Old News Is Today's News

Occasionally, a digital glitch means old stories reappear on the front pages of news sites. Sometimes this can be funny, most times just plain confusing.

But today's fuckup of multiple republished stories on the Sydney Morning Herald website is shocking, jarring, particularly if you hadn't seen or heard the news for a day or so, and smh.com.au was the first website you visited. No-one would blame you if you thought for a few sickening moments you'd missed another horrifying bushfire holocaust :



Oops.

But when the mistake was corrected, this graphic on the alleged nuclear weapons threat from Iran appeared instead :



It, too, is old news. In this case, long discredited news, but the casual reader would assume that Iran already has nuclear weapons (it doesn't) and that it has threatened other countries with nuclear annihilation (it hasn't).

Just remember when Fairfax columnists start complaining about Murdoch journos campaigning for War On Iran that the Sydney Morning Herald was there creating a reality for war from Day One.

Victorian Fires' Intensity Equal to 1500 Atomic Bombs




By Darryl Mason

The Royal Commission into the Victorian Bushfires will hopefully lead to changes in fire management and disaster planning that will lessen the likelihood of so many Australians dying in our next, inevitable, encounter with an apocalyptic firestorm.

We are still yet to learn more about those Black Saturday rumours that claimed residents of Marysville and Kinglake were not put under a mandatory evacuation because CFA planners were more worried about evacacuees crashing their cars trying to escape (blocking roads for rescue vehicles, causing a multitude of car accidents, becoming trapped on roads swept by fire) than they were about people staying put and taking their chances. Staying put was how most Australians living in the bush have long dealt with bushfires. Not anymore.

But fire behaviour experts testifying at the commission have also made clear that the weather conditions of Black Saturday, or way the fires spread, so quickly, were anything but commonplace events. These were bushfires of unimaginable intensity and ferocity :

Black Saturday fires burned so fiercely they produced energy the equivalent of 1500 atomic bombs the size of the Hiroshima explosion - enough to power Victoria for a year - the bushfires royal commission heard yesterday.

A fire behaviour expert, Dr Kevin Tolhurst, said the best firefighting equipment could be used in direct attacks only on fires that burnt up to 4000 kilowatts a metre. He later told the Herald that some fires on February 7 burned at an intensity of 150,000 kilowatts.

Dr Tolhurst, senior lecturer in fire ecology and management at Melbourne University, also said fires could burn in an area for much longer than people are led to believe from fire-safety information, which suggested a fire-front would pass in about 10 minutes.

He said this timeframe was true of fronts, but not of "fire-activity areas" dotted with spot fires, where the area could remain dangerous to life from radiant heat for an hour or more.

Dr Tolhurst said the average rate at which fires moved on Black Saturday was about 12 kmh, but it travelled for short bursts at up to 60 kmh. Fireballs did exist, he said: "What a lot of people have seen have been fair-dinkum fireflares or fireballs."

He said these were created because the fuel on the day was so dry and the temperatures so high that burning plants gave off volatile gases quickly.

For now, the most compelling explanations for the outbreaks of the fires centre around a fallen power line, at least two alleged incidents of fires being set by CFA volunteers and a lightning strike.

ABC News keeps a dedicated page for updates from the Royal Commission here.

February 9 : A Holocaust Of Fire, Cyclone Of Flames, Burn Hundreds To Death

This Is Australia, We Burn

Wreckage - The Most Haunting Images Of The Victorian Bushfires

The Myths Of Marysville - They Died In The Church, On Their Knees, In Prayer

I Stand By The Lyrics That I Don't Believe In Anymore

Last weekend, Peter Garrett went some way towards repairing the damage he wrought upon die-hard Midnight Oil fans, when he entered Parliament and gave the impression that he didn't stand by the songs he'd sung and recorded with the Oils, and that he saw himself in the band as just a performer, nothing more.

During a press conference before the Sound Relief gig, the Minister for the Environment announced this disclaimer :

“I think that you can look at lyrics out of any songs and clearly, there are going to be lines there that pertain to any human situation. But the songs stand in their own right and in their own time.”

Wait a minute, he's still saying he doesn't believe in the lyrics he put his voice and his name to. Not anymore, anyway.

The Sound Relief gigs held in Sydney and Melbourne, which also saw performances by Jet, Kylie Minogue, Hoodoo Gurus, The Presets and WolfMother, amongst the dozens of acts, raised more than $5 million for the victims of the Victorian Fires.

Not Again : The Victorian Fires Part Two

Five Million Australians Get "Emergency Warning" Text Messages

In just a few hours from when this story has been posted, huge, hot winds will begins blasting across Victoria, where at least four major fire fronts are still burning. Some towns have, reportedly, already been all but emptied, and during the night, hundreds more families fled what may, or may not, turn out to be another horrific day of death and tragedy.

From ABC News :

Victorians are being urged to secure their homes ahead of strong northerly winds expected around dawn.

Around 5,000 firefighters are on high alert with the winds due to hit western Victoria, before extending across the state and reaching Melbourne.

The weather bureau's Terry Ryan says wind gusts could top 100 kilometres per hour

"Those stronger winds will pick up in the Melbourne area about 6:00 am or 7:00 am, winds 60 to 80 kilometres per hour developing quite quickly, gusts possible to 100 [kph]," he said.

"The alpine area a little bit later, gusts to about 120 [kph] in the alpine area, those winds will turn west with a change entering the west of the state around midday to 1:00pm."

Hundreds of schools, 30 national parks and and Melbourne's Botanic Gardens will be closed.

It is feared the gusty conditions will result in four major fires jumping containment lines and spreading rapidly.

One of the most effective fire-fighting methods used so far in battling the weeks of fires across Victoria that have claimed more than 210 lives and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property, homes and businesses, has been waterbombing planes and helicopters.

But if wind conditions get too intense today, these aircraft will be grounded. Then it will be all up to the thousands of firefighters to do what they can to stop the flames.

Little rain has fallen anywhere in Victoria since February 7, and some of the biggest fires are now burning in what has been described, soberly, as "difficult terrain."

