Well, I thought it was as funny as hell. But I note there is a strong split over this one.

I'd guess keeping an eye on Muralitharan's elbow. (I just put that in to baffle our US Cellarites!)

But if we pay $800,000,000 for access to US Satellite data, are they paying us rent for the three bases they have here? And do they "check" the data before passing it along?

P.S. Is it "Cellarites"? Cellarians? Cellarbrities?

Cellar Dwellars or Cellarites or pretty much anything else you'd like to call yourself as a member of this fine establishment.

Or they might be watching to see if shoab's going to make up with his team mates so he can play this season. lol

I have no idea. But the answer to the second part is No, if you believe a book called Chatter. He does a whole chapter on the SatCom bases in Aussie land.

I don't support English only, but I do support English first and that includes teaching it in the schools. We should support those making the transitions while learning to speak English, but that does not mean teaching a class in two languages at the same time in the same room.

In many ways it is another sign of our uncontrolled immigration policy and failure to police up illegal immigration. We have allowed people to come here and not provided a way for them to assimilate. We have been burdened with the costs as a society for this failed policy and the language issue debate is another symptom of that failed policy.

The wife says we should have imported some koalas along with the eucalypts -- for decorative purposes. We have several varieties around, they being well adapted to rain being only seasonal, which is the case throughout southern and central California. The north end of the state gets the bulk of the rain -- unlike Spain, the plain getteth not the main rain.

The original, failed scheme was for eucalypts to supply railroad ties and be cheap and swift to grow. They got the wrong kind of eucalypts -- you couldn't put a spike into a balk of this wood without it splitting end to end. Perhaps they should have invented reinforced concrete railway ties a century or so sooner, but absolutely no one in the US was thinking in those terms at that time. They wrote it off as an idea that didn't pan out.

So the commercial use we found for these trees was to plant them as shelter-belts for fields, particularly the citrus orchards. Such plantings are all over my county. They just cut one of these down in my city because the trees were becoming senescent, having been planted back when pioneering Senator Bard was still a farmer, 1880 or so. Eucalyptus as pulpwood seems a growing development, and the local Procter & Gamble paper products plant -- towels and bath tissues -- uses this pulp, but it's shipped in from elsewhere and I don't know the source.

Intelligence, from satellite as well as other sources, is really the only thing that allows a nation to come up with sensible, effectual foreign policy. I'm not surprised the Australian government is willing to enter into a third-party agreement with ours to get these data.

I say, was or is that really... cricket?! [/Terry-Thomas voice]

As a onetime intelligence guy, I'm only going to say I will refuse to comment.

The Koala idea is interesting. Koala numbers are falling in most of Australia, urban sprawl being the prime culprit. But on Kangaroo Island, they were taken there recently, are disease free, and the population is booming to the point that they are overeating their resources and destroying the national park, and will eventually face starvation. A few years back they were (briefly) shooting them to reduce numbers, imagine the outrage! They switched to a much less efficient catch and sterilize program. Hmmm, maybe if we export a few hundred and start a colony in California...
They are very picky about what they eat, so you'd need to have the right kinds of gum trees, but they'd leave everything else well alone. But if you recall the Simpson's visit to Australia...

Rain is seasonal in Australia. Every third Tuesday in August, without fail. That's about it.


Probably Australian old-growth forests. Grrrr.:mad2: See Koala population comment.

Indeed, getting to piggyback on the US satellite system is a great thing. But the price is more than $800,000,000. It is also being your loyal sidekick, sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia and Vietnam. I'm not saying it isn't worth it mind you, we get a good package ... FA-18 jets, Abrams tanks ...

No point being whores three nights a week and pretending on the other nights that we're not whores. If we're in, do it properly. But I do wish you could find a better president. Really, out of 300,000,000 people, this was the best president you could find ... TWICE??? :speechls:

Zen, I have to correct you and say that while there are some areas in Australia where koala populations are falling due to urban sprawl, on the whole, the numbers have increased over the last 50yrs or so. This is attributed in part to awareness of the plight of koalas, but also farmers replanting trees for emissions projects etc, in effect, giving back what they had once taken away.

