#indian water border

[probablyasocialecologist]

Most of the daily crimes against Palestinians on the West Bank take place only a few miles from the homes of Israeli citizens within the pre-1967 borders of the state. Particularly vicious events are sometimes reported, in relatively subdued and peripheral ways, in Haaretz, the only respectable newspaper in the country, and also, rarely, on the evening news that everyone watches. Still, even peace-oriented, left-wing Israelis often express shock when I tell them of witnessing violent attacks by settlers and soldiers on Palestinian shepherds and peasant farmers. It is as if that kind of knowledge were pushed away from conscious awareness, or as if the knowledge itself exists somewhere in the mind but knowledge of that knowledge does not. (Classical Indian logicians claim that one doesn’t know something unless one consciously knows that one knows it.) In short, much of the population of Israel has lived through the last five decades in varying modes and intensities of denial. Here’s a typical example. One night in late July I slept in the Bedouin village of Ras al-‘Ain in the southern Jordan Valley. Adjacent to the village, in a fiercely hot, arid zone, a cool, clean stream flows down from the hill country. The villagers need that water to survive and to sustain their herds of sheep and goats; each day they fill up five or six tankers, hitched to tractors, from the stream. Israeli settlers from the illegal outposts nearby are doing whatever they can, including committing vicious attacks, to block Palestinians’ access to the water; the goal is to dry them out so that they will have to leave their homes. The army, the police, the Civil Administration, and the military courts are all colluding with the settlers in their ongoing minibattle with the shepherds. Our activists are by the stream, night and day, to protect the Palestinians as best we can. We spent an hour or two that evening fending off knife-wielding, masked young thugs from the settler outposts who were trying to block a lone tractor and its attached tanker from bringing water to the village. Often Israeli settlers from the older settlements, who may be less prone to violence than those from the new outposts and are usually Orthodox, come to picnic by the stream. A friend of mine, a long-standing member of the Israeli peace camp and an Orthodox Jew—and thus adept in the settlers’ language—spoke to two of these middle-aged settlers about the situation in Ras al-‘Ain. “What?” they said. “You mean there is violence here? That’s impossible.” A total surprise—for people living in the heart of the West Bank, on stolen Palestinian land. I don’t think they were pretending to be shocked. Mainstream Israelis living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem are even less likely to grasp the reality of systematic state violence directed against innocent Palestinians when news of it somehow filters into the public sphere. Simply stated, they don’t want to know, or maybe they don’t much care.

21 August 2024

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - June 20, 2023

🐕 - Meet Sheep Farm's Newest Employee: Collie Hired After Ejection from Car!

1. Border Collie ejected from car during Sunday crash found on sheep farm, herding sheep

Tilly, the 2-year-old Border Collie who was ejected from a car Sunday during a crash, has been found. He was found on a sheep farm, where he had apparently taken up the role of sheep herder. 

According to Tilly's owner, he has lost some weight since Sunday's crash and is now drinking lots of water but is otherwise healthy.

2. After 17-Year Absence, White Rhinos Return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) recently welcomed the reintroduction of 16 southern white rhinoceroses to Garamba National Park, according to officials. The last wild northern white rhino was poached there in 2006.

The white rhinos were transported to Garamba, which lies in the northeastern part of the country, from a South African private reserve. In the late 19th century, the southern white rhino subspecies was believed to be extinct due to poaching until a population of fewer than 100 was discovered in South Africa in 1895, according to WWF.

3. UK to wipe women’s historic convictions for homosexuality

Women with convictions for some same-sex activity in the United Kingdom can apply for a pardon for the first time, the Home Office has announced.

The Home Office is widening its scheme to wipe historic convictions for homosexual activity more than a decade after the government allowed applications for same-sex activity offences to be disregarded.

It means anyone can apply for a pardon if they have been convicted or cautioned for any same-sex activity offences that have been repealed or abolished.

4. Study shows human tendency to help others is universal

A new study on the human capacity for cooperation suggests that, deep down, people of diverse cultures are more similar than you might expect. The study, published in Scientific Reports, shows that from the towns of England, Italy, Poland, and Russia to the villages of rural Ecuador, Ghana, Laos, and Aboriginal Australia, at the micro scale of our daily interaction, people everywhere tend to help others when needed.

5. In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S.

Wind and solar generated more electricity than coal through May, an E&E News review of federal data shows, marking the first time renewables have outpaced the former king of American power over a five-month period.

The milestone illustrates the ongoing transformation of the U.S. power sector as the nation races to install cleaner forms of energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

6. Iceland becomes latest country to ban conversion therapy

Lawmakers in Iceland on June 9 approved a bill that will ban so-called conversion therapy in the country.

Media reports note 53 members of the Icelandic Parliament voted for the measure, while three MPs abstained. Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, an MP who is a member of the Liberal Reform Party, introduced the bill.

7. The temple feeding 100,000 people a day

Amritsar, the north Indian city known for its Golden Temple and delicious cuisine, is also renowned for its spirit of generosity and selfless service. The city, founded by a Sikh guru, embodies the Sikh tradition of seva, performing voluntary acts of service without expecting anything in return.

This spirit of giving extends beyond the temple walls, as the Sikh community has shown immense compassion during crises, such as delivering oxygen cylinders during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the heart of Amritsar's generosity is the Golden Temple's langar, the world's largest free communal kitchen, serving 100,000 people daily without discrimination. Despite a history marred by tragic events, Amritsar continues to radiate kindness, love, and generosity.

----

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[entheognosis]

At The Water's Edge, 1910. Edward S. Curtis photographed Piegan tepees at the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwest Montana. The Reservation is bordered by Canada to the north and Glacier Park to the west.

[talonabraxas]

Mount Shasta

There’s a well-known legend that says that somewhere deep beneath Northern California’s 14,179-foot-tall Mount Shasta is a complex of tunnels and a hidden city called Telos, the ancient “City of Light” for the Lemurians. They were the residents of the mythical lost continent of Lemuria, which met its demise under the waves of the Pacific (or the Indian Ocean, depending on who you ask) thousands of years ago. Lemurians believed to have survived the catastrophe are said to have settled in Telos, and over the years their offspring have been sporadically reported wandering around the area: seven-feet-tall, with long flowy hair, often clad in sandals and white robes.

Lemurians aren’t the only unusual figures said to inhabit this stand-alone stratovolcano, easily seen from Interstate 5, about 60 miles south of the Oregon border. Mount Shasta is believed to be a home base for the Lizard People, too, reptilian humanoids that also reside underground. The mountain is a hotbed of UFO sightings, one of the most recent of which occurred in February 2020. (It was a saucer-shaped lenticular cloud.) In fact, the mountain is associated with so many otherworldly, paranormal, and mythical beings—in addition to long-established Native American traditions—that it’s almost like a who’s who of metaphysics. It has attracted a legion of followers over the years, including “Poet of the Sierras” Joaquin Miller and naturalist John Muir, as well as fringe religious organizations such as the Ascended Masters, who believe that they’re enlightened beings existing in higher dimensions. What is it about this mountain in particular that inspires so much belief?

“There’s a lot about Mount Shasta, and volcanoes in general, that are difficult to explain,” says Andrew Calvert, scientist-in-charge at the California Volcano Observatory, “and when you’re having difficulty explaining something, you try and understand it.” Calvert has studied Shasta’s eruptive history since 2001. “It’s such a complicated and rich history,” he says, “and Shasta itself is also very visually powerful. These qualities build on each other to make it a profound place for a lot of people—geologists, spirituality seekers … even San Francisco tech folks, and hunters and gatherers from 10,000 years ago. It’s one that can have a really strong effect on your psyche.”

