Let's Learn About Nauru!

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > Let's Learn About Nauru!

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Clipperton posted:

top 5 obese countries ALL ISLANDS:

1 Palau 47.10%
2 Nauru 45.10%
3 Marshall Islands 42.30%
4 Samoa 41.60%
5 Tonga 41.10%

something's up

isn't Palau the made-up island from Just Cause 2

e: just checked and it's Panau, carry on

# ¿ May 10, 2016 23:23

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 23:53

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

I've always romanticized the idea of spending time on a super-isolated island so it makes me kind of sad that most of them are either obese unemployed people living on strip-mined hellscapes whose native culture has been sandblasted away or 250 inbred British people all named either Smith or Jones

# ¿ May 10, 2016 23:32

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

MissEchelon posted:

edit: this was before the whistleblowing = 2 years gaol law was brought in

Wait, so the Aus govt literally has a law on the books to punish people who try to expose government corruption?

wow, that is proper hosed up

# ¿ May 11, 2016 03:22

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

isn't like 99% of the population of australia in the big coast cities anyway? like drat yo, that's a whole lot of empty scrubland to be getting so fiercely territorial about

e: lol

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 11:44 on May 11, 2016

# ¿ May 11, 2016 11:41

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Schwarzwald posted:

This is off topic, but why is there a tiny dot of (comparatively) high density right in the middle? Is there notable about that spot in particular, or do they just need to keep a certain concentration at the equilibrium to keep the continent from listing?

That appears to be the bustling metropolis of Alice Springs (pop. 28.605, making up >12% of the total population of the Northern Territories to give you an idea of the region as a whole)

It appears that it existed originally as "the spot we made camp as we built a telegraph route from the north to the south" which then evolved to "the closest thing to not-barren-desert near this alluvial gold site we discovered" and now appears to be one of those cities that trap their inhabitants in a lifetime of poo poo.

Wikipedia posted:

Property crime is a significant social issue in Alice Springs, and violent crime in the town in 2010 was at unprecedented levels and "out of control".As a result of resulting high crime rates, mainstream locals now avoid the central part of the town due to fear of violence and property theft.

...And that's just from the main Alice Springs article. This podunk shithole in the middle of the Aussie wasteland is so bad that it has a dedicated Wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Alice_Springs

quote:

The NT Justice Department's Quarterly Crime & Justice Statistics report documented increases across multiple categories of crime in Alice Springs in the 6 years between the 2004-05 and the 2009-10 reporting periods. Recorded cases of assault rose by 87%, sexual assault offences rose by 97%, and house break-ins increased by 64%.
Break-ins to commercial premises rose by 185%, and 'motor vehicle theft and related offences' increased by 97% on 2004-05 figures.

2015 saw national concern focused on youth crime in Alice Springs, including incidents in which rocks were thrown at police.

In 2008, the Alice Springs town council began to hire private security guards to patrol the town, at a cost of $5000 per week.

Some long-time residents of Alice Springs have moved away as a direct result of crime concerns. Local businesses have spent increased amounts to upgrade the physical security of their premises from property crime, including the use of high security fences, razor wire and security cameras.

It must really loving suck to grow up in such a lovely-sounding place and realizing that the closest thing to civilization is like 1000 miles away

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 16:59 on May 11, 2016

# ¿ May 11, 2016 16:55

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

I'm curious how lovely it actually is. There are some really poo poo towns around me (Paterson and Newark NJ for starters), but part of why they're so lovely is because they're immediate suburbs of NYC with all the illegal trade and activities that would entail, versus a tiny city in the middle of a giant desert.

# ¿ May 11, 2016 18:02

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Plucky Brit posted:

Well, it's better than what happened on the Pitcairn Islands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004

Quite hard to imprison people on an island with a population of 47; it would ruin their way of life. Of course, as their way of life involves having sex with twelve year olds, one wonders why people think it's worth preserving.

holy poo poo

quote:

An "entry clearance application" must be made for any child under the age of 16, prior to visiting Pitcairn, while adults visiting the island for periods of less than 14 days are not required to complete any application or visa request prior to arrival.[30]

The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not currently allow their staff based on Pitcairn to be accompanied by their children.

