perfidy

As an Ohioan, I have a deep and abiding hatred for the state of Michigan. All right thinking people will of course share this view. However, in the interest of fainess and impartiality, I have tried not to single out this one state for abuse that I would not be willing to visit on other states. Happily, I just piled on Massachusetts so I pretty much have a free hand here.

• Screw Blue

• Gateway to nowhere
• Stunted Pine Forests and Urban Wastelands. What's not to love?
• You gotta a love a state whose most notable holiday is Hell Night
• We’re Peninsular!
• Come back to Detroit... We missed you the first time.
• Get a letter, get shot; it’s all the same to our postal workers
• Birthplace of the Mighty Corn Flake
• Our greatest cultural achievement: Kid Rock and Eminem
• We’ve got Zombies!
• The wolverine is a vicious, bloodthirsty and ill tempered beast. So are we.
• We made Fat Ass Michael Moore a Star!
• Windsor has better strippers, but get your crack in Detroit
• Come for the depressing post industrial landscapes, stay for the arson and random shootings
• Go Postal!
• I hate Michigan

• Clearance Sale
• Birthplace of substandard, lackadaisical, industrial manufacturing
• Talk to the hand
• The State, not the Stupid Lake
• Auto strikes, disgruntled postal workers, and a surplus of Canadians, oh my!
• Motorheads
• Ambitious Michiganders move to New Jersey for the fresh air and economic opportunity
• The New Jersey of the Upper Midwest
• Next stop, Canada!
• First Line of Defense from Marauding Canadians
• The state that looks like a hand. Okay, a mitten anyway
• It's not just cold. It's ass-biting cold.
• Hey, at least we don’t have Toledo
• Home of the wigger
• Land of the free, home of the Buick
• What’s good for the goose is good for the Michigander. In this case, strangling.
• Proud home of interweb superstar Murdoc
• Everyone’s dead

Some more fun Michigan images:

[wik] (Patton) Never one to miss a chance to pile on, as an Ohio State alum, I'm forced to add this item from the archives:

At the risk of disrupting Minister Buckethead's ongoing feature enlightening us on state mottoes, I'm forced to drop in a note about a story in this morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription possibly required), entitled "Naming a State Dirt Just Doesn't Wash with New Jerseyites".

All due respect to residents of the Garden State, but I'd expect that the only problem with naming a state dirt would be the confusion caused on the part of people like me, who think they should simply rename the entire state "Dirt". (excepting some of the nicer, western portions of the state, which should simply be given to Pennsylvania)

The protagonist in this Quixotic endeavor, David Friedman, runs the Ocean County soil-conservation district, and appears to be, in his own way, a deep-thinking poet, of some kind:

"What's beneath our feet," Mr. Friedman continued, "is a whole other world of earth and worms and...help me out, Chris."

"And roots and organisms," said Chris Miller, a specialist with the U.S. Agriculture Department who was on an inspection tour; he was riding in the back seat.

Truly a man of words, that.

"They all serve," Mr. Friedman said. "If we manage what's below our feet, it's going to benefit mankind."

Apparently, the Journal decided not to print the quote from the guy who responded "Hey! Don't bogart that joint, Spanky!" But they did present some balance, with this:

By unanimous vote, the Assembly passed the bill in May, prompting local resident Jay Lomberk to write to the Asbury Park Press: "State dirt? Are you kidding?" And another local, Jackie Daly, to write: "If it weren't so pathetic, it would be funny."

Douglas Fisher, a legislator in NJ "is sure the mockery explains why" the bill to name a state dirt failed in the state Senate. No! Ya think? He was shocked, it seems. But then, he's also the guy who tried to nominate the tomato as New Jersey's official vegetable. Never mind that a tomato is a fruit, notwithstanding some obscure US Supreme Court decision from 1893 that Fisher cited.

We learn, as the article continues, several related facts:

• Various state legislatures have "ordained official fossils, odes, dogs, and doughnuts"
• There's a site, netstate.com, that actually tracks this crap
• South Carolina's official snack food is boiled peanuts
• An outfit (United Square Dancers) has "lobbied Congress to make the square dance a national symbol, alongside the flag, the rose, and the bald eagle"
• In an example of one thing that's good about war, they claim that "What with the war, we were not able to pass it"
• In an example that proves we probably need more wars, they were somehow able to convince 31 state legislatures that "they need an official folk dance, and that the square dance is it"
• America's biggest crop? Lawn. Who knew?

