Yes, It is sad but True!
The Herman Meister is going on Vacation for a month and I shall not be able to involve myself in the in depth conversations I have been having with fellow members. To all my friends,fans,peeps and even those that don’t particularly fancy me, I shall be going to the dark continent to relish in the warm 25 degree weather and tropical sunshine. I am going to visit Africa and maybe even pay a visit to Obama’s grandmother for autograph who I think lives in the area of Kibera. I am staying in Westlands in Nairobi. I will miss all you guys and might even shed a tear over PDF or miss arguing with RS about his fictitious fish called Gonereha (however its spelt), that lives in the Highlands….Bo voyage to all and if I could send you a postcard I would. Talk to you sometime in February, and try not to miss me too much!!
You may imagine our deep disappointment upon realising that your departure will not be permanent, but I suppose we should wish you a happy time in your absence. 
Well we wont miss you … carefull not to miss us …
Bon Voyage
Thanks RS!..That was mighty TALL of you to wish me well. I know my trip is not SHORT:) …(LOL…You get it?..inside joke pertaining to other thread ?..LOL)
Yes, SON, I get it.
Now, just piss off and have your frigging holiday, and leave the rest of us alone.
P.S. Enjoy your holiday, mate.
No more sarcastic posts and/or thread about Russian teacups?
Herman, bring me back a cutlass, m’kay?
sgt. major herman will be missed at stalag 13!!!
Africa, eh? You should definitely take some pictures and post them when you’re back.
(Not of your ugly face but of the landscape - love the continent:mrgreen:)
Hope you have fun, and try to avoid getting eaten by Hyenas…
Whoa, that’s a trip! I agree with schuultz, you should take some pictures and post them. Anyway, have fun and take care. P.S. do you have all of your shots?
Jambo!
The Herman Meister is BACK and doing fine. Yeaa!!!
To all my peeps and foes I know you are relieved that I came back in one piece. I am a little sunburnt from my Safari Adventures in the Serengeti but I am a changed man. Seeing all the poverty that prevails in Kenya makes one appreciate the country we live in. God Bless Canada! (and USA and Australia). I look forward to the engagement of fruitful conversations with you all very soon, but just wanted to let you know that I am Back and happy to be here. I hope R.S. is ok with all them Australian bush fires.!!
Good.
I’ve actually missed you.
A little.
I’m not into God blessing any of us, but we should all be grateful that we are so lucky to live in such wonderful countries.
Yes, fortunately they’re about half an hour away from me in the current bushfire speed of anything up to 100 kmh, even though I’m in the outer bushy suburbs which usually are the last area to be consumed in great fires.
I have friends in three different bushfire places, all within between half an hour and an hour’s drive of me. One had her fibro house survive, albeit burnt in parts and with outbuildings gone, while others around her, including a solid brick, disappeared. Another has been fighting fires for the past four days as they come at them from different directions, die and revive, so their future is unknown. A third survived on top of a hill, while the slope below them is ash.
Often there is no rhyme or reason to who or what survives a bushfire.
That sounds pretty nasty, RS. I heard there are suspicions that these fires were actually set?
If that’s true, I hope these guys get charged - and convicted - of one count of murder for every person that died in the fires…
Uh-oh, Herman’s back!
We want pictures from Africa!!
Hi Herman! Welcome back! Any chance to see some pictures of your trip?
My nephew’s going to Africa on a missions trip soon, that should be interesting. I’ll ask again which country as I’ve forgotten. Glad you’re back safe and sound, take care!
Well hello and welcome back, now don’t make a ass out of your self, lol jk wecome man, show us some pics.
One of the major fires which caused many deaths was probably deliberately lit. Another may have been. Four others are believed to have been from other causes. A large police task force has been created to investigate. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2487831.htm Murder may not be the appropriate charge in some cases, but there is an arson charge which carries the same maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment which would certainly apply.
The toll so far is 181 dead with many more injured, some of whom will not survive severe burns, and more deaths to come as searches continue in burnt areas; over 1,000 houses destroyed; countless domestic, farm and wild animals dead and injured; and over 400,000 hectares (a million acres) burnt out. The major fires are still burning and largely uncontrolled, and at risk of linking up to create an even more uncontrollable fire which, if the wind shifts, could burn back into the outer suburbs of Melbourne (the state capital city) or just keep marching on into rural areas if that’s where the wind takes it. Local news here http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/
The speed of the fires on Saturday, when we had high winds, was incredible, anything from 60 to 100 kmh in places.
I’d definitely say murder is the appropriate penalty, even though it should be 2nd degree. (With that many dead, it doesn’t really make a difference)
They set the fires, and in a country like Australia they should’ve figured that it was going to spread. Every death that happened, no matter by which fired, I believe they should be charged with.
Because even the deaths that occurred from fires caused by other causes might have been preventable if the firefighters weren’t busy/spread out trying to fight the fires these assholes set.
