#446: Sylvia Allen

Sylvia Allen is an Arizona State Senator (R), anti-environmentalist and Biblical literalist whose justification for rejecting environmental regulations is “The earth has been here for 6000 years and we haven't destroyed it yet, so we don't need no stinkin' laws to protect the environment!” [slightly paraphrased]. Watch it in all its glory here. That one went viral on the web, as did her attempt to explain SB-1070 discussed here.

No, she’s not particularly bright, and the age of the earth is not her only contribution to the environmental policy debate. She is also known to accuse trees of “stealing Arizona’s water supply”.

The sheer incompetence of the Tea Partyin’ Arizona State Senate is hilariously documented here. They famously passed a measure that would force President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate to state officials to run for re-election, as well as a bill that bars Arizona from entering into any program to regulate greenhouse gases without approval from the legislature. According to representative Ray Barnes: “There are only two ways to vote on this: Yes, or face the east in the morning and worship the EPA because they own you.” 

Diagnosis: Utter loon and blithering idiot. Allen is a state senator, so she presumably has some power. One can only imagine the intellectual level of the people who got her elected.

And for those of you who now think “well, yeah, but finding American loons is like shooting fish in a barrel”, check out this British website.

You don’t top that one.