Time to leave – California wants to ban campfires at the beach

OssQss says:
Head South young man 🙂
Got it, and thanks. We’ll preplan our itinerary next time.
: > )

Shall We Gather at the state house
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of Moonbeam?
Yes, we’ll gather at the state house,
The beautiful, the beautiful fruit cake house;
Gather with the saints at the state house
That flows by the throne of MOONBEAM.
On the margin of the Sacramento river,
Washing up its silver spray,
We will talk and worship ever,
All the happy DINGBAT DEMOCRAP golden day.

Elizabeth says:
May 24, 2013 at 10:24 am
In Australia you cannot have a barbeque in your own backyard because the smoke may bother your neighbours. That ‘s one of the many reasons why I left Australia 4 years ago.
—————————————————–
Bit of an exaggeration, Elizabeth. Rules about backyard smoke are the province of local councils, of which there are thousands – and they vary widely.
Rest assured that the backyard barbie is far from extinct. It is true that many councils frown on smoky wood-fired barbeques in suburban areas. But since most people use non-smoky barbeque techniques anyway (such as pellets or gas), and councils outside heavily populated areas either don’t have restrictions or can’t enforce them, it’s not that dire.
As for beach fires, as Phil Jourdan pointed out, it’s just as well that all of those teen movies set around the California beach culture were made. Our children won’t know what it is to be Gidget or Moondoggie. ; ) And have they asked themselves – what would the Beach Boys do?
Seriously, if this goes ahead, it will be another step on the road of California moving from being one of the most freewheeling States in the US – which is why the movie industry started there – to the most straightlaced and restrictive. Such a pity, it’s very beautiful and has a great climate. But it seems that this lot won’t stop until the California Girls are wearing corsets and bustles.

Environmentalism and sustainable have always been coded keywords for “No you can’t” thought control police.
It’s all about controlling others, controlling individual freedom, extorting money before you care allowed to do anything. The majority of the population are decent people who know how to look after the environment, we don’t need greenfleecers telling us what to do and destroying the very soul of human spirit. Pack of envirokunts, the lot of them.

Of course any pollution excuse for banning fires on the beach is a ridiculous bureaucratic invention of “work expands to fill the time available” law..
Nevertheless, in a country where fires are devastating and can destroy huge tracts of virgin forest and orchards, reason and organized society rules must be imposed.
Are there statistics of how often California fires start from the beach?
In Greece, if you go to the country side from the months of October to April you will often see large columns of smoke rising from the olive groves and other orchards. Traditionally, after picking the fruit and trimming the trees for the year the useless leaves and small branches are burned, which also burns parasite eggs and keeps the orchards healthier.
If you were living in Greece you would know that terrible fires that last for days have started from small, stupid actions of people like burning dry grass in their yard, or using an electric solder next to dry grass etc. There is a complete ban on open fires in Greece from May 1st to October 1st , the time when the wild grass is dry and fire can spread like a line of dynamite to reach the pine trees and olive trees. Nobody is complaining because everybody has been close to a stupid fire started by an old woman burning leaves in her yard.
Are fires eliminated? No, but certainly their frequency will be smaller and proportional to the stupidity of people. who ignore the laws.
Example: some years ago before the ban on fires and using large scale electric soldering, my neighbor at the summer cottage called two workmen to repair her iron fence. Sparks from the works fell on dry grass next to the work and the wind whipped up a fire that would have gone out of control if all the workmen in the area had not rushed a head of it with shovels etc and cut it off at the head of the hill. My aged aunt and cousins and I were wetting our fence , had we not done it , we would have burnt. Two years a go a huge fire in an Athens suburb started in a similar way and was not contained. One cannot outlaw stupidity.
Incidentally, after the fact I learned that the workmen in our area rushed and stopped the fire because they knew the fisherman behind the hill had hidden stores of dynamite ( they use it to illegally fish, but that is another story) and the whole hill would have gone up if the fire had reached it.
So I am trying to say that banning fires in dry grass season is a good measure where fire is a hazard. Now California, in contrast to Greece, has huge beaches and it is reasonable to think that well protected from wind barbecue areas would be logically safe enough.
[Addendum to US/UK readers: The 3 English technical terms “solder weld braze” all translate into the single Spanish word “soldar” (in all of its various verb and noun forms). Likely the same for their Greek translation: “συγκόλλησης συγκόλληση συγκόλλησης” but the mods cannot read Greek. Mod. ]

johanna says:
May 24, 2013 at 8:14 pm
“ … which is why the movie industry started there – ”
Actually you seem to be rewriting history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_industry#History