We’ve got some High Resolution Satellite images of the fires that have been burning across Southern California for the past 5 days. (Images were taken over the past two days.) As of now there have been over 900,000 forced evacuations, over 1,600 homes have been destroyed, and 500,000 acres have been burned down stretching from Santa Barbara to the Mexican Border. Many who have not yet been asked to evacuate are leaving due to the poor air quality. Both Governor Schwarzenegger and President Bush have declared a state of emergency and federal aid is being provided.

As for the images, they have been taken by NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response System. The first image at the top was taken yesterday (10/24/07) and the two images below were taken October 22nd (left) and October 23rd (right). To save server load, we’ve only placed the low resolution images in the thumbnails, however if you would like a copy of the full resolution images, save the zip file provided below.

Download: california-fires-2007.zip
Links: California Wild Fires Of October 2007 (wiki)
Related: Hurricane Katrina Satellite Images

There have been many Russell Peters Videos circulating around the web for over an year now. The most famous of his stand-ups was his ~45 minute show in Canada on Comedy Now! (that can be downloaded from this site as well) Russell Peters is an Indian Comedian, who has many great jokes about the Indian culture as well as makes plenty of hillarious insults at other ethinic groups. He has also appeared in the Wild 94.9 Comdey Jam at the Shoreline Amphitheatere (Mountain View, CA), along with Carlos Mencia, DL Hughley, and many more. (over 20,000 people showed up to this event, which was also a Hurricane Katrina benfit show) Anyways, the video is 58 minutes long and is composed of many new jokes. Although it is not as great as his other performances, it is still worth the watch.

Note: This video is way to large and would cost a large amount of money to pay for bandwith. Therefore the video is currently being hosted by “Google Video” and thanks to Google you can stream the video at up to 200kbps. The video will play in you browser through Google Video as long as you have both Macromedia Flash and Java Runtime installed. If you would like to download a copy, just click [download] on the Google Video page on the right side. PC, Mac, Sony PSP, and Apple iPod Video formats are available!

Link: NEW – Russell Peters in NY via Google Video
Related: Original 45-Min Russell Peters Video (.rm – realplayer required)

Update: “Russell Peters: Outsourced” Now Available