[Big Daddy Mac]

Our History Defines Us

Was reading a blurb about another Jewish family trying to recapture their stolen art.  The Nazis raped and pillaged their way through Europe.  My friend Robert Edsel wrote two books about it.  One became a movie, The Monuments Men.  His second book, Saving Italy is a must read before you go on that Italian vacation.
Often, despots will try and dehumanize people by taking their culture away and erasing it.  This was Hitler’s method.  It’s also the method of totalitarian Muslim sects like ISIS and Al Queda.  Recently ISIS blew up yet another international treasure.
One of the more interesting pieces of Robert’s book was the complicity of society in helping the Nazi’s out.  There were far more collaborators than resistance.  We tend to romanticize the resistance fighters.  But, the truth is different.  The truth is very uncomfortable.  Many French were at ease with the Nazi’s.  They built roads and bridges.  Life didn’t change that much for them.  They profited off the war.
Robert’s foundation isn’t only about the past.  It’s about what is going on today as well.   Click the link and check it out.  He is doing work today in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I wonder about territories that are taken over by totalitarian muslims.  Is it the same as countries routed by the Nazis?  We are led to believe that the people don’t want them.  Certainly, the people that risk their lives to get people out from their clutches are heroic.  People that are fighting them daily are also heroic.  But, somewhere someone is complicit and just goes along with the terrorists.  Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to exist and hold territory.
The aftermath of WW2 is certainly still with us today.  It permeates a lot of things.  Because of laws, and the hush hush complicity of people during that time, it’s awfully hard to make restitution of things like paintings to the people that should own them.  Russia is full of stolen art that the Red Army took from the Nazi’s.
I suspect the aftermath of organizations like Al Queda and ISIS will be with us for years to come.  We only hear about the big things they are destroying.  If they are destroying things like that-what about the little things?

[nopleez]

hitler did nothing wrong

[Christian]

Crack kills.

[La Flama Blanca]

What Causes Most Below-Sea-Level Depressions?
 

Most major depressions are associated with tectonic plate boundaries. They form when converging plates deform or when spreading centers open. A few are volcanic in origin. Most of these depressions are in the northern hemisphere for a good reason: this is where most of the land is and where most of the plate boundaries occur. Many are found in the vicinity of where the African, Arabian and Eurasian plates meet. Most are found in hot desert regions of the planet where high evaporation rates prevent them from filling with water. A few are found in temperature climes. 

Many well-populated places in the world are below sea level. About a third of the Netherlands including Schiphol Airport is below sea level. So too are the Jordan River and parts of many coastal cities including New Orleans and Bangkok. Other regions below sea level are the Enriquillo-Cul de Sac Depression (Hispaniola), Chott Melrhir Depression (Algeria), Sebkhet Shunayn and Sabkhat Ghuzayyil (Libya), Shatt al Gharsah (Tunisia), Lammefjord (Denmark), Sebkha Tah (Morocco), Hachiro-gata (Japan), Sariqarnish Kuli (Uzbekistan), The Fens (UK) and Lake Eyre, Australia. Of the two hundred and fifty five recognized countries or protectorates in the world, 33 have land below sea level. Most of these are only a few meters down. 

Some below-sea-level depressions are dry, most others have salt lakes. The lakes are undrained, which means water flows in but does not flow out. Since water cannot flow up hill, the lakes cannot empty into the sea like most do and so they accumulate salt as their waters evaporate. Where does the salt originate? Some of it comes from ancient sea floor salt deposits that have been uplifted then weather and release the salt which reaches the depressions via rivers. Many other rocks weather to yield sodium and chlorine ions that are carried to the lake by rivers. The Sea of Galilee is below sea Level but is a freshwater lake because it drains into the Dead Sea through the Jordan River. 

Owing to variations in rainfall, evaporation rates, and human water use, most of the lake levels fluctuate from year to year. Some have come and gone in historic times. The present Salton Sea was produced by a canal construction accident in 1905, though the lake has come and gone naturally many times in the last thousand years. 

The lowest exposed land on Earth is at the Dead Sea shore, at -413 meters. The deepest lake bottom in a below-sea-level depression also belongs to the Dead Sea at -750 meters. Lake Baikal in Russia is at an elevation of 447 meters, but with a maximum depth of 1637 meters, its bottom lies at -1190 meters. 

The Bentley Subglacial Trench in Antarctica reaches 2555 meters below sea level. It is the lowest point on Earth that is not covered by ocean, although it is covered by ice. The trench is huge, roughly the size of Mexico. The deepest point on the ocean floors is -10,916 meters in the Mariana Trench. Trenches are the upper most parts of subduction zones and there are dozens of trench locations that are more than 5000 meters below sea level. 

Strictly speaking, most of the surface of the Earth is below sea level because oceans cover 71 % of the planet. But sea level varies and during the Great Ice Age 18,000 years ago, sea level was 130 meters lower. Today, large areas are under water that during the Great Ice Age were well above sea level. It is also likely that long ago and far into the future, plate tectonics will produce higher mountains and deeper trenches and depressions than we have today. 

[Tronald]

Why are we shitposting

[polaroid]

Very informative!
I love examining history and seeing the differences between what is taught in school (the U.S. perspective) and all others because history itself is extremely biased.
Really cool post :)