How to quickly evaluate the intelligence level of a given area

The quickest way, of course, is to look at the percentage of MAGA voters. The higher the percentage, the dumber the population. This is infallible: Trump loves the uneducated, and they love him back.

But there's another exercise you can do. If you're driving through an area, tune your radio to FM and scroll through 88.5 to 91.5. First, see if there's an NPR station. Then count the number of God Squad stations. (You'll be able to quickly identify the latter: some guy with a cowboy accent yelling.)

Portland: 2 NPR, 1 God Squad 

Medford, OR: 0 NPR, 4 God Squad 

Bakersfield, CA: 0 NPR, 6 God Squad

Multiple studies have confirmed that if God Squad stations outnumber NPR stations by 6 or more, then the average IQ of the local populace is 10 or lower. For reference, the IQ of an alarm clock is 3.

You can also buy a cup of coffee somewhere, give the cashier a $5 bill, and see how long it takes them to figure out how much change to give you. But that requires actually stopping.

      Actually the quickest way is just to look at anything Lying Lewis posts - nuff' said....

Why limit it to such a small portion of the FM spectrum? Seems rather arbitrary. Or am I missing something? Are the two NPR stations in Portland the exact same, or do they each have different programming? Trying to understand the point of having more than one of the same station. 

The coffee thing may have worked a while back but not anymore. Today they tell the register how much money you gave them and it tells them how much change to give back. 

There's the "regular" NPR station, and there's the one based at Portland State University. The latter uses NPR programming, but on a different schedule and with some university-centric programming. You get that in most major West Coast cities.

Medford, by the way, does have one NPR affiliate station, but they mostly play classical music. They get their news feed from Jefferson Public Radio.

The reason why you need only look at the lower end of the FM band is that the higher the frequency (both radio and TV), the more electrical power it takes to cover a given area. Since neither the NPR nor the God channels have commercials (they're funded by contributions), back in the day when frequencies were assigned, they'd opt to apply for the lowest frequency slots available, to reduce costs. The difference isn't as significant nowadays, with more efficient broadcasting equipment, but those stations have largely stayed where they were.

You might remember that TV stations pretty much all used to be 2, 3, 4, and 5 in any large city. As with radio, they cost less to broadcast than, say, 11 or 12.