as hell & their awesome cuisine makes up for a lot.

That Minnesota list was very Minnesotan.

i'd like to change my vote to texas

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?hp

ditto.

one million xposts
including a ghost town that has been on fire underground for decades.
That would be Centrailia

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 1:14 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

this is by far the greatest wikipedia entry i've ever seen, it feels like it was written by borges

http://gawker.com/5831724/the-worst-50-states-in-america

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/02/california-americas-least-favorite-state/49002/

lol republicans rly hate california

glad Wyoming didn't get any votes, as while it isn't necessarily the most progressive state, its scenery is so breathtaking that whenever i'm there i forget about the whole Mathew Shepard thing.

Wyoming: Scenery so breathtaking, you'll forget about the Mathew Shepard thing.

Illinois was unpopular with Republicans and was likely dragged down in its overall ranking by its association with Barack Obama.

oh man, that is repeatedly slamming your forehead into a doorknob stupid

Still voting Arizona.

haha I think arizona woulda done better in 2012

yeah, shocked that only two years ago only one person voted for arizona!

then again, who the hell knows what i would have voted for...

which state is the most racist in America?

West Virginia!

The state with the highest racially charged search rate was West Virginia, where 41 percent of voters chose Keith Judd, a white man who is also a convicted felon currently in prison in Texas, over Obama just this May. Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, and New Jersey rounded out the top 10 most-racist areas, according to the search queries used.

Even if states that are considered fairly liberal, racism is prevalent enough in certain areas to put the entire state high up on the list. "Other areas with high percentages included western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, upstate New York and southern Mississippi," Stephens-Davidowitz points out in his New York Times article.

and the original NYT article

western Pennsylvania

otm

ctrl+f .... phew.

of course, we still use excite.com in my state.

Oh, and I suspect a lot of people who say Florida actually mean Orlando. Miami Cubans are funny as hell & their awesome cuisine makes up for a lot.

this is true and even the politics aren't a factor anymore as the cubanos of my grandmother's generation die.

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Esstephen/papers/RacialAnimusAndVotingSethStephensDavidowitz.pdf

pg 25 ranks the states by his test. hmm is idaho less racist than washington dc, or is this a really, really stupid way to measure things?

this is one of the stupidest academic papers I have ever read

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2014/01/The-United-States-of-Shame.png

I'm assuming "worst at abortion" means least access and longest wait times, right?

ND worst at "ugliest residents", very informative

i can't believe oklahoma didn't take this in a walk. florida, texas and minnesota have all kinds of cool shit (not so sure about indiana)

well to be fair, the recent spate of "it's legal to blatantly kill black people" incidents in Florida make it kind of off-putting

"Gonorrhea"

this is the most ridiculous map

since it says it was made at the University of Alabama, I think "ridiculous" is high praise

also the staffers probably know from experience about getting gonorrhea in Louisiana

Minnesota is the worst at tornados

So is Ohio the "nerdiest state," or is it the worst at being the "nerdiest state," or is this a case of "LOL how do I label map?" or what?

yes

pleated jeans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

there is no way in hell CA has the worst air quality

lol @ "Iowa U OLD"

No, no, you're the WORST at having air pollution, so you have very little. That is my understanding of how the map works. To have the worst air quality, you'd have to be the BEST at air pollution.

cuba is worst at pleated jeans?

some swanky orange outfits you're handing out there

hey, florida.

must suck to suck at bestiality, in your face washington

"look at me I'm a washingtonianite, I'm gonna fuck this sheep oops I fucked a person by mistake I'm gonna listen to some grunge now" lol idiots

is Idaho worse than Wyoming as far as having, well, no government?

