Farmduck

Jack Wighton's criminal record is now long enough to qualify for Cronulla. And he's a certified drunken bogan so it's a natural fit.

Hayne's bail conditions included surrendering his passport and reporting to Castle Hill Police Station 3 times a week. He won't be going anywhere.

The early drop goa; is what happens. In NRL this year there were 17 or 18 x 1-pt results but only 8 Golden Point games and one of those was a 2-point margin. Right before HT is usually the easiest time to kick a DG - teams are holding their defensive line but not rushing up on the kicker.

The naming of some of these teams is a bit confusing. The RLIF lists this game as U18s. Is the Academy an U18s team? OZ Schoolboys has usually meant anyone who was at school in OZ that year, regardless of age. (or nationality, hence Benji Marshall, Kevin Proctor, Jason Baitieri and others being included.) What are the criteria for England Academy?

https://www.asiapacificrl.com/2018/08/08/australian-schoolboys-tour-of-england-announced/ Australian Squad: Max Altus – Farrer Memorial Agricultural College, Tamworth Jalal Bazzaz – Illawarra Sports High School, Berkeley Bradman Best – Brisbane Waters Secondary College, Woy Woy Zac Cini – St Dominic’s College, Penrith Juwan Compain – Palm Beach Currumbin State High School, Gold Coast Stephen Crichton – Patrician Brothers College, Blacktown Harry Croker – Taree High School, Taree Tom Dearden – Palm Beach Currumbin State High School, Gold Coast Matthew Doorey – Westfields Sports High School, Fairfield West Matthew Dragisic – Marist College Ryan Gray – De La Salle College Jock Madden – All Saints College Luca Moretti – Waverley College Ratu Nanovo – Cambridge Park High School Tesi Niu – Marsden State High School Franklin – Pele Endeavour Sports High School Jason Saab – Westfields Sports High School Tommy Talau – Westfields Sports High School Jayden Tanner – Patrician Brothers College Beni Teaupa – Holy Cross College Star To’a – Newcastle High School Bronson Xerri – Endeavour Sports High School

A team of professional curlers have been booted from a World Curling Tour event for being "extremely drunk" while competing. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-20/curlers-disqualified-extremely-drunk-red-deer-curling-classic/10515170 ?!?!?!? There are professional curlers? There is a World Curling Tour?

Sharks grant Holmes immediate release from his NRL contract to pursue NFL career https://www.foxsports.com.au/news/sharks-grant-holmes-immediate-release-from-his-nrl-contract-to-pursue-nfl-career/news-story/3ca207525f6226212cf4a1918af88b8d

Not surprising given the high cost of building electric transmission lines. In countries like PNG nobody can profitably run transmission lines up and down mountains through jungles to supply a village of 50 people who have an average annual income of $1K. The two most common transmission line metals, Aluminium and Copper, both have much higher-margin applications so they won't get any cheaper. The only answer is solar panels on every roof top.

I've never liked Golden Point - a solution to a non-existent problem. Having a few teams on an odd number of competition points often throws an interesting spaniel in the works at the end of the season. I think the NRL had 8 GP games this year out of 192 Time limits on scrums and line dropouts - good idea. In the 2 years this has existed in NRL it has produced about 4 penalties/season. If this number is low then clearly the time limit isn't too onerous. I think 8 is now the minimum we can go with interchanges, since the Head Injury Assessment rules came in. I saw a couple of games this year where teams had no fit bench players left and still 20 minutes to go. The time limit on conversions is unnecessary. Why not just blow time off when the try is scored? The free play is no big loss. Most teams aren't quick enough transitioning from defence to attack to cash in on this anyway. They'll still get a zero tackle.

Anasta (and Lyon and Parker) are listed as 1999, Gasnier 98 & 99. see also: http://websites.sportstg.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-2130-0-0-0&sID=26424

When that movie was made less than half of the people on Earth even had electricity.

Well all I can add to that is "Klaatu barada nikto."

I don't get it. He was in the town of Paradise and "dozens" died there. What did he call it?

The NRL has been saddened following the passing on Tuesday of former leading referee Kevin Roberts, aged 76. Mr Roberts officiated in 272 first grade matches in a distinguished career from 1975 through to 1988. He refereed three grand finals (1983-85), six State of Origin matches (1982, 1984-86) and four Test matches (1984, 1986). Roberts was a Life Member of the Eastern Suburbs Referees Association, the South Sydney Referees Association and the NSW Rugby League. As a player, he also represented South Sydney in 13 first-grade games (1960-62 and 1964-65).

There are 5 ASEAN countries in Australia's Top 15 trading partners, accounting for about 6% of total trade. We have deficits with 3 of them - basically the trade consists of Aussies going there on holidays.

The Australia-less ASEAN

Gotta be some off-field issues there. He's played every game in about 3 seasons and in the others he had syndesmosis and a broken arm. For an 80+kg guy playing in the forwards that's pretty good. But if there were in-club issues, they wouldn't have kept selecting him.

So the Hayne Drain has finally shot himself in both feet. He has no contract and his market value today is roughly $0, given that the possible court case and/or conviction could take up who knows how long. While the sexual assault allegation (he hasn't been charged by Police yet) hangs over him his value to sponsors is $0. He still has the civil case in USA to be resolved and that could potentially take up playing time this year. If he had just re-signed with the Eels that would at least have taken some of the weight off him.

Referring to the NRL template sites GOOD: Standardised sites are good for people who read them regularly and just want to catch the latest news. BAD: Excessive use of video rather than text. This means that users with less-than-optimal internet services may wait a long time for pages to load just to find this week's team. Overdone formatting may look good on screen but can make it more difficult for people (like me) who regularly do match threads and just want to copy/paste team lineups or match details.

All I can find about Tesi Niu is that he grew up in Brisbane area and went to primary school there. Given his age - about 17-18 - I'm thinking David Niu would have been in USA at this time. Could be an estranged father, an uncle, cousin. Also, considering David Niu's name is a shortened version of Niumataiwalu, Tesi's Niu may also be the shortened version of some non-Niumataiwalu-like name. He may not even be of Fijian heritage, as was David Niu. Short answer: NFI

Without making a call on good/bad/indifferent, I point out the NRL model where all clubs use the same template. If you can navigate one, you can navigate all of them. https://www.weststigers.com.au/ https://www.cowboys.com.au/ I assume that Telstra being a major sponsor and the biggest ISP and general IT services provider in OZ is part of the reason for this. The websites and design may be part of the sponsorship contract.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/austschoolboys/posts/

Those California seats face another upcoming change after the 2020 elections. Currently California citizens get 1 Electoral College vote per 600K citizens while Wyomingers (? Wyomingans?) get 1 per 140K. There is a Congressional reapportionment due after the 2020 Census which will see some of the small-to-medium States lose House of Reps seats to California, Texas and Florida, in particular. Some of the least-populous States are already at their legal minimum - 2 Senators + 1 Rep - so the losses will have to come from medium-sized States, maybe Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee. States already at the legal minimum 3 Electoral College votes: both Dakotas, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, Delaware and Alaska.