by Alan Barton, All News Pipeline:

As Monty Python puts it; “and now for something completely different”.  (Note the hyperlink to the 1971 trailer of that movie.)  This was one of those columns where I started out with an idea and it got completely turned around by the time I was ready to assemble the parts of it, but that is OK because this one is a bit easier to handle.  And as this being a holiday as writing begins, and with the noisy ones out of the house for a little bit, perhaps we can concentrate on it better now.  We began by searching for safest places in the US to live, including FEMA and others ideas, and came across a bunch of stories about a year and a half ago on their ideas but noted that it was primarily on natural disasters and the likelihood of problems from them from floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes and more as well as useable escape routes and so forth.  I initially planned on including violence (riots, crime), safety from nuclear fallout whether from war or power plant meltdown, accessibility of life sustenance items (water, food, shelter et.), ease of escape from them and items of that nature to determine the safest places to live.