I don’t know which dumb thing to start with, but both of these belong in the category “you can’t make this stuff up.”
Carp Czar
Our amazing country has some problems right now, notably financial ones like: T-word national debt, Congress and the president spending like it’s their last year on Earth, sending as much money (and expertise) to China as we can, lots of good folk out of work and underwater. Not good.
In the midst of this fire drill, we get an announcement that the White House has appointed a “carp czar” – “czar” as in “drug czar,” a person responsible for that particular issue.
Here we’re talking about yes, a fish, the infamous jumping Asian carp. For more, here are three quick paragraphs from an Illinois news site:
On a conference call today with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and other congressional leaders, President Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality announced the selection of John Goss to lead the near $80 million, multi-pronged federal attack against Asian carp.
“This is a serious challenge, a serious threat,” Durbin said. “When it comes to the Asian carp threat, we are not in denial. We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed ahead mode. We want to stop this carp from advancing.”
Asian carp…present a challenge for scientists and fish biologists. The fish are aggressive eaters, consuming as much as 40 percent of their body weight a day in plankton, and frequently beat out native fish for food, threatening those populations.
Not to mention being a legit, bone-breaking threat in waterways.
So: Yes, carp czar. Yes, $80 mil. Yes, you can’t make this up.
rotico
September 10, 2010 at 11:40 am
All the administration had to do was stop opposing closing the the canals into Lake Michigan and problem solved. No czar or “cash for carp” needed. Instead, it uses appointment of a czar to delay and avoid dealing with the problem.
Jason
September 10, 2010 at 12:35 pm
And remember, everyone: UNTIL YOU BEAT THEM, EAT THEM!
http://camp.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=205558
john
November 29, 2010 at 7:18 pm
If the commercial fishermen were paid a good price for them, they would be scarce. That’s the only solution, put a price on their heads. 80 million would buy alot of carp.