h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

At least you have a government with a human face.
It's good to see them honestly moved, even though one deplores the reason.

It's a long time since I felt so angry - and everything else. I want to come and help, would you believe!

By the way, I think insanity is a very useful plea......

Dig

While I am disgusted by the arsonists, it's the looters who really make me feel ill.

An arsonist is probably unbalanced, but looters are just cold, calculating, greedy lowlife s.

I never thought about looters. It makes me feel even sicker.

News reports say that some have been arrested - I think that they should be put to work cleaning away debris if they are so keen on going through other people's belongings.

I agree with Feisor- when I've heard of looting after disasters, etc, here, it always makes me feel sick. Putting those people to work cleaning up would definitely be a suitable punishment. I'm ashamed that people can be such opportunistic parasites sometimes.

Though I do have some sympathy for people who loot drug and grocery stores for bottled water and first aid stuff, since this tends to be people who've lost everything including money and bank cards. Sure, I feel for the business owners, but it's hard not to sympathize with this kind of looting.

There are reports today that a man (for want of a better word) has been arrested in Melbourne for the theft of a bucket of cash donations to the bushfire appeal. It was on the bar in a pub; he decided to help himself. The staff saw him again the next day and called the police.

How low can people go? No, don't answer that. After 13 years in the welfare sector I have a fair idea. I'm so glad I got into a different line of w*rk before all this happened; I might not have coped.

Don't get too disheartened Ivan, for every lowlife there are hundreds of good kind people, and we mustn't allow ourselves to forget that.

Websailor

Once we've all finished contributing to the reconstruction fund, maybe we should have another appeal to expand psychiatric care services.

Well, I don't know about Australia, but we could certainly do with an expansion here!

Take care. I hope things are quietening down now. The emergency services must be exhausted.

Websailor

Somehow, I can cope with the idea of a natural disaster, awful though that it, but for people to have contributed so viciously is hard to comprehend, and a source of bitterness with many survivors I wouldn't wonder.

Websailor

At least the Canberra firestorm was the result of a lightning strike, not the work of an evil bastard.

Incidentally, most of the firefighters are volunteers. As a rule here, metropolitan fire brigades are professionals but most of the rural firefighters are volunteers. That makes their efforts and their tirelessness all the more laudable.

I read that there's a class action being put in place against one of the power companies. The only ethical thing for them to do is dig deep immediately and donate (without prejudice of course) to the rebuilding of the community in question.

It is similar here, but our clever government is cutting back on such firefighters, as they are in every walk of life that matters.

My friends, both Brits, are in Melbourne, and being St. Johns volunteers, one is doing Comms, the other driving an ambulance. I haven't heard a word from them, which suggests they are very busy.

Take care, going off to sit by a fire on this cold winter night. Strange how something so wonderful can be so devastating.

Websailor

Ben, I haven't heard anything abot that class action. Do you have a link? And does it involve the ambulance-chasing law firm Slater and Gordon?

It was in the Melbourne Age - or on their site anyway:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/huge-fire-class-action-launched-20090214-87pg.html

I'm not sure which firm of ambulance chasers it is.

Thanks Ben.

I've now also found http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/15/2491759.htm - it seems it's not the usual ambulance-chasers after all. (Is it a sign of growing sophistication that we now have more than one firm of that sort? H'mmm.)

I have a wide range of mixed-up thoughts about legal action as a response to this situation. I think I need to think this through before editorialising at length about it.

Legal action resulting from the 2003 firestorm has been clogging up the courts in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales for six years now. And that, as I've mentioned, resulted from a lightning strike. In an instance where there could conceivably be an entity at fault, we could be keeping lawyers rolling in cash for at least a decade...

After a catastrophe the vultures come flying...

Don't they just And I am definitely not in favour of giving lawyers a free ride. They have far too much power and influence here already.

Websailor

Good news... There are only 6 fires still burning, and they're contained at this stage.

Bad news... A bigger number. 189

The name of the alleged arsonist has been released. I don't propose to mention it here. The reasoning seems to be that he's at great risk of reprisals even when he's anonymous, so there's no point in continuing to suppress his identity. It's his relatives I feel sorry for. They might come to need protection too.

200

I'm not sure why I report the numbers. I think it's because now that I've started I should keep going... Just because a person was found later rather than earlier it doesn't mean they shouldn't be acknowledged. But apart from that - I feel numb.