Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen sits on the state’s Education Accountability and Reform Committee as well as the Natural Resources Committee. So, it was a bit scary to hear Allen display her knowledge of science and geology recently during her call for uranium mining. In the clip below, Allen casually explains that the Earth is 6000 years old and that it has done just fine without environmental laws of any kind for most of that time. She represents Snowflake, Arizona.
Of course, even if one defines the age of the Earth by the existence of man, she is roughly 194,000 years off from the first evidence of DNA of the modern human. I particularly love the idea that the absence of environmental laws during the last 6000 years as evidence of the lack of any need for such laws. Since this period would start when the entire human population of the entire Earth was less than the current population of Texas.
Of course, creationists believe that the population at that time was two people, here — which would certainly explain why no environmental laws were needed. That is, unless one counts God’s prohibition on eating the forbidden fruit as an early environmental law. Allen may be counting (Genesis 2-3 as the first agricultural law. (“but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”)
Allen’s science lesson is reminiscent of the Republican Presidential debate when three out of ten candidates proudly announced that they do not believe in evolution, here. She, of course, has a study buddy in Sarah Palin who reportedly believes that dinosaurs and man walked the Earth at the same time, here.
It is perhaps Allen’s obvious ignorance of science when coupled with her advocacy of uranium mining that is most off-putting. It comes across like a Cro-Magnon saying “Me Like Uranium, It Make Big Boom.” There should be a law that you cannot toy around with uranium until you pass high school science classes like a driver’s education class for legislators. Of course, Allen herself may be the greatest case against the concept of evolution of the human species. Then again, the world’s science community may be the one with pre-historic egg on their faces when Allen reveals cave drawings of a Neanderthal riding an Anchiceratops while carrying bags of uranium ore.
This fierce ignorance of science was on display when some god-fearing, science-avoiding folks in Waco attacked Bill Nye the Science Guy over his statement that the Moon did not generate its own light, here.
Just as a matter of trivia, in case anyone was wondering about snowflake as a name for a town in Arizona, it was named after its founders in 1878: Mormon pioneers William Jordan Flake and Erastus Snow.
The great thing about the world according to Allen is that, if open yourself to uranium mining, “you will never know the mine was there when they’re done” — much like science classes in Snowflake it appears.
For the story, click
here.
Brilliant Kernservative thinking from this wonderful woman.
Mike S:
I have a photograph of a caveman riding a triceratops while talking to space aliens who are giving him the secret of the internet. According to the creationists it’s a religious relic.
Mike Appleton:
“there is increasing acceptance of absurd notions in this country.”
Alan Dulles warned everyone nearly half a century ago; “Americans don’t read.”
Right now you could take someone who failed the Physics regents exam and literally get the board of regents to pass him based solely on the number of questions that would have to be discarded due to the number of laws of physics that were miraculously changed on September 11, 2001.
Silly me, I had no idea Article I vested congress with the power to change the physical laws of the universe.
“Of course, even if one defines the age of the Earth by the existence of man, she is roughly 194,000 years off from the first evidence of DNA of the modern human.”
JT,
I’m sorry that you and the others have fallen into that same old trap of those who are not God-Fearing believers and that trap is named science. It is so obvious that God put in the false clues to make people like you doubt the truth of Genesis and thereby prove your unworthiness for entry into His Kingdom.
Don’t you get it? The Lord can do anything, even down to making
DNA evidence seem real.
Mespo,
The Sumerians, 6,000 years ago? You really fell for that one.
God is good, but he also has a sense of humor before he sentences you to eternal damnation. Next thing you’ll be writing about are those phony neanderthals and the bones God left in place to mess with your non-believing mind.
She has obviously misunderestimated the age of the earth.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/02/dont-misunderinvestigate-me.html
Everyone knows the Cro-Magnon eradicated the Neanderthals with neutron bombs. They bought them 4500 years ago from a guy known only as Fast Eddie F. after he improved the original Summerian design for traditional fission weapons. Fast Eddie also gained notoriety for later founding that famous Leftist free love movement, the Nazi party, and beating the crap out of Jackie Gleason at pool between selling Amway . . . oh I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep watching “The Hustler” instead of paying attention to science and history class.
Pardon me. I’d like to comment more on State Sen. Allen’s scientific acumen, but I’ve just been informed that the Easter Bunny here to see me.
whooliebacon,
I’d always wondered where that was faked. LOL Yellow Cake and Copper Slag ARE your friends, if you’re a rapper!
I do think JT made a good point about god’s first envirnomental law. I think I’ll e-mail her office with that quandry and see how she resolves it.
Jill
The landscape around Show Low and Snowflake, Arizona resembles that of the moon. (Actually, it may be where NASA faked the 69 moon landing.) It rained some really cool metals there about 6,000 years ago and the mining folk have gone to town digging ever since. But, were you to visit that area, a mention of arsenic in the water to the locals might get you “thowed” out. Arsenic is a “normal” by product of mining. That it somehow finds its way into ground water and underground rivers in that area is just fine because as any good robber baron will tell you market forces will somehow magically step in and save you from any bodily harm…bodily harm, of course, being something that you might possibly be able to prove in a decade long law suit. Don’t resist any longer. Yellow Cake and Copper slag is your fiend. Say it together now: “Earth is 6000 years old and that it has done just fine without environmental laws of any kind for most of that time.” LOL
Jill, I have no idea what any of that means, but it doesn’t sound good.
