I want to take a moment to talk about something serious. No, this isn’t meant to be witty or anything. I wanted to point out something that really is ‘sumthin’ awful’… The bush fires in Australia. I was going to do a review of some tasty video games I found, but this seemed a bit more pressing.

As many of you may already know, the fires have claimed hundreds of lives and are still spreading along much of southern Australia. The added heat and drought that is native to the area have help to fuel the flames. Thousands more are being reported as homeless due to the blazes that have been raging through towns… and the cause?

Well, officials are saying it’s starting to look like arson. Yes, that’s right. Someone or bodies went out and started these fires on purpose. I hope they catch the *insert appropriate insult here* who did this, if it turns out to have really been caused by arson. The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, is saying that the arsonists are accursed of mass murder because of the 135 that have been so far reported dead. Prime Minister Rudd had this to say about the idea of the fires being caused by arsonists: "What do you say about anyone like that [an arsonist]? There's no words to describe it, other than it's mass murder.”

He also announced an emergency health fund (worth about $10mil).

So, I want to do my little part… but being a broke college kid all I can do is spread the word. I’ll be posting links to various other news stories, as well as a link to the Australian Red Cross. There you can donate to a fund that will go to relief work.

And on top of that Google.com is doing it’s part with a google map that is mapping the fires. It can be found here, at their blog… and right here for your convenience:



Shalom, L’chaim.

If anyone has links to other relief aide sites, please post them in a comment! I'll put them up in the new Australian Relief link box for people to see.

Australian Red Cross
Google Map's Victoria Fires blog
BBC Reports (Warning, Graphic Images)
Guardian UK Reports (With Video)