"Slimy? Mudhole? My Home This Is"



This three year old pic of a familiar looking mud puddle is doing the e-mail rounds again. Tasmania might be a bit big, but Queensland looks pretty accurate right now.

Snopes hasn't decided whether or not this is photoshopped, but believes the image's appearance at the Army newspaper online lends it a level of credibility :

ADF personnel deployed to Sudan were given a unique reminder of their island home with a picture on a track. Rain left this mud map in potholes, bearing a striking resemblance to Australia.

A Dream Given, Then Stolen Away

After years of pathetic whining about when oh when will the Evil Pagan Lefty-Infested ABC finally give a whining Howard-era conservative his own show, Andrew Bolt receives the call he's been waiting so long for :

Just received call from ABC, asking me to produce/host my own show for $20m. Squealed "Yes!".

But life is cruel. So very, very cruel.

They giggled, and then hung up.

Andrew Bolt is taking his obsession with Peter Costello beyond mere infatuation :

"Now I've started photoshopping myself into Costello's wedding photos. How good do I like in white? Very.

"Peter says I would look good with a moustache. Spent 30 mins in front of mirror with various fake moustaches. Looked quite good."

"Peter Costello dropped by for lunch. On the way out he touched me on the small of my back. It was electric."

"I keep finding myself scrawling Mr. Andrew Costello all over my notes. What is wrong with me?"

This is all taking place at Twitter. But why won't Andrew Bolt share his sweet emotions with his blog readers at the Herald Sun? What is he afraid of? People will mock him for confessing his man love for Peter Costello, but I think it's quite touching.

UPDATE : I'm shocked, stunned, shocked and stunned, that I've fallen for a fake Twitter. The Andrew Bolt I've quoted above, mewing like a schoolgirl in love, is apparently not the real Andrew Bolt, AKA The Professional Idiot.

Gary Kemble, the big spoilsport, at ABC Online, reveals all :

Twitter has taken off in Australia in recent weeks, aided by mainstream media focus and the Victorian bushfires, drawing in a whole new audience for enterprising tweeps who snapped up the names of some well-known Aussies.

Following in the footsteps of fake Henry Rollins, fake William Shatner and fake Megan Fox comes fake Andrew Bolt, obsessing over former treasurer Peter Costello.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine also cops some heat, with her Twitter alter ego detailing a "blazing row" with ABC journo Leigh Sales at an upmarket Sydney eatery.

"Claimed my use of 'holocaust' in today's piece was inapropriate. Offered her my dictionary," the fake Miranda Devine writes.

It's not yet clear if the fake tweeps will be allowed to continue as they are.

Guidelines covering the use of Twitter state: "You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others."

Bummer.

It was fun while it lasted.

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 :

How Does A Chicken Consent To Sex?

According to "a leading Queensland biologist", innocent chickens are being "raped" by bush turkeys, who are growing in number and are taking advantage of the locals :

"Bluntly, that's a form of rape," he said.

"Especially black chickens....(bush turkeys) seem to think 'oh well, these look close enough' and they'll mate with them."

It's a brutal world out there.

It's Easier Than You Think



But what is 'Sydney' talking about over there? Rocks, Evil Pagan Lefty Commo Nazi Greenies, Hamas children's TV hosts, flavoured milk, Al Gore Is Fat, American radio host Rush Limbaugh and some cricket commentator who uses the word "must" a lot.

Now that Murdoch media bloggers will soon have to rely on blog revenue to fill the money gap left by the boss's "across the board" staff and wage cuts, Blair will need all the promotion he can get, even if it qualifies as false advertising.

UPDATE : The Great Al Gore Global Warming Conspiracy Collective is at war against The Deniers and has hacked into Blair's blog (obviously I can't ignore it) and is gremlinising comments, to accidentally amusing effect :

When I moved house recently I lost my treasured paper clip. The one special paperclip, that clipped together many of my favourite peices of paper. I was devastated.

bondo of Melbourne (reply)
18 Feb 09 (06:20pm)

Simultaneous Lover replied to bondo
Wed 18 Feb 09 (10:46pm)

Yes, I have been a cheater. Sorry to admit it, but before I found the right girl to settle down with, I dated 3 simultaneously. It’s expensive and time consuming.

