[Looking for Diogenes]

As I understand it the price of pine firewood has dropped to less then zero per cord in some of the SoCal mountain areas affected by the bark beetles and drought. That is, no one will buy it and you have to pay to have the wood taken away.

One property I know of is eight acres in the mountains near Julian, San Diego County, and has at least 50 dead Coulter Pines on it, mostly scattered around. The cost to have them removed is very high and so the owner will probably be leave them standing. Most of his absentee neighbors are apparently following the same strategy.

[Looking for Diogenes]

The latest EOS Aqua satellite images have just been posted. These images were taken at approximately 10:30 am local time, 10/27/03.

Infrared Image - HiRes version

Visible Spectrum Image - HiRes version