Wow, why is Minnesota so high?

ppl zinging MN posters, plus it's fucking cold and the poll was started in February

All right you crybabies. I could write a list of the good things about Minnesota twice as long as what's about to follow. (Those metered lights on the interstate on-ramps during rush hour are a god send.) But you say you can't understand how anyone in the world could possibly vote against your precious North Star State? You ready to have the truth handed to you in a Lutheran casserole dish? Here's the deal:

• It's not so much the Minnesota Nice as much as it as this intense passive-aggressive attitude that burns just as hot as Texas' xenophobia, but gets away with it since it's not as easily noticeable. Behind every smile is a set of clenched teeth, and not because it's cold either. "Ah, it's no problem ta fix your flat far ya. Happy to do it. Now, don't be worryin' 'bout my back tomorrow day while you're havin' fun at the state fair."

• It's cold. You look at the bank thermometer and think, "Oh, good. It's back up above zero now." If you enjoy getting slapped in the face every time you step outside, you'll love Minnesota!

• For every Wellstone elected, you get a Grams, Dayton, Quist, Grunseth, Ventura, Bachman, Pawlenty or Coleman in its place. Face it, take away Ramsey and Hennepin Counties, and let's see just how "blue" this supposedly traditionally liberal state stays.

• You can't park anywhere between Halloween and May Day.

• True, Mpls has one of the niftiest skylines around, but the Twin Cities are just as guilty as Atlanta or Dallas as one of the most sprawl-worthy metros in the country. Spend a week in Edina and then try to tell me again that Minnesota doesn't deserve any points in this poll.

• One good effective way of suicide in the North Star State is to carry a bottle of whiskey with you into the woods, take a seat underneath a tall tree, stare at the moon and stars while you drink your bottle, and in the morning, you will wake up dead, having froze to death.

• Minnesotans can't hold their liquor. Ranks high with Alaska and Nevada as top destination for insufferable alcoholics.

• That said, you can't buy a bottle of whiskey in Mpls after eight on a weeknight or ten on a Saturday. Have fun trying to find some hard stuff on a Sunday. Now that's progressive!

•http://gb.fs.boldernet.net/0/0/217/217706-275.jpg

• Swedes on the prairie amusing themselves with "stunts" such as what happens when a German attempts to catch a chicken or singing "Mine Fair Thee Well" accompanied by a player piano.

• Anything south of I-94 really needs to be evaluated here. Spend a week in Wilmar. Fly to Fergus Falls. Summer in Redwood Falls. If an earthquake hits, don't worry, because nothing will fall upon you.

• Be sure to visit scenic Austin, Minn., where the smell of Spam will overpower and kill you.

• Spam and lutefisk. My gosh, throw a cold Pig's Eye in there and you've got yourself some fine cuisine!

• Sinclair Lewis was right. Also, he was an ornery, grotesque little fuck.

• All road construction is done during a six-week period in late-June, early-July, when the high temperature threatens to break 80. Prepare yourself for an endless supply of "orange barrel=state tree" jokes.

• Oh, hey, a pile of potatoes and onions.

• 10,000 lakes. About half of them are man-made. The rest are what the other 49 states call "ponds".

• Real or not, those lakes attract mosquitos the size of dragonflies.

• 1984 was the greatest year for music. Mpls inspired the rest of the country, and artists such as Janet Jackson to the Goo Goo Dolls carry the influences of that time to this day. Anything that happened after 1984 isn't worth mentioning and if you weren't there in 1984, you may as well just give up the subject.

• You say Bob Dylan is also from Minnesota? Well, I'll be. Guess he loved it so much, that's why he changed his name and never mentioned the state again after leaving.

• The Mall of America. If you ever wanted to walk from a Hooters to a children's playground without stepping foot outside, then this is the place for you. Be sure to bring your GPS.

• I mean, fuck. It's fucking cold.

• Check out the bodies of the cars that pass you on the freeway. See all that rust? Man, it must be great to live in a place where you're driving on salt for half the year. In case you were wondering how indoor car washes stay so busy during winter.

