San Diego is Burning

Another California first - a wildfire holiday. I never knew such a thing even existed. All county schools are closed as are many businesses, as people scurry home to save their houses and properties from several raging wildfires. While the coastline is not in danger of wildfire, the entire county and most of southern California is clouded over in thick smoke. White ash has blanketed every outdoor surface like snow and it smells like winter and burning fireplaces, only it's hot and sunny and your eyes burn whenever you step outside.

The good thing is there has only been one casualty and few injuries thus far related to the widespread fire - a fire some are calling the worst in recent history. A lot of credit is due to the preparedness of state and county emergency officials who have been doing an amazing job. Qualcomm Stadium has been turned into an evacution center and is so well prepared, they can take evacuees with pets, even horses! They have to stay in the parking lot of course because their horse butts won't fit into the seats, but still! That's huge. Fortunately, all the animals at the SD Zoo's Escondido Wild Animal Park have been safely evacuated and are out of harm's way.

The bad thing is that hundreds of homes and properties have been destroyed with still more devastation to come. The Santa Ana winds blow hot dry air from the desert with gusts as high as 60 mph so there's little that firefighters can do until the wind dies down. Meanwhile, people who have been evacuated are left wondering whether their homes still stand. One of the local news anchors returned to his neighborhood in an evacuated area, just in time to watch his home burn to the ground on live television. In the telecast, he sadly and dutifully reported "There goes the patio. There goes the garage. There goes the pool..." Multiply his experience by a few hundred.

I'm having technical issues, so instead of a pic, here's a link to a space photo of what these wildfires look like from space. Unfortunately, Mexico - which is where I decided I would go if the fire reached me - also seems to be on fire!

clash of the Stephens

I'd like to take this moment for an honorary finger-wagging, ala Stephen Colbert. (The following should be read with fake newscaster outrage and contempt.)

I'm wagging my finger at you, Mr. Stephen Johnson, head of the EPA for denying my state rights! You, Mr. I-don't-Care-About-the-
Environment-I'm-Just-Warming-the-Seat-They-Gave-Me, just give my state the rights it needs and deserves to lead this country in all things green, clean and renewable!

If you'll remember back in April, the Supreme Court decided that the Bush administration was totally wrong about the EPA not having the authority to govern greenhous gas emissions (the administration's rationale? Carbon dioxide occurs naturally so the EPA can't restrict what occurs naturally. Yeah, those justices sorta saw right through that.). The justices ordered the EPA to "revisit" its decision not to regulate greenhouse gases - which, coming from the Supreme Court means "cut the baloney, do your job and regulate those greenhouse gases!".

So now that Bush knows, the EPA knows and everybody knows that the EPA has the right to regulate greenhouse gases, they are stalling on giving states permission to set their own, stricter standards, which is basically the administration's way of pouting because it didn't get its way in court. Johnson's reasoning for the delay? The agency must sift through the 60,000+ public comments plus analyze the accompanying scientific data.

Data to analyze? What's there to analyze? Is the Bush administration going to discover that reducing greenhouse emissions is actually worse for the environment? Then again, don't put it too far past them. If anyone could bend the truth(iness)(copyright 2006 The Colbert Report), it would be this administration.

I smell something funny, and it's NOT greenhouse gases. Wagwagwag.