And once again, the fear looms of some pyromaniac setting fires in the path of the huge winds that could lead to further, and only recently unimaginable, carnage.

"If other fires start, if they are unable to be quickly pounced upon, those fires will rapidly spread and obviously wind is the great enemy in that case...."

Some three to five million mobile phones in Victoria (and some in Tasmania) have received messages warning of the terrible dangers that today could bring. A number of news reports have claimed that every mobile phone (registered and unregistered) in Victoria received a warning message.

Here's how it was done :

The state's major telecommunications networks — Telstra, Optus and Hutchison — sent warnings from Victoria Police to their mobile customers yesterday afternoon, warning of high wind and fire risk, and advising they listen to ABC radio for emergency updates.

The networks sent the messages to more than 3 million phones, using technology that isolated Victorian numbers, and sent the texts in bulk through a dispatch centre.

Premier John Brumby said the technology trial was a first for the state and a supplement to warnings made through the media.

However, he said the system was not suitable for an immediate threat, such as a terrorist attack or tsunami, because it could only deliver texts at a rate of up to 600,000 an hour.

"We can't provide an instantaneous warning," he said. "We're not in a position to do that yet, we don't have the capacity or the technology.

Maybe Victorians will get a weather miracle before the fires get out of control. A much-needed dose of unexpected, near miraculous, heavy rain, or a sudden shift in the predicted winds that will turn the fires back on themselves, back towards land already burned.

It's like firefighters are battling a war against an almost unstoppable enemy, huge fires have been burning constantly across Victoria for almost a solid month. How the fiirefighters maintain their sanity going in again and again to take on such a force of often unstoppable destruction is incomprehensible to those who have never had to do it.

No wonder so many firefighters talk about the flames as though they are living, killing, unstoppable beasts, monstrous things taller than buildings, longer than freeways, that burn your skin to a crisp long before you even see the flames.

Fire lives and breathes, and it eats and kills voraciously, without mercy.

They cannot stop it, they can only turn it back, calm it down, contain it, until it runs of breath, out of fuel, out of energy. Until it returns again later in the year. But not late enough for the many in Victoria who have been psychologically shattered by the horrors and loss of the past few weeks, and who must now dread next summer, like the arrival of hell itself.

UPDATE : Damn, maybe I should go into the miracle-predicting business (is there one?).

Rains doused Melbourne this morning, and winds have not been as strong, or as widespread, as expected. Threats to lives and property posed by fire fronts remain strong, but the rest of today is not expected to unfold as ultra-dangerously as predicted by weather forecasters and fire fighting officials :

While Melbourne, Geelong and surrounding suburbs are getting damp, fire authorities said the drizzle would be nowhere near the amount needed to douse fires.

However, a weather spokesman told 3AW radio that the drizzle has prevented winds reaching expecting highs, and should prevent temperatures rising to a forecast 32.

Wreckage

The most haunting images from the Victorian Fires of February 7 are easily those of burned out, crashed cars spread along the road leading into and through Kinglake. Perhaps as many as 20 people died in a series of horrific car accidents that day, including at least six children, and one infant. Families perished as their cars slammed into each other at high speed, fleeing heat and fire so intense it melted tyres and alloy wheels as they tried to escape. Cars ploughed into trees and plunged into ditches as drivers became lost in the smoke of the massive blaze that few in Kinglake, that afternoon, even knew was coming for them.

We've heard the stories of hundreds of survivors of the February 7 fires, but we know almost nothing about the final moments in the lives of the people who died in these cars. The fear, and terror, they experienced is unimaginable.











All photos from this extensive gallery of Victorian Fires images



ABC reporter Michael Vincent on the crashed cars of Kinglake :

"I came in with a CSA officer and it was just here there was still smoke drifting across the road..."
"Lots of debris, trees, corrugated iron roofing, power lines dangling across and then the many, many, burned out car wrecks - close to, I'd say, 20 on the main road alone.
"[There are] obvious accidents, head-on collisions, and five cars concertinaed with a motorbike had gone into a ditch.
"It's quite scary to imagine what these people went through. And some of them apparently did survive.
"There were some cars being taken away last night by the police and I imagine there were bodies in those cars. I couldn't physically see any, but the police were taking them away.
"A lot of people did panic and jumped in their cars at the last minute. It came on that fast. They had 15 minutes between when they saw it over in the far distance, 25 kilometres away, before it hit.
"So a lot of people, last minute, not realising that it was the last minute by the time they were on the road."

A terrible, incredible story of survival amongst all the death :

A Kinglake survivor saved a family of five but had to leave another man to die.

Karl Amatnieks, 56, and his wife Jane were fleeing when they saw the family trapped in a car.
They stopped as the inferno bore down and pulled the family into their car.
But Mr Amatnieks says he is no hero.
"I could not leave five people lying there waiting to die -- it's that simple," he said.
The couple were racing along Kinglake-Whittlesea Rd when they saw the family in danger.
"As we got to the bottom of the hill, we came across this couple with three kids who were stranded. They were stuck on the side of the road after slamming into the back of another car. It was horrific."
He said heavy smoke and ember sparks made driving almost impossible.
"As we got them in the car and took off, another car came down the hill and slammed into (the first crash)."
He said he felt helpless as he drove away, leaving the crash driver to die.
Moments later the inferno engulfed the pile-up.

The story of Benjamin Banks is very different again. A car crash, he believes, saved his life :

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong when Benjamin Banks tried to escape the Kinglake inferno.
It was a head-on car crash, his third crash within minutes, that ironically saved his life.
He also survived a "fire tornado" that peeled the paint from his car, and another incident when the house he eventually took shelter in also caught fire.
After a "big night" on Friday that ended about 6am on Saturday, Mr Banks was woken about 2pm by his cousin Dean, 18, as smoke enveloped his Kinglake West home.
....Mr Banks' second car failed to start and he had to change the battery.
"I knew I had to save my cousin. I wanted to save him before me. I didn't realise how intense it was and didn't realise how thick the fire had gotten."
Mr Banks' car then hit a tree lying on the road. He ploughed through it before hitting a second.
"Then this big whirlybird tornado of flame hit us. I remember looking up at it and it was as high as the trees."
The car almost tipped over and Mr Banks watched the paint peel off the bonnet and the car window melt, dripping molten glass on to his hand.
"I tried to drive again but there were no tyres left. I could feel steel on steel and could hear the steel rims grinding on the road and I was stuck on this tree."
Suddenly, headlights appeared and collided head on with Mr Banks.
"But I think that was my saving grace because if it had not hit me we would have burned to death in the car."

