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Australian Bushfire Map Superimosed Over America Sows Disbelief

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:05AM   
from the let's-measure dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Which is larger? Yours, or mine? Australia or the United States of America, that is. With the bushfires in Australia out of control incinerating large swathes of the country a map was produced to visually depict how widespread the fires are. For emphasis the map was overlaid on top of America to give people an idea of the scope of the problem Australia is dealing with. Americans responded with disbelief that Australia was just as large as the USA. People were also in shock over how large an area, measured by size of US states, are currently burning. Responses on social media show how shocked and dumbfounded people were learning this.

• Area of Australia = 7.692 million km²
• Area of USA, excluding Alaska = 7.653 million km²

Here is the image under discussion.

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Original Submission

• Re:Occupied territory Re:Occupied territory (Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:33AM (5 children)

  by janrinok (52) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:33AM (#940970) Journal

  Australia became officially autonomous in both internal and external affairs with the passage of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act on 9 October 1942. The Australia Act 1986 eliminated the last vestiges of British legal authority at the Federal level. [wikipedia.org]

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• Re:Occupied territory (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:54AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:54AM (#940978)

  oh. thank you for the correction. so Australia was only lost ~70 years ago.

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• Re:Occupied territory Re:Occupied territory (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:51PM (3 children)

  by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:51PM (#941035) Journal

  1942? I've read that the disaster at Gallipoli in WWI got the ball rolling for Australian and New Zealand independence, but 20 years is not exactly prompt action.

  --
  Washington DC delenda est.

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  • Re:Occupied territory Re:Occupied territory (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday January 08 2020, @11:12PM (2 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @11:12PM (#941239)

    Not in New Zealand.

    Full independence was granted with the Statute of Westminster in 1931 and adopted by the New Zealand Parliament in 1947. However, the 1907 royal proclamation of Dominion status has never been revoked and remains in force today.

    They had to throw us bodily out of the Empire, even after they called last orders.

    Actually, if the Queen turned up tomorrow and pointed at stuff and said "that's mine" I'm pretty sure we'd give it to her.

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    • Re:Occupied territory (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 09 2020, @02:43AM

      by dry (223) on Thursday January 09 2020, @02:43AM (#941296) Journal

      Yea, but you'd be giving it to the Queen of New Zealand, not the Queen of England.

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    • Re:Occupied territory (Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday January 09 2020, @03:04AM

      by deimtee (3272) on Thursday January 09 2020, @03:04AM (#941301) Journal

      Lizzie is still Queen of Australia, it's just that that is a separate job from being Queen of the UK.*
      No chance we'll go republic while she's still kicking. Might be a chance after Chuckles takes over.

      *and shouldn't that be the UQ at the moment anyway?

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.

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