Mount Shasta is one of the most prominent of all the Cascade volcanoes, an arc that runs from southwestern British Columbia to Northern California, and includes Washington’s Mount Rainier and Oregon’s Mount Hood, among others. “It’s so steep and so tall that it even creates its own weather,” says Calvert. This includes the spaceship-looking lenticular clouds that tend to form around the mountain, created, he says, “by a humid air mass that hits the volcano, and then has to go up a little bit to cool off.” But they only contribute to Shasta’s supernatural allure, along with its ice-clad peak, steaming fumaroles, and shape-shifting surface that’s being constantly broken down and rebuilt by ice, water, wind, and debris. The mountain also sits about 15 miles or so west of the standard arc line of the other Cascade volcanoes—a move that took place about 700,000 years ago. “We don’t really have a good explanation for why it moved out there,” Calvert says, a statement that seems to make Mount Shasta’s mysteries appear more otherworldly by the minute.

The Mount Shasta spiritual legacy goes far deeper than contemporary myths and sightings. For Native Americans in particular, the mountain is a sacred place, straddling the territories of the Shasta, Wintu, Achumawi, Atsugewi, and Modoc tribes, which can date their lineages back to a time when eruptions actually took place there. (Its last eruption, says Calvert, was a little over 3,000 years ago.)

There’s Something About Mount Shasta

[lesbianchemicalplant]

STARR COUNTY, Texas — The Biden administration announced today that for the first time it will waive environmental, public health and cultural resource protection laws to fast-track construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Texas. The administration says it will take “immediate action to construct barriers and roads” along the border, including through fragile habitat near the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. “It’s disheartening to see President Biden stoop to this level, casting aside our nation’s bedrock environmental laws to build ineffective wildlife-killing border walls,” said Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Starr County is home to some of the most spectacular and biologically important habitat left in Texas and now bulldozers are preparing to rip right through it. This is a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.” The waiver sweeps aside 26 laws that protect clean air, clean water, public lands, endangered wildlife and Indigenous grave sites. The announcement marks the first time the Biden administration has used the REAL ID Act waiver authority. “Every acre of habitat left in the Rio Grande Valley is irreplaceable,” said Jordahl. “We can’t afford to lose more of it to a useless, medieval wall that won’t do a thing to stop immigration or smuggling. President Biden’s cynical decision to destroy crucial wildlife habitat and seal the beautiful Rio Grande behind a grotesque border wall must be stopped.” Wall construction in Starr County could harm recovery plans for endangered ocelots, which depend on contiguous wildlife corridors of protected habitat along the Rio Grande. Two endangered plants, the Zapata bladderpod and prostrate milkweed, are endemic to the area and will likely also be threatened by wall construction with their protections stripped by the waiver. Last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a damning report detailing the severe damage the border wall has caused to wildlife, public lands, and Indigenous sacred sites and burial grounds along the U.S.-Mexico border. Beyond jeopardizing wildlife, endangered species and public lands, the U.S.-Mexico border wall is part of a larger strategy of ongoing border militarization that damages human rights, civil liberties, native lands and international relations. The border wall impedes the natural migrations of people and wildlife that are essential to healthy diversity. Today’s action seeks to waive the following laws: 1. National Environmental Policy Act 2. Endangered Species Act 3. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 4. American Indian Religious Freedom Act 5. Federal Water Pollution Control Act 6. National Historic Preservation Act 7. Migratory Bird Treaty Act 8. Migratory Bird Conservation Act 9. Clean Air Act 10. National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act 11. Eagle Protection Act 12. National Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 13. Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act 14. Archeological Resources Protection Act 15. Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 16. Safe Drinking Water Act 17. Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act 18. Noise Control Act 19. Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 20. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act 21. Antiquities Act 22. Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act 23. Farmland Protection Policy Act 24. National Trails System Act 25. Administrative Procedure Act 26. Federal Land Policy and Management Act

(October 4th, 2023)

[whencyclopedia]

Capture of Fort Ticonderoga

The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga (10 May 1775) was a military operation that occurred early in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). A small colonial expedition jointly led by Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen surprised the British garrison of Fort Ticonderoga, seizing both the fort and its artillery. The Americans later used the captured cannons to win the Siege of Boston.

Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga sits at the southern end of Lake Champlain, near the modern-day border between New York State and Vermont. Its location was of critical significance for the colonial wars of the 18th century, as it guarded a major system of rivers and lakes that connected New York City to Quebec. This waterway – comprised of the Hudson River, Lake George, Lake Champlain, the Richelieu River, and the Saint Lawrence River – was a nearly unbroken chain of bodies of water with only a handful of portages that had long been utilized by the Native Americans for travel purposes. The colonial empires of Britain and France considered the passage to be the 'American jugular', the key to the continent; if the British controlled it, for instance, they could invade France's colony of Canada, while the French could use the waterway to attack the interior of Britain's Thirteen Colonies.

In 1755, the French constructed a large star-shaped fortress, named Fort Carillon, at the key juncture between Lake George and Lake Champlain. The ongoing French and Indian War (1754-1763) marked the climactic struggle between the two colonial powers for dominance of North America, and the British knew they had to capture Fort Carillon as a prerequisite for an invasion of Canada. In 1758, a British expedition of 16,000 regular and provincial troops set out to conquer the fort but was repulsed by 4,000 French defenders. The Battle of Carillon was the largest and bloodiest battle fought on North American soil until that point. It also gave the fort a reputation for impregnability, even though most of the fighting had taken place about a mile away from the fort itself. After the battle, the French reduced the fort's garrison to only 400 men, leaving it vulnerable to another British expedition of 11,000 men the following year. Realizing they had no chance against the large British force, the French garrison decided to abandon Carillon, but not before spiking the guns and destroying much of the fort with explosives.

The British captured the ruined fort and renamed it Ticonderoga, which was derived from an Iroquois word meaning "between two waters" or "where the waters meet" (history.com). The British spent the next several years working to rebuild and improve the fort. But at the end of the war in 1763, France ceded Canada to Britain, which negated Fort Ticonderoga's strategic importance because the New York – Canada water route was now entirely within British territory. The British, therefore, did not prioritize the fort's upkeep and, by 1775, it had fallen into a state of semi-disrepair, with the walls, bastions, and blockhouses in a dilapidated condition. It was garrisoned by a skeleton force of 2 officers and 48 men and was also the home of their families, which included 24 women and children. This garrison was much too small to defend the fort from attack but was deemed suitable to watch over it during peacetime. But in early 1775, the clouds of war were quickly gathering, and Ticonderoga was woefully unprepared for the storm.

Continue reading...

[musicboxgoth]

(WIP) Resources Masterlist

*Note: a lot of these are geared toward American and/or English-speaking populations, my apologies, but plenty of them are global!