Surreal. Apparently, comments posted in reply to comments on other News Limited blogs are popping up randomly wherever they feel like at Blair's. So a riveting discussion about pens, paperclips and the Holocaust at Blair's is suddenly interrupted by comments meant to appear on some other blog entirely where the conversation is centred around the TV show WifeSwap.

It's excellently random and chaotic, and should be kept. Much more entertaining.

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?

Police Do Not Have The Right To Immediately Search Your Mobile Phone, Blackberry Or Video Camera

This story is a few weeks old, but it's worth repeating, again and again:

A man detained and threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act for filming police on his mobile phone says police abused their powers.

Nick Holmes a Court, CEO of web-based media companies BuzzNumbers and ShiftedPixels, was walking to his home near Kings Cross in Sydney about 10pm on December 19.

He said police forcibly took his BlackBerry phone and threatened him with arrest both under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act and for allegedly disobeying a police directive.

Mr Holmes a Court said he had started filming what looked like a search after he noticed a group of police walking down his street.

"I went to one guy and asked what was going on but he told me to move along, and if I didn't they'd be able to arrest me," he said.

"So I moved down the street a few hundred metres to where my apartment was, pulled out my phone and started filming."

Mr Holmes a Court said he had stopped filming before two of the police officers approached, demanding he surrender his BlackBerry mobile phone and telling him he had committed a crime if he had recorded them.

"It was in my hand, and they were saying, 'Give me your phone, give me your phone,' but I just kept repeating, 'I do not consent to a search of my phone'," Mr Holmes a Court said.

"It was pulled out of my hand - it wasn't me handing it over to her - and now I've got this girl looking through my phone and all my content - my contacts, photos, text messages and emails."

Mr Holmes a Court said he repeatedly complained to the police while they tampered with his phone, but was told to "shut up".

Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said police did not have the authority to confiscate cameras or stop people from taking pictures of them performing their duties.

"It's not appropriate for the police to be stopping people taking pictures of them," Mr Pope said.

"They've got no power to do that, none whatsoever, and they've got no power to confiscate cameras.

"Why should they be fighting being scrutinised?"

Maybe they just wanted to see what the quality of the footage was like, maybe they thought they could use it in one of the many reality TV shows police now control, and profit from :

The insatiable demand for reality-TV is proving to be a boom for NSW Police with the force signing an increasing number of exclusive deals with "true crime" style shows.

The force has signed contracts with at least four highly-rated shows, granting film crews exclusive access behind the crime scene tape in "user-pays" arrangements.

In return for signing confidentiality agreements and allowing NSW Police to vet their final products, reality-TV crews are ushered in by police film supervisors to crime scenes while other media are being kept back.

Earlier this year, the NSW Police Force encrypted their police scanners, which means the media is not informed of many major crimes, such as murders, until a media release is issued the following day.

Unless the media happens to have an exclusive 'reality TV' deal with the police, then their on the scene program makers can report back to the news desk what sort of shit has just gone down.

Take Your Spew And Wee Elsewhere

Inner-city Melbourne has become one big public toilet, and vomitorium, according to local councils. They want maggoted youth to stop pissing and puking in the street. How to get the message across? 'Shock' ads, of course.

Be warned, the first ad is particularly chunky :

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




.

Quick Draw McIdiot In Spectacular Self-Goosing

The Professional Idiot's team of content providers delivers some more pure Gold :

Me, a Bolt who hates anyone with “a name like Hussein”? Not so, believe me.

The Profesional Idiot, or one of his team, meant to link to this story on sprinter Hussein Bolt to counter claims of Barack Obama related anti-Husseinery, but instead (before a hasty correction) readers were directed for a second time to this post by Irfan Yusuf that reasonably asked if anyone actually reads through the mind vomit of many Andrew Bolt commenters, before publication, and highlighted some of the more insane comments by the most dense of The Professional Idiot's long conga line of absolute fucking morons.

Some of those comments :

"It’s a bit hard to be friends with an invisible enemey. The religion/ideology that is Islam has been at odds with the civilised world for more than a thousand years. It continues today either in the form of wars being faught in Africa and the Middle East or your local town, suburb or capital city where a more subtle form of ideological control is taking place. Gradually they will either kill us or out number us via massive birth rates. It is happening and people are letting it happen."