UG - perhaps your scientists should have read some of the texts from early settlement in Australia. At this time it was discovered that eucalypt timber was very unsatisfactory as a building material (one strain being so bad as to be named Ironbark). The bulk of timber for early settlement in Australia actually came from Norfolk Island, which is of course famous for the Norfolk Island Pine.

Gum, without getting toooo far into details that have already been fought over on these fora, I'm quite enthusiastic over a President who actually tries to win a war started by other people, and win it with what's really the only likely permanently effectual strategy: our terror problems come out of the Barnettian-Gap nations, and the way to reduce the problems permanently is to bring the Gap nations into global connectivity, economic and cultural. Wresting these nations from the benighted grip of dictatorship is the first step. The populace tends to be more enthusiastic about globalization than the rulership.

And yet, for the unforgivable sin of trying to win a war :lol: some dumbunnies want to impeach the guy I voted for twice. That says the antiwar crew are either fascist sympathisers or unbelievably stupid.

I should have known better than to get into a current events forum ...
:hide:

Aliantha, I am not convinced about the Koalas ... do you have link you can send me so that I can read about it?

UG, trust me, I do not support the Talliban. I support the Afghanistan war/invasion/operation call it what you will. And the ultimate goal of a planet where everyone gets along without blowing each other up sounds good. But I think the strategies pursued to that end, especially preemptively (ha, proactively, take that RKZenrage!) invading Iraq with minimal international support, and many decisions since then (especially disbanding the Iraqi army and gutting the civil service) were clearly mistakes. So I don't oppose the goal, I'm just worried about the guys who're driving the bus.
For the record, I opposed going into Iraq, but now that we have, I oppose pulling out. But I'm sure you don't need me to discuss the likely consequences of doing that!
Sorry for this off thread rant.

Zen. the info on the koalas came up during a convo with my husband a couple of weeks ago. He has access to plenty of data on that sort of thing due to the field of work he's in.

I'll see if I can get some 'proof' for you though. ;)

This article talks about how there are too many koalas in some areas and not enough in others. It covers the reasons for each, but it's in pretty simple text so easy to read.

This article has an interesting case study of Koalas in south east Qld where of course we have a large decline in numbers due to rapid growth in the area.

Naw, ZenG, that's how a lot of people view the matter, and you couldn't say it's without justice, could you? Now what pleases me particularly about it is that it's being attempted at all, partisan of democracy that I am: the less-than-democracies must go, and stay gone, come hell or high water. That's where I've been, my entire thinking life. (Some here profess astonishment at this, and express opposition. And yet, they were born in the twentieth century?!)

I speak of these not as separate wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, but as campaigns within the wider war. It's the make-America-lose faction that blathers and bloviates about two wars, demonstrating their inferiority of thought and clouded understanding -- oh, and a complete want of strategy, broader and more profound than any flaws exhibited by the Administration -- a want of any other strategy than to defeat America's and humanity's cause, apparently because a Republican President is Commander in Chief. My God, how long, O Lord? Such a want makes this faction specious, invisible in patriotism, and valueless.

I better stop succumbing to this temptation to pull the thread offtopic, though.

Tennis anyone?

Barnettian-Gap.
Big Dic.
Barnettian-Gap.
Big Dic.
Barnettian-Gap.
Big Dic.
Barnettian-Gap.
Big Dic.
Barnettian-Gap.
Big Dic.

Love-Love.

:elkgrin: Hee, hee!

Can't expect absolutely everyone to have read this even now, but I just picked up my very own copy of Blueprint For Action: A World Worth Creating at remaindered prices. Barnes & Noble.

Tw's talking like he's read at least some of it too.

Meanwhile, this Thomas P.M. Barnett guy is a busy blogger.