GENERAL

End Global Genocides Master Document | Another Master Doc | Tumblr Post - Links to Informational Articles/Websites

Donations: Fundraisers - Gaza, Sudan, Congo, and more | Doctors Without Borders | Care.org | World Central Kitchen | Operation Olive Branch | Islamic Relief USA

Discord: Global Strikes Against Genocide Discord Server

SUDAN

Eyes on Sudan | Sudan Solidarity Collective | Linktree - Sudanese Diaspora Network

Info: 500 days of war... | Sudan War Explained - Interview

Petitions/Letters: Stop Sudan War | Justice for Human Rights Abuse Victims in Chad and Sudan | Stop Arming Saudi Arabia and the UAE to stop the Sudan genocide

Donations: Sudan Funds | Tumblr Masterpost - Sudan Orgs/Fundraisers | Water for South Sudan

ROHINGYA

Free Rohingya Coalition

Info: CNN - Hundreds of Rohingya face drone strikes / ethnic cleansing in Myanmar

Spotify - Rohingya Culture Interview

Petitions:

Donations: Mutual Emergency Aid 4 Rohingya | Emergency Aid for Rohingya Orphans and Disabled Families

TIGRAY

Tigray Action Committee

Info: Omna Tigray - What's happening in Tigray? | Tghat News | UN Article from Sept 2023

Petitions/Letters: Petition - Demand Aid to Tigray | Stop the Tigray Genocide

Donations: Places to Donate for Tigray Tumblr Post | Ahwatna Relief

DRC

Friends of the Congo | Focus Congo | Congo Resources Tumblr Post

Info: DRC: Inside the world's forgotten war | Congo Genocide Explained - Interview

Petitions: No Tax Dollars to Fund Congo Genocide | Halt the Ongoing Genocide in Congo

Donations: SOS Congo (organized by Goma Actif) | IRC in Congo | Action Kivu

KASHMIR

Stand with Kashmir | Kashmir Masterlist Tumblr Post

Info: Kashmir - Paradise Lost (BBC)

Petitions/Letters: Stop Arming Indian Occupation of Kashmir

Donations: KASHMER

EAST TURKESTAN

Campaign for Uyghurs | Uyghur Truth Project | Camp Album Project

Info: Persecution of Uyghurs in China - Wikipedia

Petitions/Letters: Change.org - Uyghur Muslims

PALESTINE

Jewish Voice for Peace | USPCR Stop Gaza Genocide Toolkit

Info: Wizard Bisan, a Palestinian journalist

Petitions/Letters: Not Another Bomb | Amnesty - Demand a Ceasefire | Tumblr Post with Petitions | Ceasefire Now | (JVP) Tell Congress - Arms Embargo Now

Donations: Gaza Funds | Low on Funds Palestinians Fundraisers | Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraisers | Arab.org Daily Click | Middle East Children's Alliance

ARMENIA

Learn for Artsakh | Help Armenians Carrd | Artsakh Genocide Action Toolkit

Info: Denying Your History - Armenian Genocide

Petitions/Letters: Petition - Stop Erasing Armenian Culture | International Recognition of Artsakh

Donations: Fund for Armenian Relief | Armenia Fund | CARITAS Armenia | ARS of Eastern USA inc.

INDIGENOUS AMERICANS

MMIWG2S | Indigenous Action | NDN Collective

Petitions/Letters: Stop sterilizing Indigenous women without consent | Free Leonard Peltier

HAWAII

Info: Tourism's Negative Impact on Native Hawaiians | Noho Hewa Film (2008)

Donations: Hawaii Community Foundation

HAITI

Haiti Liberation Google Doc

Donations: Hands Together for Haitians | Haiti Outreach | Hope for Haiti | Twitter Thread of GoFundMes/Donation Links

WEST PAPUA

Free West Papua Website | West Papua Resources/Info Tumblr Post | We Need to Talk about Papua Carrd (last updated 2021 but has good info)

Info: United Nations - Indonesia: Shocking abuses against indigenous Papuans | Twitter Thread of Helpful Articles

Petitions/Letters:

ALSO:

The Kurdish Project

KEEP BOYCOTTING, PROTESTING, AND DOING EVERYTHING YOU CAN! FREE ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLES OF THE WORLD!

If you can't donate, share!

If you have any concerns with the links I've posted, please share! I tried my best to verify everything but please let me know if you are doubtful of something! Also, please please share other resources from people who are directly impacted by these genocides!!

LAST UPDATED SEPTEMBER 16 2024.

[srbachchan]

DAY 5588

Jalsa, Mumbai                 June 5/6,  2023                 Mon/Tue  12:24 PM

🪔 .. June 06 .. birthday affection to Ef Serena Krishnan from Dubai .. Ef Sachin Kelkar from Muscat .. and Ef Marie .. happiness and good wishes .. 

💍.. and to Ef Vijji .. who's having her 36th wedding anniversary on June 6 .. our prayers of love and togetherness ever .. 🌸💕

🪔 .. and .. June 05 .. was the birthday of Ef Joshua David from Glasgow - UK .. and we missed it 😔 .. our apologies 🙏🏻 .. and our wishes to you ever filled with love and affection ..

.. the more digging in the Calendar .. the more discovery of birthdays of Ef missed from the database .. and this is regretted 😔 .. but there are serious attempts and hard work going on to retrieve all missed dates and make it up for the Ef .. 

Love ❤️

Birthday - EF - Serena Krishnan .. Tuesday, 6 June ... and our wishes as ever for this day of birth .. love ❤️

Science and technology have taken over the World and the dependence that we had on other factors is gradually moving further away .. how far, we are not knowing .. for at the end of the line there appears another and another and another .. unexplainable and unknown .. 

So we relentlessly pursue ..

... and find that the end of the line is as blank as an empty screen and a once occupied room ..

Be that as it may, the love of those that bring wonder and cheer and the joy of existence persist at every Sunday GOJ ..

poor kids .. they shall never know why they were subjected to this torture .. !!!

.. i felt they wait for hours in this sweltering heat , so to provide them drinking water with lime to quench their thirst .. 4 containers ,2 on either side of the gate .. over and above the ‘matka’ that is permanently there during the day and night

.. some sarcastically commented on a few occasions .. “ who goes out wearing socks and bare feet “ .. I say ..’I DO” ! .. you got a problem with that  !!?? 

“You go to the temple bare feet .. my well wishers are my temple  !!”

some happy ..

some not so happy ..

.. and some distant ..

the innovative Indian .. finding an opportunity and moving in to gather the fruits of it  .. or the ‘kulfi’ ... 🤣

Comfort be the elements of use in these times of uncared for attitudes , breaking away from any tradition that could have been imposed .. 

Shoes .. 

The comfort of the ‘sneakers’ or whatever else they may be called .. the nikes, the other brands , all .. now the formal wear irrespective .. 

that black patent leather, that polished bright , whatever , has disappeared .. the white bordered comfort wear be the IT .. !

at the Roland Garros the interviewer at the end of a game does a live chat on the court with the winner .. jacket pants shirt all formal .. shoes .. sneakers .. 

LOVELY .. 

this French tournament .. French , which has epitomised trend and fashion through ages , submits itself to the latest comfort .. 

I do remember a Roland Garros tournament where at the end of a game the Management asked the great French Tennis Champion, the first black French Champion to win a Grand Slam, YANNIK NOAH to come down and make a presentation to the winner .. and he came down in jacket tie and all other formals .. but in jeans .. !! 

And the crowd and the commentators murmured in a gasp at this  .. !!! 

I was so impressed by Noah to have not cared for the formal tradition and resort to the comfort of wear .. 🤣 ..

And now the entire World is comforted by jeans and sneakers .. and the ladies with the same attire - even tights - for ease of movement at work .. 

