A little Dakota fanning

And, no, not the actress.

This would be "fanning" as a verb the Blob just made up, on account of it made for a clever headline. Turns out U.S. News and World Report is doing all sorts of fanning for Dakota -- North Dakota in particular -- which it's named the best state in the union for quality of life.

(Which is just salt in an open Hoosier wound, coming a day after North Dakota State knocked Indiana's lone Summit League representative, IPFW, out of the conference tournament. This after IPFW had beaten North Dakota State twice already this year. This after the Mastodons, who are a five-hour bus ride east of the next easternmost Summit League school, had to fly out to Sioux Falls, S.D. to play one game.)

(And you know what's even worse? Not only did North Dakota's rep bounce Indiana's rep, it beat Indiana by 47 places in the U.S. News ranking. Yes, that's right. Indiana came in 48th out of 50 states in Quality of Life.)

Where was I again?

Oh, yeah. North Dakota No. 1 with a bullet in qualify of life.

Or to punctuate it another way: North Dakota?!

You mean the state whose motto is Come For The Windchills, Stay For The Numbing Isolation? The state where Steve Buscemi got stuffed in a woodchipper? The state where the four seasons are Winter, Winter, Winter and the Fourth of July?

That North Dakota?

At least South Dakota has Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills and the Corn Palace. (A whole palace! Made out of corn! You should see it!). And Minnesota, which somehow ranks second -- apparently frostbite is a major quality-of-life thing for U.S. News -- has 10,000 lakes and the Boundary Waters and the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. But North Dakota?

Remember that scene in "Fargo" where Buscemi buries the money before his unfortunate meeting with the woodchipper?

Yeah. That's North Dakota.

On the other hand, the taxes are low, you can breathe the air and drink the water and people don't tend to shoot each other in droves because they'd have to travel miles by dogsled to do it.

Also, Roger Maris was from North Dakota.

So there's that.