It's apparently natural disaster media week here on the West Coast. We've seen a bunch of headlines over the past few days about all the terrible things that the planet is going to inflict upon us in the coming weeks and months. A couple highlights:
The New Yorker tells us that a massive earthquake is coming that will take out the Pacific Northwest (mostly Seattle).
Nobody really knows if a more-intense-than-normal El Nino is going to provide a respite from the awful drought we're having and revitalize the snowpack or if it's going to cause mass flooding and destruction...or maybe both, since the former will need to happen in Northern California, while the latter is likely to be a consequence in Southern California. Thanks, LA Times!
But wait, there's more! Today's header from Discovery News quotes an earthquake researcher at the USGS on the next Loma Prieta-scale earthquake. Ironically, the article attached to this headline involves a section debunking other ``oft-sensationalistic'' newspaper outlets' coverage, which quoted the scientist as saying that the quake could come ``any day now.'' I appreciate the aim, Discovery, but isn't this headline guilty of the same sensationalism?
My personal favorite. Doom, gloom, and (quite likely) eternal damnation. It's all happening! Courtesy of Charisma News, this article comments that ``both Noah's flood and the fire and brimstone that destroyed Sodom and Gommorrah...appear to be happening in the same place at the same time."
Until all these last-days prophecies (dare we call them that?) come true, though, I'll be here enjoying my 70F Berkeley summer.