Every now and then, it seems that a strange item just dives out of the sun and catches you off guard. Well, at least changes to what will qualify in the very near future as an intrinsically safe portable radio recently caught me off guard. It seems the folks that have some influence on these matters issued an edict that the standards governing intrinsically safe radios are changing January 1, 2012, for perhaps no other purpose other than to ensure that there is global harmonization. No one seems to be aware of any evidence or meaningful demonstration that would justify this initiative. For goodness sake, why is that necessary? What possible future cataclysmic event mandates that hundreds of thousands of intrinsically safe radios used today here in the United States by public safety, petroleum, mining, construction and other sectors must be simpatico with intrinsically safe radios in use for example in the mountains of Kurdistan? Don’t the folks at Factory Mutual have more important things to do? For sure the affected public safety and business enterprise sectors have more important things to do! Are these the same folks that keep adding white warning stickers to the extension cords I’m buying at Home Depot? The stickers that I immediately cut off?