mfd101

As the ice melts across the whole of the Arctic and competition for newly-accessible resources hots up, I don't suppose the Russians - or indeed the Chinese - will be particularly sensitive to Greenlander or Danish wishes. The Norwegians are already in competition with the Russians over fishing round Svalbard. Some time over the next few years, choices will have to be made when the Usofans ask for extra territory & territorial rights for their big base in the north of Greenland. And it won't be just for listening & watching purposes. I imagine the Canadians are watching all of this with interest too. They already have formerly-Russian Alaska on their north-west frontier. And now their north-east frontier is looking fragile, as well as their deep deep north ... And in the deep deep south (Antarctica), Oz is also worried about non-agreed Chinese activity in nominally Australian territory.

You have symptoms like that for a whole week and you still haven't been to see a doctor?

The age of consent in Australia at Federation in 1901 was 12. It still was in Spain into the 1990s ... Standards vary from one culture to another & over time, and what people are allowed to do is not the same as what people approve of. As for the particular individual the subject of this thread, he's not a particularly nice guy or noted for his IQ (just ask any senior civil servant who's had dealings with him).

Meantime, we all wait breathlessly for the baht to fall ... No sign yet. Oh, wait on! was that a movement I just detected? ...

Poppycock. Oz is the country where EVERYONE thinks of themselves as 'middle class'. It is the ultimate in bourgeois egalitarianism - a one-class society.

Can't win. And the little island countries have realized that they're looking just dandy, in a competition between rich ol' Oz and rich polite Middle Kingdom. Can't lose.

And you cheerfully talk about that on this website? Obviously your security clearances are pretty high quality.

It would have made a more interesting advert if it had talked about how Thailand's enlightened wealthy are moving to overcome feudalism and spending money on educating poor children in non-corrupt schools so that they can join the capitalist economy and aspire to middle class status some time in the next 20 years ... (well, I'm allowed to dream).