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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Lileks on the "State of the State" |
| 2008-02-13 |
| The State of the State speech sounds tautological, but it’s not. Think of it as The Condition of the Entity speech. It occurs today at 11 PM, and I expect an upbeat oration with the usual qualifications: "My fellow Minnesotans, the state of the state is good. But we face challenges." Or "The State of the State is challenged, but good." They might as well pass out a box of candy stamped Good ‘N’ Challenged and leave it at that. A speech reflecting our wild communal mood swings would be much more entertaining, wouldn't it? In fat years the governor bounds on stage with a big grin and shouts "BOOYA! The State of the State is KICKING MAJOR BUTT. Holy jumpin’ lunkers, folks - we have so much money we’re going to fix every bridges in the state and gild them. Then we’ll gild the gusset plates. Then we’ll gild the inspectors. For that matter I have just announced the mandatory gilding of all K-12 teachers, and that’s just the start. We’re talking trains all over the place. We’re talking a train that has a small train inside it to take you from the dining car back to your seat." Or the governor shows up pale and shaking, drops his notes, mutters “Game over, man, game over, ” and runs for the exits. According to this unscientific poll, half the respondents believe the state is in BAD shape. I’m sure some believe it’s in bad shape because taxes are too low, and some believe it’s bad because taxes are too high. At least we can agree things are bad. Depends how you define that, I suppose; I’d like to reserve the scary depressing words for breadlines and brokers leaping out of windows, falling on other brokers who are selling apples. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 mandatory gilding of all K-12 teachers Given the number of weird news items originating from our public schools, gelding all K-12 teachers is probably not a bad idea. Expect some pushback from the teacher's unions though. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-02-13 15:55 |