Welcome to your Thursday open thread. Surely there’s something going on besides the debt ceiling fight. What’s up in your world?
We should call this version of the open thread “things that teabaggers don’t like.” Things that teabaggers don’t like #1 – manatees.
A Florida tea party has taken another step in its effort to protect the citizens of the United States. While its current list of enemies of the state is expansive — including taxes, high-speed rail, and socialized medicine — it has not yet expanded into the realm of wildlife. While all three species of manatees are listed by the World Conservation Organization as vulnerable to extinction, the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots have declared the mammal “dangerous.”
The Florida political group recently announced its plan to fight U.S. Fish and Wildlife restrictions on boating and other human activities.
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Although tea partier Mattos said she brings her grandchildren to see the manatees, she doesn’t see a point in the Save the Manatee Club. “If some of these environmental movements had been around in the days of the dinosaurs, we’d be living in Jurassic Park now,” she said.
Manatees are so mean. They keep getting in the way of our motor blades. I blame liberals.
Things teabaggers don’t like #2 – the Grand Canyon. Nothing is safe, not even the Grand Canyon.
Salazar announced in June that he was extending the prohibition on mining on roughly 1 million acres of land near the canyon through the end of the year, a moratorium he put in place in 2009. Salazar said he prefers to set a 20-year moratorium—the longest allowable under the current hard rock mining law—but will await the outcome of an environmental analysis to make a decision on that.
The appropriations measure, from Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, would reverse Salazar’s decision and again make it possible to mine near the park. It’s one of dozens of anti-environmental riders tacked onto the Environment and Interior appropriations bill that the House is debating this week.
In years before the moratorium, mining interests staked more than 10,000 claims near the park. Those would still be allowed to go forward, as the moratorium only applies to new claims. But uranium mining in the region raises concerns not just about damage to an iconic national park, but risks to water resources and health in the region, too. It’s also an economic concern.
Sigh. I guess this is what Wall Street paid for when they pushed the Tea Party on us.