Ghost of a flea

Google Earth

By now everyone and their pet monkey has downloaded Google Earth. When I found the button that imposed political borders on the planet I hesitated to push it. The sort of decision-making any map-maker must make is bound to result in someone being annoyed and sure enough Google has managed to annoy me. First, if you are going to finish the Golan Heights by putting an international border right the way round it you might as well risk the ire of your market in fascist China by acknowledging Tibet as some form of polity. Would it not be easier to include some notation that suggested a border dispute?

Google Earth expressed more confidence in placing Canada's northern border along the coast leaving all those islands, including a couple in Hudson's Bay, in some sort of international limbo. This become marginally less annoying when I noted a number of islands of the northern coast of Russia have suffered the same fate. Most vexing to me was Google's decision to describe the Falklands parenthetically as the Malvinas and to call Darwin, "Puerto Darwin" alongside a number of ports that suffer their Spanish names. This is exactly the sort of nonsense imposed on the islands during their occupation and it seems grotesque to gift the fascists with this symbolic prize. If this was a Spanish-language version of Google Earth I would have no objection to a port being dubbed a puerto. It is not. And if the people of the Falklands voted to become part of Argentina I could hardly object to that either. They have not. In the meantime it is insulting to the memory of the 255 men who died to retake the islands not only for Britain but for democracy. They deserve better.

Update: Further Googling reveals the story of Southern Thule and the appeasement of Argentine fascism that must have provided a signal they could get away with a further invasion. For anyone imagining negotiation could have returned the Falklands to the rule its occupants, Prime Minister James Callaghan's year of secret negotiations over the secret Argentine occuptation of Southern Thule should demonstrate their futility. Argentina would only reliquish the island six years later as they were evicted by the Falklands task force. It appears we have the same lesson to learn over and over again.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 11, 2005 08:24 AM

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Posted by: Shelton at July 12, 2005 04:26 PM

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