The state of things

The firestorm in Victoria. Clearly we would not wish such devastation upon ourselves, and seeing it happen so swiftly to others is both terrifying and a wake-up call. Now my first thought is that we should wait a decent period of time before digging into the whys and wherefores, but looking at some footage from the scene my first thought was not the sympathy I "should" have, rather it was "don't build on top of a ridgeline with forest below, especially so when a prevailing summer wind will drive a fire towards you". Too late now, but my sadness for those now suffering is tinged with a notion - why do we allow people to take such risks? We'll have to wait for the analysis to be sure but in some cases it looked like a combination of freakish weather and poorly sited housing. It may be that in such weather no amount of risk mitigation would have helped - but I do hope that some good comes of this tragedy, that we learn from it and take action to avoid repeating any mistakes.

A treasury of nutcase ideas

What a nutty idea: ALL babies should be DNA-tested at birth to ensure men are not wrongly named as a child's father, a men's rights group says.

Forget trust, cancer, inheritable disease, disabilities or the overall health of the child, it's paternity that matters. If that newspaper can be believed, that men's group is a sick and sorry lot, eh?

Another nutty idea: "You know, I have - faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator's hands - this is what I always do," Ms Palin said.

Forget about self-will, choice, motivation, desire or even capability, just wait for a higher order being of some sort to open some doors. I like the idea of faith, sure, it's a beautiful thing - but sometimes we have to exercise our free will to think, and to act.

Another one: The Mars Phoenix Lander today announced the end of its five-month mission with a cryptic message on Twitter, sparking a wave of heartfelt replies written in computer language.

Sure, it was fun tweeting to a human on Earth about a robot on Mars, but folks, really - it's not reading your tweets, indeed it never was. And now it's shut down, frozen, out of juice! Let's not get too emotional about these mechanical contraptions of ours, eh?