Thank you, Tim DeChristopher!

Leave it to a University of Utah student to come up with an incredibly creative way to stymie the Bush Administration's efforts to open up land around national parks to oil and gas drilling. Tim DeChristopher successfully bid on 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks and now owes $1.7 million on all of his leases.

What this does is invalidate the auction! It will delay what hopefully isn't inevitable, but the court case will be heard January 19, a day before the inauguration. Rachel Maddow (who incorrectly calls this civil disobedience - it's active nonviolent intervention) has a nice video on the subject. Enjoy.

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