I wonder what the official FCO reasoning for that rule is, because I can't see any government in the world going on the record to say "don't take your kids to our sovereign territory because literally every male adult there is a child molester"

# ¿ May 12, 2016 01:38

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Vladimir Poutine posted:

One thing about small Pacific countries that is kinda striking when you get there is how much influence they are under from other countries. Traditionally it was mostly Australia and in some places the US and NZ but in recent years China is becoming a much bigger player. I've noticed a lot of random roads will have signs saying they were funded by the Chinese government and there are a lot of small businesses run by Chinese expats popping up all over the Pacific. The Japanese also built a few fire stations in Tonga, probably so they can access whales in Vavaʻu. But my personal "favourite" is the Mormons, who like to put these signs out the front of their schools and temples that tell people not to speak their native language. I think I took this photo in Tongatapu, I can't remember exactly:

Also re: obesity in the Pacific, this explains a lot of it:

what the gently caress is "dripping" I mean any food whatsoever that comes in a bucket that big can't be good but jesus that sounds both ominous and gluttonous... omingluttonous? gluttonominous?

# ¿ May 12, 2016 03:40

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

boom boom boom posted:

it's the fat that drips off meat while it cooks. Hence the name. Food fried in dripping is great if you hate yourself and want to get super gross and die

So it's basically lard? Ok so it's a tiny bit less gross because I doubt anyone is just eating it straight from the bucket but yeah, a bucket of animal fat is p. gross no matter what it's called/what animal it's from

If reading Discworld has taught me anything it's that the UK/Aus has some great names for food, I've always loved "toast soldiers"

# ¿ May 12, 2016 03:53

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Kremlin Kremlin posted:

what are you supposed to do with trash on an island? i'd think that real estate would be in too short supply to use a landfill, so are they supposed to ship it out or what? that'd seem expensive.

in nauru, it looks like they just throw it on the ground though

I would imagine that a lot of tiny island nations just dump it in the ocean

but realistically it probably wouldn't be that hard to implement a pretty comprehensive composting/recycling program on an island that small (that is if anybody gave a gently caress)

# ¿ May 12, 2016 04:04

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Holy poo poo those guns look like something out of Fallout or Mad Max

# ¿ May 12, 2016 15:35

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

OlmanRiver posted:

This honestly sounds like the making of a great video game.

Just Cause 2 is literally that game

# ¿ May 12, 2016 16:45

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Serak posted:

Nauruan medical system update:

http://twitter.com/ResignInShame/status/730759903480938496

sweet loving christ

for us Americans: Panadol is another brand name for acetaminophen (Tylenol). They gave this lady a c-section and the only thing they gave her to dull the pain of slicing open her abdomen and pulling a baby out was loving Tylenol

# ¿ May 12, 2016 23:13

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

This is the most depressing thread outside E/N :smithicide:

e: at least Nauruan is a palindrome :unsmith:

# ¿ May 12, 2016 23:14

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Agreed on the guy being a crazy, but the timeframe lines up with the story of S-99, the woman that was raped on her way to Nauru (while having a loving seizure) and was denied an abortion among a bunch of other hosed up things to happen to her (PTSD, attempted suicide, etc.), so it seems like it could be legit.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 23:47

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Pick posted:

So can eating beef if the production chain is compromised.

BSE (Mad Cow)-tainted beef comes from cows that were fed the remains of other cows. People get CJD (the human version) when they eat that beef.

Cannibalism spreads crazy brain diseases.

# ¿ May 15, 2016 17:35

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Pick posted:

In no sense is cannibalism required or inherent, prion diseases spread by organisms consuming those prions (natch). If pigs with trichinosis (parasite) and humans did a trade-off on eating one another's corpses that would spread just as well, even though trich is generally associated with pigs eating the infested flesh of other pigs.

You're getting completely off the original point which was that in the case mentioned, the spread of Kuru is specifically linked to cannibalism in the mentioned tribe

And I didn't say it was required or inherent, I just said that in addition to the well-documented cases of Kuru being endemic in a population known for cannibalism, BSE is also well-known to spread when cows are fed other cows. As in, the number one accepted form of controlling BSE outbreaks is "don't feed cows meat and bone meal" which you would think would be pretty obvious considering cows are obligate herbivores

Cannibalism spreads crazy brain diseases

# ¿ May 15, 2016 19:06

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Lolie posted:

From memory they already receive aid from multiple countries.

Short of the UAE or someone deciding to build them an artificial island, the residents will eventually become refugees themselves and have to be relocated at some point - gently caress knows where and who will pay for it. I suspect many will want to go to other struggling islands, further straining resources in those places.

Didn't all those manmade islands in the UAE sink back into the water after like a year anyway?

e: apparently not, one of them is sinking but the government denies it. The environmental impact of them has been oil spill-level disastrous though

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 22:44 on May 15, 2016

# ¿ May 15, 2016 22:39

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 23:53

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

canyoneer posted:

I'm guessing the"white" part is the important bit.

yep

# ¿ May 25, 2016 22:33

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > Let's Learn About Nauru!