Oh ! this is a lovely World .. !!!

COVER THY MODESTY .. WITH PRIDE .. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS .. 

Love ❤️

Amitabh Bachchan 

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

After decades of advocacy, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe will see 18 acres of land returned to them by the state of Minnesota. The move comes after lawmakers passed legislation last month to formally return state trust lands inside the boundaries of the Mille Lacs Band’s reservation.

Minnesota’s returning of Indigenous land is part of a much broader global landback movement that has been gaining momentum in part due to studies that show Indigenous guardianship leads to more effective ecological outcomes. As conserving biodiversity grows more critical amid rising global temperatures, Indigenous self-determination and traditions of relating to land and waters are increasingly recognized as vital climate solutions. 

“This is a great opportunity for us as the Mille Lacs Band to preserve that land in a way that is respectful of nature,” said Kelly Applegate, commissioner of natural resources at the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. He said the land transfer is expected to be complete over the next month. “Whatever we do, it’ll be in a lens of environmental protection.” 

The Mille Lacs’ lands in question are known as state trust lands. These trust lands, established at statehood, are grants of land from the federal government primarily created to support education and are found across the western United States. On the Mille Lacs reservation, those 18 acres represent only a fraction of the 2.5 million acres of state trust lands across Minnesota, including nearly 344,000 acres inside the borders of eight reservations. Trust lands in Minnesota typically generate revenue for education through mining, timber, and land sales, and for the 2023-24 school year, trust lands generated almost $49 million for public and charter schools. The trust lands on Mille Lacs, however, have only generated about $45 annually. 

Minnesota is one of 15 states that owns land within federal Indian reservations that generate revenue for non-Indigenous institutions. 

[mariacallous]

In the waters of the South China Sea, Chinese coast guard vessels have clashed with Philippine ships. In the air above the Taiwan Strait, Chinese warplanes have challenged Taiwanese jet fighters. And in the valleys of the Himalayas, Chinese troops have fought Indian soldiers.

Across several frontiers, China has been using its armed forces to dispute territory not internationally recognized as part of China but nevertheless claimed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In August 2023, Beijing laid out its current territorial claims for the world to see. The new edition of the standard map of China includes lands that are today a part of India and Russia, along with island territories such as Taiwan and comprehensive stretches of the East and South China Seas that are also claimed by Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

China often invokes historical narratives to justify these claims. Beijing, for example, has said that the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which it claims under the name of the Diaoyu Islands, “have been an inherent territory of China since ancient times.” Chinese officials have used the same words to back China’s right to parts of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Chinese government also claims that its sovereignty over the South China Sea is based on its own historic maritime maps.

However, in certain periods since ancient times China has also held sway over other states in the region—Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam. Yet Beijing is currently not laying claim to any of these.

Instead, Beijing has embraced a selective irredentism, wielding specific chapters of China’s historical record when they suit existing aims and leaving former Chinese territories be when they don’t. Over time, as Beijing’s interests and power relations have shifted, some of these claims have faded from importance, while new ones have taken their place. Yet for Taiwan, Chinese claims remain unchanged, as the fate of the island state is tied to the very legitimacy of the CCP as well as the vitality of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political vision.

Many of the CCP’s territorial claims have roots in the 19th and 20th centuries during the late rule of the Qing Dynasty. Following diplomatic pressure and repeated military defeats, the Qing Dynasty was forced to cede territory to several Western colonial powers, as well as the Russian and Japanese empires. These concessions are part of what are known in China as the “unequal treaties,” while the 100 years in which the treaties were signed and enforced are known as the “century of humiliation.” These territorial losses eventually passed from the dynasty to the Republic of China and then, following the Chinese Civil War, to the CCP. As a result, upon the CCP’s establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the new Chinese state inherited outstanding territorial disputes with most of its neighbors.

But despite the humiliation the Qing Dynasty’s losses had caused, the CCP proved willing to compromise and reduce its territorial aims during times of high internal unrest. Following the Tibetan uprising in 1959, for instance, the CCP negotiated territorial settlements with countries bordering the Tibet region, including Myanmar, Nepal, and India. Similarly, when unrest rocked the Uyghur region in the 1960s and ‘90s, Beijing pursued territorial compromises with several bordering countries such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the CCP also pursued territorial settlements with Mongolia, Laos, and Vietnam in the hopes of securing China’s borders during times of domestic instability. Instead of pursuing diversionary wars, the CCP relied on diplomacy to settle border and territory disputes.

But China has changed quite a lot since then. In recent years, the CCP has avoided the inflammatory domestic political chaos of previous decades, and its once-tentative hold over border regions, such as Tibet and the Uyghur region, has been replaced by an iron grip. With this upper hand, the CCP has little incentive to pursue peaceful resolutions to remaining territorial disputes.

“China’s national power has increased significantly, reducing the benefits of compromise and enabling China to drive a much harder bargain,” said M. Taylor Fravel, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In this context, the CCP has expanded its irredentist ambitions. After the discovery of potential oil reserves around the Senkaku Islands, and the United States’ return of the islands to Japan in the 1970s, Beijing drew on its historical record to lay claim to the islands, even though it had previously referred to them as part of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. Similarly, though Beijing and Moscow settled a dispute over Heixiazi Island, located along China’s northeastern border, in 2004, the 2023 map of China depicted the entire island (ceded, along with vast Pacific territories, by the Qing Dynasty to the Russian Empire in 1860) as part of its domain, much to the ire of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argues that the Chinese mapping of Heixiazi Island shows that Beijing holds on to certain core interests and simply waits for the opportune time to assert them.

“Given the current context of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s increased dependence on China, it might have appeared to Beijing that it has the chips in its pockets because, after all, Moscow needs Beijing more than the other way around,” Koh said on the German Marshall Fund’s China Global podcast.

This raises the question of whether territorial disputes that were settled during times of CCP weakness can be revisited and become subject to irredentist ambitions should power balances shift in China’s favor.

According to Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, there is currently a limit to how far the CCP will push territorial claims against Russia, since President Xi will need Russian support to sustain his grand ambitions for Chinese leadership on the global stage.

Although it would be a long shot, even Russia may not be safe from these ambitions indefinitely. Given that large swaths of Russia’s Pacific territories were part of China until 1860, “China could claim back the Russian Far East when it deems the time is right,” Tsang said. Such control would grant Beijing unrestricted access to the region’s abundance of coal, timber, tin, and gold while moving it geographically closer to its ambition of becoming an Arctic power.

While there is plenty of historical evidence pointing to former Chinese control over the southeastern portion of the Russian Far East, the historical record is less unequivocal about Chinese control over Taiwan. Anything resembling mainland Chinese control over Taiwan was not established until after 1684 by the Qing Dynasty, and even then central authority remained weak. In 1895, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan following the First Sino-Japanese War, and by the time Chinese authority was restored in 1945, Taiwan had undergone several decades of Japanization.

These details have not prevented the CCP from claiming that Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Yet more than any other irredentist claim, Xi has made unification with Taiwan a major component of his vision to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.

Unification, however, has little to do with ancient history and more to do with the challenge that Taiwan presently poses to Xi’s aims, according to Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor who teaches about Chinese foreign policy at the National University of Singapore.

“The CCP pursues a Chinese nationalism that emphasizes unity and homogeneity centered around the CCP leadership while they also often claim that their single-party rule is acceptable to Chinese people,” Chong said.

