Hello, idiots of Fresno.

As you've probably heard by now, our fair city finished dead last on a list ranking the smartest cities in America released this week by The Daily Beast.

Or maybe you hadn't heard. Maybe you were too busy wearing your dunce cap and trying to figure out how you got chewing gum in your ear.

(I think being called dumb is better if we can laugh about it, don't you?)

For those who missed it, The Daily Beast -- a news/opinion Web site started by a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker -- ranked the 55 most populated cities in the country, by their collective brainpower.

Fresno and its metro area finished at 55 with a collective IQ of 3. By contrast, smarty-pants winners Raleigh-Durham had a 170 IQ.

Gaaaaaaasp!

What a dubious distinction. We should be ashamed, right?

And all you people who bad-mouth Fresno at every turn (yet, curiously, still live here) surely feel vindicated, right?

Meh. I say we turn this short bus around before we arrive at the intersection of Self-Hatred Street and Pity Party Lane.

You want to know what's stupid? I'll tell ya. And it's not us.

It's these rank-all-the-cities lists that Fresno ends up on every few months.

Remember back in 2005 when Men's Health named us the 14th fittest city in the U.S., then turned around a few months later and ranked our eating habits 89th out of 101 cities, giving us an F?

You don't think something's screwy with the methodology there?

To read the complete column, visit www.fresnobee.com.