Morgan Quinto, the firm that sits around and makes ranking lists so much that it makes VH-1 look like a late-period James Joyce novel has just announced their list of the smartest (and dumbest, depending upon where you drink your water from) states in our Union and the results are largely unshocking. A mishmash of criteria were used to calculate the rankings, including education budgets, graduation and dropout rates, and aptitude test scores. Here are your top five, America!

1. Vermont. About fourteen years ago, I spent a week in Vermont with my family and was appalled at how sparsely populated the main roadways were, especially for a Northeastern state. No strip malls or fast food joints; just rolling hills and speckled cows, interrupted every twenty miles or so by a completely self-contained commune powered exclusively on hemp. Slap them together with the resident faculty at Bennington and it should come as no surprise that they’re number one.

2. Massachusetts. If you break it down, the population of Massachusetts falls into two categories: the mouth-breathing residents of Central Massachusetts and Kennedys. Occasionally lobotomized sex-crazed alcoholics, yes, but still overachivers.

3. Connecticut. Though the Klan-loving hillbilly population has been corralled into remote parts of the state, the television program Gilmore Girls hasn’t taught us anything if not that people who live in Connecticut speak like a G-rated Quentin Tarrantino screenplay on meth.

4. New Jersey. Seriously? Perhaps rolling around in nuclear waste has created a race of superchildren? I always knew the state was something to contend with, what with its sprawling Ikeas, menacing highway exits and (shh!) secret gardens, but will the future be painted by a Battlefield Earth-esque master-race/servant-race overseen by the mighty New Jerseans?

5. Maine. Scandinavian countries have long been lauded by governmental critics for their working-model socialism, clean, efficient cities and high suicide rate. Why this works in this part of the world an no where else is baffling, but if you ask me, it’s the fjords. Maine kind of has fjords.

And now, your bottom five!

46. Alaska. It’s night time for about half of the year, so I would give Alaska the benefit of the doubt if we assume that habitual drinking begins at a very early age. It should also be noted that a significant chunk of Alaska’s registered population are wildlife.

47. California. This one shocked a lot of observers, I’m certainly not moved: Ryan Seacrest’s scores bring the whole state down.

48. Mississippi. I give the Deep South a lot of credit for only having one entry in the bottom five; all the hip kids from the North have packed up their Pabst Blue Ribbon and “really awesome” record collections and are now infiltrating the reddest of the red states. Should this trend continue on the national scale, tapered jeans and Chuck Taylors will become military standard issue, Belle and Sebastian will write a new national anthem and the phrase “E Pluribus Unim” will be replaced by “All Your Base Are Belong To Us.”

49. Nevada. This entry may well be due in part to the fact that residents of Nevada spend 100% of their brain power asking “why am I living in Nevada?”

50. Arizona. While I take great pleasure in reporting that the state that I have often said is the dumbest state in the union is, in fact, but am disappointed that it doesn’t share the distinction with its equally retarded twin, Florida. It seems that anywhere that the population of a country goes to die springs a crop of stupid. Florida’s only advantage is that it is not landlocked, a geographical attribute that seems to raise a population’s intelligence slightly. But one need not look too much further than MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen — the majority of which strangely takes place in Scottsdale, AZ —to understand that the youth of this state are governed by a meritless aristocratical social system that involves tiaras, fathers’ franchised Toyota dealerships and food-court emulation of hip-hop culture (also while refusing to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day). Good job, Arizona!

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