Friday, January 04, 2013

HOW'RE YOU GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM AFTER THEY'VE SEEN THE FARM?

Some guy at Ace of Spades is excited about Atlas Van Lines' map of what states have more mover-outers and what states have more mover-inners:
Frankly, I'm surprised that CA and MI are treading water on that chart but then again it is only one source and does not indicate what type of people are moving in and out (i.e. producers or takers).
The idea (or "narrative," as these dinks like to put it) is that big bad blue states are bleeding "producer" population, and soon will be overtaken by Workers' Paradises like North Dakota. Similarly, Some Other Guy at RedState headlines his story about another mover's poll (United Van Lines'), "Unchanged: Americans Are Still Fleeing High-Tax, Forced-Unionism States With Good Reason," followed by lots of hurp-durp about lousy blue states boy won't they be sorry.

Well, it's always instructive to do what rightblogger readers are unlikely to do, and click the links. At the United Van Lines site:


I'll be durned -- Americans are flocking to Washington, D.C., even though such geniuses as Ole Perfesser Instapundit, Nick Gillespie and David Brooks were just telling us it's the moocher capital of the evil Hunger Games empire.

And the United Van Lines item the RedState link takes you to is sub-headed, "Washington D.C. the Most Popular Destination During the Election Year." Guess America's really Obama-depraved after all!

Don't worry -- it looks like there'll be plenty of room in DickCheneyland for them all to Go Galt in.

75 comments:

  1. Spaghetti Lee11:36 PM

    It is indeed one source. Allow me to offer another: http://www.marketplace.org/sites/default/files/two-americas-med-income.png


    The funny thing about places like Alaska, North Dakota, DC, and the like is that the sheer lack of population means that relatively small movements of people can make for big-sounding numbers. Me, I'll wait for the wages, income, education, and health levels of the horrible commie states to fall to the level of their freedom-loving neighbors before I make any sudden movements.

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  2. wileywitch11:43 PM

    Of course, when a blue person moves to a red state, they become red so that the state gets redder and that blue state fades.

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  3. I'm wondering what's going on in Newfoundland that's brought all the Canucks to the yard.

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  4. sharculese12:23 AM

    Well, that would explain why all the Free State Project morons have failed to turn New Hampshire into libertopia...

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  5. According to the Atlas map, of the eight states with net inbound flow, three are blue states (Washington, Oregon, and New Hampshire). 

    So nearly half of the inbound flow is to decadent liberal enclaves.

    Of the five remaining red states, three are experiencing oil and energy booms (Texas, North Dakota and Alaska). You know, I'm sure if oil were discovered in Michigan there would be a net influx of population to that state as well, so I think it's fair to put these states into the neutral category. That leaves Tennessee and North Carolina, where I'm assuming people go to die, or at least just give up. 

    Of the twelve states with net outbound flow, five of them are red (Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana, West Virginia), which means again, nearly fifty percent of people are relocating to Marxist hellholes.

    I'm not sure what sort of positive winger narrative a person can create from this if they possess more than an ounce of self-awareness. This is the same sort of reasoning that says the really cute girl from homeroom must really be an Ayn Rand fan like you because she walked over to the punch table to get some punch, where you just happened to be standing and idly masturbating to a thoroughly stained copy of Atlas Shrugged

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  6. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard12:29 AM

    Don't worry -- it looks like there'll be plenty of room in DickCheneyland for them all to Go Galt in

    I'm hoping they all bugger off the Russia... maybe George Soros can build a Potemkin Branson in Siberia.

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  7. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard12:34 AM

    Global warming promises to turn it into a tropical paradise... think "Barbados North". Getting in on the "ground floor" ensures you'll have beachfront property.

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  8. Chris Anderson12:36 AM

    That's funny.

    Last year I moved from a blue to a reddish (purple) state, and the experience has made me bluer. I even started growing my hair out. It isn't much, but it might make some waves!...