• The Twins won their two World Series because some friendly Minnesotan kept messing with the thermostat. The Vikings have Bret Favre throwing interceptions for them. The hockey team used to be the North Stars before getting moved to Dallas, but have since been replaced with something simply known as THE WILD. And the Timberwolves? Do you really want me to go there?

• They honest-to-God made a statue of Mary Tyler Moore, plunked it down in the middle of Nicolett Avenue and now promote it as a tourist destination.

• The Mississippi River is three feet wide in Minnesota. Had Mark Twain lived there, he probably would've wrote haikus or some shit.

• See that soot-covered snow bank in the corner of the parking lot? It's been there since the middle of football season and you're going to have to look at it every day from now until Easter.

• There was not a damn thing exaggerated in Fargo. People are really like that in Minnesota.

• The Minnesota State Fair is really not that unique. They carve shit out of butter at other fairs. There are plenty of rides at other fairs. You can get a fried twinkie basically on any street corner in St. Louis. Minnesotans think it's neat and nifty just because it's the only time they ever leave the house.

• Didja know F. Scott Fitzgerald's from St. Paul? He's the guy who committed his wife to an insane asylum where she was burned alive.

• Really, it's the Favre thing that earned Minnesota so many votes. That, and it's fucking cold there.

All that said, I still voted for Texas.

― •••••••• (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, March 4, 2010 3:21 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is no way in hell CA has the worst air quality

― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, January 10, 2014 8:27 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i bet the clean regions in norcal make up some ground but

By Ozone
#1: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
#2: Visalia-Porterville, CA
#3: Bakersfield-Delano, CA
#4: Fresno-Madera, CA
#5: Hanford-Corcoran, CA
#6: Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Yuba City, CA-NV
#7: Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX
#8: Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
#9: Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV
#10: El Centro, CA
#11: San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA
#11: Merced, CA
#13: Modesto, CA
#14: Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN
#14: Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL
#16: Las Vegas-Paradise-Pahrump, NV
#17: Louisville-Jefferson County-Elizabethtown-Scottsburg, KY-IN
#17: New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA
#19: Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, NC-SC
#20: Oklahoma City-Shawnee, OK
#20: Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD
#20: Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX
#23: Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ
#24: Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA
#25: San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA
#25: Tulsa-Bartlesville, OK
#25: St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL

By Year Round Particle Pollution
#1: Bakersfield-Delano, CA
#1: Merced, CA
#3: Fresno-Madera, CA
#4: Hanford-Corcoran, CA
#4: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
#6: Modesto, CA
#7: Visalia-Porterville, CA
#8: Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA
#9: El Centro, CA
#10: Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN
#11: Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD
#12: Louisville-Jefferson County-Elizabethtown-Scottsburg, KY-IN
#12: St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL
#14: Canton-Massillon, OH
#14: Macon-Warner Robins-Fort Valley, GA
#14: Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ
#14: Fairbanks, AK
#18: Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL
#18: Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ
#20: Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, OH
#20: Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN
#22: Steubenville-Weirton, OH-WV
#22: Wheeling, WV-OH
#24: Dayton-Springfield-Greenville, OH
#24: Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL

By Short-Term Particle Pollution
#1: Bakersfield-Delano, CA
#2: Fresno-Madera, CA
#3: Hanford-Corcoran, CA
#4: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
#5: Modesto, CA
#6: Salt Lake City-Ogden-Clearfield, UT
#7: Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA
#8: Merced, CA
#9: Fairbanks, AK
#10: Logan, UT-ID
#11: Provo-Orem, UT
#12: Stockton, CA
#13: Las Cruces, NM
#14: Visalia-Porterville, CA
#14: Eugene-Springfield, OR
#16: Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI
#17: Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia, WA
#17: Green Bay, WI
#19: Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN
#19: Harrisburg-Carlisle-Lebanon, PA
#21: Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ
#22: Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ
#23: San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA
#24: Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA
#25: South Bend-Elkhart-Mishawaka, IN-MI

lol isn't pleasant plains from wisconsin? SUCH A DIFFERENT STATE FROM MN

lol at pp going spham

I think you've got me confused with someone else, sh@kes.

