Bringing home the bacon

Responding to the McCain campaign's claim that Sarah Palin is the foremost energy expert in government today, Yglesias remarks, correctly that "She’s someone who knows how to turn the sky-high revenues generated by being an oil producing region at a time of high oil prices into political popularity, but not someone who knows anything about energy policy or even, it seems, oil market."

On Yglesias' first point, take a look at this Friday's Anchorage Daily News.

An estimated 500,000 Alaskans received up to $3,269 in their bank accounts today, thanks to direct deposits of their annual PFD and one-time "resource rebate" payments from the state, meant to offset high energy prices.

About 100,000 other Alaskans will receive their payments by check starting the week of Sept. 30.|ADN|

For those of you not doing the math at home, that's $2 billion windfall for Alaska's economy. Don't know how the rest of us are supposed to pay for $4 gas.