"Lawns," said Mr. Miller from the back seat as Mr. Friedman drove west toward Lakehurst. "Personally, I don't know what the draw is."

And there's the problem. Dirt matters, of course. But the cluelessness that underlies an assumption that dirt matters and grass doesn't might explain why they're chasing this particular parked car.

Either that, or I'm just a hardened cynic.

Maryland’s state motto is, and I swear on the altar of the almighty God that I’m not lying, "Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine." More than any other state, Maryland needs mottos. Send your mottos to the office of the Lt. Governor, and I’ll send these.

• A Thinking Man's Delaware
• If You Can Dream It, We Can Tax It
• If it weren't for Washington, you couldn't find us
• We've Got DC Surrounded
• Outside The Beltway
• We've got crabs!
• Our streets are paved with trash
• Where politicians and rednecks abound
• The Other Alabama
• If our drugs don't kill you, our crack whores will.
• Say Chowda!
• Come for hicks and snobs, stay for the blighted post industrial landscape
• The Free State, My Ass
• We’ve got Crabs!
• The Ohio of the East
• You’d never know it, but we’re south of the Mason Dixon line
• At least we’re not New Jersey
• We were almost kicked out of the Union
• We’re more than just Cal Ripken. Okay, it’s just Cal Ripken
• It’s not easy, being green
• Proud home of Tom Clancy
• No, my name ain’t Mary
• Bring back the Colts, dammit
• Now we know why Cleveland hated Art Model
• It’s like West Virginia, downtown Philadelphia and Suburban DC, all at once
• Proud home of the NSA. Oh shit, now I have to kill you.
• Kiss my ass, in Maryland
• We’ve got lots of seamen
• We’re still iffy on that whole black thing
• The Chesapeake is now as teeming with life as Lake Erie
• Terps! Terps! Terps! Terps! Terps! Terps! Terps!
• We’ve got crabs!

Some states get overlooked in favor of more famous, more interesting states. Thank God that the Ministry is here to prevent that sad fate being visited upon poor, little Maine.

• Shut Up and Eat a Lobster
• Brake for moose. The life you save may be your own.
• For Sale
• Once part of Massachusetts, but we escaped
• You can spit on Canada from here. And we do.
• We have one meeellion people!
• Gateway to the Quebec
• Bangor? I hardly knew her!
• More than just L.L. Bean. Okay, it’s just L.L. Bean
• It's OK. Cujo's been vaccinated
• Not quite as terrifying as Stephen King makes it out to be
• Ya Caihn’t Get Theah From Heah
• The New Jersey of the North
• The Only One Syllable State
• Welcome Old Coots!
• Yar gonna love da idears we got
• No, This Is Not Canada
• The rain in Maine falls mostly on the, oh shit how does that go?
• The Duck Tape State
• The Duck Boot State
• Almost Canada
• Come for the Cheap Lobster. Then Leave.
• Our state is more beautiful then yours
• Our flies can kick your ass, and then eat it.
• Scrub Pine and Deer Flies. Sounds like Heaven
• We’re so creative we named our state song, “The State of Maine Song.”
• The Wooden Toothpick Capital of the World

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Where Somali Refugees Come to Learn About Winter
• Stop and Say 'Hi' To Our Black Guy!
• Ignore the poverty surrounding your resort. It'll just depress you
• The Lumberjack State
• The Lumberjill State
• Maine: Like a whole 'nother country.
• Why use 3 words when 2 will do?
• We favor a border wall- to keep out Massholes sneaking in from New Hampshire
• Canada? Christ that's as bad as Massachusetts
• Where land is cheap, but you need a helicopter to get to it
• If you're speaking English without a drawl, thank the 20th Maine
• The 'Nice Tooth' State
• Our biggest population center holds fewer people than the Superdome
• Just like Montana, but without the Mormons, survivalists, and white supremacists. Okay, without the Mormons
• Highest incest rates in the country – eat your heart out Kentucky!
• AhYaht, gott a new Muculick today!
• East Machias, America’s gateway to nowhere
• Please don’t feed the unemployed French Canadian Mill workers
• Damn I’m bored!
• Don’t drive like a Mass-hole
• If you're gonna drive this far, you might as well just go to Montreal
• Go west instead and see Chicago

Today the Ministry honors the state of Louisiana, which gets negative kudos for being named after a Frenchman - even if he is a King, but good kudos for being the last place the US Army was allowed to kick British ass.

