Monday, February 8, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

A new poll is out that's absolute catnip for the members of the California political and media establishment who like to say the ignorant public demands services via ballot initiatives but then refuses to pay for them with higher taxes.

The Public Policy Institute of California survey found residents don't have a good sense of where state revenue comes from or what the state spends most of its money on. What does this unsurprising revelation translate into when interpreted by the Los Angeles Times? A snarky news story that said Californians who disdain our leaders and institutions "should save a little distaste for ourselves. ... Those who favored the comics pages in decades past may recall the words of the possum...