In contrast, Taiwan holds free elections in which multiple political parties compete for the favor of a people that have increasingly developed an identity distinct from mainland China.

“The Taiwanese experience is a clear affront to the CCP narrative,” Chong said.

Control over Taiwan is also attractive to Beijing because it is key to unlocking the Chinese leadership’s broader ambition of maritime hegemony in waters where almost half of the world’s container fleet passed through in 2022.

As with the case of Taiwan, the CCP’s historical arguments regarding its claims on island groups and islets in the East and South China Seas are likewise much weaker than many of its land-based claims.

Instead, Chinese territorial intransigence in the maritime arena is more about a strategic shift in the value of the seas around China, Fravel said.

Today, it has been estimated that more than 21 percent of global trade passes through the South China Sea. And beneath these waters are not only subsea cables that carry sensitive internet data but also vast estimated reserves of oil and natural gas.

Although it may say otherwise, Beijing’s unwillingness to let up on its tenuous territorial maritime claims suggests that China is pursuing long-held ambitions and global aspirations rather than attempting to reverse past losses. So long as the CCP wields its historical record selectively and changeably to serve its aims—and is willing to back its claims up with military action—China’s neighbors will remain at risk.

[daydreaming-en-pointe]

⌦ .｡ guys, the desis are at it again… .:*♡

Pairing: Pavitr Prabhakar x fem!Indian!Reader (Platonic!!) (Gwen, Miles and Hobie are there too)

Type: Oneshot - Fluff

Word count: 1.1k

Warnings: Usage of Hindi ig? (It’s all translated dw) Some cussing, Indian-British jokes and I think that’s it

A/N: I had this in my drafts for a while and only finished it now after eating the spiciest samosa I have ever had in my life so yay :D

I know it makes more sense for Pavi to be a strictly vegetarian Hindu considering how he got his powers, but here he eats chicken and mutton because some of the spiciest Indian dishes I’ve ever tried have meat in them (COUGH COUGH LAAL MAAS)

Also uh I hc that Pavitr’s middle name is Bhim after his uncle bc yk Peter has Benjamin so he has Bhim

“How the hell are you doing this?!”

Gwen forfeited by chugging a glass of water after a bite of the biriyani, joining Miles on the couch where he was still wheezing slightly, his eyes watering and throat burning from the spice.

“They’re bloody insane, Gwendy. They’re Indian and they ‘ave a spice tolerance that could put dragons to shame. Wha’ d’ya expect?” Hobie, sprawled precariously on the edge of the sofa arm, stole a piece from the bowl of butter chicken that lay forgotten on the side, gleefully watching you two. He had done the smart thing and quit fairly early into the round, before the food actually got spicy.

You faced off from Pavitr across the coffee table, sitting cross-legged and eating a bowl of the spiciest biriyani you both had ever tasted. You could see small tears pricking the corner of his eyes. You were almost tempted to call him a coward, but you figured that wouldn’t go so well since you could feel your eyes watering too.

See, if he hadn’t challenged you to a spice-tolerance taste test contest then this wouldn’t be happening. He could’ve kept quiet while you accidentally choked on a samosa and not assumed it was from the spice level (which wasn’t even that high), but noooo. He had to make a comment about how he could take more spice than you could.

So, technically, this whole thing was his fault.

And that was why you both were kneeling at a coffee table in Maya Aunty’s house, stuffing your faces with the spiciest foods you could find. So far, you had gotten through Maya Aunty’s saag paneer and dal makhani without any rice, which would have been a feat in itself… to anyone less competitive.

Hell, you had even gotten through dhansak and vindaloo without batting an eyelid, much less reaching for a glass of water. But for some reason a single bowl of this damn mutton biriyani was making both of you sniffle like sick kittens.

“Didi, I’m going chutney you,” Pavitr gritted his teeth and forced down another bite of the biriyani. You copied his movements, feeling the masala burn in your throat as you swallowed. (Didi means sister, usually a term of respect for someone you consider a sister and they’re older than you)

“Hei bhaghvaan, apni chachi ne ismain kya rakha?” (Oh God, what did your aunt put in this?) You coughed slightly and Pavitr dropped his forehead onto the table, groaning slightly like he was dying. Which, in all honesty, didn’t feel that far from the truth.

“I don’t know! All I know is that biriyani isn’t supposed to be this spicy!”

“‘Ey, Miles. ‘Ow much you wanna bet that Pavitr folds first? ‘E’s practically turnin’ red, isn’t ‘e - y’alright, bruv?” Hobie smirked down at you both, his border flickering. You snorted in amusent then immediately regretted it since some of the masala was now caught in your nose and oh, good grief, you could feel it burning.

Pavitr glared up at him. “You’re one to talk, Hobes. Didn’t you quit when we just started off? Arre, poor little Britisher couldn’t take the heat? Angrezi log ham jaise masale nahi kha sakhte.” (English/British people can’t eat spices like we can)

Hobie raised an eyebrow as Pavitr bit down on a green chilli that had been mixed into the rice and doubled over, tears streaming out of his eyes.

“Maybe it’s best if you call it a draw? I mean-” Miles shut his mouth quickly when you turned to glare at him.

“I’m not stopping till Pavitr Bhim Prabhakar admits that I can eat more spice than him.” You emphasised his middle and last name, narrowing your eyes as Pavitr weakly flipped you off without lifting his head.

Hobie chuckled softly. “Fuckin’ ‘ell, Pavi, she’s bringin’ in the full name. Take it from me, mate, you’re screwed when she does tha’.”

“Shut up before I use your full name,” You warned, turning your wrathful gaze on him. “We both know you wouldn’t want me to do that.”

His eyes widened and he mimed zipping his lips and tossing the key away. Miles looked at you curiously, tilting his head to the side. “Wait, what’s Hobie’s full name?”

“Funny you should ask, Kilometer Morality,” Pavitr muttered under his breath, his forehead still resting on the table. You had learnt about half an hour ago that when Pavitr got a spice overload he tended to make random “snarky” quips which usually didn’t make any sense.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go get some ice cream for when this thing blows up,” Gwen got up from the couch, giving Pavitr a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and moving to the kitchen.

“Wimp,” You muttered to Pavitr as a tear rolled down your cheek. Forget burning, your tongue was almost going numb from the sheer amount of masala that you were trying to ingest.

“Weakling,” He countered as a bead of sweat trailed down the side of his forehead. You shovelled another spoon of the biriyani into your mouth, relief flooding you as the spoon hit the bottom of the bowl. Good, you had almost finished. But would you make it that far?

Pavitr tentatively took a bite and immediately choked, giving in and reaching for one of the two bowls of curd sitting appetisingly in the centre of the table. He was essentially tapping out.

You threw your arms in the air triumphantly, almost giddy with victory. Actually, maybe that was from the spice. Yep, definitely the spice.

You downed the bowl of curd, letting out a long sigh of relief as the cold, thick liquid dowsed your tongue and took the initial edge of the buildup of spice away. Gwen returned just in time to see Pavitr and you lapping at the curd as if you were a pair of stray cats, like the ones you both faithfully fed and played with.

“I take it you won?” She asked you, her eyes sparkling a little bit in amusement as she saw Pavitr drop his head down onto the table the moment he properly realised that he had lost. She slid two cups of vanilla ice cream to you. A little basic, maybe, but still good and definitely a relief to your mouth.