• No one gets eaten at the superdome
• One Big Smelly Swamp With a Party in the Middle
• One Big Smelly Swamp With Lake New Orleans in the Middle
• The "Show Me Your Tits" State
• Only the Second Most Corrupt State in the Union
• Damn those snooty Dutch, with their soooperior levy system.
• We're Not All Drunk Cajun Wackos, But That's Our Tourism Campaign
• If the Louisiana Purchase Was So Big, How Come We're So Damn small?
• Welcome voodoo worshipers!
• Swim the beautiful Bayou
• Where Food Is Hot And Crosses Burn
• We don't know how, but we managed to lose a major metropolitan area
• Don't feel bad, we can't understand Cajuns either
• Cancer Alley's just a name, and names will never hurt you
• If only we'd paid for an extra two feet of levy...
• Come for the swamp, stay for the swamp
• You know what to do if you want these beads
• Maybe we shouldn't have located a city below sea level
• Gateway to the underworld
• The Big Sleazy
• Proud Home of Johnnie Cochran, Bryant Gumbal and Master P
• Hell, we wish we were New Jersey

Today, we move back to the south. Namely, Kentucky, that whole-hearted supporter of the Union during the recent unpleasantness. Behold, we have a briar patch full of new, improved state mottoes for all them hillbillies in 'Ol Kentuck:

• The wrong side of the Ohio River
• Like Tennessee, but more, you know, Northern
• Home of the Evil Lawn Gnomes
• For the last time, Jack does not actually live here
• So many people, so few last names
• Fried Chicken!
• The New Jersey of the Upper Tennessee Valley
• Go ahead and grow weed. We don't care.
• We don't just love horses. We love horses.
• Yes, we realise that bluegrass is'nt really green
• Down in the Briar Patch
• The Eddjakashun State
• Tobacco is so a vegetable
• Come for the Bluegrass -- Stay for the Incest!
• Gateway to Nashville
• Most of us work in Cincinnati
• We've Heard ALL the Hillbilly Jokes, So Don't Even Bother
• Bourbon and horses don't mix. Unless you're into that sort of thing.
• Shallowest gene pool in the Union, except for West Virginia
• Where the women are so fast you have to put a Governor on them
• Yes, we're all related
• Where the grass ain't blue and what? I forget.

Hopefully, Tigerhawk hasn't lived in Kansas, so we can make fun of it without fear of hurting someone's feelings.

• We bring "Euclidian" to life
• Bleeding Kansas
• We’re Fucking Flat!
• The Flat State
• Hayfever capital of the Midwest
• Gateway to more Rectangular States
• There's no place like home
• At least we're not New Jersey
• Dole slept here
• Where Science Don't Mean Crap
• When the middle of nowhere is too crowded
• Ya want flat, we got flat
• Birthplace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
• More hills than Nebraska!
• We aren't all that crazy about Newton and his "gravity", either.
• That's Jayhawk, not Jaybird, dipshit
• A couple of universities and a whole lot of nothin'
• To Boldly Go Where No Tourist has Gone Before
• Proud Home of the two greatest actors in world history: Kirstie Alley and Ed Asner
• We kicked Toto's ass, the ingrate

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Come see our gated community! No, the other kind...
• Home of the Ft Leavenworth Gravel Factory

Iowa. What to say about the Hawkeye state? This should get you going. Discuss.

• Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk
• We hate Texas
• We Do Amazing Things With Corn. Amazing.
• Our Trees Bend North Because Minnesota Sucks
• Just Another Fucking Flat State
• World renowned center for philosophy, music, technology and the arts
• Where Underachievers Can Achieve
• It's easy to spell
• Just east of Omaha
• At Least We're Not New Jersey
• We're not the only state on the Mississippi, but we're one of the better ones
• The middle of nowhere state
• Bank Foreclosure Sales every Friday
• Home of the Duke
• Hell has four letters, too
• Des Moines does't rhyme with Less Coinses''

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Not as White as Idaho, but Getting There
• What Kennedys Call 'Iower'
• Home of the Radar O'Reilly Fictional Veterans of Foreign Wars Museum
• That place you drove through once, you think

Our next state, Indiana, has something of an inferiority complex. Even the official state motto, "Crossroads of America," admits that Indiana's major purpose is to serve as a flat yet uninteresting obstacle to travel somewhere else. Let us pile on:

