Cognitive Dissonance? Seasonal Affective Disorder? Or Just Wanting to Look Hot?

"You don’t think I’m crazy?” I ask. “I mean for wanting a tanning bed?”

–-Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

"I don’t think it’s normal for people to have a tanning bed in their house. It’s expensive,"Alaska-based Color Me Tan manager Erin Weise told the Narco News which broke the story of Sarah Palin’s hot-topic item: a  tanning bed, which was installed at her own expense in the governor’s mansion

"She did. She paid for it with her own money," Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities told Us Weekly.

"It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion," Wetherell told the Narco News, who first reported the story.

According to Wetherell, it was paid for with her own money and purchased used from a health club.

Palin, who is refered to by the Narco News as a "Pioneer of the Great Indoors" declared May 2007 to be Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska. The press release read, "Skin cancer is caused, overwhelmingly, by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and from tanning beds.”

The Narco News goes on to point out that "Palin may not know more about energy than other national leaders, but the revelation that her newly re-wired Governor’s Mansion includes a tanning bed may indicate that in this time of high oil prices forcing most Americans to conserve energy, Palin consumes more energy than the others."

While McCain and Palin have claimed that Alaska supplies "20 percent" of the United States’ energy, according to factcheck.org, that figure is “not even close… Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent,” and just 2.4 percent of total domestic energy consumption.