Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
We have a new entry in my ongoing competition for the title of the country's looniest state legislator, Arizona State Sen. Sylvia Allen. Sen. Allen, during a hearing over mining uranium in the state, scored special debating points against those evil environmentalists by informing them that the earth has been here for a whole 6000 years:
"The Earth has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn't been done away with. We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it."
Here's video of it:
Politics
Comments
Ironically enough, so I'm informed, we understand the earth to be billions of years old via the radioactive decay of Uranium.
Posted by: Bruce Garrett | July 9, 2009 1:17 PM
well, technically she's right- the earth has been here for 6000 years...but the fact that an adult in a position of power can seriously estimate the entire history of earth to be 6000 years is just offensive. and to further suggest that, because something is old, it is somehow invincible is a asinine non-sequitur. hey, the dodo has been around for, like, thousands of years and it hasn't...oh, wait. nevermind.
Posted by: tyaddow | July 9, 2009 1:44 PM
What's more, she didn't even have to invoke YEC -- surely the earth having been around for millions or billions of years makes the same point, only if anything more strongly? It's still bogus, of course: we can't literally "destroy" the planet, and we aren't likely to make more than a temporary (albeit major) perturbation to the biosphere, but we can sure make things uncomfortable for ourselves, ie. destroy our civilization, kill off nine-tenths of all humans, reduce the survivors to a permanent pre-industrial way of life.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | July 9, 2009 1:48 PM
italics fail. html has been around for 30 years! no one can possibly screw it up!
Posted by: tyaddow | July 9, 2009 1:49 PM
She's wrong. There was one specific environmental law 6000 years ago - "Leave this tree alone". Yet some yahoo (who I assume was Republican) couldn't even obey that one and sent all of civilization hurdling toward a fire pit. That's why it's getting warmer - we're getting closer to judgement day and we can feel the radiant heat coming from the Lake o' Fire.
Somehow, we need Uranium to reverse this effect.
Posted by: Odie | July 9, 2009 2:36 PM
Normally I'd say my newest favorite rebuttal to everything: "Screenshots or it didn't happen," but in this case, I am pretty sure "don't eat the apples" was an environmental law.
Posted by: rpsms | July 9, 2009 2:42 PM
He's right. After all, Easter Island hasn't been done away with either.
Mind, some sort of enviromental laws might have allowed the *people* to do better, but...
Posted by: nedlum | July 9, 2009 2:47 PM
Ii think the environmental rule about not
crapping where you eat or sleep is probably
older than 6000 years.
Posted by: Bob N. Weaver | July 9, 2009 3:27 PM
We know Adam and Eve were Republicans because they believed in young earth creationism.
Posted by: Brandon | July 9, 2009 3:31 PM
Adam and Eve couldn't have been Republicans because they apparently felt shame. I don't know any Republicans capable of that kind of emotion. Certainly not at a national level.
Posted by: BenA | July 9, 2009 3:40 PM
Of course, a good part of Arizona is desert. Not so bad if you are a cactus, or a horned toad (as I'm sure some of our Dispatches readers will claim to be), but less than ideal for humans.
Posted by: xebecs | July 9, 2009 4:42 PM
i doa nit wants thiss nutster digsing upsity mys home1!!!1!
Posted by: horned toad | July 9, 2009 5:55 PM
Am I the only one who cracks up seeing the name of the committee?
"Senate Retirement and Rural Development committee"
I have to assume that this is where they send people who should have retired from office already.
That being said - we need to build nuclear reactors if we want to shut down coal power plants so the environmentalists need to decide on some priorities.
Posted by: rsm | July 9, 2009 8:31 PM
Yes, the Earth has been perfectly fine for 6,000 years. We all know that God would never let some type of world-wide disaster occur. You know, like a flood or something. He'd never let that happen.
Posted by: catgirl | July 10, 2009 1:15 PM