• Corn Corn Corn Corn Indianapolis 500 Corn Corn Corn
• Can you tell us just what the fuck is a Hoosier, anyway?
• 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free
• Bring Something to Do
• Dan Quayle's Favorite Country!
• OK, we admit it, we miss Bobby Knight
• Where EVERY year is 1957
• Come for the flat and uninteresting scenery, stay for the flat and uninteresting scenery
• Not just corn, we have meth labs, too
• Proud Home of David Letterman and John Hoosier Mellonhead
• Come See Our Corn!
• The New Jersey of the Midwest
• Proud home of Raper RVs (Where fun begins!)
• If we weren't surrounded by the rest of the US, someone would probably kick our ass
• That's Hoosier girls, not Hooter girls
• Do you think our obsession with basketball is unhealthy?
• We're not as flat as Kansas
• Gateway to the lower Ohio Valley
• Does this basketball make me look fat?

I've been doing some number crunching and the results are...discouraging.

I've looked at my current debt load and played it against potential earnings. I've used historic earnings data, leavened with broader industry trends, as the core of my prediction models. Then, not feeling quite down enough, I put all that against actuarial data: height and weight, lifestyle, hobbies, career, etc etc.

I have determined that, barring some sort of ridiculous and unforeseeable windfall (and knowing that there's no real-life equivalent of a "Community Chest" card coming my way), I will not live to see the day I'm out of debt. From now until the day I die, I will be servicing debt. Sure everyone has their own financial woe and worry to contend with. I get that. But I never put things in quite this perspective before, that I'll be dead before I'm free.

It's sobering. It's heavy. It's Tuesday.

And it's Tuesday's Heavy Thought.

After a brief hiatus and respite, the Ministry returns with its seemingly endless series of alternate state mottoes posts. Today, we ridicule, poke fun at, needle, and harass the moderately fine state of Illinois. Behold, the Prairie State:

• A wholly-owned subsidiary of Richard M. Daly Industries, Inc.
• Gateway to Iowa
• Home of da Bears
• Please, Please Don't Pronounce the S
• Land of the voting dead
• At least we're not New Jersey
• I See Dead Voters
• We're in the Middle Somewhere
• Proud home of the two greatest statesmen in American History: Abraham Lincoln and Richard M. Daly
• We keep our nastiest suburbs in Indiana
• Construction ahead, Be prepared to stop
• Hicks, and Chicago
• Remember Us?
• Meatpackers, if you know what I mean
• If we only knew what the Illini were, or where they are now, we'd make more progress in the fight against them.

Today is, of course, the French Equivalent of Independence Day. Of course, French Independence day should properly be celebrated on June 6th. Casual sniping aside, the French are a race of smelly perfidious backstabbers. Happy Bastille Day!

The Ministry's continuing series of educational posts, uh, continues with our nation's 43rd State, Idaho. Today we focus on Idaho's two most significant exports, militias and potatoes:

• More Than Just Potatoes. Well, Okay, Just Potatoes
• No, U-da-ho!
• The Potato State
• Get Your Whites Their Whitest!
• Potatoes and Neonazis ... Two great tastes that taste great together
• You say potato, I say ... potato
• Cogito ergo spud: I think, therefore I yam
• We don't care if you spell potato with an "e"
• The White Potato Supremacist State
• Don't let the sun set on you in our state, Yam
• That's Bwawz, not Boy-zee
• The reason there's only 49 contestants in the Ms. Ebonics pageant
• Home of Mr. Potato Head
• Imagine your compound here!
• Like the Connecticut of the West
• Our state flower is the Syringe, but don't confuse us with New Jersey
• Birthplace of TV
• Proud home of Ezra Pound and Ruby Ridge

Among the myriad World Cup tales of soaring victory and crushing defeat; of passions, hatreds, life, love, death; of suffering and pride locked in the orbit of the all-consuming white and black ball, comes another story. A story of practicality, fulfilling urgent needs, and micro-economics.

Leave it to the Germans, arguably the most industrious people in the civilized world, Europe's own tireless ants, to put tailfins and new, uh,
rubber, on the oldest profession.

I give you the drive-through whorehouse.

