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Even the most inebriated striped-shirt wearing douchebag unsteadily signaling for a cab after closing time at Drink can offer something for those truly motivated to accentuate the positive. So it is with the stimulus package recently signed into law as Minnesotans strain to understand what's in it for them. And despite the profoundly porcine nature of the package, which includes expenditures like $198 million devoted to Filipino veterans of World War II that have precious little to do with the nation's economy, there is one spark of hope for some modicum of benefit to the state - the $11 billion devoted to building a smart electrical grid.

While most stimulus detractors are joyously calling the smart grid investment a wasteful boondoggle that leads us merrily goosestepping toward a socialist future in which the United States learns to eat ketchup with their macaroni & cheese, they miss the potential this initiative offers for true long term stimulus of Minnesota's painfully limp economy. The state lies within the country's wind corridor, which runs from Texas all the way to the tender Canadian bacon of our inoffensive neighbors to the north. Unfortunately for our economy and despite significant investment in wind farms in Western Minnesota, much of our wind resources remain as untapped as Ben Stein at The Saloon. And that's where that $11 billion can help.

The issue at hand is simple; the nation's electrical grid is old. Transmitting power any distance is incredibly inefficient. Sadly, the most demand for power comes from areas a minimum of 1,300 miles away - far too long a distance to provide competitively priced power. However, the investment being made in transmission technologies through the stimulus package means Minnesota wind farms could potentially transmit power to either coast - giving the state the opportunity to whore out its 75,000 megawatts of potential wind power capacity for fun and profit. Add in the huge number of wind turbine component manufacturers in the state and Minnesota is well-positioned to finally have a shot at the prom queen - assuming the prom queen is worth nearly $75 billion per year.