text: Shannyn, do you know why you have such rich job security as you pen column after column describing your inane legislature?
  
  Here's a little secret.  My industry is run by really smart people.  People with high IQs.  The kind of people who graduated within the top 10% of their universities.
  
  Lets compare our people to your legislators who are very stupid by comparison.  Many barely graduated from high school, or went to some flunky college like Liberty University.  These people are not successful.  They need to bilk Alaskans for phony per diem because they are too lazy to make their money in honest jobs.
  
  We employ some of the best analysts around.  Our shrinks have created detailed psychological profiles of your elected officials.  With this info we manipulate your "leaders" as easily as one could get a kitten to chase a string.  We take billions from you and leave your legislature a tangled, dysfunctional mess.
  
  We use money, booze, flattery and expensive dinners as weapons.