“Barely,” You admitted, taking a small spoon from her. “Arre, Pavi. Don’t feel bad. Hum donon ne apana sarvashreshth prayaas kiya, naa? C’mon, sit up.” (We both tried our best, right?)

“Haan, Didi,” He grumbled sulkily, lifting his chin as you fed him the ice cream from his bowl. (Haan just means yes)

“Let’s do something else. Should we get Hobie to pronounce the names of these foods?”

“Oh, sure, throw the British guy under the bus,” Hobie protested, but a fond smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth as Pavitr chuckled softly.

“To be fair, you are in Mumbattan right now,” You pointed out, and Hobie heaved an exaggerated sigh, a grin already forming on his mouth as he prepared to butcher the pronunciations on purpose to get a reaction out of you and cheer up Pavitr.

“Fair enough. Alrigh’… That’s, uh… that’s sag panner, and that’s…”

@l0starl @hobiebrownismygod @therealloopylupin2099

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Charles Gasparino

Published: Jul 6, 2024

There is a raging debate in corporate America on the future of DEI, aka Diversity ­Equity and Inclusion, because it is literally destroying businesses that go there.

And yet the American public may soon be subjected to DEI writ large in the next president of the United States, if Kamala Harris finds her way to the top of the Democratic ticket while Joe Biden wilts away as the party’s presidential nominee after his horrific ­debate performance. 

Yes, maybe the most irrepressibly fatuous politician in America may become the leader of the free world because the Democratic Party is unable to break its DEI stranglehold. 

Harris is already being hailed as the president-in-waiting as her boss Sleepy Joe — despite his defiant TV vow to George Stephanopoulos Friday night to stay in the race — increasingly faces reality that his chances of besting Trump are slim.

Calls that he should step down are mounting, paving the way for his VP to land at the top of the ticket.

Even if does stay and achieves the near impossible by pulling out a victory, you can bet he won’t survive four years.

Harris becomes the nation’s first DEI president by default. 

For the American people it would be such an unfair and odd coronation.

Remember, she’s part of an administration that gave us inflation, world chaos and an open border that literally invites terrorists to enter the country and kill people.

She has spent nearly four years as Biden’s No. 2 flubbing every assignment given to her, including the border mess. 

That’s on top of her manifest ­unlikability; her word salad whenever she tries to sound smart; her cackle when she laughs; her vaulting ambition.

She once suggested during a 2020 primary debate that her current boss was a racist for being against federally mandated busing.

But Biden’s busing stench wasn’t nasty enough to stop her from jumping at the chance to serve as his VP when DEI came calling. 

Following the 2020 death of ­George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the pressure on Biden to pick a woman of color as his running mate was intense.

(And he boxed himself in by publicly saying his running mate would be a woman.)

Harris checked all the boxes: Her father, an academic with a Ph.D., is from Jamaica; her late mother, a biologist, was Indian.

VP Harris was a California state attorney general and a US senator. 

Weak record 

Yet if you delved, you would see a weak record of accomplishment, and weird personal tics (that aforementioned laugh), and an intense desire for power.

First Lady Jill Biden is said to have hated her but as one Dem operative told me before Joe Biden made her his VP: “She’s black and that is all that matters.” 

DEI, of course, is a construct first embraced by academia, the lefty political class and then business that posits the world needs to be observed in terms of those historically oppressed (people of color and of diverse gender classifications) at the expense of the oppressor (namely white people and particularly white men).

Jobs, image making, TV programming must be seen through this warped view of reality. 

It’s a topic I cover in my upcoming book “Go Woke, Go Broke,” ­illustrating how DEI had been ­ingrained in the corporate culture before the American people began to revolt.

Examples are endless.

Among them, Disney’s DEI mandates pushed so-called “queerness” into cartoons; trans women found their way into beer commercials; and there was a white-male hiring freeze at many corporations until relatively recently. 

It’s fair to say the high-water mark of DEI was after Floyd’s death and continued for three years.

Now, corporate America is backtracking feverishly because while Americans respect the desire for diversity, they hate DEI’s purely idiotic demands where the offspring of rich South Americans get jobs over a white coal miner’s daughter.

It’s also patently illegal; the SCOTUS ruling outlawing affirmative action for college admissions is a precedent that lots of businesses want to avoid. 

And they are, or at least starting to.

Consider the giant retailer Target.

In 2023, CEO Brian Cornell said, “The things we’ve done from a DE and I standpoint, it’s adding value, it’s helping us drive sales, it’s building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests.”

That was his rationalization for a massive Pride Month merchandising display in his stores — complete with mannequins wearing so-called tuck-friendly bathing suits, books about trans children being sold next to rainbow-colored onesies. 

Then came the customer backlash from those who didn’t appreciate being indoctrinated when they shop.

In 2024, Cornell reduced Target’s Pride displays enough that no one really noticed.

So much for DEI adding value. 

Some Dems I speak to caution me it’s not all DEI giving Harris the edge to replace Biden.

She is, after all, the VP. If she’s on a new ticket, it gets to keep money raised already, not start from scratch. 

OK, but I can’t imagine money will be an issue.

One possible nominee, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, is a billionaire.

The Dem money machine on Wall Street and Silicon Valley is formidable. 

Yet the country might just be stuck with Harris as president if Sleepy Joe wins and stumbles his way to resignation while in his second term, or if Biden drops out in the coming days and she ­becomes the nominee. 

All because DEI is the Democratic Party’s touchstone, no matter how much evidence amasses that it’s a failed ideology. 

--

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

THIS SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

#20yrsago Walkmen changed our social norms https://web.archive.org/web/20040803222231/http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/entertainment/music/9144361.htm

#20yrsago Ultima preservation efforts: a guide https://web.archive.org/web/20040721014058/http://www.nelson.monkey.org/~nelson/weblog/culture/games/ultimaPreservation.html

#15yrsago ATMs that spray attackers with pepper-spray https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/12/south-africa-cash-machine-pepper-spray

#10yrsago TSA employee to security theater skeptics: “You don’t have shit for rights” https://memex.craphound.com/2014/07/18/tsa-employee-to-security-theater-skeptics-you-dont-have-shit-for-rights/

#10yrsago Documentary on the making of the Homeland audiobook with Wil Wheaton https://vimeo.com/100956787

#10yrsago Ontario police’s Big Data assigns secret guilt to people looking for jobs, crossing borders https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/police-chiefs-call-for-presumed-innocence-in-background-checks/article_f479a149-f184-5824-80ee-0427abfe4b71.html

#10yrsago UK government “dries out” its “water damaged” CIA torture files https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10969535/Lost-US-extraordinary-rendition-files-have-dried-out-Foreign-Office-says.html

#5yrsago SAMBA versus SMB: Adversarial interoperability is judo for network effects https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/samba-versus-smb-adversarial-interoperability-judo-network-effects #5yrsago An Indian research university has assembled 73 million journal articles (without permission) and is offering the archive for unfettered scientific text-mining https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/18/an-indian-research-university-has-assembled-73-million-journal-articles-without-permission-and-is-offering-the-archive-for-unfettered-scientific-text-mining/

#5yrsago How deceptive browser extensions snaffled up 4m users’ browsing history, including Nest videos, medical history and tax returns https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/dataspii-inside-the-debacle-that-dished-private-data-from-apple-tesla-blue-origin-and-4m-people/

#5yrsago Thousands of elderly Hong Kongers march in solidarity with young human rights activists https://hongkongfp.com/2019/07/17/no-rioters-tyrannical-regime-thousands-hong-kong-seniors-march-support-young-extradition-law-protesters/

#5yrsago Interactive map of public facial recognition systems in America https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/map/

#5yrsago Sony’s copyright bots remove a band’s own release of its new video https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/18/sonys-copyright-bots-remove-a-bands-own-release-of-its-new-video/

#1yrago Let the Platforms Burn https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

[todaysdocument]

Ratified Indian Treaty 19A (first and last pages), April 11, 1793. 