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site569/2012/1205/20121205__121206bielema_400.jpg

well AK is basically the Wisconsin of the South, so

lol I meant AR, gg me

ARGH more like

oklahoma is one of the ugliest places I have seen w/ my own eyes

― iatee, Thursday, February 18, 2010 5:35 PM bookmarkflaglink

as opposed to the states you've seen with other people's eyes?

photo/video/google earth? at least one other pair of eyes will have seen it first

i mean if you're looking at a photo aren't you seeing the photo with your own eyes?

Florida Man Finds 'Worst State' Thread, Picks Fight Over Expression

it has passed through someone else's eyes first, the eyes haven't physically been in the state

my own eyes have been to 7 states in the southwest and northeast, nevada is the one i struggle to remember anything nice about at all. some of the bleakest urban and rural areas i've ever seen. maybe those buffalo-cleansed middle states are even worse - at least florida has some cool sounding non-human residents

xpost lol I figured we already clinched worst, why not get us in the running for "most pedantic state"

Nevada, montana, idaho and wyoming all deserved more votes than utah, and I hate utah.

As did arizona tbqh. New mexico and colorado are the only defensible intermountain states imo.

I'm no expert but I would have thought the incredible natural beauty of states like Idaho and Wyoming would automatically make them defensible and nowhere near worst

I had family that lived up way north in Idaho and it looked absolutely gorgeous. Fast forward to a trip through southeast Idaho and I think I’d call it a wash.

Oklahoma is one of a handful of states in the contiguous US that I have never even driven through to get somewhere else. Can't imagine what would bring me anywhere near there.

I haven’t even been to the northern reaches of my current city, why should I have opinions about bad states

only states I've been in:

Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
Georgia
Tennessee
South Carolina
North Carolina
Virginia
Maryland
New York
New Jersey
Minnesota (for one whopping day)
Illinois
Texas
Indiana
Ohio
Colorado
Nevada

Alabama the worst of that lot, followed by Indiana. just dullsville.

The one time I drove through Oklahoma is the only time I have witnessed a sky full of mammatus clouds.

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming are all have amazingly beautiful scenery but bad to reprehensible politics but I can't bring myself call any state with legit giant mountains the worst. I've never left the SLC airport so I can't really judge Utah.

For a while Oklahoma was my stand in for worst state but I know someone who grew up there and seeing it through her bizarre and hilarious filter has given me some appreciation for it.

Right now I'm thinking Indiana which I can't think of anything redeeming about and I have to spend an hour driving through to get to Chicago. If you're unfortunate enough to have to stop every gas station seems to have confederate flag shit and warm beer only just to spite you if you want to consume alcohol. Plus the industrial apocalypse and stench and everything. Even the only real lakefront town is named after Michigan.

I'd rather live in Detroit than lots of other places in MI including every single Detroit suburb.

Like anyplace not on a body of water, tbh.

This statement from me and reply from in orbit from 11 years ago is cracking me up now because I now live in Michigan again in a town not on a body of water.

florida can't be the worst, no state on the ocean can be the worst imo

florida is too weird to be the worst

Indiana is definitely mostly shitty, not least as a state that's generally hard to avoid driving through. Florida, for example, there's no way you're going there unless you're going on purpose. Same for dull, dry shitholes like OK. I've actually been to every state, and most have a lot going for them. Scenery, culture, etc. OK is an absolute void on those fronts. So is most of Indiana, imo.

Arkansas and South Carolina are I think the ones I've spent the least time in, but I know there's good stuff in the latter for sure.

I recently visited South Dakota. South Dakota should have won this poll. The only reason I can conceive of that it didn't win is so few ilxors have been to South Dakota, because it sucks.

cant cosign. badlands is my fav national park. also rapid city has a way better record store than you would expect to find in rapid city SD

Not enough imo

Yeah, Badlands, Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore ... some states have *nothing*.

