Hey Dave.A huge "LEST WE FORGET".Regards Martin.

There is to be a non denominational service at my local theartre on Sunday. I'm going even though I'm not a God Botherer but I feel I shall show my respect by attending.
I feel for those who have lost everything in the fires, however I feel more for those whose homes have been innundated by the floods as those poor buggers get no insurance or help. You can insure against loss by fire but you can't insure against loss by flooding if the damage is caused by a flooding water course....
In times past we would pull ourselves out of depression/recession by going off to fight a war, as Granny suggests the massive rebuild necessary after this should do the trick.

It still gets up my nose though that we don't learn from these disasters, we still allow build up of fuel and we punish anyone sensible enough to reduce the hazards around their own property and we (especially in the ACT) don't maintain the fire trails and block them off....
I shall mourn the loss, grief and horror with the reset of the Nation.

-- Edited by Basil Faulty at 07:48, 2009-02-20

the problem is this sort of thing is going to be the "norm" rather than the exception as global warming takes hold, there will be more floods, more fires, more severe weather

as we drove through Vic to Halls gap I made an observation that proved to be prophetic, I merely made an off hand comment to the dragon that the local authorities are lax with their fire prevention strategy's, the sides of the roads and as far as the eye could see and into the scrub was grass as high as 1 metre

to an untrained eye this means nothing, but the firey came out in me and seen the obvious danger lurking in that grass, it actually sent a chill up my back, and I thought to myself, "wouldn't like to fight that if it got going" but I thought nothing more of it until my return to snivilisation and of course that horrific news cast that literally took my legs out from under me

I feel for the flood victims also but not as much as I do for the fire victims, I guess because I have had far more to do with fire and it's total devastation than I have for flood,

the thing with flood is that it leaves you with something at least, alright the carpet is gone, furniture not flash and a few other things are gone but fire is just so complete, it takes everything, even the lawn and plants are gone,

I watched a man walking through his garden on some show or other and he was just saying matter of factly "yep house gone, have to rebuild the shed, lost my car and all my clothes" but when he got to a row of bloody candle pines that finished him,

he and his wife planted those trees together the day they finished building the house, his wife died of leukemia and he had lost a son to a road accident, he was on hand at the planting

I watched on as this man was visibly pole axed by the destruction of those beloved trees, he dropped to his knees and it was all released in a massive sign of grief, a big man broken

as a volunteer for basically any worthwhile purpose (you name it I'm probably there some where) I have attended many floods and many fires, of the two I would prefer a flood, I am also a senior intrastate councilor for devastation affected persons, (meaning I receive calls from all over Australia from persons in difficulty) fire is the one that brings the most suffering and causes the most long term debilitation

be that as it may, I feel for all affected (fire and water) and will attend all ceremony's in and around my area, and observe the day of mourning,

my pay this week has already been sent to the fire fund as well as all my spare cash for the foreseeable future, Vegemite on toast for us for a while, but if it helps some bugger then I am happy (broke but happy)

anyway off me soapbox and back to work,

dave06 wrote:

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further to this if you have a minute just go to youtube and place in search "dear arsonists" interesting how all of australia feels the same about these people!!!! except the goody two shoes who would have me up for murder if I did what everyone wants to do to these lowlifes

he/she/they will get off on a technicality probably temporary insanity, not right,

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 Dave it's the standard defence these days for horrorific crimes even Ivan Milat had his sentence mitigated due to his mental capacity, very hard to prove the lowlifes who lit those fires had full command of their faculties, IT STINKS....I'd brink back the lash, or public stonings for offenses like this...