This treaty with the Six Nations (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora) included this wax Great Seal of the State of New York. 

Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government

Series: Indian Treaties

Image description: A circular seal, just over three inches in diameter, made of wax covered with paper. Depicted in the center is a sun with a face, rising over hills. Below the hills is “EXCELSIOR”. Around the border of the seal is “THE GREAT SEAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK”. There is a hole through the seal at the top. 

Image description: Reverse of the circular seal. In the center are spiky rocks jutting out of the water. There are letters at the top of the border, but it’s difficult to see what they say. At the bottom of the seal is an ink “X”. There is a hole through the seal at the top. 

Transcription: 

1)

The People of the State of New York, by the Grace of God, Free and Independent: To all to

whom these presents shall come, Greeting  Know ye that We having inspected the Records remaining in

our Secretary's Office do find there certain Indian Deeds recorded in Book of Indian Deeds commencing

in the year 1748 in the Words Characters and figures following, to wit, "To all to whom these presents

"shall come or may concern: Know ye that We Peter Ojistarare, Johan Jesry Towahangaraghkou, Rawhistoni,

"Paul Tewasgwadeghkow, John Skanondonagh of the wolf tribe, Peter Oneyanha, Joseph Kanaghsaterhon, Cornilius Okonyota, John Onontiyo, Nicholas Sagoyatokare of

"the Turtle Tribe; Lodowick Kaghsaweta, Paul Kanyatashayea and Peter Agwirontongwas of the Bear Tribe,

"Sachems and chief Warriors of the Oneyda and Tuscarara Nations, by and with the advice and consent and in

"the presence of the said Nations at a public Treaty held at Fort Herkimer in the county of the Montgomery with

"his Excellency George Clinton Esquire Governor of the State of New York and the other Commissioners of In-

"dian Affairs of the said State for the consideration of the sum of Eleven Thousand five hundred Dollars

"in Goods & Money to us in hand paid at and before [illegible] ensealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof

"We do hereby acknowledge  Have Given, Granted, Bargained and Sold, and by these presents  Do fully freely and

"Absolutely Grant Bargain and Sell unto the People of the State of New York all that certain Tract of Land situate

"in the said State and on the West Side of the Line commonly called the Line of Property established at a

"Treaty held at Fort Stanwix in 1768, and on the North Side of the Pensylvania Line, Beginning at the

"Mouth of the Unadilla or Tianaderha River where the same empties into the Surquchanna River, thence up

"the said Unadilla or Tianaderha River ten Miles measured on a straight line, thence due West to the Chenen-

"go River, thence Southerly down the said Chenengo River to where it empties into the said Sasquchanna River

"& to the said Line called the Line of Property, thence along the said Line to the place of Beginning so as to comprehend

"all the Lands belonging to us the said Oneyda and Tuscarora Nations lying South of the said Line to be run from

"the said Unadilla or Teanaderha River to the Chenengo River and North of the Division Line between this State

"and the State of Pensylvania, Together with all Ways, Waters, Water courses, Rivers, Riverlets, Creeks and Streams

(of)

[page 2]

16.)                     

"Onaakaronton his x mark LS Tehoghweakaronto his x mark LS Kaghnunrayen his x mark LS Agwirontong-

"waghs his x mark LS Anonghsighraghtha his x mark LS Oniatariyoo his x mark LS Kaneyaggh his x mark

"LS Geo: Clinton LS Pierre Van Cortlandt LS Ezra L Hommedieu LS Abm Ten Broeck LS Peter Gansevoort-

"Junr. LS Richd. Varick LS Witnesses Present Sam Kirkland Missry. Interpreter John Lansing Junr. Jos.

"Brant, David Hill, John Tayler, Malachi Treat, Abm Hardenbergh, Peter Otsiequette, Aghwistonisk his x mark,

"Oneyanka his x mark, Coll. Honyery his [mark] mark, Oneida Chiefs. Onangaiekhon his x mark, Fhoghnawayen

"x Senekas. - Be it Remembered that on the Twenty fifth day of November in the year one thousand seven hundred and

"ninety one before me John Sloss Hobart one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State of New York came Samuel Kirkland,

"Clerk, Missionary and Interpreter to the Six Nations of Indians, who made oath that he was present and did see the Twenty

"-Eight Sachems, Chiefs and Warriors of the Onondaga Nation of Indians whose names are written opposite to their respec-

"tive Seals severally seal and deliver the within written Ratification as their Voluntary act and deed for the purposes and uses therein mentioned,

"he having previously thereto faithfully and truly interpreted the Contents of the same from the English into the Indian Language unto the said

"Sachems, Chiefs and Warriors in such a manner that it was fully understood by them and that he also saw the Commissioners on the part of the

"State of New York in the said Ratification Mentioned severally seal and deliver the same as their Voluntary act and deed for the purposes and

"uses therein mentioned, and that John Lansing Junr. and the Eleven other persons whose names are signed as Witnesses were present and did see

"the said parties Seal and deliver the said Ratification; and I having Examined the same and found no material alteration therein do al-

"low it to be recorded Jno. Sloss Hobart. The preceding Instrument refers to the Treaty recorded in pages 150 & which is dated the 12th.

"of September 1788, and is a true copy of the Original, Examined and compared therewith this 5th. day of April 1793 (the words "alias Land Car-

"rier" in page 170 being interlined) By me Robert Harpur D Secry."

                                                                     ~~~~~~~~

    All which WE have caused to be Exemplified by these Presents: In Testimony whereof

We have caused these our Letters to be made patent and the Great Seal of our said State to be hereunto affixed Witness

our Trusty and well beloved George Clinton Esquire Governor of our said State General and Commander in chief

of all the Militia and Admiral of the Navy of the same, at our City of New York; this Eleventh day of April in the year of

our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Ninety-Three, and in the Seventeenth year of our Independence.~

[gemsofgreece]

Now stfu. Thanks :)

Oh wow. I kinda expected, you know, a page in an encyclopedia or any other page with educative content about Greece or geography in general, but you come proudly with a random Turkey vs Greece article by a David dude.

Honey. You will find anything spelled out on the Internet, including actual mistakes. That's why we check our sources. In fact, this article has many other mistakes as well.

False. Turkey gets more tourists than Greece.

False. The Turkish Republic is exactly 100 years old and the Ottoman Empire lasted about 600 years.

Where to start with this one... If Greece is famous for anything, that's not its urban locations.

Mistake #1: Aya Sofya is not famous because of its minarets and Mistake #2: Ephesus was built in the 10th Century BC, so its heyday or point in time it should be referred with was at least 900 years before the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. Although granted, a lot for its preservation was done in the Roman era.

