(found via USS Clueless). For some really good blogging from Australia with day-by-day reaction to the Bali bombing, check out the blog of Tim Blair. (Tim's a professional Journalist in Australia)
For example:
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD has a list of dead, missing, and injured Australians. It's by no means complete, but at least has more names and details than were previously known.
Ausralia being a small place, with a population of just 18 million, many people will have connections to even this preliminary list. I've met two of the people included among the injured: footballers Mick Martyn and Jason McCartney. Others, obviously, will have far deeper links.
Den Beste notes that the 9/11 attacks on the US killed ~2000 Americans in a population of ~280 million. The Bali attacks killed ~200 Australians out of a population of ~20 million -- roughly the same order of impact. Another excerpt from Tim's blog as he hunts for the first apologist:
WHO'LL BE the first dumb fuck to write that the attacks were the logical consequence of supporting the US in the war against terror, and that we'd be better off staying quiet and not upsetting anybody, especially Islamic murderers?
None other than the fucking dumbest dumb fuck of them all, Robert Fisk:
Australians were the principal victims and their murderers must have known they would be. So why were they targeted? John Howard has been among President Bush's toughest supporters. Australia lined up to join the "war on terror" within 24 hours of the attacks on New York and Washington last year. Australian special forces have been operating with American troops in the Afghan mountains against al-Qa'ida. It's a fair bet that yesterday's savagery was al-Qa'ida hitting back.
So we shouldn't have done anything to stop terrorism. Right. Got it.
One of Tim's readers wrote: You know something? I believe these Islamofascist bastards just permanently welded together the iron balls of the two ballsiest peoples on the planet.