Sunday January 21, 2007

I've Been Thinking:

I have seen 2 recent pieces slamming Google Earth. And justifiably so.

Google Earth is the site that provides maps and is solely powered and owned by Google.
Google Earth provides some of the most detailed maps one can find, maps so sophisticated that there are even up-to-the-minute satellite images of United States and her allied encampments in Iraq.
(The maps are so accurate that terrorists used them to - successfully, attack a British camp.)

I take issue with Google Earth because it refers to Gaza as "occupied."
Unless you were in a cave in August of 2005, you would know that Israel is no longer in Gaza - no Israelis and no Israeli army.
Not to mention how it refers to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Google says that the site uses internationally accepted terms and borders.
However, post 1967 the UN referred to these sites as "disputed" not "occupied." In other words, the status of these places was to be worked out at a later date.
Google is operating under a serious misunderstanding of history and politics.