Four people are dead, hundreds injured and displaced after a devestating brush fire whipped through the capital of Canberra.

“We are still facing some very high to extreme fire dangers,” said Peter Lucas-Smith, chief fire controller for the Australian Capital Territory.

He said fires were under control but were burning northwest and south of the city. Some areas that had been scorched black and devastated on Saturday were still burning — just kilometres from the Parliament building along with other government buildings and embassies.

As pall of gray smoke haze hung over the city of 320,000 and bulldozers gouged a series of wide firebreaks along its outskirts.

Weather forecasters warned of dangerous wind gusts and maximum temperature of 35 Celsius.

The residents in the city of 320 thousand are angry at the devestation, the worst in nearly 100 years.

“In some of the areas I have seen … it wasn’t just fire, it was fire accompanied by cyclonic conditions where trees were ripped out of the ground, huge trees were twisted around and thrown, burning, onto houses and there is no emergency service in the world that could deal with that,” he said.

As Australian cities have grown, natural vegetation has replaced harder to burn European and North American imported trees and brush. Australian blog
LivingRoom has more.

UN Human Rights Commission
That’s a contradiction in terms. Libya holds the chair.

In a secret ballot, 33 countries voted for Libyan ambassador Najat Al-Hajjaji. Just three opposed her election while 17 abstained.

Canada said last week it would vote against. ( I goofed earlier, and said Canada abstained.)

“Libya’s election poses a real test for the commission,” said Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch. “Repressive governments must not be allowed to hijack the UN human-rights system.”

Human Rights Watch has accused Libyan authorities of abducting and assassinating political opponents, torturing and mistreating detainees and detention without trial.

The United States and its allies want Libya to accept responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and to provide compensation to families of the victims, consistent with UN Security Council resolutions. The United Nations imposed sanctions against Libya because of the Lockerbie disaster, but suspended them several years ago.

Can you spell moral bankruptcy?

Martin Luther King Day
While the US takes a holiday and celebrates it’s civil rights movement, Canadians should look seriously at what happened to this Jewish library in our nation’s captial yesterday.

No burning Cd’s!
Microsoft has come out with a new software called the Windows Media Data Session Toolkit.
It enables music labels to lay songs onto a copy-controlled CD in multiple layers, one that would permit normal playback on a stereo and a PC.
So who is happy? The ‘content’ providers who can put a layer on a CD to prevent burning onto another CD. Fine. We’ll just go back to tape. Microsoft spent $500 million developing this software.

Terry Mattingly looks at the ‘religion news beat.’
Link via relapsed catholic

Where is blogging going?
Here is an interesting peice on blogging by Mark Pilgrim.

Dispatches is blogging hot today.

Ibidem, a blog by Jesus Gil from Spain that I visit frequently has a new host and a new look. Update your bookmarks. An Owl Among Ruins has a new look and some new content. Tim Blair has one well place word for Jim Treacher, a well known blogger. Blog on!

The CBC has contacted me because they need a blogger for a discussion of on-line journalism for their show Inside Media. Huh. I’ll have to give them some recommendations…we don’t have a CBC studio here.