You really have to wonder what's going on in our fair state this summer. Is it the heat that's making us, and our politicians, a little loopy? Or did someone slip a healthy dose of crazy into the Wheaties?

Consider:

• Gov. Ed Rendell's creepy idea of installing a network of surveillance cameras to identify uninsured drivers in order to bank an estimated $115 million a year in fines.

The cameras would be installed along state highways and take pictures of license plates and cross-reference them with the motorist's insurance policy information.

Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney in the state office of the American Civil Liberties Union, perhaps put it best when she told an Allentown Morning Call reporter: "Cameras can do more than (photograph license plates).

"They can look into cars, they can see where those cars are going, they can create databases, which connect to other databases," she said.

• Two Republican U.S. senators say they've identified the 100 most wasteful projects in the $787 billion stimulus bill of 2009, and four of them are right here in Pennsylvania.

None is in our area, but Pittsburgh's North Shore Connector — nicknamed the "tunnel to nowhere" — ranked third overall.

"In February 2009, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell called Pittsburgh's North Shore Connector 'a tragic mistake,' leaving taxpayers wondering why the project recently received a $62.5 million windfall from the U.S. Department of Transportation," the authors, U.S. Sens. Tom Coburn and John McCain, note.

The project would allow the Port Authority of Allegheny County to extend the city's light rail under the Allegheny River to the new Rivers Casino as well as to two professional sports arenas, PNC Park and Heinz Field.

• Tom Corbett the attorney general is prosecuting public corruption in the state Capitol by taking down politicians who campaigned on our dime; Corbett the governor candidate has his hands full trying to explain why campaign buttons and literature were displayed at a booth set up by the AG's office at a fair in Bradford County in July.

A spokesman for the AG's office told PA2010.com, which first reported the story: "Our staff has always been instructed that they represent the office of the attorney general and not any campaign. I can tell you very clearly that as soon as any non-office materials are discovered by our staff, they are immediately removed."

No one knows how the campaign stuff got there.

• Speaking of fairs, one carnival in the eastern part of the state actually featured a game in which players shot foam darts at an image resembling President Barack Obama. The game, "Alien Attack," featured a large painted image of a black man wearing a belt buckle with the presidential seal and holding a scroll labeled "Health Bill," according to The Associated Press. Players could win prizes such as stuffed animals by hitting targets on the image's head and heart.

The fair operator yanked the game after getting complaints.

• An independent candidate for Congress in eastern Pennsylvania's 15th District booked a band named Poker Face for a benefit concert he was holding. One problem: The Allentown rockers' anti-government lyrics have been called anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League. The candidate, Jake Towne, dropped the band, which had once referred to the Holocaust as the Holohaux.

tmurse@lnpnews.com