I hate North Dakota more than South Dakota but I've spent way more time driving across the barren nothingness with dystopian fracking byproduct fires burning in the distance and sleeping in motels with parking lots full of sketchy methheads that cost $200 a night because of all the rednecks with giant brand new $60k white pickup trucks who live there cause there's no other housing.

North Dakota was my wife's pick for worst, but something about it I find just so charmingly desolate, if that makes any sense. At least it made an impression on me, as it did you, poor though that impression may have been. I once had some OK Chinese food in Fargo, come to think of it.

I remember going to a pawn shop in Rapid City and finding a dvd of A Separation by Asghar Farhadi and when i was checking out the huge leathered-up Tex Cobb-looking biker guy behind bulletproof glass at the counter furrowed his brow and looked at it a second too long and went, "this from Iran?" I said yeah and braced myself, and he goes "you into Kiarostami too??!" and got really excited and we had a great convo. Later when I checked into a shitty motel w/slot machines in the lobby the elderly lady behind the desk was reading Naked Lunch. A very unusual town ime.

florida can't be the worst, no state on the ocean can be the worst imo

I wonder if Trayvon Martin liked the ocean

I also wonder if Marissa Alexander likes the ocean, now that she is out of prison and can see it again

in summation, fuck Florida

I mean, if that's your standard, then every state is vying for last place.

Weirdly, some of the best times I've had and interesting places I've been have been in shitty states like Alabama or Mississippi, and some of the most "let's get out of here" times/places have been in, like, pretty, crunchy Oregon or Idaho or the generally innocuous Ohio.

I mean, if that's your standard, then every state is vying for last place.

did you spend any time thinking about how this would come across before you hit send

One of the reasons SD sucks is Mt Rushmore tho

Rhoda Island is pretty bad- has some of the worst elements of Massachusetts and Florida densely packed together.

My ex and his wife got effectively run out of a small town in Missouri a few years ago; the school they were teaching at held a mandatory all-staff "gun safety training" that was actually an NRA rally with people running around firing blanks in the air, and I guess they were sitting there with expressions on their faces that were less than enthusiastic, so the next day their supervisors fired them for "protesting" and suggested they leave town.

Yeah, Badlands, Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore ... some states have *nothing*.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 19, 2021 2:13 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol.. mt rushmore.. really? that shit is absolutely appalling.

pretty much every state west of the mississippi has intense natural beauty to recommend but the vibe of colonial settler brutality is omnipresent, in varying shades of intensity. wyoming and idaho are very fucking intense with it, the craziest most racist motherfuckers you can imagine live there. new mexico's settler colonialism dates back to spanish settlements and as such the vibe is very different there, i honestly don't have a lot of insight into that culture but hey it's a blue state at least. colorado's western colonial settler brutality has been updated with sophisticated new york city influenced consumer capitalism which at least has pretenses towards liberalism. nevada i think we can all agree is an existential joke.

Weirdly, some of the best times I've had and interesting places I've been have been in shitty states like Alabama or Mississippi, and some of the most "let's get out of here" times/places have been in, like, pretty, crunchy Oregon or Idaho or the generally innocuous Ohio.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 19, 2021 2:39 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

not to read you too much in this thread but, like, this doesn't surprise me

lot of states in the upper Midwest and Mountain Time Zone with which I have either zero or very little experience, so grain of salt. and tbh Politics are weighing heavily on my decision here (Florida was a strong contender), but going w Alabama. it’s got all the shitty things the other states I know intimately and w which I have complicated relationships, but the bad is cranked up a couple of notches and the redeeming features are scant.

I have lived in 4 of the top 8 worstest.

Alabama is definitely worse than Utah, Indiana, and Texas.

Florida really is the worst though.

Nevada shouldn’t exist. Man was not meant to live there.