OMG American mistake #18361986: Greece is NOT a tropical country and HAS ZERO tropical islands

Built by WHOM of WHAT? Perhaps David meant King Antiochus I Theos of Commagen, check an actual source for once

David is straight out pulling facts out of his ass, isn't he

"The major cities like Istanbul and Santorini" the guy is either trolling or hasn't stepped one foot in Greece ever. Santorini is a tiny island and its "major city" Fira has 1,600 residents LMAO my grandparents' godforsaken village has more than that

The guy does a super delicate trolling, I give him that. The guy says things like oceans and tropical and major city of Santorini but has also come across Slav-Macedonian. Amazing combo. David is a man of contrasts. For the record, I haven't come across it and I have lived all my life here. I mean, it exists but you have to struggle to find its speakers and they are all bilingual anyway.

Overall David, that international traveller, does not really mean bad... apart from this????

That was very professional there. But even though he says this, he proceeds to say equally good stuff about both countries, I 'd say. The article is a confusing text by a confused man. But that's not the point. The point is his myriad of inaccuracies and mistakes (as called out in several of the comments), some very typical of Americans, like mistaking Greece for a tropical destination or confusing oceans and seas.

Which brings us to you @libbyhaiku .

I believe, very politely, I added in the tags of that damn post this:

That really set you off. You sent me an ask, telling me to fact check in google... what... whether the country of which I am a native has seas or oceans?

And I did! Even though I don't need to fact check whether Greece has oceans. And once again every website of any actual integrity, apart from the David dude, repeats this over and over. Greece has seas. Which I told you.

Furthermore, @jamy-libations searched for it on their own accord, and to my understanding they are not Greek or native Greeks, they told you and you responded as you responded to me.

I wonder, did you tell them to shut the fuck up too in your message?

So, here's the answer. You and David are making a very typical American mistake, or maybe its not a mistake within your very own borders, which is that because the USA is surrounded by oceans, you think ocean is the standard generic term for sea.

In fact, the word ocean can be used in two ways: either as THE Ocean, which is the entire body of saltwater of the earth and derives as a concept from the Greek mythology, just like the very word derives from Greek so I know well what it means, or to describe the five major bodies of water: the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Southern ocean.

Greece, unlike the USA, is surrounded by neither. Greece is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and its adjacent smaller seas like the Ionian, the Aegean, the Libyan, the Cretan, the Myrtoan, the Ikarian, the Karpathian Seas. While the Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the very narrow strait of Gibraltar, it is so enclosed by land and it exchanges so little water with the Atlantic that it is both traditionally and scientifically considered its own body of water, a Sea, and not just a general area of the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's to explain to you the difference between an ocean and a sea by an actually serious source.

Here is a map of the Mediterranean Basin. As you see, it is almost entirely enclosed and it does not earn the status of being an ocean, let alone containing a multitude of them. Greece is also in the far end of the Mediterranean, as apart from the Atlantic as possible. None of the countries in the Mediterranean Basin have access to an ocean or oceanS, apart from Spain, France and Morocco, as evident here.

Now, I would honestly have not cared or written so much if you didn't throw a tandrum for a tiny tag in a post I reblogged in a positive manner. Unfortunately, you chose the asshole way.

And since we're at it that photo was actually taken in the Italian....... oceans

and it's edited... but whatever, we have this species too.

[purble-gaymer]

THESE MOUNTAINS SHOULD NOT EXIST

a rant/essay about dreamland's topography

disclaimer: i am a second year ENVS student and may get some details wrong. i don't really feel like sending this to my advisor (the local geologist) to proofread, so it'll have to do. i think she has more important things to do right now than read my kirby rant

to begin, we have to establish some basic rules about geology:

how do mountains form?

mountains come to be in a few ways: shifting plates and hot spots. hot spots are technically also to do with shifting plates, but we'll get to that later. let's talk about the plates first.

there are two kinds of tectonic plates: continental and oceanic. ocean plates are denser than continental plates, which means when an ocean and continental plate converge, the ocean plate will subduct under the continental plate. when two continental plates converge, because they are of similar density, they will collide. this process creates mountains.

mountains created by converging continental plates can be seen, for example, with the Himalayas. in this case, the mountains were formed by the Indian plate pushing up into the Eurasian plate. this method is off the table for dreamland because it is shown to be a peninsula (or at least a thin strip of land) surrounded by water.

ocean-continental convergence also creates mountains, but in a different fashion. this is the more relevant method because dreamland also has a volcano, an active one at that.

when ocean plates subduct under the land, they are forced down into the earth until they reach a melting point. sometimes this newly formed magma travels back to the surface, creating a hot spot. if this magma breaches the surface, it forms a volcano (that eventually cools into a mountain). this method can be seen in the Cascade mountains and the Andes.

the volcano/mountain's proximity to the coast depends on how steep the ocean plate's descent is. if we take a look at how close dreamland's mountains are to the shore...

...the ocean plate would have to be hitting its melting point almost immediately after subducting. forgive me for thinking this is unrealistic.

however, the inclusion of a volcano in this range is realistic! an O-C convergence would create a volcano like this. its portrayal within the show isn't really correct, but that's a post for a different day.

how this could potentially happen

not all hope is lost for the ocean-bordering mountain range, sort of. there are a few things that could have happened in popstar's history to cause something like this.

firstly, we should look at the Appalachian mountains. how did they get there? the North American plate is bordered on its east side by a mid-ocean ridge, where new crust is being created.

the Appalachians came to be around the time Pangea was coming together--the collision of the North American and African plates created the mountain range, and over time Pangea split apart, forcing the mountains away.

any map of tectonic plates will reveal a large split through the Atlantic ocean--this is a divergent boundary, where plates are being pushed apart in favor of creating new lithosphere (crust/upper mantle).

so, with all this in mind, there are a few things it could mean for our mountain range:

dreamland is actually an island, and we don't know because the overhead view doesn't show it

this would mean hot spots are relevant again: if a plate moves over a hot spot, magma can form into islands, especially volcanic ones. this is how Hawaii was formed, and why it is prone to volcanic activity. given that dreamland is an island, this would explain the presence of mountains. Hawaii's tallest peaks are still inland rather than right on the coast, but it's close enough.

2. a new fault/divergent boundary formed between dreamland's mountains and the opposing plate that created them

new faults aren't uncommon, though they don't always succeed. the New Madrid Seismic Zone, for example, made a small break in the American Midwest, but didn't get much farther than that. a successful fault or new divergent boundary could potentially push dreamland's mountains away from their neighboring plate. this is more like what happened to the Appalachians--though they're pretty far inland, so take that as you will. the new boundary would have to form quite close to the mountain range for them to be right on the shore like this.

3. the water has eroded away the land leading up to the mountains

now this isn't really one i have any backup for, i just wanted to throw it in because it came to mind. while it's possible for the ocean to have greatly eroded the land if it's been here for a long time, the mountains would still have to be very close to the shore to end up where they are. dreamland's proximity to the ocean could imply it has a delta at the end of the peninsula, and maybe one of the routes is along the mountains so the channel eats away at the shore for a while...who knows. but this one doesn't feel too realistic, either.

conclusion

as far as i'm aware, it isn't completely impossible for these mountains to exist, but they aren't exactly realistic, either. their proximity to the shore leaves too many questions that are hard to answer without any information about popstar's history and plate tectonics. most likely, dreamland is on an island, and was created as its plate moved over a hot spot. the existence of an active volcano implies that it is still sitting over this hot spot, and will eventually move away from it.

i must really miss my geology class if this is what i'm doing with my spare time. thank you for reading.