.

This Is Australia, We Burn

By Darryl Mason

It must be incredibly unnerving to be living in thick bushland within 100kms of the three major firefronts in Victoria this morning, as mid-to-high 30s heat and strong winds are expected to intensify the fires already burning, and new outbreaks are expected.

Hundreds of families have reportedly already decided to leave their homes in bushland outside of Melbourne, but fire authorities are trying to cut through the anticipatory fear-mongering of the morning news shows on TV as I write this to remind people that February 7 was a day of record-breaking extreme heat, and today is not expected to come close. Plus, at least 400,000 hectares of the state has already been burned out.

Conditions are grim, fire authorities are saying this morning, there will be plenty of heat and wind, but they are not expecting similar extremes of temperature and wind as February 7.

Fire authorities are still telling Victorians that if they have prepared their properties, if they are confident of protecting their homes, it is not necessary to leave. They are still pushing the 'Stay' choice of 'Stay or Go.' For those who don't think their homes or families are safe, then the time to leave is well before midday.

They've made it clear that evacuations are not underway, and they're working hard to stop the more excitable morning TV and radio hosts from whipping up useless, and dangerous, fear.

It would seem that emergency services in Victoria are as concerned about the possibility of widespread panic breaking out - causing untold chaos on roads and appalling accidents if tens of thousands of people smell the smoke and run for their cars - as they are about fires wiping out more communities. Kilometres of traffic building up in areas where fires may sweep through is something they are now trying to avoid.

The threat of more fires, more ember attacks, and more decimated towns and villages, is still jarring, terrifying, and now all too real. For those who have forgotten what carnage bushfires can unleash in this country, we need no more reminding. The images of destruction, death and misery are seared into the nation's mind now.

And it's hard to shake out of your head those images of fireys battling ten, fifteen, twenty metre high walls of fire, and funnels of flame. So many Australians are simply at the mercy of the bush around them burning. That fireys manage to control as much bushland and keep in check as many fires as they do is downright remarkable, but bushland dried by more than a decade of drought is so widespread, and so dry, they'd need tens of thousands more fireys and dozens of helicopters to even come close to guaranteeing that Victorians will be mostly safe from fires for the rest of this summer, and the summers to come.

Not being safe from fires, however, is an old Australian reality that most of us have only recently learned about again. As has often been said in the past, and in the past two weeks in particular, "This is Australia, we burn", and the land will continue to burn when the heat is intense, when the bush is paper dry and the winds are blowing hard.

If you live in the bush, when the heat boils up into the mid-to-high 30s, and strong winds pick up, you can no longer look at that billow of the smoke in the distance and shrug and say to yourself, 'Well, those fires are 40 or 50 ks away. We'll be right."

There's probably at least a few dozen people who lost their lives in Marysville and Kinglake who thought the exact same thing, never imagining that fire could sweep in faster than they could get the kids into the car and drive to escape it.

But as the Victorian premier, John Brumby, has repeatedly pointed out since February 7, even if mandatory evacuations were announced, as some believe they should have been two weeks ago, and if you were to evacuate everyone potentially threatened by fire on days like this, where exactly do you evacuate 500,000, or more, people to? Where do they go?

In the outskirts of Sydney, up into the Blue Mountains, there are some 1.5 million people living in what could be described as "bushland settings." If conditions in the future were ever to mimic Victoria's on February 7, where would all those people go? And who would do all the evacuating?

In Australia, it's all but impossible to evacuate 500,000 to 1.5 million people from an area under threat. China evacuates millions, some years more than 20 million, from flood zones every time the super-rains come and rivers rise dangerously so. But it takes days to do it safely, and it's a fantasy to think that we have anywhere near the resources to stage such mass evacuations. In Victoria or New South Wales, unlike China, most of those evacuated would have nowhere to go, and state governments would have nowhere to even tent all those people while a bushfire threat passes.

If climate change has in reality given us an horrific preview this year of what's to come, perhaps the impossible problems of massive evacuation in Australia will be overcome, eventually. Maybe.

This is Australia. We Burn.

But tinder dry bush doesn't always just burst into flames either, even when the heat is so intense it sears the nose to breathe the air. Poorly maintained electricity lines can spark bushfires (as may well the case with the fires that swept into Kinglake two weeks ago), so can discarded cigarettes, and arsonists strike around the country every year, when fire-ready conditions are most perfect.

Is there somebody, right now, down in Victoria, thinking about going out and lighting more fires today? It absolute shatters fireys every time one of their own is busted for lighting fires in the bush, and it seems to happen nearly every year now. But how do you stop these people? In the future will potential arsonists be spotted, and dealt with, pre-emptively, as we now deal with supposed terrorists? Get them before they get the chance to do something destructive and deadly?

The most moving part of the 'National Day of Mourning' yesterday was to see the fire fighting men and women, who lost their homes and friends trying to protect the houses of complete strangers. They will be back out there today, and all this week, and again this time next year. They face dangers we can't comprehend, and it's a sign of just how professional many of them are that so few are injured or killed as they battle those flames.

The fire threat, unlike most other natural disasters, comes on so many fronts, sometimes all at the same time - arson, spot fires caused by loose embers from burn-offs, lighting strikes - and all are impossible to fully contain or control. It's worse than a war, fire is without mercy.

This is Australia. We Burn.

It's a reality few of us will forget anytime soon.

UPDATE : Stories hitting the online headlines right now, at 8.40am, are claiming the new Victorian fires threat is greater than mentioned earlier, but authorities are still trying to avoid a situation developing where roads become choked with traffic, blocking emergency response vehicles, and potentially trapping people in the path of fires :

"Of most concern is the giant East Kilmore-Murrindindi fire," Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Lee Miezis said.