My ex and his wife got effectively run out of a small town in Missouri a few years ago; the school they were teaching at held a mandatory all-staff "gun safety training" that was actually an NRA rally with people running around firing blanks in the air, and I guess they were sitting there with expressions on their faces that were less than enthusiastic, so the next day their supervisors fired them for "protesting" and suggested they leave town.

― Lily Dale, Friday, March 19, 2021 8:12 AM (fifty-three minutes ago)

my ancestors got effectively run out of a small town in Missouri back in 1860 for being anti-slavery so ... wonder, if it was the same town lol ...

wow i can believe josh admits to having found something interesting in alabama, brave of you to call him out on that map

Idaho and Oregon are the only places I have actually seen gun-toting, uniform-wearing right wing militia dudes (I know they're all over the place, that's just the only place I've seen them). Mississippi, I thought Oxford was a lovely town, and Birmingham, Alabama's Civil Rights Museum was one of the most powerful places I've ever visited (same for a few spots in Montgomery).

lol at some of the obviously mediocre/shitty states getting 0 votes whereas awesome states like New York, California, and Washington got votes.

Granted, just about anything good I saw in Alabama was related to its history of being terrible, so ...

wait a sec ... you would argue that Oregon is worse than ..... Mississippi ... extremely racist Mississippi?

No.

Idaho is shit ... people who think the Mormon church is too progressive live in Idaho.

Indiana is better than Idaho though ... but that's like ranking Alabama vs. Mississippi

Nevada shouldn’t exist. Man was not meant to live there.

― Bruno Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Boring, Maryland), Friday, March 19, 2021 4:03 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

qft. at least in its current number. that ecosystem should not be supporting 3 million people. they're already draining the colorado.

wait a sec ... you would argue that Oregon is worse than ..... Mississippi ... extremely racist Mississippi?

― sarahell, Friday, March 19, 2021 4:13 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

to be fair oregon is arguably just as racist as mississippi! it has major whites-only bona fides.

I'm thinking Nebraska is getting off easy here because most people forget it exists. I often forget about it myself. There's just no point in it existing. So many things road trips from Illinois to Out West and after hour and hours of driving thru the featureless prairie, you think you've made some progress and then wham there's like 5 hours worth of Nebraska in front of you. Just soul crushing. Oklahoma is just as bad wrt, if you're taking the slightly more southern route.

I lived in Florida for many years and thought it was lovely. From its natural wonders to it's vibe - especially the maritime vibe of the coasts - it's a unique and interesting place. It's their politicians that suck, and of course some of their infamous laws.

Mississippi is probably the most scientifically correct answer to this question. (Tbh I've never been to Montana or states in that region).

to be fair oregon is arguably just as racist as mississippi! it has major whites-only bona fides.

― map ca. 1890 (map), Friday, March 19, 2021 9:27 AM (three minutes ago)

it would be _interesting_ to argue whether Oregon is just as racist as Mississippi but ...

Can’t we just agree that all the states are bad because they all have Americans in them

seriously

I've visited Florida but it's highest hill is 700 feet above sea level and I'm not sure I could live anywhere with such puny hills.

i feel like texas might be the right answer for this, in that, they are so big that they should be great. but instead they have doubled down on their identity as conquerors of black people, indigenous people, and mexican people. just a wonderful trifecta of brutality. also their toxic masc culture is off the charts and unique in how sanctioned / officially revered it is.

The Texas lege meets for four and a half months, every two years. Texas is ranked last in US healthcare access, last in percentage of 25 year olds who are high school graduates, last in affordability of residential electric bills - the list goes on. This is their focus: https://t.co/vWKbQboxSX

— Blue Heron Farm (@BlueHeronFarmTX) March 19, 2021

man, I do hate Texas lol

bottom 5, easy (again, of ones I know).

sorry djp i was just trying to say the ocean is beautiful i did not intend to minimize anything or excuse anything wrt the murder of trayvon martin

will bow out now

ftr Mississippi’s and Tennessee’s massive cultural exports doing A LOT of heavy lifting here.

both are extremely shitty states

The ocean is beautiful.

