I just noticed something in Google Earth

[Titan]

Me and my roommate were going through Google Earth and looking around the world and shit when I noticed something weird. I have the layer for I guess what people post about places in the cities and points of interest. It seems that a lot of the posts are anti-capitalist and anti-establishment. I went to the Forbidden City in China and found some humorous remarks about Starbucks.

There are apparently two starbucks in the Forbidden City labelled "Forbidden Starbucks" and "Starbucks (believe it or not)". This is what those two posts said:

"The mighty empire of Starbucks has made it\'s way into the holiest of santums in China.... The Forbidden City Starbucks is located on the side of the \'Emperor\'s Garden\' in the northern part of the Forbidden City. "

That\'s right, the bastion of capitalism Starbucks is located inside the Forbidden City.

Where as this person does have a point about Starbucks, it seems like Google or its users are using it for some kind of propaganda. But we also when to Dafur and saw the same stuff.

Darfur Genocide - Google Earth images from above

For the last few weeks I have been exploring Darfur in Google Earth. This is what I have been looking at:



What you see in the photo above is a village in Darfur recently destroyed and abandoned. What has happened to the people who lived there? I have seen over 1,000 villages like this in the new satellite imagery of Darfur. Take a look yourself using this file Destroyed Darfuri Villages . You will need to have the Google Earth program installed to use the link.




The photo is recent (2006) and the genocide is continuing. Here is a

(there were pictures but couldn\'t pull them off)

I never realized Google had such an agenda, lol. I dunno if Google\'s own staff or some weird flaky underground movement of users is trying to push some agenda but I just thought it was interesting and thought I\'d share. I actually found them humorous. Its good to know when I go to the Forbidden City, I can get some good coffee :shy:

Identifying destroyed villages in Darfur is not promoting any agenda.  It sounds to me like that user is simply trying to help others learn more about a serious humanitarian crisis.
 
Regarding the Starbucks stuff:  If you want to post some pro-capitalist, pro-starbucks comments, I\'m sure you\'re free to do so.  

[Cerberus]

meanwhile, in real news...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&t=k&ll=53.538774,-1.346804&spn=0.000875,0.002626&t=k

[Viper_Fujax]

there was something about darfur and google earth in my school newspaper a couple days ago..didnt read it