Rubénerd!

A statement from the new centre-right government in Queensland:

The Queensland Government has decided not to proceed with the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards in 2012 which will save Queensland taxpayers $244,475, not including the cost of resourcing the Awards.

And only a few days later from Singapore:

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will donate $350,000 towards three new awards. The awards support community bonding, social service, and the arts.

Clearly there are more issues at play here, but fascinating timing nonetheless!

This post was originally just a shoutout with a quick link, but now I'm using it to put any links I find.

Description

Sending my thoughts out to the victims of the Queensland floods as they continue their march through Brisbane now. I lived there for a couple of years in the mid 1990s growing up, and seeing the photos people are sending in on Twitter with the #qldfloods hashtag of the flood waters over South Bank and the Riverwalk... its pretty scary :O. Hope you're all keeping safe, or as best as you can.

Photo by @TrevyJames.

Links

• Premier's Flood Relief Appeal
• ABC News 24, temporarily geo-unlocked
• ABC map of Brisbane suburbs at risk of flooding
• ABC Emergency QLD flood coverage
• ABC Qld Flood Crisis Map
• Bob Brown's statement on the floods
• Brisbane City Council: Roads affected by flooding
• Courier Mail: Brisbane CBD power grid will be shut down from 07:00AM

I'd advise putting your donations through Bing Lee stores, they're using the tragedy to get people to like their pages on Facebook. Does that count as looting?