It’s all well and good for those of us here on earth to make fun of Idaho’s lawmakers for their rejection of an eighth-grader’s request to declare the Idaho giant salamander as the state amphibian. After all, they’re probably saving that official designation – as the Gem State’s most distinctive form of cold-blooded, tiny-brained vertebrates – for themselves. But the paranoid attitudes about “government overreach” that were taken to such farcical extremes last week in the House State Affairs Committee do more than simply disappoint hardworking, civic-minded young people. They also serve, again and again, as the justifications to deny important services for adults in crisis/Shawn Vestal, SR. More here.

Question: Should a Kootenai County legislator be named as the state amphibian for his/her cold-blooded ways?

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