"We're talking about temperatures to the mid-30s with a northwesterly wind and a late chance with southwesterly winds

CFA state duty officer Neil Bumpstead said residents would be most at risk after the wind change forecast for late this afternoon.

Mr Bumpstead warned that if fire did reach the Warburton Valley, people who had left should be prepared to stay away for several days.

"We cannot stress enough that with limited road access in the Warburton Valley, traffic may become congested," he said.

"Being on the roads is dangerous during a fire threat."

We've Already Moved On

By Darryl Mason

Did the media 9/11 the Victoria Fires to death?

Have we had about as much as we can take of survivor stories and hearing about the tragic loss suffered by so many fellow Australians?

If you read one more opinion piece about "back burning" and "fuel loads" will you mutter "Fuck those hillbillies, they wanted to live in the bush, I'm sick of hearing about this shit" like a middle-aged man did at my local 7/11 as he flicked through a Daily Telegraph while queuing, drawing nods and shrugs, but no outrage, from others also waiting in line?

Will you be watching the live cross to Sunday's memorial service, or 'The Day Of National Mourning' as it's also known, or does that pile of unwatched DVDs seem more than a little tempting?

There are still plenty of interesting, and shocking, stories flowing from the aftermath of the Victoria Fires, but outside of news about a fireman who fell victim to a 'widow maker' and another about Google Earth's problems with government bureacracy when it tried to map the fires live, all stories related to the Victoria Fires just aren't rating any more, at all, on the Top Stories lists of our major mainstream online news sites.

It's back to business as usual for millions of Australians who get their news online, with celebrity shit, crocodiles, diet, tech and sex stories proving to be as popular as they always were, and will no doubt continue to be.












And from ABC News Online :

Tragedy Porn, Did It Do It For You?

By Darryl Mason

The Professional Idiot thinks he has found a potential comment volcano in the ugly truths that Ross Gittins writes about here. The Professional Idiot takes a couple of reasonable arguments that Gittens raises - for example, that the media coverage of the Victorian bushfires has been hyperbolic and Spielbergian in its gratuitously obvious manipulation of our emotions - and claims that those wanting to help out the victims must be "sick". Gittins says no such thing. It's a concoction of The Professional Idiot's poisoned mind.

The Professional Idiot wants his readers to go all out in hammering Gittens - "Please don’t restrain your criticism of Gittins," he goads, "Any pity you may feel for him is just a sign of your depravity" - but it completely backfires, with about 80% of commenters agreeing that Gittins is pretty much exactly right when he says that the media focus on the Victorian bushfires (to the exclusion of other tragedies and daily tales of loss and hardship) bordered on pornographic, and that while Australians are lining up to help out the survivors this time, they are mostly missing in action when, say, The Red Cross, appeals for blood donors at any other time during the average year.

Here's the two snippets The Professional Idiot provides to provoke his readers :

The outpouring of public concern over the terrible Victorian bushfires, the rush to give blood, the huge amount of donations, the efforts of governments to do all they can to help, the way business has swung behind the appeal for assistance - it makes you proud to be an Aussie.

Is that how you feel? I don’t. I find it all strangely disturbing and distasteful.

And it's served to strengthen my suspicion that the community's reaction to natural disasters is exploitative, voyeuristic, unfair, self-gratifying and even pathological.

Selective quoting at its best. And strange, too, seeing as The Professional Idiot usually fills his blog with hundreds and hundreds of words written by others. Not this time. Gittins nails so many extremely valid points about the media and public reaction to the undeniably horrific human tragedy of the Victorian Fires 2009 (Part One) that The Professional Idiot must be seething with jealousy. Gittins already controversial piece makes most of TPI's recent efforts at trying to Capture The Emotion of the tragedy seem so much trivial fluff. It must be doubly grating for The Professional Idiot that so many of his readers so overwhelmingly agree with Gittins.

Here's some of the hassh reality from Gittins that The Professional Idiot chose to ignore because he is exactly the kind of Tabloid Media that Ross Gittins so relentlessly hammers and holds in contempt (excerpts) :

...media coverage of this (disaster has) gone way over the top. And it's served to strengthen my suspicion that the community's reaction to natural disasters is exploitative, voyeuristic, unfair, self-gratifying and even pathological.

Natural disasters are a time when emotions and appearances reign supreme and rational thought goes overboard. Let a victim corner a politician on talkback radio and he'll agree to almost anything. The media devote such huge resources of space and airtime to covering natural disasters for an obvious reason: they believe it will increase their circulations and ratings.

But don't blame it all on the media. They do what they do because they know it's what their audience wants.

I've never liked having my emotions revved up by the media, but it's clear most people do. They want the media to give their feelings of sympathy, sorrow and grief a good workout.

The unspeakable truth is that most people enjoy a good natural disaster. We're fascinated by the misfortune of others. It's a form of entertainment, just as people find weepies and horror movies entertaining. As part of this, audiences want as much personal, intimate detail about the victims' trauma as possible, and the media deliver.

I suspect we use natural disasters to add interest and excitement to our humdrum lives. Modern city life leaves us with weaker connections to our extended families and neighbours, so whereas once we could let our emotions loose on the misadventures of people we knew, now we need the mass media to provide our emotional exercise.

Our preoccupation lasts a week or two before the media senses our waning interest and turns away, waiting for the next natural disaster to get excited about.

Our emotion-driven caring is highly selective. People with problems get wonderful treatment provided their problems make good TV footage and for the 15 minutes they're in the media spotlight. People with chronic (old-hat), unphotogenic problems get ignored.

Media Watch examined the Tragedy Porn of the Australian media last night, and how some journalists stomped their way through crime scenes, homes to which owners had been denied access. The transcript is here.

You only have to look at the Top Stories listings at our online mainstream media to see that our interest in the victims of the Victorian Fires is already waning.

Then again, how much emotion can anybody be expected to commit to such a tragedy? Life goes on, everybody's got their own problems to deal with, and the media goes back to hunting, and waiting, for the next moment of National Caring that reminds us, indeed, how much we really do care. Or want to care.

