God, I hate Alabama.
It is a certified fact that Mississippi is the dumbest state in the US. Whether counted by % of the population who go on to college, or standardized high school test results, or any of a number of other metrics.
Most folks know that. Most folks know that Mississippi loses in practically every way a state can lose. Most obese, worst employment and economic opportunity, worst health, and on and on.
But what is hidden in the state-by-state calculations is that Alabama would be EVEN WORSE THAN MISSISSIPPI if it weren't for a narrow band of smart folks up at the northern end of the state who really pad the averages.
See, that strip of land north of the Tennessee River which includes Huntsville and Florence, it is a pocket of really smart, well-to-do folks. Rocket scientists and brain surgeons. Those types. You can thank the US Army for putting Redstone Arsenal there, then after World War II filling it up with rocket and missile designers.
The important thing is, this is the bit of Alabama that probably should've been in Tennessee. It would've been, if the map makers had followed major terrain features (like the Tennessee River) rather than blindly plotting east-west grid lines without regard to how the ground flowed.
Anyway, you take away that bit of Alabama north of the Tennessee River, and all the stuff that's left is a civilizational disaster area, a societal train wreck. Every unseemly record held by Mississippi, plus the teen birth record held by Arkansas, would all be Alabama's domain.
That's how bad they suck.
I hate Alabama.
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