If some of the survivors and or some of the fire brigade blokes get hold of the arsonists, I wouldn’t worry about the technicalities of which charge is appropriate. Justice could be rather more immediate, and cruel and unusual in a country which doesn’t have the death penalty in its legal system. But probably not, because civilised people have a distressing habit of treating the shit in their communities considerably better than the shit treats them.
Of course they knew.
Warnings had been widely broadcast for a week beforehand that Saturday was going to the worst day in decades for fire risk. Everybody with half a brain knew what 45C temperature, humidity in the single digits, bone dry vegetation, and strong winds would do if a fire started. There is a view that such warnings almost ensure that the arsonists will respond to ideal conditions for their acts.
I suppose that’s why these bastards got out then, because they could start really big fires.
Strange but true, but often the arsonists are members of volunteer fire brigades who, presumably, start fires so they can get their rocks off fighting them or whatever it is that they get from doing it.
In most cases, probably not. The fire brigades could do bugger all in the face of most of the fires on Saturday-Sunday. Even if they had had a hundred times the men and tankers they still would have been withdrawn from the path of the fires because there was nothing they could do. Anyway, they weren’t even withdrawn in most cases. They simply couldn’t have got there in time, even if they had wanted to.
The speed of the fires was so fast that people had, literally, only a few minutes to flee when fire came over a ridge or up a road. One example was a bloke who had to abandon his house after he was unable to defeat the fires starting inside under ember attack. He went outside and got into his car then, leaving the car door open for a quick escape, went back to the house to grab some photographs. By the time he got back to his car in less than a minute the interior was on fire and he couldn’t use it.
Fleeing was in many cases a guarantee of death on roads blocked by fallen trees and panicked drivers who crashed cars in the darkness of the smoke.
Mr Amatnieks was travelling along the Kinglake-Heidelberg Rd when he discovered the family’s car.
“They were stuck on the side of the road after slamming into the back of another car, it was horrific,” he said.
"My wife got out of the car and called out to them to get in the car.
“As we got them in the car and took off, another car came down the hill and slammed into it.”
He said he felt helpless as he drove away, leaving the driver of the car to die.
“We just couldn’t have done any more or we would have lost. I couldn’t have saved him also,” he said. “I did all I could.”
Moments later the ferocious blaze engulfed the three-car pile-up, leaving one man dead.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25039244-953,00.html
But a few people got lucky on the roads.
EVERYTHING that could go wrong did go wrong when Benjamin Banks tried to escape the Kinglake inferno. But it was a head-on car crash, his third accident within minutes, that ironically saved his life.
He took shelter in a nearby house, after a “fire tornado” peeled the paint from his car.
Nursing a smashed ankle, burned hand and dozens of stitches across his body, Mr Banks, 25, now lies in an Austin Hospital bed where he can see the smoke billowing from the hills he calls home.
After a “big night” on Friday that ended about 6am on Saturday, Mr Banks was woken about 2pm by his cousin Dean, 18, as smoke enveloped his home. Believing the fire was still a way off, Mr Banks began preparing his Kinglake West home for the impending blaze.
A short time later, he watched fire embers flying through the air and trees ignite around the house. “I’ve faced fire before but nothing as intense as this,” Mr Banks said.
“It hit so fast we didn’t know.”
Having decided to flee, Mr Banks found his car wouldn’t start and he had to change the battery. “I knew I had to save my cousin,” he said. “I wanted to save him before me.”
As they escaped, Mr Banks’s car hit a tree that had fallen across the road. As he ploughed on he struck a second tree.
“Then this big whirlybird tornado of flame hit us. I remember looking up at it and it was as high as the trees.” The car was almost tipped over and Mr Banks watched as the paint peeled off the bonnet and the car window melted, dripping molten glass on to his hand.
“I tried to drive again but there were no tyres left. I could feel steel on steel and could hear the steel rims grinding on the road and I was stuck on this tree.” All of a sudden, a set of headlights appeared from the smoke and collided head on with Mr Banks.
“But I think that was my saving grace because if it had not hit me, we would have burned to death in the car.”
With his leg trapped in the crash, Mr Banks urged Dean to run to a clear paddock before the driver of the other car, a neighbour, dragged him to safety too.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25038177-5018722,00.html
However, the local (i.e Melbourne) fuckwit posing as a correspondent for this communist rag http://chinaworker.info/en/content/news/644/ explains, in an article entitled “Australia’s bushfires: A disaster worsened by capitalism” that the fires were essentially a consequence of capitalism and that
Blaming arsonists is just a diversionary tactic by the government. The main reason that money is not made available is because, at the moment, decisions are being made on the basis of dollars and not sense. A system based on the short term, and geared to profit, is incapable of mitigating the worst effects of bush fires. In fact capitalism has made this disaster far worse than it needed to be.
That is why if we really want to reduce the risk of death and destruction from natural disaster, it is urgent we fight to put an end to the profit driven system of capitalism. We need a system based on human solidarity, co-operation and democracy, the types of qualities that working people have instinctively shown during this disaster.
Meanwhile, up the top of Australia directly north of the fires down here, they are experiencing the worst floods in recorded history. These are the contrasts which inspired this verse from a poem all Australian children used to learn in primary school
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!