The Gulf is beautiful.

I am beautiful.

Florida is a racist hell.

Was this poll about the citizenry or the state electeds?

m@tt you don't need to bow out, I was mostly just reasserting why Florida sucks

it's also pretty easy to say Oregon is just as racist as Mississippi considering it (Oregon) was founded as a whites-only state and the language around that in the state Constitution wasn't removed until 2002

I've only recently began to embrace Orlando as a city I like rather than a city I just "live in" (which technically...I don't, anymore!) when Orlando City got promoted to Major League Soccer, which really created a bigger sports atmosphere that's been here since Shaq was on the Magic (no, not even the 2009 NBA Finals)....and the fact that it's getting more and more bohemian/woke.

Downtown is garbage though, and I avoid like the plague. the more boheme areas are in other pockets.

what’s the little area sort of north and east of downtown? lots of little pubs, tiny music venues maybe? idk, I spent a lot of time in Orlando from 2014-2017 and ended up over there on my stoned late night walkabouts

After Miami and St Pete Orlando might be my fave city in FL. which was quite a surprise as someone who’s imagined just Disney and strip malls until I actually i got there

That's the part of Orlando I like. Loch Haven Park, Virginia Ave bar street, St Matthews tavern, etc

I remember going to a pawn shop in Rapid City and finding a dvd of A Separation by Asghar Farhadi and when i was checking out the huge leathered-up Tex Cobb-looking biker guy behind bulletproof glass at the counter furrowed his brow and looked at it a second too long and went, "this from Iran?" I said yeah and braced myself, and he goes "you into Kiarostami too??!" and got really excited and we had a great convo. Later when I checked into a shitty motel w/slot machines in the lobby the elderly lady behind the desk was reading Naked Lunch. A very unusual town ime.

good post

After Miami and St Pete Orlando might be my fave city in FL. which was quite a surprise as someone who’s imagined just Disney and strip malls until I actually i got there

― Washington Generals D-League affiliate (will),

Florida is mostly Disney and strip malls, though.

btw Walt Disney world rules

They all look pretty fxxked to me.

no beef w Disney. Orlando just exceeded expectations in ways that other larger cities in FL def did not.

another p chill place: Sarasota

Agreed. It's all the Amish.

Sarasota has fairly terrible political demographics, and while some of the beaches are magnificent, the Miami Cubans have discovered them.

ha I did see a Sarasota Republican Party gathering at the hotel (pre-Trump)

The vibe in the little downtown was old people who like to party. live music, late night food, etc. like they went down for spring break in ‘72 and just never wanted to leave.

the West coast (outside of Tampa/ St Pete) does have a very conservative feel, though, eg Ft Myers, Naples

I've never been there, but how does Key West figure into the FL equation?

There are quieter, prettier keys. It's the Bourbon Street of keys.

My husband’s parents go to Siesta Key every February so I do end up spending a week in Florida every year. It’s just about the only thing that makes me OK with the prospect of returning to two months more of Minnesota winter.

Man I was so mean to New Orleans itt and I have no recollection of what I was thinking although I'm pretty sure it was about 80% unserious. I've never even been there! Maybe I was mad about drunken frat party Mardi Gras or something.

Often overlooked is that Florida has more freshwater springs than any other state - somewhere between 700 and 1000 - many of which are lovely for swimming, tubing.

Florida has a town that has been continuously occupied since 1565, St. Augustine, with some of the oldest buildings in the country.

As far as West Coast/East Coast is concerned, I always thought of it as a Midwest US/Northeast US divide. I-75 comes straight down from the Midwest depositing Midwesterners in the vicinity of Tampa, whereas I-95 comes down from the Northeast bringing people from New England, NY, NJ, Philly etc. That's part of what gives the coasts their respective flavors.

I really hate Ft Myers, FL though. I can expound on that for at least a good 10 minutes.