The Green Guide's Demise, Nuclear Breaches and Other Scary Friday 13th Stuff

The perils of an uncertain world. And junk mail...

February 13, 2009 at 11:55AM by Brian Clark Howard | comment

So now that ~~saccharine overload~~ Valentine's Day is almost here, we hope you've got your sexy organic lingerie boxed and ready to go, as well as some organic and fair trade chocolates, biodynamic and organic wines, natural soy candles and more. You might also want to head to your library or rental store and pick up a couple of the sexiest movies of all time. Many of us could use some chillaxing and sweet loving about this time…

Especially because two sources have just confirmed to me that I was right about the demise of National Geographic's The Green Guide. :( As I expected, the green publication is said to be laying off its employees.

Still no word from official spokespeople, but sounds like the closing is imminent.

Today is Friday the 13th, after all, and there's plenty of scary news about deranged hockey players, octuplets, Obama appointees and global warming. It seems New Mexico's Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab has "misplaced" 67 computers (good one guys!). This on top of the fact that the U.S. has lost at least 8 actual nuclear weapons over the years, not to mention accidentally dropping one on Canada back in the 1950s. Fines have also recently been handed down to a nuclear power plant where guards routinely slept on the job (good one guys!).

And lobbyists want to build more nuclear plants? People don't like living next to a Chick-Fil-A, let alone a nuclear reactor. Where are they even going to put them?

In safer energy news, Huffington Post has an interesting item about the startup Virgance, which has launched a Block Off The Grid (1BOG) campaign to help homeowners looking to install solar power systems team together. People can use their collective buying power to get discounted rates from solar providers.

And via Huffpo Green I see Eco Geek also has a cool item about Zumbox, which is taking aim at the mountains of mail we deal with every day.

Zumbox created a virtual mail box for every physical address in America. Get your mail there instead of via paper!