    One thing I don't have to worry about anymore is marriage trouble. The wife and I kept our shit together in California -- in Los Angeles, if you can believe it! There were not one, but TWO gay guys on staff at my last workplace. I am told that that wreaks havoc on a traditional marriage in the vicinity. All I know is I'm out of the frying pan. Here in Wisconsin our marriage must be many times more secure. Don't check the stats, folks, there's some sort of subtlety to all this that only the Ace of Spades can puzzle out.

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  9. The Canadian Gov. offers economic incentives (What we yanks call cash) to go live in rural towns for a year or two and teach or volunteer or some such commie thing.

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  10. sharculese12:42 AM

    That leaves Tennessee and North Carolina, where I'm assuming people go to die, or at least just give up.
    '
    North Carolina has actually done a really good job of attracting high tech jobs to the state. Of course, that's a big part of why it's shifting from red to purple.


    I can't explain Tennessee. As a general rule, there is no explanation for Tennessee.

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  11. N. Carolina is home to the Tech Triangle in Raleigh Durum where several big tech companies (Sony-Erikson, Cisco Systems, etc) have their headquarters. I have friends who live there and it is the epitome of suburban sprawl.

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  12. I'm wondering what's going on in Newfoundland that's brought all the Canucks to the yard.

    Nothing. If you click through and take a look at the map, Atlas records a total of 12 moves for Newfoundland: 9 in, 3 out. So yes, 75% of the Newfoundland moving traffic was inbound, but that only amounts to 9 people (or households).

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  13. DocAmazing12:57 AM

    Lots of double letters?

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  14. Tennessee's a pretty big state for automobile manufacturing - Saturn used to have its plants down there, and I think VW, Nissan, Toyota, and GM still do. I doubt that explains all of it, but it's probably a factor.

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  15. DocAmazing1:07 AM

    Here in California, we dream of dolts moving out of state and refusing to move back. Sadly, we're treading water when what we really want to be doing is diving.

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  16. AGoodQuestion1:09 AM

    Are you sure they're not getting their information from Unskewed Van Lines?

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  17. You say that now, Doc, but after the Makers pull a reverse Grapes of Wrath and decamp for the economic promised land of Right to Work Oklahoma, you and all the other California moochers will be left scratching your heads and wondering why there are no more chainsaws and bundles of copper wire for you to steal.

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  18. Haystack1:18 AM

    I might know something about this. Every fall thousands of Newfs migrate to western Canada to earn a few months worth of oilpatch megabucks, a sum that will tide them through spring and summer back on the Rock, where they supplement their savings with the odd carpentry or fishing gig. Over the last couple of decades many have decided to put down roots in the west (Fort McMurray has a sizable Nfld.enclave) to avoid the expense and hassle of constant moving, only to become disenchanted and homesick. They've left a tight-knit community with a unique culture for a landscape where money is king and spare time means boredom and entropy. So they move back.

    Newfoundland's economy has rebounded big-time since the collapse of the cod fishery in the early 90's. Now they have their own oil industry out in the Grand Banks. There may be some engineers and technical people from the rest of Canada setting up there, but I imagine these figures are mostly accounting for outbounders coming home.

    Disclaimer: based on anecdotal evidence & media skimming. Not an authority at all.

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  19. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:35 AM

    It's also a common place for New York suburbanites to retire to. Thirty years ago, it would have been upstate- Catskills region, but North Carolina has a less expensive cost of living. A cop or firefighter could sell a house in NY and buy a much cheaper house down near Charlotte and live off the generous pension.

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  20. Haystack1:36 AM

    ...but that only amounts to 9 people (or households).

    Well, 9 who used Atlas.


    If you go to pickupanduhaulstuffedtothegills.com, you'll find the number to be much higher.

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  21. PersonaAuGratin2:09 AM

    Great hydroelectic power supply courtesy the TVA, lots of interstate highways headed hither and yon, brainpower at Oak Ridge. In other words, a lot of the "that" that you didn't build.

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  22. sharculese2:18 AM

    My northeast liberal parents moved to Atlanta in the 80s because if you had a public health degree, that tended to be where you ended up. And y'know what, it's totally affected my dad's politics. Every year he moves a little farther to the left, if for no other reason that because all the assholes around him disagree.

