Affentitten Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 Or are you saying that this can't ever be avoided and folks just have to learn to deal with it every 50 years or so? I can't believe you're saying that. That's what I'm saying. Let's use the So Cal equivalent: earthquakes. You know they're going to happen. So you can plan, design etc etc and when you get the small-average ones you don't get much loss of like or destruction. But then once every generation or more you're going to get a big kahuna and you just won't be able to limit things. And you'll get a couple of hundred dead and a few hundred houses wrecked. Of course, you can choose not to live there in the first place. As for once every 50 years, that's a debatebale point. This has never happened before, both in terms of destructive effect and weather pattern. It may not happen again for another 200 years. But the climate change guys are saying it will become more frequent. So can we plan around it? Just to clarify, this happened in an area that is not really the outback. Some of the affected places are really far flung suburbs of Melbourne itself. People would commute from there to the city to work. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 As an aside, there have been quite a number of houses built in gullies and on floodplains during that same period. Sure, we haven't had much rain in that time, but it will come.... This has been a problem in my state as well. People building on flood plains and then screaming bloody murder when they get flooded. One wonders what part of 'floodplain' they don't understand. We finally got some kind of ordinance passed to prohibit building in mudslide areas...after several people lost their lives when dozens of tons of the stuff swept their multi-million dollar homes into the sound. Dingbats. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 What's the old saying? "Man proposes, Nature disposes?" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tero Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 This has been a problem in my state as well. People building on flood plains and then screaming bloody murder when they get flooded. One wonders what part of 'floodplain' they don't understand. We finally got some kind of ordinance passed to prohibit building in mudslide areas...after several people lost their lives when dozens of tons of the stuff swept their multi-million dollar homes into the sound. Dingbats. Michael The same effect was seen in the UK a few summers back when the torrential rains swept the really beautiful villages built into nice looking gullies which funnel the rainwater into the sea. As it happened the "excess" rain swept people, cars and houses as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 If you heard it in Wisconsin it is undoubtedly true. Lighting a bushfire as an act of deliberate destruction is pretty hit and miss - the circumstances whereby an effective result is likely don't come around all that often, certainly not often enough for the act to be politically useful with its timing. Actually, read it in an Aussie paper. http://www.theage.com.au/national/islam-group-urges-forest-fire-jihad-20080906-4b53.html?page=-1 Does note your point that it's hit and miss. But you got to admit, a pack of matches is pretty cheap. A threat is a threat, article says the Aussie intel agencies are on it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Affentitten, Am still awake (5:35 a.m. here) and watching the horrifying coverage on the BBC World News. Confirmed fatalities are now up to 181, and I believe the PM said 500 injured, with upwards of 1000 homes destroyed. Today also saw a fiery disaster in South Korea when a Changyoeng festival fire was blown onto grassy slopes covered with 15,000 festival goers, killing 4 and injuring 70. Looked like a vision of hell! Downtown Beijing has a raging hotel fire (fortunately, for one under construction) which has already killed a fireman and wounded maybe as many as 40, and in Dubai, there was a tanker collision and fire (now out). A harrowing day! My condolences to the families of all the dead and best wishes to the injured and their loved ones. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I heard that eucalyptus trees explode under very high heat and the top land some distance away (with stunned koala) and starts another fire - is this true? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 A harrowing day! And one more reason why I don't own a tv. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 And one more reason why I don't own a tv. Michael Luddite! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Actually, read it in an Aussie paper. http://www.theage.com.au/national/islam-group-urges-forest-fire-jihad-20080906-4b53.html?page=-1 Does note your point that it's hit and miss. But you got to admit, a pack of matches is pretty cheap. A threat is a threat, article says the Aussie intel agencies are on it. Lars - ok, fair enough. Aussie papers are staffed by dills just as those around the world are. Dills in search of column inches. And its true, the devastation achieved with a 20 cent box of matches represents an awesome return on your investment. But why would you light a fire out at Kilmore when you could get a much, much better result if lit it somewhere else? And really, the act lacks, umm, balls, charisma, and um, well, HE. Not much good for your lunatic followers with a yen for loud bangs. Sort of wussy. Other Means - it is suspected that the koalas are proto-astronauts, nature's attempt to have a life form evolve to inter-stellar travel. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 ...it is suspected that the koalas are proto-astronauts, nature's attempt to have a life form evolve to inter-stellar travel. But they still can't manage without air. It was almost painful watching that cute, pathetic little creature die inside the bell jar after the vacuum pump was turned on. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Well, In addition to the grim death toll, about 5,000 people have been left homeless and roughly 1,351 square miles (roughly the area of Rhode Island) have burned since last week.That ain't a bad result out at Kilmore, it being a soft target, especially if you think like a wacko. So what's the economic worth of 1,351 sq miles of forest products? Not to mention 5,000 people gone from productive to homeless and on the welfare roles. A double there. Granted, it lacks the cachet of say, a box cutter attack, but heck, we are generating Dresden-like firestorms, without having to buy and maintain all those B-17's. Welcome to the same desert we live in, infidel. I think I could recruit on it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 I think we have enough arsonists around without needing to invent Jihadis with Zippos. As for degree of difficulty, on the same day as the Victorian fires somebody lit a fire in bushland adjacent to a school less than a click from me. It went nowhere, despite it being fairly windy and about 33 degrees C. It was the second time in a fortnight they had tried in a roughly similar area, plus a dumpster the week before. So you do need a fairly special cocktail of circumstances, luck and whatever to get a major fire going, assuming you're a rank amateur. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I wasn't inventing them, I was just kinda responding to the posters who breezily dismiss the whole idea. They already have it in their little terrorist heads, and someday, it'll happen. If it hasn't already. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 They already have it in their little terrorist heads, and someday, it'll happen. If it hasn't already. Lol. What are you - Fear Central? Woooo. "It'll happen" "Someday" "If it hasn't already" "terrorist". Be scared. Surrender all your freedoms for increased security. 'They' are out there, and they're coming to get YOU. Did you lift those straight out of the TSA Media Sound Bite Manual? About the only thing you've forgotten is the children. Think of the children, everybody. The Jihadis with Zippos are OUT THERE, and they're coming to get YOUR CHILDREN. Won't anybody think of the children? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Lol. What are you - Fear Central? Woooo. "It'll happen" "Someday" "If it hasn't already" "terrorist". Be scared. Surrender all your freedoms for increased security. 'They' are out there, and they're coming to get YOU. Did you lift those straight out of the TSA Media Sound Bite Manual? About the only thing you've forgotten is the children. Think of the children, everybody. The Jihadis with Zippos are OUT THERE, and they're coming to get YOUR CHILDREN. Won't anybody think of the children? Ah yes, the reasoned rebuttal. Gee, why don't you just go read the article Jons? I didn't make the thing up. And I don't have kids. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 Well I'm more worried about the anti-abortionists than the tewwowists. Quite frankly, most of the Muslim popualtion of Australia would be in extreme difficulty just finding their way out of their urban clan areas. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugged Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 About the only thing you've forgotten is the children. And I don't have kids. So you concede that he's right then, you did forget the children...? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I didn't make the thing up. aka "Whaa! He started it" I know you didn't make it up, I doubt you could be that creative. You are, however, front-and-centering it and imbuing it with fear-laden rhetoric. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 So you concede that he's right then, you did forget the children...? Well, yeah. Why should I give bugger all about his kids? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 Well, hell yes I think of the children...I want them to inherit a free country, not a paranoid fascistic police state that jumps every time a Mullah farts in the Middle East. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 Why should I give bugger all about his kids? It's called 'humanity'. But I suppose you must be excluded from that. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 I wasn't really talking about my children, specifically. More along the line of the generic The Children™ No Fear Based Initiative is complete without an appeal on behalf of The Children™ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalins Organ Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 A lot of parents wish they could forget the children...if only for a weekend!! Fear not - it's more common and more understandable than the Forgotten Children Police™ would let you believe! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FAI Posted February 11, 2009 Share Posted February 11, 2009 Well I'm more worried about the anti-abortionists than the tewwowists. The tewwowists have won....!!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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