Makes much more sense knowing the full story. The fact that the island is essentially an Australian prison would make it a suitable destination for the Clintons.Skiprr wrote:Congrats on the half marathon. Were you caught by the rain, or did it manage to dodge you?allisji wrote:Looks like a nice place. I wouldn't mind the ambassadorship...
That said, I google-earthed it and it's only 10 miles around the entire perimeter of the island. Not even as far around as the half marathon that I ran on Sunday.
And I'm sorry I ever brought up the Republic of Nauru as a possible ambassadorship for Hillary Clinton. With apologies to the wonderful people of Nauru, it was meant to be a poke at Hillary on several levels.
I think I need to 'splain myself, then we can all forget I ever mentioned it.
I'm sure Nauru would be eager for the recognition and dollars that a U.S. embassy there would mean. And it just seemed the most fitting political office for Hillary that I could think of. And who knows? If she and Bill move there, new deposits of fossilized bird dung might be discovered!
- Nauru is the smallest island nation in the world, with a total area of just over 8 square miles, and a population of about 10,000.
- It's in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean. Its closest major neighbor is Sydney, Australia over 2,400 miles away...almost the same distance as Los Angeles is from New York City.
- It was once a prosperous speck, with the highest income, per capita, of any nation in the world circa 1980. The source of that income? Huge deposits of valuable...wait for it, wait for it...fossilized bird dung.
- With their new-found wealth, the Nauruarians bought junk food. A lot of it. In 2007, 71.7% of its residents were identified by the World Health Organization as obese, the highest rate in the world (overtaken by Mexico in 2013). In Nauru, 31% of adults have type two diabetes, the highest percentage in the world.
- The heavy mining of the bird dung had two other results. First, the dung was fairly quickly...consumed. By the mid-80s, the dung had, well, dried up. Second, the mining was so aggressive that it left much of the island so severely damaged that 75% of the island is now uninhabitable. So of that tiny 8 square miles, only 2 square miles are inhabitable.
- With few financial options left, in 2001 the government of Nauru agreed to house a criminal detention center for Australia in return for what, as of 2014, equaled $27.1 million per year. Nauru is now reliant on this penal-system foreign aid.
Not the tropical paradise that it appears.