Or want to feel like we are caring.

It's hard to imagine that anything could happen that will let loose again such an outpouring of National Caring, but it will.

What's next? A massive train wreck? An earthquake sinking half of Sydney's CBD? A tsunami wiping out dozens of villages along our endless coastline? A cyclone carrying away most of Cairns?

And what will the reaction be the next time a firestorm wipes out an Australian town or three? Will we be more sympathetic, or less? Will there be a guilty reaction from feeling, 'Been there, done that'?

Will another holocaust seem more horrific or less, if the bodycount is only 50 instead of more than 200?

Crack A Joke, Break The Misery

I was wondering when we were going to see the return of the black-as Australian sense of humour amongst all the seriousness and tragedy of the Victorian fires. It sounds like it's back :

"The Catholic Church has burnt down, the United Church has burnt down, and I see the Buddhist temple is still standing," one survivor said.

"It sort of makes you realise who might have the real God. I think I'll change religion."

One woman says that when she took a TV crew to her house, they began walking over the rubble and she called out to them, "No, through here please," and proceeded to pick up what was left of the front door handle.

Great story.

Raging Against The Firey Accused Of Killer Arson Challenges Online Freedom Of Speech



By Darryl Mason

When volunteer firefighter Brendan Sokaluk was named by Channel 7 news on the weekend as the person arrested as the key suspect in the arson that started the Churchill fires, which killed as many as 21 people in Victoria, an elderly woman was asked for her opinion as she exited a Churchill supermarket. Without hesitation, the old woman said she wanted to cover him in petrol and set him on fire.

Burning the currently unconvicted man to death for what he may have done is the most popular choice for revenge murder amongst thousands of Australians commenting online at blogs, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.

There hasn't been such a popular public demand for instant death of an accused murderer since the gruesome pack rape and slaughter of Anita Cobby in 1986, when Blacktown locals surrounded the city police station, where the suspects were being held, and waved nooses and screamed for bloody and savage revenge, calls for revenge that were echoed across the country.

Facebook, in particular, has been inundated with thousands joining 'Kill That Sick Fuck Now'-type groups, filled with comments proposing creatively gruesome ways to torture the accused to death :

President of the Australian Council of Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, says the creators of the Facebook groups, some of which have over 2,000 members, could face charges for being in contempt of court and could put a stop to the accused actually going to trial.

"As far as stopping comments about torture and killing and so on, that's a bit more difficult, I think however Facebook has got to bring their good judgement to bear.

"While people have a right to express an opinion about the person who has been charged, it's got to be kept in mind that this person has to have a fair trial.

"If this person who has been arrested for arson is to face trial before a jury, it makes it very difficult to get a jury pool who is not tainted by the results of these Facebook entries."

Mr O'Gorman says just as media outlets can face prosecution for breaching court orders, so too can individuals.

"The law of suppression, when laid down by a court, applies just as much to individuals who use Facebook as it does to major media outlets," he said.

"I think it's high time that those people who are making these entries on Facebook realise that they are not operating in a legal vacuum."

Membership for the online groups continues to grow, as does the anger (hopefully being) vented in the comments on the Facebook groups :

"let the people get him I say".

"Ya know, I would go to jail myself if I could get my hands on this creep, let me hurt him, burn him, put a bullet and knife in every orrifice of his body," wrote one poster.

"tie the bastard to a post and put a ring of fire around him....let the fire make its way to him and make him suffer like the other 100's of people had to indure...."

"yes thank christ his address was given out, just in case the police din't catch him in time, i had a small chance to go and smash the cunt's knee caps in with a metal pipe..."

"what a fucken sicko yeah?"

"You dirty piece os scumbag shit. how the fuck can you do what you did. your lucky i dont get my hands on you cause i light you on fire then put you out and continue to do it untill you slowly burn to death you low life piece of shit. remember what goes around comes around your fucked..."

"...you fuckn worthless piece of shit… ur a fuckn disgrace to human kind… to any living thing!!!! if i was the magistrate dealing wid ur case i would be giving ur the harshest punishment ever recalled… it wouldnt be putting u in prison it would be putin u in a tidy cell… n one day at a time cut ur limbs the burn them up the put lemon or salt on them n rub it… il make u fuckn suffer like our family and friends did!! u DIRTY, PERVERT FUCKD UP HUMAN BEING……rot in hell u bastard

It shouldn't really come as any surprise that some of those making these kinds of comments are friends or relatives of people who burned to death in the fires Brendan Sokaluk is now accused of lighting.

Obviously there are now serious concerns about whether such an outpouring of public fury and calls for violent revenge will jeopardise the chances of Brendan Sokaluk receiving a fair trial.

While radio commentators, and newspaper opinionists, can't publicly call for the accused to have his fingers cut off, sewn back on and then cut off again (as one Facebook commenter demanded), right now the laws that could stop Facebookers making such threats are mostly untested in the courts and may prove to be extremely difficult to prosecute :

"It's the problem with the internet and particularly internet sites such as Facebook and other chat arrangements, the law really hasn't kept up with internet developments..."

"It's quite clear the major newspaper or radio station can't make those comments.

"Equally people on Facebook can't make them, but the law really hasn't caught up to internet technology to ensure that sort of prohibition can be properly policed."

Here's Mathew Rimmer, lecturer in law at the ANU, on why Facebook should not be seen as any different to any other media organisation :

"Much like a newspaper, Facebook needs to be careful what it publishes because it's not just the author who is liable. Sometimes the publisher is liable ," he said.

Dr Rimmer said Facebook users needed to think carefully before posting. Individuals who posted comments that breach confidentiality, privacy or defamation laws, or any relevant court orders, could be held liable.

This could be all the fuel some need to push for all comments to blogs or social networking sites to be regulated, moderated, with any kind of anonymity wiped away forever.

More on all this here

VEX News broke the Online Vigilantes At Facebook story early on Sunday, February 15.




