OT: Australia Day

[Targan]

My non-Australian friends are probably not aware that today is Australia Day, a national public holiday. I am very proud of my country and I say to all my Aussie friends happy Australia Day and I hope you all get well and truely plastered, cook up some steaks and snags on the barbie and have a great day.

[pmulcahy11b]

Is it analogous to Independence Day in the US?

[Caradhras]

Happy Australia Day.

(as a Brit, I will bite back any colonial banter )

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Is it analogous to Independence Day in the US?

Yes, same sort of thing. January 26 1788 was the date that Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and the first governor of New South Wales, arrived at Sydney Cove.

Australia wasn't one nation until 1901. Prior to that it had been a collection of British colonies with limited self rule. The individual colonies became the states of Australia after federation. The first colonies, at Sydney Cove and Van Diemen's Land (now the island-state of Tasmania) were settled using convict labour but my state of Western Australia and our neighbour South Australia were founded by free settlers a few decades later. The Western Australian and South Australian colonies were established by Britain mainly to prevent the French from taking the western half of the continent for themselves.

[jester]

Paul; that makes it more like Columbus Day vice Independance Day. There is a difference, now send us your women....only the hot ones mind you!

[Targan]

Originally Posted by jester

Paul; that makes it more like Columbus Day vice Independance Day.

I see what you mean. But Columbus Day celebrates the discovery of the Americas by Christpher Columbus. We don't really have a day of celebration to mark when the Dutch first discovered Australia in 1606, or British Captain James Cook's mapping of (and claiming for Britain of) the east coast of Australia in 1770. Does the USA have a public holiday marking the founding of its first European colony? That would be analagous to Australia Day for us.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by jester

Paul; that makes it more like Columbus Day vice Independance Day. There is a difference, now send us your women....only the hot ones mind you!

Bah, Columbus Day! He's just about the last one who "discovered" America -- and started the genocide that characterized the rest of the conquest of America! F*** Columbus!

One of the curses of having a History degree; you learn what really happened.

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Bah, Columbus Day! He's just about the last one who "discovered" America -- and started the genocide that characterized the rest of the conquest of America! F*** Columbus!

One of the curses of having a History degree; you learn what really happened.

who were the first outsiders then ?
Irish monks ?

The Norse ?

Asians ?

[headquarters]

"French Australia"

what a tingeling thought .
( Yes , I like contrafactual history musings)

Good thing though , or Australia would probably have had loads of wars etc like the other continents that were colonized by the major powers..

Question : do you have oilwells down under ? On land I mean .

Could say Western Australia or any other part of Australia stay organized and survive the events of T2K ?

Or wopuld it be like the excellent documentary about life in Australia:
Mad Max I-III ?

Have a good celebration all Aussies and auxilliary aussies too.

Originally Posted by Targan

Yes, same sort of thing. January 26 1778 was the date that Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and the first governor of New South Wales, arrived at Sydney Cove.

Australia wasn't one nation until 1901. Prior to that it had been a collection of British colonies with limited self rule. The individual colonies became the states of Australia after federation. The first colonies, at Sydney Cove and Van Diemen's Land (now the island-state of Tasmania) were settled using convict labour but my state of Western Australia and our neighbour South Australia were founded by free settlers a few decades later. The Western Australian and South Australian colonies were established by Britain mainly to prevent the French from taking the western half of the continent for themselves.

[Legbreaker]

Ah, better make that 1788 Targan, otherwise we had the bicentenial a decade too late!



I believe there are some oil reserves on land, however I can't think of any actual wells in use. We do have a number of offshore platforms, mainly up off the Western Australian coast between us and Timor.

We also have the bulk of the worlds Uranium.....

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Ah, better make that 1788 Targan, otherwise we had the bicentenial a decade too late!

Oops. Typo

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

.

We also have the bulk of the worlds Uranium.....

Ummmm second place for the Uranium...

The world's top uranium producers are Canada (28% of world production) and Australia (23%).

Its more like the July 1'st Holiday in Canada when it proclaimed a country...

(And yes we have oil and lots of other minerals that our southern aggressive neighbor would love to steal... )

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

We also have the bulk of the worlds Uranium.....

I'll have to check the satellite photos, and see if Australia glows in the dark.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by headquarters

Question : do you have oilwells down under ? On land I mean.

Australia is a major exporter of coal, natural gas and grains so we have energy reserves we could use instead of petroleum products. We produce vastly more wheat than we consume domestically so we could produce heaps of alcohol if need be. Also it is a relatively simple procedure to convert cars to run on natural gas. We do use large amounts of artificial fertiliser so I suppose its lack would be a problem. I imagine that most domestic oil production in Australia during and after the Twilight War would be reserved for military use.

[weswood]

Originally Posted by Targan

My non-Australian friends are probably not aware that today is Australia Day, a national public holiday. I am very proud of my country and I say to all my Aussie friends happy Australia Day and I hope you all get well and truely plastered, cook up some steaks and snags on the barbie and have a great day.

Congadulations and all that, but wth is a snag? I haven't seen that on the local Outback menu.

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by weswood

Congadulations and all that, but wth is a snag? I haven't seen that on the local Outback menu.

AND we are still waiting for the good looking Aussie woman to come and visit.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by weswood

Congadulations and all that, but wth is a snag? I haven't seen that on the local Outback menu.

The same thing that the British call a 'banger'.
In a more refined society, they'd call it a sausage but here in Awwstralya, our slang is as rough as our outback roads.

[Raellus]

Happy Australia day to all my T2K-lovin' Aussie mates.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by weswood

Congadulations and all that, but wth is a snag? I haven't seen that on the local Outback menu.

As SSC has said, it is Aussie slang for sausage. Actually it is a contraction of the original Aussie slang term for sausage, "snagger". Alright cobber? No wukkas.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Targan

As SSC has said, it is Aussie slang for sausage. Actually it is a contraction of the original Aussie slang term for sausage, "snagger". Alright cobber? No wukkas.

Sheesh! I've been so used to calling them snags I completely forgot that the original name was snaggers - Alzheimer's is catchi... who are you again?