"Islam is a threat to non Islamic people everywhere ... Given any chance, Muslims will oppress peoples the world over if they resist conversion to Islam....Denying this is like denying the Holocaust, but I guess you think that was propaganda too?"

"We have to consider these things from Obama’s perspective, which is very different from ours. He is the first Arab President, the US has had."

I'm not sure what The Profesional Idiot's intention was here, unless he intended to point out to his own readers how thick-as some of the fellow brethren are, but when you're relying on 'one million hits a month' to make up for the "across the board" cutbacks from the boss that are now taking effect on the mega-paid opinionastra, like himself, you've got to find something Muslimy every day to keep the last dregs of vehemently paranoid Howard-era conservatives coming back for more.

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.

The (Perhaps) Perfect Crime

Was this rip-off inspired by some crime flick I haven't seen? There doesn't seem to be any news stories archived online where this caper has been pulled before, at least not in the past few years. It's stunningly simple, scarily so.

A car dealership in Liverpool, New South Wales, Saturday morning, before opening time. Thirteen men walk in, confront the three employees, assault them and each man climbs into an unregistered car and drives away. The thirteen cars are believed to be worth as much as half a million :

The thieves' haul included one white and two blue VW Golfs, a black Mitsubishi Lancer, a grey Holden Barina, a white Mitsubishi Triton, a black VW Passat, a black Subaru Impreza, a white Mazda 3 and one black and one green Holden Commodore.

You'd imagine the copycat potential for this, anywhere in the world, is extremely high. Though, rounding up thirteen people to pull a job like that points to very well organised criminals, lots of rehearsal (no crashes as they try to get the cars out of the dealership as quickly as possible) with a way of getting the stolen cars off the street, or out of the country, very quickly.

More Than 10,000 Australians Have Lost Their Homes To Natural Disasters In Two Weeks

Amongst the horror and human carnage of the Victorian fires, the devastation wrought upon thousands in North Queensland has slipped into the background for many, understandably so. But floods and heavy rains that have reached more than two-thirds of Queensland in the past few weeks, more than one million square kilometres, have devastated cane and banana plantations, cut off entire towns, wiped away bridges and major roads and left, according to this story, thousands of people homeless. Combined with the 7000 thousand now homeless from the fires in Victoria, more than 10,000 Australians are urgently looking for somewhere else to live. Just mind-boggling :

In Ingham residents are beginning the clean-up. But the situation remains dire in Queensland's gulf country, which is experiencing the highest river peaks in 35 years.

In Karumba, a remote fishing town in the state's north-west, residents have been asked to cut back on showers because the town had as little as three days' drinking water left after a water pipeline to nearby Normanton burst. Some towns in the area have been without fresh food since early last month.

Many in the gulf expect to be flood-bound for at least another month.

The floods have devastated the state's sugar industry, which was already struggling due to years of poor growing conditions, high costs and low returns. The water has also damaged banana plantations, which were recovering from Cyclone Larry in 2006.

Yesterday heavy rain between Townsville and Mackay continued. Charters Towers, inland from Townsville, and Longreach, central Queensland were still on flood alert.

Hungry Australia

The below figures from FoodBank are stunning. And remember, this is the state of poverty and hunger in Australia today, before a few hundred thousand people lose their jobs in the next two years :

* The aged, 'singles' and the 'working poor' have become the new battlers in Australia
* 13% of Australian adults and 15% of children live in poverty, and the numbers are growing.
* 2.4 million Australians don't have enough money to take care of basic needs such as housing, clothing and food.
* 15% of Australian children live in jobless households and this figure has increased by 30% in the last 20 years.
* In Australia over a million children don't get enough to eat.
* Two million Australians rely on food relief every year and half of them are children.
* These one million children often go to school without breakfast, or to bed without dinner.

FoodBank

If you're not growing some of your own food - in your backyard, in your frontyard, on your balcony, on your window sills - you are not being responsible for yourself, or your family.

The losses of fruit and vegetable crops in the Victorian fires and North Queensland floods this past week are expected to be monumental.

'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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