A reader-submitted image from ABC Online shows a view of the Churchill fires Brendan Sokaluk is accused of lighting




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The Myths Of Marysville : They Died In Church, On Their Knees, In Prayer

By Darryl Mason

The London Times doesn't care whether the following story is true or not, it just makes for a dramatic headline :

Estimates vary but up to 80 residents who had taken shelter at the Cumberland hotel, Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church and the Anglican Parish Christ Church lay dead. Some were said to have died on their knees, in prayer.

On Sunday and Monday, after the destruction, stories flew around amongst survivors from Marysville that dozens perished in the local churches, where they'd tried to find shelter from the inferno, but these tales were quickly dismissed. Some people had tried to shelter in at least one of these churches, but were evacuated before the flames ashed it.

I can't find even one news story from the Australian media that still claims people died in those churches, and the claim that people died on their knees in prayer appears to be a complete fabrication.

Why make up stories, or spread myths, when the truth of what happened in Marysville is far more dramatic, and terrible?

UPDATE : I submitted a comment to the London Times story, using the feedback box on the same page, at 2am, Sydney Time, pointing out the claim of many deaths in Marysville's two churches was a rumour dismissed a week ago by locals and officials. Six hours later, the story remains uncorrected, and the headlines remains : 'They Died On Their Knees In Prayer.'

Man Up, Fire Crybabies

Compassionate international YouTube commenters share some love with Australians devastated by the Victorian fires :

"Fucking Australians all think they're the hottest motherfuckers on the planet. Now you're literally hot! BURN FAGGOT CAVEMAN PEOPLE, BURN!"

"Seriously, who cares? Thanks for AC/DC, Mad Max, and INXS - but WTF has Australia been up to lately? You're like a cousin that had so much potential when he was younger, but now sniffs glue in a camaro out in the school parking lot listening to speed metal."

"...fuck you. Thousands of people die every day, thousands of babies are born every day. Its life. Build a bridge and grow a dick. Stupid Australians. They all think they're Crocodile Dundee."

But you don't have to go to YouTube to find hatred of bushfire victims. There's always religion.

Here's whatever the hell 'Al Qaeda' is supposed to be these days :

Senior analyst at SITE Intelligence Group Adam Raisman said they were posting pictures of burnt homes and devastated victims and "taking joy in the scenes".

One jihadist wrote: "It would be an act of revenge for Australian's participation in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Pretty calm stuff. For the really extreme hatred, you have to turn to American Baptists :

GOD HATES AUSTRALIA.
THANK GOD FOR KILLER FIRES & FLOODS, 100+ DEAD; PRAY FOR MANY MORE...
Yes. It is WBC's sincerely held religious belief that Australia is a land of False Prophets, many of whom are fags or fag-enablers.

Grods has more

And Irfan Yusuf takes a closer look at the claims made by SITE and the Herald Sun, and warns of the threats posed by jihadic koalas.

'Citizen Journalist' Photos, Videos, Eyewitness Reports, Dominate Media Coverage Of The Victorian Fires 2009 (Part One)



The Victorian BushFires 2009 (Part One) was the first Australian major news event where the public supplied nearly all of the most spectacular images and video and breaking news. The video and story of Sam The Koala's rescue being the most obvious, world famous example.

The professional news media were kept out of the most fire-savaged towns until it was all over. The images that so shocked and stunned and saddened us have mostly been taken by members of the public, and the quality of many photos and video has been excellent.

It's going to be grim seeing a pack of professional journalists picking up Walkely Awards for the Victorian BushFires 2009 (Part One), if all the 'citizen journalists' who supplied so much of the content get little or no recognition.

From a spectacular Readers Pics photo gallery in The Age :


Photo by Mulheiren Family



Photo By Hannah Phillips


Photo by Tina McCarthy



Photo by Steve Jameison

Let's hope all the major newspapers and TV news shows that have enjoyed huge audiences, and increased ad revenue, are digging deep for the Bushfire Relief charities, as few if any of the networks or daily newspapers paid for their readers pics and videos.

More Coverage Of The Victorian Bushfires From The Orstrahyun Here

Songs About "Fire" And "Burning" Banned Cut Australian Radio Playlists

Religious Extremist : "Baby Cull" Makes Angry God Burn Children To Death

Why Are We Supposed To Be Surprised That Australians Want To Help Each Other?

Mother Nature : Terrorist/Mass Murderer

Songs About "Fire" And "Burning" Banned From Australian Radio

Something very similar happened in the United States after September 11, 2001 - Australian radio stations are purging their playlists of any songs that might remind listeners of last weekend's holocaust in Victoria.

Gone from radio playlists, already, are the following songs :

Talking Heads - Burning Down The House

Bruce Springsteen - (I'm On) Fire

Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning

INXS - Burn For You

Jessica Mauboy - Burn

U2 - Fire


While radio stations are engaged in such rampant fucking stupidity, here's a few they might have missed :

The Doors - Light My Fire

Various - Great Balls Of Fire

Madonna - Burning Up

INXS - Girl On Fire

AC/DC - This House Is On Fire

Olivia Newton-John - Walk Through The Fire

Ben Harper - Burn One Down

Various - Burn Baby Burn (Disco Inferno)

Bob Marley - Burnin' & Lootin'

Cold Chisel - Baby's On Fire

Silverchair - Ana's Song (Open Fire)

Icehouse - Touch The Fire

John Farnham - Burn For You

Bryan Adams - Hearts On Fire

Hunters & Collectors - Everything's On Fire

Peter Gabriel - Walk Through The Fire

Elvis Presley - Burning Love

John Mellencamp - Paper In Fire

John Farnham - Hearts On Fire

Usher - Burn

Jesus & Mary Chain - Catch Fire

Metallica - Jump In The Fire

Nickleback - Burn It To The Ground

Bloodhound Gang - Burn Baby Burn

Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire

It's fascinating to note just how many great, timeless songs could make the 'You Can't Play That Now!' ban list.

If ridiculously over-sensitive radio stations decide to include all songs that include the words "fire" or "burn" in their lyrics, instead of just the choruses or song titles, they won't have much left to play at all.

Do you know how many U2 and Midnight Oil songs, for example, use words like "fire" and "burn" in their lyrics? I can't be arsed to check, but from the most vague of memory recalls, I know it's a hell of a lot.

