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Hearkening back to an earlier thread on this forum which is too long to resurrect (hey! my first very own reinyartnation® since I coined it!  ), there was just a story on the CBS Evening News that a new study shows that 13% of US 18-24 year olds couldn't find Iraq on a map! And that 11% of the same age group could not point out here the USA was on a map of the world! Good God! And yikes! And, and...  
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old hand
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old hand
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Don't feel so bad, W'ON. Almost nobody where I live knows where Te Ika a Maui is either - and 75% of my country's population lives there. As to USn geographic aptitude, a little yart gratia yartis for you: http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/geography.shtml
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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One of the biggest disappointments on the Internet is the paucity of maps. I have many
times spent many minutes fruitlessly looking for maps, particularly since many countries
have had their names changed since I had geopgraphy seventy five years ago.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dr Bill, have you tried Mapquest.com? I'll ask Faldage when he gets home. Surely there are updated maps to be found.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear AS: Mapquest appears to have US maps only. I tried National Geographic site again,
and they appeared not to have maps, though there was brief text available. Several times
I have sent members yarns about places I was in Philippines and new Guinea (Indonesia)
and had no way of refreshing my memory of those places. Considering the wealth of info
of other types, map info seems very skimpy. Thanks, Bill
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear etaoin: Those are better than any i found before, but still disappointing. For instance I
wanted to describe Leyte, but could not find it. I wanted to see if I could figure out where
it was between Leyte and Luzon that the Dutch skipper disobeyed his sailing instructions,
thinking to save fuel, and put us between a Naval landing force and the beach they were
shelling. I wanted to see a map that would show where Finschafen and Hollandia were on
New Guinea (now Indonesia). It's disappointing. I wanted to see on map relationship of
Samar to Leyte. etc, etc.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear etaoin: Those look much more promising. Notice that you can hardly see the strait
separating Leyte from Samar. The first month I was on Leyte, I was helping out at a
Field Hospital, and say a Navy patient with a bandage on his nose. I asked him what happened,
and he said a Jap hit him with a bolo. I said bullshit, if a Jap hit you with a bolo, you would
have lost half your head. Then he explained. He had heard that his brother had been killed
in an invasion way north, maybe Okinawa. He was on Samar, and took a jeep and drove out
to where some MPs were guarding Japs clearing brush along a road. He told MPs he wanted to
shoot some Japs, so MP said be my guest, and handed him Tommie gun. He killed several Japs,
but one of them got close enough to strike with bolo, and sailor was drunk enough he only
managed to deflect the blow with the Thompson. The edge of the bolo caught on sight or
something, and blade rotated so dull edge only hit him. The other MP blew Jap away.
Not all atrocities were committed by Japs. I wish the map of Leyte showed where
Tacloban was, because I had a yarn about airport there. Oh, well, can't have everything.
Thanks, etaoin. Bill
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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>>Dear AS: Mapquest appears to have US maps only
No, I am sure having used it to find European maps and driving directions.
written MapQuest, anyway.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I saw a globe this past weekend that was truly lovely. The nations of the world had been formed out of various kinds of polished stones, all fitting perfectly into each other like puzzle pieces. The overall effect was impressive. And somehow fitting (no pun intended) in that this earth had been made with products from the earth's crust itself.
Putting a daughter through college, I cannot afford it. Boo hoo.
I checked to see whether Palau was there, and, sure enough, it had its own tiny piece of rock. Quite tiny, as you can imagine.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have a dandy geography question for you: What is the Greek name for their country?
Obviously, it is not "Greece". I cannot figure out a way to find this out. Is it anything
like "Hellas"?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, Faldage.Next question: What do the Turks call their country?
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In reply to:
What is the Greek name for their country?
Obviously, it is not "Greece". I cannot figure out a way to find this out. Is it anything
like "Hellas"?
While in Indonesian it is Yunani. Think Ionians. The other difficult one is Mesir, Egypt.
Bingley
Bingley
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old hand
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old hand
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Well, I just got my new passport a couple of days ago, and was delighted to find that it is entirely bilingual. Now, while I may still be a pretentious git for saying that I live in Te Ika a Maui, Aotearoa, I'm a pretentious git with the government of Aotearoa on my side.
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