Vince T., thanks for the link. One of the drawbacks to being self-taught is that it’s too easy to skip your homework.
I did see the warning about dangerous levels of arsenic in the water in parts of AZ. I just looked this up in wikipedia. Notice which organ is most effected:
“{Arsenic poisoning} kills by allosteric inhibition of essential metabolic enzymes, leading to death from multi-system organ failure. It primarily inhibits enzymes that require lipoic acid as a cofactor, such as pyruvate and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase. Because of this, substrates before the dehydrogenase steps accumulate, such as pyruvate (and lactate). It particularly affects the brain, causing neurological disturbances and death.”
I believe we have an explanation!
JT, One of the best postings I have ever read on this or any other blog. Congrats!
Mike, there is no accountablily for her education because, by her own admission in an interview given when she was a candidate, she is self taught:
“TAC [The Arizona Conservative]: General comments: Please comment on any issue or topic not raised above:
SA [Sylvia Allen]: I am very concerned about our rural families. The cost of living; food, housing, energy, and taxes continue to go up. We need better paying jobs. We need to ask this question: Are we getting our monies worth? It seems that more money and new programs to administer excessive regulations are always the solution to every problem. We can’t keep doing the same old thing and think we will get anything new. As a lifelong, self-taught student of the philosophy this nation was founded on, I would like to be a voice and a vote for time-tested principles that just need new methods of applying them.
http://www.azconservative.org/Q&A_SAllen.htm
Wow! “a lifelong, self-taught student of the philosophy this nation was founded on.”
whooliebacon,
There’s arsenic in the water around there.
I’m going with copper poisoning.
Apparently there is no accountability for the education of those permitted to sit on the Education Accountability and Reform Committee. I find it interesting that Sen. Allen’s comments did not generate any hooting and snorting, which means that there is increasing acceptance of absurd notions in this country.
Of course, the senator’s comments will also come as something of a surprise to the Native American tribes that have inhabited Arizona for over 10,000 years.
Well at least she serves on a promising committe. She can’t retire soon enough and she could use some development.
Jonathan,
This entry was a tour de force!
mespo,
That was great also! It’s probably exactly how it all happened.
AF,
I’d love to see that movie! I’d pick her as head of the FDA though.
““Me Like Uranium, It Make Big Boom.”
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JT:
I hope you cleared this line with Homeland Security. I heard that in the build-up to the Iraqi War, this was the exact line Rumsfeld used when presented with the Nigerian yellow-cake uranium forgeries which he, in turn, used as a justification to Bush for the policy. Sources say Bush understood the sentiment and was later seen puttering around the White House happily muttering the phrase.
“The great thing about the world according to Allen is that, if open yourself to uranium mining, “you will never know the mine was there was they’re done”
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I don’t think I can agree. If you take some substance out, even air some structures will collapse because of void and gravity will collapse the inner core because of what used to fill the hole. Not that I am aware of anything geological.
She sounds like she was driving the truck:
“Moonshine
A young man was hitchhiking down south and a farmer driving an old pickup truck stopped to give him a lift.
As they were driving, the farmer started bragging about how good the local moonshine whiskey was. The young man told the farmer that he didn’t drink very much, and that moonshine would probably be too strong for his tastes.
“Nonsense!” said the farmer. “You gotta try some.” She fished around behind her and finally produced a small jug. “Here,” she said, handing the jar to the lad. “Take a drink!”
“Oh, no thanks,” said the young man. “I really don’t think I care for any.”
“No, I insist,” pressed the farmer. “Have some.”
“No, thanks – really,” said the young man.
The farmer wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She stopped the truck and grabbed her shotgun from the rack in back. She pointed the gun at the lad and roared, “I said, take a drink!”
“Okay! Okay!” said the young man. He took a few swallows and instantly realized just how powerful the stuff was. His throat muscles tightened, his eyes watered, and he made a choking sound.
“What do you think of it?” asked the farmer. “Good, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” gasped the lad, afraid he would be forced to drink more if he disagreed, “I guess so.”
Then the farmer handed the young man the shotgun and grinned. “Here! Now, you hold the gun on me and make me drink some!”.
I’m the first to admit that British politicians are mostly total crap, but where the heck do Americans find these people and how the hell do such dumb-heads get elected?
Brilliant and scary too – I look forward to the horror movie (or black comedy?), “Creationist Whitehouse” starring Sarah Palin (President) and Sylvia Allen (Foreign Secretary) 🙂
“Allen casually explains that the Earth is 6000 years old.”
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6000 years ago? That’s about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue. Quite a civilization indeed, that could invent things on the planet before the planet was formed.