If Australia was hit by a tsunami, would we ban all Beach Boys songs?

Definitely one of the most ridiculous fall-outs of the Victoria Fires 2009 (Part One) I've found so far. No doubt, it won't be the last.

Back To The Shed, Ponting

A 10 year old survivor of the Victorian bushfires is basking in a moment of glory, after he took on Ricky Ponting in an improvised cricket game at a relief centre and clean bowled him :

To the crowd's delight, and with a wry smile, Ponting headed for the sheds as the youngster, Koby, took over batting duties.

"I was actually trying today," the Aussie skipper said with a grin.

The kid should be proud. But then again, it was Ricky Ponting at bat. Great story, and probably the most worthwhile thing the Australian cricket team will do this year. I don't know if they knew they were going to have to improvise as counsellers to totally shattered people, and a lot of very upset kids, but they did a magnificent job.

More Here

Video Of Ponting Getting Done Over By A 10 Ten Year Old Is Here

"C'mere, Mate, You Alright, Buddy?"



Correction : apparently the above photo is by John Vickery and the below clip was vidded by CFA volunteer Braydon Groen





Sam The Koala, from the above clip is now recovering from mild to serious burns

10,000 Native Animals Dead, Injured In Fires

Sam became the most famous koala in the world when firefighter David Tree stopped to give him a drink amid the devastation of the Victoria fires.

The image provided a much-needed picture of hope in a week filled with news of despair. Yesterday Sam was recovering in Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter.

Carer Jenny Shaw said she suffered burns on her paws and was in a lot of pain, but was on the road to recovery.

She was put on an IV drip and is on antibiotics and pain relief treatment.

"She is lovely - very docile - and she has already got an admirer. A male koala keeps putting his arms around her," Ms Shaw said.

"She will need regular attention and it will be a long road to recovery, but she should be able to be released back into the wild in about five months."

Mr Tree said he was surprised by the reaction to the photograph, which was snapped by a fellow CFA volunteer on a mobile phone.

He said he was in the middle of backburning at Mirboo North when he saw the stricken koala.

"I could see she had sore feet and was in trouble, so I pulled over the fire truck. She just plonked herself down, as if to say 'I'm beat'," he said.

"I offered her a drink and she drank three bottles.

"The most amazing part was when she grabbed my hand. I will never forget that."

UPDATE : While the human toll of the Victorian bushfires is now likely to reach 300, with more than 80 remaining missing today, the animal toll has also been revised up. Way, way up :

More than a million native animals may have perished in Victoria's fire inferno, a wildlife expert says.

Ms Chappell is among those working to rescue the animals and says the extent of the devastation may never be known.

"It (the animal death toll) will be in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions," Ms Chappell said.

"We are not just talking the animals we are familiar with, there are gliders and all sorts of possums, antechinus (a mouse-like marsupial), bandicoots, birds - there is so much wildlife."

It is feared endangered populations of gliders, owls and lizards may be among the dead.

For those that have survived, the recovery process will be long and slow.

"They have lost their homes too and they are not going to be rebuilt in a year or two years, it is a much longer-term picture," Ms Chappell said.

"You can't reconstruct a forest."

UPDATE : Sam The Koala is reunited with her rescuer, fire fighter David Tree :

"Who knows if she recognised me or not but I would like to think so," Mr Tree said.

"I got a bit choked up because it has been such an emotional week. It was just good to see her doing well.

"This has been a really tough week for everyone so it is good to have one happy ending.

"She was pretty friendly, she gave me a bit of a sniff and we touched noses."

Of course the koala remembered her rescuer. Look at her face, total eye contact.

UPDATE : Sam The Koala is recovering well, and has made a special new friend, Bob :

Colleen Wood from the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter that is caring for Sam and Bob said both koalas were doing well while other animals like possums, kangaroos, and wallabies were also starting to emerge from the debris.

She said Sam had suffered second degree burns to her paws and would take seven to eight months to recover while Bob had three burned paws with third degree burns and should be well enough to return to the bush in about four months.

"They keep putting their arms around each other and giving each other hugs. They really have made friends and it is quite beautiful to see after all this. It's been horrific," said Wood.

"Sam is probably aged between two to four going by her teeth and Bob is about four so they have a muchness with each other."

Beautiful.



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"Baby Cull" Makes God Burn Children To Death

The Next Prime Minister Of Australia (after Julia Gillard and Brendan Nelson), Peter Costello, has a friend in Jesus. And that friend is named Danny Nalliah of Catch The Fire ministry, for whom Costello delivered these Sunday School level theological musings.

So does Peter Costello agree with Pastor Danny Nalliah that :

....these bushfires have come as a result of the incendiary abortion laws which decimate life in the womb.

He's talking about legalised abortion, or as the ABC's Andrew Bolt calls it "the baby cull."

Here's crazy Pastor Danny, back in November 2008, doing what End Timers do best, spouting off about their dreams of death and destruction :

“I saw a man firing randomly with a weapon at people on the streets and many were falling dead. I was very disturbed and was crying. Then the scene changed and I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I awoke from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God, ‘My wrath is about to be released upon Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of the innocent children in the womb. Now, call on My people to repent and pray!’”

What sort of fucked up diety burns so many children to death because the state they live in has legalised abortion?

Victorian fire chiefs issued their own warning of apocalyptic fires for country Victoria on November 2, 2008. Surprisingly, using science and experience, they were far more accurate on the scope and scale of the holocaust to come :



If you click on the above you can see they picked Marysville and Kinglake as ground zero for the destruction they accurately forecasted. Here's the story :

Horror Fire Warning : Water Supplies, Urban Fringe At Risk

Melbourne's urban areas and precious water supplies have been identified as major fire danger zones ahead of an impending horror bushfire season.

Fire chiefs have warned of an extreme season expected to come earlier and last longer following a record dry start to spring and forecasts of a hot summer.

Melbourne's urban fringe has been identified as a particular risk zone, with the Mornington Peninsula, the Dandenongs and the Alexandra and Macedon regions told they should be on high alert.

