links for 2010-01-09

Just weeks prior to the eleciton, Sarah Palin coudn't explain why North and South Korea were different countries, had no idea of the purpose of the Federal Reserve, and believed that Saddam Hussein had attacked the U.S. on September 11. I wonder—seriously—if there has ever been a more ignorant candidate for vice president of the United States? That'd be a tough thing to measure, I guess.

Remember those crazy-ass terrorism threats that Bush issued in the half decade after September 11? "Beware of SCUBA divers in Alaska," and crap like that? Well, some of those supposed threats existed solely in the mind of a con man, who claimed to be able to intercept and decode hidden instructions embedded in Al Jazeera broadcasts (but wouldn't tell anybody how he was doing it). And the White House believed him and acted upon that "intelligence," despite insistence from CIA steganographers that this was a bunch of crazy horseshit.

Jim Bacon argues that we need a gasoline tax that is pegged to the real annual cost of maintaining the roads, adjusted regularly. The current arrangement is one that tells people that they can have something for nothing, which people think is just swell. Since governor-elect Bob McDonnell has taken the George H.W. Bush "read my lips" pledge, we know that this is not going to happen.