Babbleocity 18

A hot, dry Friday, embers in the wind ...

Fire in the hills

The weather should be turning cooler by Sunday, the newscasters say, but that's not helping the folks under siege by the Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara.  Living in such a beautiful spot, you wouldn't think your surroundings could ever become so hellish, but it's happened with disturbing regularity over the years in Santa Barbara County.  I wonder, if, once this fire is out, the survivors will re-think the equation and leave for safer, if less majestic, environs.  Even so, there will be plenty who will take their place, willingly putting themselves in front of the next natural steamroller that is sure to come.  Santa Barbara has that effect.

Burning through the budget

As if California doesn't have enough problems.  Damage from the worldwide economic collapse has spread throughout the state's employers and workforce, leaving a double-digit unemployment rate and much lower state revenues from income tax, property tax, and other sources. California's hapless government contends for the rank of least respected by its citizens out of all the states.  And now, after increasing taxes in an attempt to restore cash flow, California (not unlike the auto companies and the banks) has gone to the federal government asking for more help.  I don't think California's legislators, even in a rare concerted effort with Governator Arnold, could balance a budget if their lives depended on it.  Here's hoping all of us overtaxed, underrepresented California voters remember this mess at upcoming elections, and clean house.  

A Big Fire Far Away

It may not matter whether we balance the budget - in California or elsewhere.  And out-of-control brushfires may one day be viewed as nothing to get worked up about.  That is, if a gamma-ray burst is released from a sufficiently huge stellar explosion anywhere in our galaxy, and the burst happens to point in Earth's direction.  Astronomers last month reported detecting one of these nasty events 13 billion light years away - officially the 'farthest thing ever seen'.  So far away, in fact, it took place only 630 million years after the Universe was formed, when the paint was still wet on life, the universe, and everything.  A very hot fire indeed, but luckily long ago and far away. Still, it doesn't hurt to contemplate some giant star exploding one day and sending a killer beam of gamma rays to sterilize earth.  It helps with perspective.

Enjoy the weekend...