Far East Gippsland and communities north of Horsham and around Bendigo have also been warned they are at risk of severe bushfires, fuelled by the absence of spring rainfall.

Department of Sustainability and Environment chief fire officer Ewan Waller said the threat was genuine.

"Those areas are rapidly drying out and becoming susceptible to bushfires," he said.

Melbourne experienced its driest September and October on record this year, Victorian Bureau of Meteorology figures reveal.

Statewide, Victoria had its third driest start to spring of all time.

Dave From Albury spotted Catch The Fire's sickening exercise in tragedy porn, and nailed it.

UPDATE : Peter Costello is all so very vague when he gets around to commenting on what his Friend In A Vengeful God Full Of Wraith has to say on the link between abortions and bush
fires :

"To link the death and suffering of bushfire victims to other political events is appalling, heartless and wrong,'' said Mr Costello, who has lost a Christian friend in the fires.

"Those who have suffered deserve ever support and sympathy. It is beyond the bounds of decency to try to make moral or politcal points out of such a tragedy.''

Fine, but does Costello also believe God burned children to death because Victoria legalised abortion?

Mother Nature : Terrorist Or Mass Murderer?

By Darryl Mason

Whose fault is it that so many died in the Victorian bushfires?

Is the Vic government blaming arsonists because they failed to manage the land and bush?

Is it the fault of Greenies, who opposed the burning of scrub and forests to protect the habitats of our cutest little critters, with a Fuck The Humans attitude that has now cost hundreds of lives?

Were regular burn-offs in and around The Valley Of Death actually dissuaded by local councils and tourist businesses because tourists panic when they see a beautiful little village wreathed with burn off smoke and flee back to the city?

Were 'tree changers' dangerously ignorant about the dangers of living amongst so many highly combustible trees?

Should we just accept that apocalyptic fires have swept back and forth across this land for hundreds of millions of years and sometimes humans get in the way and that's just the way it is?

There's a rising anger and bitterness slowly surfacing all over the media, in letters and comments and talkback about Who We Should Blame. Greenies? Global Warming/Climate Change? Those opposed to GW/CC policies? God? Arsonists? Power lines too close to trees? Outdated evacuation plans and policies? So many choices, it's hard to pick just one.

The liveliest, most outraged comments are coming from the public right now, while few professional opinionists are yet go where this ABC News commenter has. It's bitter, but for some it is bitterly accurate :

Give me a home among the gum-trees
With lots of cinders + exploding gum-trees...
A Greenie or two, a charred kangaroo.....
And a burnt rocking chair... the place that I abhore...
a little bush retreat... where the CFA never call.....

And the National Debate, or National Brawl, will get a whole lot more nasty than that, long before any Royal Commission reports begin to surface.

Maybe it's all part of how we deal with this ongoing, emotionally shattering, horrorshow. Maybe we need all the righteous fury, disgust and Blame Them! opportunism to get through this.


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Haven't They Suffered Enough?

It's a tragedy that never ends.

Eddie McGuire To Host Bushfire Appeal Telethon

It could have been worse. Daryl Somers is itching to return to Channel Nine.

------------------------------

By Darryl Mason

Okay, yes, that was a bit cruel. But if so many of the survivors of the Victorian holocaust are able to shrug their shoulders, smile and even have a laugh about losing everything, then we can ease up on the griefosity a bit, as well.

The Channel Nine Telethon will, hopefully, raise many millions to help the 4000+ homeless people of country Victoria. They're going to need it. They didn't just lose families, friends and their homes, many also lost their jobs in local farming and tourist-related businesses that were also wiped out. And probably gone forever.

The logistics and costs of finding accommodation for all these homeless people is monumental. Where will they all go? Where will they now find jobs and income and community? The scale of death and destruction, probably 200 people gone and more than 1000 houses, farms and local businesses destroyed, is staggering, but the work to come to help and house all the survivors and get them back into somewhat normal lives is of a task load rarely seen in Australia, at least since Cyclone Tracy.

And the good news out of all of this tragedy? That Australians will go out of their way to help fellow Australians, and show incredible generosity and national community when they're in trouble.....But is this really news?

It's great to see it, but the very same media that continually tells us, preaches to us, on how divided we are from each other, and so very often roars and wails about the 'great chasms' that separate us in our society - teenager vs adult, country vs city, immigrant vs born here, rich vs poor, privileged vs unlucky, Sydney vs Melbourne - now reveals that, what a surprise, most Australians are good people and really do care what happens to all the others, like them, who also share this magnificent, and sometimes extremely cruel, island.

Australia's are reportedly donating $1 million an hour to charities to help the Black Sunday survivors, and the people of Melbourne are now being asked to stop donating food and clothes and tents, as there is no room left in the emergency centres to store the kindness of so many.

Apparently, what survivors really need today is mobile phone chargers. So they can get their one means of communication happening again (since you can't find public telephones fucking anywhere anymore), so they can contact those who don't know if they're alive, so they can get back in touch again with those who love them and worry about them the most.

There's so much news, so many stories, from all this horror, it's easy to get numb and to tune out when you hear the 100th tale of 'How I Survived'. But some stories can still make you choke and shudder a few tears. This is just....so fucking Australian :

The flood-affected residents of Ingham in north Queensland are putting their own problems aside the help the victims of the Victorian bushfires.

The clean-up and recovery in Ingham began this morning after one of the worst floods in the region's history.

About 200 residents lined up at the community recovery centre this morning to receive financial assistance from the Queensland Government to replace items lost in the floods.

Many of them have lost everything but say their plight is insignificant compared to the loss of life and damage caused by the Victorian bushfires.

Communities Department spokesman Peter McCarthy says many of them are giving their grants to help bushfire victims.

'I'm going to give this money straight to the Victorian fire appeal so you may as well write this cheque out to them, not to me'.

So how long will the Attention Of The Nation remain focused on the holocaust in country Victoria? West Australian online newspaper readers appear to have overcome at least some of their National Grief, just enough, to worry instead about Miranda Kerr, and sky stuff :

Photo by Andrew Caird, from this extensive gallery of images



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