This is funny. Australia on fire!

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

AMERICA, the nation which gave the world 307 Nobel laureates, has today shown that its media is about as smart as one of its famously dopey teen beauty pageant contestants.

In a bizarre map produced by NBC News, pretty much the whole of Australia is depicted as being ablaze this week.
You might have thought the bushfires of the past week have been confined largely to New South Wales, but noooo. Not according to NBC they're not.
According to NBC, pretty much the entire country is on fire, including vast swathes of Cape York, the entire Darwin region, and vast portions of Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert where you'd be lucky to find two blades of grass to rub together.
Now, it turns out there may be an explanation for what appears to be a major cartographical catastrophe.
In all likelihood, NBC has taken the image from a Geoscience Australia product called Sentinel. Sentinel is a national bushfire monitoring system which uses satellite data to enable emergency service managers and other users to identify fire locations across Australia.
At any given time, the map will show hazard reduction burns, bushfires which pose no threat to life or property, plus of course much more serious bushfires like the ones we've seen this week.
That's the mistake which NBC appears to have made. They've taken every fire on the Sentinel map and assumed they are all part of the current emergency.
They've also more or less assumed that the whole of Australia is NSW, which is disturbing given the network spent pretty much the whole of the Sydney Olympics camped on the Opera House steps. You'd think they'd have picked up a little Australian geography during their extended stay.
Then again, perhaps they thought they were in Austria all along. Or maybe all those kangaroos hopping down George Street left them a little muddled or something.
Want accurate coverage of the bushfires? Read our rolling coverage
http://www.news.com.au/technology/am...-1226746114107

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Hey look, Adelaide doesn't exist .

For many years I complained about the quality of the Australian press, then I discovered the standard of journalism elsewhere

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]526[/ATTACH]
AMERICA, the nation which gave the world 307 Nobel laureates, has today shown that its media is about as smart as one of its famously dopey teen beauty pageant contestants.

In a bizarre map produced by NBC News, pretty much the whole of Australia is depicted as being ablaze this week.
You might have thought the bushfires of the past week have been confined largely to New South Wales, but noooo. Not according to NBC they're not.
According to NBC, pretty much the entire country is on fire, including vast swathes of Cape York, the entire Darwin region, and vast portions of Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert where you'd be lucky to find two blades of grass to rub together.
Now, it turns out there may be an explanation for what appears to be a major cartographical catastrophe.
In all likelihood, NBC has taken the image from a Geoscience Australia product called Sentinel. Sentinel is a national bushfire monitoring system which uses satellite data to enable emergency service managers and other users to identify fire locations across Australia.
At any given time, the map will show hazard reduction burns, bushfires which pose no threat to life or property, plus of course much more serious bushfires like the ones we've seen this week.
That's the mistake which NBC appears to have made. They've taken every fire on the Sentinel map and assumed they are all part of the current emergency.
They've also more or less assumed that the whole of Australia is NSW, which is disturbing given the network spent pretty much the whole of the Sydney Olympics camped on the Opera House steps. You'd think they'd have picked up a little Australian geography during their extended stay.
Then again, perhaps they thought they were in Austria all along. Or maybe all those kangaroos hopping down George Street left them a little muddled or something.
Want accurate coverage of the bushfires? Read our rolling coverage
http://www.news.com.au/technology/am...-1226746114107

As a nation we are geographically challenged even within our own borders. International news is relatively non-existant.

It's all about US.

Reporting in from New York City; the capital of the world.

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

When I was 13, I learnt all 50 states of the US and their capital cities, plus capital cities of the many countries around the world. Aussies are a bit like that. I think it's because we're so far away from countries that we once thought were our kin (little did we know!).

Lawren being the World Super Power, I imagine most Americans would feel no compulsion to learn about other countries, especially down under!

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

As a nation we are geographically challenged even within our own borders.

My sister has to argue with people who insist "We only ship to the U.S." She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

When I was 13, I learnt all 50 states of the US and their capital cities, plus capital cities of the many countries around the world.

My dad did, too, but by the time I was going into school, geography, history and civics had morphed into "social studies," which is short on geography and civics and long on U.S. history and crazed theories.

I was fascinated by a study of kids in the New York city school system who believed that blacks are a national majority; they lived in an area where most people were black, so they assumed all of the U.S. was the same. They'd never traveled more than a mile from home, which is hard for me to imagine, since we traveled all over when I was a kid; my parents weren't vacationers but we'd easily drive a few hours visiting relatives. But the most mind boggling part of it is that these kids were high schoolers.

I have a friend who was shocked to discover that we get better fresh fruits and vegetables in a wider variety here than he did back home; he'd always assumed that NYC and environs on the east coast had the best of everything, and never before been forced to test this theory (he moved here because it's the only place he could find a job). I'm beginning to think that New Yorkers really do believe they're the center of the world.

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

I have a friend who was shocked to discover that we get better fresh fruits and vegetables here than he did back home; he'd always assumed that NYC and environs on the east coast had the best of everything, and never before been forced to test this theory (he moved here because it's the only place he could find a job).

Where's here?

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

Oh geez. It is kinda funny, but mostly embarrassing. Personally, I love learning about the rest of the world, and often read international newspapers. The US really should offer better international news coverage.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Where's here?

South Bend, Indiana. Where you can stop at a roadside stand and, often as not, they'll offer to pick corn for you if you are willing to wait, for the same price as the stuff in the stand. The stuff in the grocery stores isn't that fresh, but much of it is local and apparently it's better than he got back east. The local stuff sets the standard, I suppose, since he says it's better quality offseason and with imported stuff as well. We also have a good farmer's market that our New York friend visits regularly; we prefer farm stands, but of course we're out there wandering around anyhow. The farmer's market is great if you just want to make it part of your shopping routine.

Mind you, that's the only thing he recognized as even comparable to the east coast in his first year here, and the only thing he mentioned as a positive for another good five years. But I think he's found more things to appreciate since then.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

That map they showed on TV looked like there were fires everywhere- I wonder if anyone thought it was shrimp on the barbie night.

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

That map they showed on TV looked like there were fires everywhere- I wonder if anyone thought it was shrimp on the barbie night.

Haha