Most people wouldn't think to make fun of Hawaii. It seems like a nice place. The Japs bombed it. It is the home of hula girls, surfing and Charles A. Lindbergh's grave. Who could possibly make fun of the Pineapple State? Well, us:

• Aloha means "get lost, punk!"
• We're the furthest from New Jersey!
• Sure, we've got Interstates... drive right on over
• Book 'em Danno
• We define middle of nowhere
• Hula girls are easy
• Weather is here, wish you were beautiful
• Why Does Everybody Think Putting Ham and Pineapple on Something Makes it "Hawaiian"?
• You can't get here from there
• Gateway to a shitload of water
• Tom Selleck, Jack Lord, Don Ho - Paradise!
• Eat Lava, Jerks!
• Halfway to Guam
• A whole language with only three sounds
• The Last State, until Puerto Rico makes up its fucking mind
• We're not fat, we're Samoan

You'd have to be at least a little crazy to invent this. It is however, strangely entrancing.

Georgia.

• Putting The Mental In Fundamentalism
• Gateway to Florida
• Not quite the same since Sherman
• At least we're not New Jersey
• Where Ned Beatty squealed like a pig
• Confederate money welcome
• We're like the New York of the South
• Eat a Peach
• Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation, my ass
• Mostly Rednecks 'round These Parts
• Land of the unfree, Home of the Braves
• We Put the "Fun" in Fundamentalist Extremism
• Proud home of outstanding human beings James Earl Carter, Jim Brown, Ty Cobb and Doc Holliday
• We hate Ted Turner, too
• Come for the humidity, stay for the intolerance and traffic jams

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Giving infantrymen heatstroke since 1918
• Like summer in Maine, but with fewer gnats
• Well, Savannah's nice...
• 1/5 of COPs episodes filmed here!
• If you're here for Freaknik, take a right and head for Galveston
• To paraphrase Thomas Sowell: no A/C, no Atlanta
• On the banks of the mighty Chattahoochee
• Home of Jimmy Carter - Our practical joke on the country

Since this project began, I have been looking forward to this moment. The Phallic Symbol State, Florida, is perhaps my least favorite state. So it pleases me no end to present to you, the gentle reader, a couple suggestions for new and improved mottoes for the soi disant Sunshine State:

• God's Waiting Room
• More Lizards than People
• Hey you kids, get off of my state!
• Now With 25% More Cubans!
• Ask Us About Our Grandkids
• You're dying to get here
• Senior citizen discounts available
• More than just a great place to die
• Half a Million Cubans Can't Be Wrong
• The Gunshine State
• Come, enjoy the humidity
• We're America's Penis
• So close, you can smell Fidel
• The state with a hint of Ben Gay
• Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... and we'll send 'em back to you free of charge!
• America's Dangling Chad
• We make the US look like it's pissing on Cuba
• Where the 3 R's are for Rednecks, Retirees and Raft Arrivals
• The snow capital of the US
• Come See Your Grandparents Before They Die
• Yes, that is a cabbage on our flag
• Come Retire With Us
• Bugs as big as your head
• We hate Jimmy Buffet
• At least we're not New Jersey
• Nascar, lizards, and drunk sorority chicks. What's not to love?
• But it's a wet heat. Oh, wait a minute...
• More than just old people waiting for hurricanes
• Proud home of Janet Reno and Stepin Fetchit
• Everyone Hates Us

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• America's Wang
• 3 in 5 episodes of COPS filmed right here!
• A swimming pool with every home; a meth lab in every Motel 6
• Mosquitos outnumber oxygen atoms 2:1
• Sea-cows? Hardly - manatee milk is vile
• Now with drive-through hip replacement
• The 'it's like breathing through a wet towel' state

Nobody thinks much of the Diamond State, but nevertheless, enterprising individuals have managed to come up with a plethora of divergent state mottoes:

• We make flat, boring and small cool!
• We Really Do Like the Chemicals in our Water
• The Corporate Haven state
• At least we're not New Jersey
• You'll need a map to find us
• The First State, But So Not Much Since Then
• Bet you forgot about us!
• The best .032% of America
• So close to Washington you can smell it
• See Maryland
• You know, the place you send your credit card payments
• The Weakfish State
• Come for the flat and uninteresting scenery, stay for the tax shelters
• Going to Delaware (scroll down to the "namesakes" section)

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• It's good to be first
• Unless it was the first state you got a handjob in, it's not really first
• First in self-storage facilities per capita in the lower 48
• West of Portugal, east of everywhere else
• Maryland's own Rhode Island
• The Delaware of Delaware
• Delaware: America's Clit