Something to thank Sarah Palin for

Taking some of the heat off of Texas:

My former state has taken a battering and the things people believe about it now are quite damaging. It used to be that I would say I was from Alaska and people would be interested and intrigued, some of them very envious. Now people think it's either a laughing stock or a corrupt hellhole. The truth is that it's become a petrostate, similar to Saudi Arabia, run by princes who are made wealthy on oil profits. They need to do something about it.