I’m sorry. I can’t help but laugh at this story from the AP. I’m not laughing at the substance of it . . . two idiots taking a leak inside of Old Faithful could only be funny if you’ve never actually been to Yellowstone. So I don’t even have comic sympathy for them . . . theirs is the kind of environmental crime I’m wholeheartedly in favor of punishing. Though we could talk about ways to improve their management through competition and some serious (though regulated) privatization, I love the National Parks. We visited Yellowstone last summer and I was genuinely horrified at the stupidity that led people over the years to throw things into the geysers and pools and diminish their beauty.

Still, when I first read of the exploits of the guys discussed in the story above I knew they were idiots but it didn’t occur to me that an idiot of that sort was automatically a contender for the Darwin award. Even so, the AP saw a need to remove all doubt by including this helpful little line: "The geyser was not erupting at the time."