One year ago today, Sarah Palin declared her Independence from Responsibility. As America celebrates the anniversary of her spectacular flameout, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reminds you to be careful when handling popular Wasilla Pipedream explosives. Remember, “head asploding” is a metaphor.

“There’s good news for American education. About three-quarters of residents — 74% — know the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776. The bad news for the academic system — 26% do not. This 26% includes one-fifth who are unsure and 6% who thought the U.S. separated from another nation.” [Marist Poll]

Woody Allen’s six favorite Woody Allen movies: Purple Rose of Cairo, Match Point, Bullets Over Broadway, Zelig, Husbands and Wives, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. “There are a few better than others, half a dozen,” he says, “but it’s a surprising paucity of worthwhile celluloid.” [New York, via Kottke]

Michael Steele, Thursday:

This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in… If he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed.

Michael Steele, December 2009:

I am glad the president will finally provide General McChrystal with the troops he needs… If the president remains committed to this crucial fight, Republicans — and the American people — will stand with him.

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One of the strangest teabagger issues this year — which is quite an accomplishment, considering — has been the disdain for the Seventeenth Amendment.

You know the one — actually, you don’t. It’s not the Fourteenth, which you would expect a bunch of fucking retard racists to oppose. It’s not even the Sixteenth, which provided black helicopters to the IRS, soon as black helicopters were invented.

No, it’s #17 on America’s Top 27, the one that undermined our entire system of government: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years.”

That’s right, comrade: Direct election of senators.

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Sorry to go all Towleroad on you, but we’re rolling the odometer on Stinque Post #3000, and the gag doesn’t work with Stormy.

BP Sends Local Gas Stations Signs To Post Stressing They’re ‘Part Of The Community’ [ThinkProgress]