Re: Hey Farml, Rob, David and All..

"David Hare-Scott" <compost@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> <Charlie> wrote in message

>> Temp and linear measurement conversion I can handle, with a converter
>> ;-), but after reading the previous thread on monetary conversions and
>> whatall.....fuhgeddaboutit.

> In a rush to be silly I left off anything practical.  Aside form the 
> obvious
> inversion of seasons the thing that you will find most foreign is the 
> climate.
>
> Taking just the lower 48 the USA is overall much cooler than Oz.  There
is
> only a small part of Oz where it ever snows and much of that is
wilderness 
> and
> we don't live there.  There is virtually no permanent snow in Australia.

True, but it is a little known fact that Australia has more skiable snow 
than Switzerland.

Much
> of the country is warm temperate and a fair bit sub-tropical or
tropical.
>
> Also Australia is rather dry.  Much of it is dryland or desert but few
of 
> us
> live there either.

Oh ****, ain't that the truth!

> Crocodile Dundee notwithstanding we are very urban, living mainly in big
> cities on the somewhat wetter coastal fringe.   We have a strange love 
> affair
> with the bush and popular culture will often idealise country people as 
> "real"
> Australians.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

More truth.  In fact since about the (I think) 1830s (although it may be
the 
1840s), but in either event, less than a half century after first being 
settled by Europeans, the majority of the population was already living in

the cities and coastal fringe.

I must be a rarity given that I've only lived in suburbia for about a 10 
year period in my entire life. :-))

> The soils are typically shallow and poor.

And deficient in phosphorus and often acidic.

It is an old continent and much of
> the indigenous plant life is adapted to low fertility soil that results.

> The
> soils on the coastal fringe can be better than the centre but good soil
is
> uncommon and usually found only by rivers as a result of alluvial 
> deposition.
> We are carefully making that soil unproductive anywhere near a big city
by
> turning it into housing developments where it grows grass that nothing 
> eats
> but the mower.
>
> Australia has a wealth of minerals, coal, iron ore and bauxite to name 
> some
> big 'ns.  Another way we destroy our best river valleys is to open cut 
> mine
> them for coal or we longwall mine them and f--- up the rivers.  This
will
> continue while ever our Governments are addicted to the ex****t earnings 
> that
> pay for our im****ts and the royalties paid by the miners.  I hope that I

> don't
> have to explain to my grandchildren the meaning of "you cannot eat coal"

> but I
> fear it is likely.

Amen to that.

> Despite such melancholy matters I count myself indeed fortunate to live 
> where
> I live.

Yeah but it gets too hot where you live for this cold loving black duck.