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  23. Malignant Bouffant2:24 AM

    Funny you should mention New Hampshire & the freedom-lovers there.

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  24. smut clyde2:26 AM

    They've left a tight-knit community

    Code for "incestuous" (but good for linguists studying time-capsule Celtic).

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  25. smut clyde2:27 AM

    Where does Mississippi fit into this picture?

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  26. PersonaAuGratin2:28 AM

    Since I first began reading those people who have made a career out writing those U-Haul-counting "people are leaving California in droves" columns (hello, Joel Kotkin) about twenty years ago, CA has added 12 million people.

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  27. sharculese2:35 AM

    Yeah, it's strange. I've never understood why the supposedly 'freedom loving' people of New Hampshire haven't appreciated a bunch of outsiders showing up and trying to tell them how to do things.

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  28. sharculese3:12 AM

    As I said upthread, I was the child of liberal transplants to the south. That meant I spent a lot of my childhood vacations touring the great feats of New Deal engineering and hearing my dad gush about how awesome anything involving the TVA or the CCC or the WPA was. And he was right, a lot of that was cool as shit.


    So whether or not that shit entices people to Tennessee, I'm upvoting this post for reminding me of that.

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  29. Atlas Van Lines Shrugged.

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  30. montag23:59 AM

    Some of these changes are actually quite obvious, in the context of just trends in the news. North Dakota influx explained by a mini-oil boom. Washington, DC, because of the huge amounts of money being spent by the government on contract defense/intelligence/surveillance/security and facilities for same. North Carolina, activity in the Research Triangle (related to what's going on in DC) and retirees to the Asheville area. Influx to New Mexico and outflow from NY, retirees (particularly because of mismatches in housing costs and the fact that most of NM has an average of more than 310 days of sunshine every year). Alaska--increased oil bidness activity, particularly along the coastline adjacent to ANWR and some of the majors planning and assembling equipment for offshore drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi.


    Not exactly to do with onerous taxes and pushy unions. Evacuation from Wyoming? Who knows? Maybe because Cheney is back there again, polluting the trout fishing and the public by-ways. (More likely because big money is crowding out lower wage earners and fracking is ruining the landscape. Hmm, I guess Cheney can be blamed for that, too, since he wrote them their exemptions from EPA rules....)

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  31. Even if these yodels had a toe in the water of truth, they are still fuck out of luck. When civilized folks move to the hinterlands, they usually bring all their edumacation with 'em.


    Asheville, NC, is an example. Boy-howdy, you should hear the rednecks whine in their nasally WNC accents about the damn northerners and their money driving up property taxes and smoking joints RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN DOWNTOWN!!


    Point being--if Blue Staters move to Red States, it just means more of the Blue for everybody. Fine by me. That's what these assholes need is some sunshine in their Hearts of Darkness.

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  32. mortimer6:57 AM

    Yes, comrade! The thread to the RedState post is one long whine about just that! Our plan is working!
    While this is all well and good, many of those fleeing these states bring the liberal virus with them, and start voting stupidly, ushering in the same trash they fled from in the first place!
    ...Next thing, they start electing their own to the school boards and city councils...
    ...NC used to be reliably GOP at the presidential level; not so any more, due to the above happening
    ... if your plan is to ruin the Sunshine State like the one you left, kindly stay where you are. We want more freedom and less government intervention, not more. And our hard working folks don't need any worthless unions, either....
    As people who want to work exit Illinois they may move to a state that is conservative and take a right to work job. The question is will these workers join the natives or try and impose liberal standards and politics.

    And so on. The solutions proposed run the usual gamut from denying the vote to newcomers to killing them off. But have no fear, comrades, and keep on infiltrating! We'll turn South Carolina into a Worker's Paradise yet!

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  33. It's something in the water?


    Flo-ride.

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  34. Well, Asheville has been bitching about that since the Vanderbilts built a little cottage there, and the place is still full of ignorance, so I don't think they have a problem.

