Maybe the worst thing about existing on the northern plains is the noticeable decline of one's brain power. For instance, I can't remember if the current arctic high pressure system is the fourth or fifth of the season.  Or whether Al Gore invented global warming and Al Sharpton the internet or the other way around.

There are small compensations. As the neurons freeze, it takes less to amuse myself. I just ran a sunrise errand without carefully brushing all the new snow from the hood. "It will blow off on the highway, and that's very pretty."

The  best thing is reading my friends down in the malarial zones.  For instance,  a Texas lady I know is writing that it may snow on the Rio Grande and using a full year's allocation of exclamation points, and that's almost as amusing as scratching designs on my frosted windows.

South Dakota: Turn 21 and buy a gun, or else

It's too bad they're not serious.  A legislative proposal would require every South Dakotan  to buy a gun  upon reaching the age of 21  1/2.

The weapon would need to be "sufficient to provide for (the citizen's) ordinary self-defense"

The  lawmakers are just funnin' with ya though. It's a spoof of the Obama health bill's requirement that you buy gummint-approved health insurance.
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Funny that it happened there, however. In the first place, South Dakota is a peaceful place where about 99 per cent of the folks go about their daily lives with a mind set on cordiality, courtesy, and minding their own business. And enough of that group already carry guns to be a real moderating influence on the other 1 per cent.

So they probably don't need it as bad as Kennesaw did.

All across these 57 states...

Do you feel as though you're surrounded by a cluster of dimwits?

Right you are, Johnny. Fewer than half of your fellow citizens -- ordinary folks -- know Jack Schidt  about the country, its history, its government.

And since these Snooki watchers are entitled to vote, it comes as no surprise that their elected officials are even dumber.

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The test is a nice way to pass five minutes of the current end-of-the-world storm global warming episode.

H/TKurt

Yes, Travis McGee was that good

And we have it on excellent authority, courtesy of the Harvard Business School Alumni Review. It offers a letter to John. D. from an admirer:

Dear Mr. MacDonald, Would you please send me Travis McGee?…. I have read all the books you wrote and I am desperate because there are no more….I am distributing your books here in Europe, and everybody is deserting everybody because nobody will sleep with anybody when they have a new book of yours.”
(Marlene Dietrich, 1975)


Younger readers may wonder, "Whoozat?"