Thursday, June 13, 2013

Black Forest Burns

We aren't going to break any records for heat today thanks to the cloud cover that comes and goes. It's been fairly pleasant overall.

Today is my youngest child's 30th birthday. A house exploded in her neighborhood today because of a natural gas leak. This could be the universe being symbolic since she works for a company that gathers, processes, and transports natural gas. (gathers?) It would appear no lives were lost in the explosion, which is something to be grateful for.

Youngest child is pregnant so I was perusing maternity items for a birthday gift. I came across this:

"High End Baby Shield Maternity Camisole With Radiation Shield: 500 Hz to 12 GHz Frequency."
This can be yours, in silver of course, for a mere $162.87. I also wondered about the 87 cents part. Why not go wild and bump the price up to an entire $163?

Have we gone mad? If this is the type of thing you truly believe is necessary to protect your fetus, wouldn't you maybe take a giant leap and decide to eschew products that emit radiation? I don't know what you'll do about the sun, though. Buy a property with deep caverns? Put foil on all of your hats?

From one day to the next, the Black Forest Fire has become Colorado's most destructive fire. At least 360 homes have already been destroyed. It's hard for me to believe we've surpassed the catastrophic destruction of last year's fires. It's time for people to start taking fire mitigation seriously. Some of these homes had dry pine needles right up to the house, and inflammable roofs, decks, and sidings. However, I do understand why they are so reluctant to tamper with the natural beauty around Black Forest. It was a glowing example of one of my favorite ecosystems.

Black Forest is in a Montane Forest zone. Lots of pine trees, especially ponderosa pines, on the lower south-facing slopes, and Douglas firs on the northern exposures. It's the grasses, shrubs and wildflowers among the trees that make this ecosystem so attractive. Lots of wildlife. It's naturally hot and dry in the summer, but this fire was intensified by the ongoing drought and the beetle-killed trees.



2 comments:

  1. The odd pricing for crap on Amazon comes from stupidly-scripted price-setters that change prices to be 0.5% lower than certain competitors.

    The particular range of frequencies is all your standard radio frequencies, covering cellular, TV, radio, WiFi, etc.

    "Electromagnetic sensitivity" is a current fad disease, for which a massive number of snake oil products are available.

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    Replies
    1. When we don't have enough to worry about, we invent new things to scare us. I like the term "fad disease". Could make a great article.

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