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  35. Derelict8:42 AM

    What a winning way to look at the world and your neighbors: They are either producers or takers.
    So I have to wonder where the union plumber fits into that. Is he or she a producer for working hard and playing by the rules? Or a taker if they do not own the plumbing business? Indeed, is every employee now defined as a taker and only business owners defined as producers?
    And once you get the definitions sorted, who do you tell which is moving where?

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  36. Leeds man9:04 AM

    Tundering Jesus! Dat's Newfoundland and Labrador! NL if yez are lazy.

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  37. This is as good an explanation as any for Heitkamp's surprise victory in November. It's all those gay Muslim New Yorkers moving to North Dakota and voting for the gay Muslim Democrat Party candidate

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  38. for some strange reason it had to be, it was all a dream about tennessee.

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  39. the decoder ring is just four box tops and $50 from the blaze website.

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  40. jesus if this isn't the thing in a nutshell: x is occurring, it must be because i believe y.

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  41. BigHank5311:18 AM

    Before the housing crash, lots of people sold their suburban tract house and found themselves with enough cash to buy the Florida condo and a perfectly decent house somewhere along the Blue Ridge.


    North Carolina also has much gentler winters than the Northeast: a couple snowstorms a year, which usually melt in a couple days. No need to plow, and the lack of salt on the roads means your car lasts for twenty years instead of eight.

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  42. BigHank5311:19 AM

    Ah, Cary, North Carolina:


    Containment
    Area for

    Relocated

    Yankees.

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  43. Haystack11:59 AM

    Well, 9 who used Atlas, anyway.


    If you go to pickupanduhaulstuffedtothegillsdotcom, you'll find a much higher number.

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  44. Haystack12:05 PM

    So next week, using the same numbers, a rightblogger uproar about all the blue-staters polluting the wingnut gene pool.

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  45. apocalipstick12:55 PM

    I would wager that much of the inbound flow to North Carolina is to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle and/or Charlotte, two of the bluer areas of that state.

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  46. coozledad1:43 PM

    Downtown Durham is really nice, The Northern end of the county, where I grew up, is a cracker hell where it's still the fucking 1940s.
    I never could find my way around Cary because it's built almost entirely of mayonnaise (except for some small ethnic enclaves where you can get kickass South Indian food.


    I guess Udipi Cafe is still there.

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  47. montag21:48 PM

    Which reminds of someone's recommendation for South Carolina's license plate motto: Five Million People, Fifteen Family Names.

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  48. smut clyde2:10 PM

    "Droves"? We used to call them "moving vans". Or "Pantechnicons" back in the day.

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  49. montag22:16 PM

    Boy, howdy, does that little rant require some translation.

    if your plan is to ruin the Sunshine State like the one you left,
    kindly stay where you are. We want more freedom and less government
    intervention, not more
    . = We like our corrupt politicians just fine, thank you very much.



    And our hard working folks = uneducated white people


    don't need any worthless unions, either.... = we like being poor and victimized. It's in our blood.



    As people who want to work exit Illinois = because of all those black people in Chicago.



    they may move to a state that is conservative = racist, backward and extremely proud of it.



    and take a right to work job. = a shitty job for even shittier pay.



    The question is will these workers join the natives = can we use guns and Red Man to intimidate these fuckin' Yankees into submission and silence?



    or try and impose liberal standards and politics. = Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act enforcement.


    I just love dog-whistling.

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  50. BigHank535:37 PM

    Having had the good fortune to grow up in the Granite State,, there are a few reasons that I can convey to you:


    #1. The Manchester Union-Leader newspaper, as fetid a nest of Birchers and gold-buggers as one can imagine. They've had the Tea Party since the sixties, and one might imagine, have developed an impressive immune system. Governor Mel Thompson wanted the NH National Guard equipped with nuclear weapons, for fucks' sake.


    #2. The first-in-the-nation primary and the tiny size of the state means one is likely to encounter a presidential candidate, often when you're trying to get breakfast or get rid of your recycling. It only takes seconds in the presence of one of the smarmy, desperate, glad-handing monsters to put you right off the idea of professional politicians in general, and presidents in particular.



    #3. Almost everyone in NH is getting their TV news out of Boston, and they have no idea how good they have it. The Boston market is the #3 media market in the US, behind LA and NYC. The only step up for a reporter or anchor there is a national gig, and it shows. The first time I saw local news in Indianapolis I was actually shocked: their professionalism was at what I considered a high-school level.

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  51. redoubt6:22 PM

    OT, but: I think your northeast liberal parents and I might know some of the same people.

    Signed,

    Damn Yankee

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  52. J Neo Marvin6:31 PM

    Aspiring songwriters trying to make it in Nashville?

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  53. fraser6:40 PM

    And it's a pretty liberal enclave too.

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  54. redoubt6:42 PM

    Desperate times call for desperate numbers; the "moving map" shows, basically, 30 of the fifty states (and two of the ten provinces) with no real change.

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  55. M. Krebs6:45 PM

    There's a good movie in this concept, if only we can convince Buck Henry to write the thing.

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  56. Halloween_Jack7:09 PM

    I wonder how long that's going to last for North Dakota, especially since people are rushing to take advantage of the boomtown mentality and it turns out that not every job pays six figures and after a while even beer and strippers lose their appeal. Do they build nicer, more permanent facilities knowing that if/when the oil dries up it'll all be worthless? Or do they rent out trailers while waiting for the other shoe to drop? And what will they do when the boom busts and there are some people in the state who don't leave when the jobs do?

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  57. JennOfArk7:51 PM

    I would like to offer this comment a delicious Necco wafer.

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  58. Horta Dubstep9:58 PM

    Crookedly.

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  59. I believe the traditional thing to do is to write vagrancy laws that imprison them or throw them onto railroads heading out of town. These low-social service/low safety net states pretty much figure people will leave when there are no jobs.


    I know plenty of women (on line) who are encouraging others to move there or are moving themselves because the jobs are there right now and none of them grasp the temporary nature of the boom economy or the costs associated with the divided lifestyle it forces on families. But people are desperate and if you need to send your husband to work the oil fields while you squat in a trailer in some other town you will do it.


    aimai

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  60. whetstone11:32 PM

    Washington is indeed the ultimate moocher paradise: all those benefits of living in America, yet they don't elect a Senator or nothin'. Why in North Dakota, every third person is at least a U.S. representative.

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  61. whetstone11:35 PM

    My folks referred to the Tennessee River as the TVA. And they're *Republicans.*

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  62. Anonymous11:48 PM

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    ReplyDelete
  63. This comment is the Rosetta Stone of Wingnut.

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  64. With a humpback.

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  65. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard4:24 AM

    And our hard working folks don't need any worthless unions, either...
    Of course, we northeasterners view the typical Southerner as a subliterate, slow-moving yokel who is incompetent and lazy at best, vicious and violent at worst. "Your hard working folks" indeed.
    Apologies to any Southern liberals out there, I'm referring to "those people" if you know what I mean and I think that you do.

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  66. smut clyde6:39 AM

    You mean it was stolen from Egypt by Napoleon, and then stolen by the English to keep in the British Museum?

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  67. smut clyde6:40 AM

    And the other states are making bunny-ears behind its back.

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  68. montag29:04 AM

    This documentary is a pretty good overview of what's happening in ND:

    http://www.prairiepublic.org/television/prairie-public-on-demand/faces-of-the-oil-patch

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  69. BigHank539:04 AM

    North Dakota will provide the same lavish support they've shown for the small-scale NoDak farmer: none whatsoever. If you can't figure out how to decamp for greener climes, you deserve to freeze to death.

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  70. there's always modeling for 'faces of meth.'

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  71. That is precisely what I mean. And then it was stolen from the English by Roy after he failed to win it honestly in a game of mumbly-peg and put in Disqus, where it remains to this day.

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  72. DocAmazing12:42 PM

    This is called "Christian charity".

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  73. mommadillo9:33 PM

    what type of people are moving in and out (i.e. producers or takers)



    They're people who can afford to pay a moving company instead of doing it themselves, if that tells you anything

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  74. Origami_Isopod1:09 PM

    I would like to breastfeed this comment with the milk meant for my stillborn baby.

    ReplyDelete