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Lake Ontario ("Lake America")
- karussell 1mo agoSee: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1206310 https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1206310 name:en=Lake Ontario vs. official_name:en-US=Lake America
- ben_w 1mo agoMakes me wonder, has North Korea or Iran made an equivalent declaration about naming the USA "사탄의 겨드랑이" or "زیر بغل شیطان"? (Google Translate from "Satan's armpit"). I mean, if temper tantrums by the supreme executive are allowed and all.
- abirch 1mo agoOr a future president renaming Mar-a-lago as Epstein's Resort... this opens the door to all kinds of petty behavior.
- ben_w 1mo agoHe should've renamed New Mexico to New America. I read a while back the state name causes confusion amongst those who think it's part of Mexico. And while he's at it, Georgia could become Trumpia to avoid confusion with the nation of the same name. (Why even do you have a state named after the granddad of the king you fought off?) But I guess those might accidentally be useful, so of course he's not going to do them. :P
- andrewaylett 1mo agoIt seems that there are 363,123 `official_name:` tags in OSM [1], and the discussion thread hints that at least some* of them are due to naming disputes. Given (according to the thread) no-one actually renders the tag on their maps, using that tag in this case seems like a good policy. [1]: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/official_name#overview https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/official_name#overvie...
- yongjik 1mo agoNorth Korea has all sort of nasty names ready to throw at America, South Korea, or others, though at least I think they're just name-calling, not considering them as "official" names. (So, in a twisted sense, even North Korea is more adult-like than Trump. I guess that's another cause of celebration for some HN commenters who look up to Trump for being the manly leader who boldly does the right thing that nobody else dares to do.) Thankfully, North Korea's antics doesn't matter, because nobody is trying to sell map service to North Koreans anyway.
- Gormo 1mo agoNot sure it's really valid to call this "official". Trump can issue an executive order to the USGS to change names in the GNIS, but the use of USGS/GNIS data as the "official" name of things outside of the federal executive's own activities is itself just a matter of convention.
- cebert 1mo agoI apologize to my Canadian friends. This is embarrassing.
- abirch 1mo agoThis is Idiocracy the movie IRL. I can't wait for plants to need electrolytes.
- drooopy 1mo agoIn the meantime, might I interest you in some protein water?
- polotics 1mo agoI disagree. This trolling and misdirection are not in the movie. Also, both are clearly effective, and a discourse that warps economic impact on US midterms voters within identities, reduces the chance of exposing the bad consequences and risks of power-politics. So this is quite well timed, and the outrageous quotient is I think also well calibrated. Charles Chaplin understood it, so please y'all catch up ASAP.
- throw0101a 1mo ago> This is Idiocracy the movie IRL. The difference being that in the movie Idiocracy the President didn't assume he knew everything and was willing to listen to people who knew more than him.
- ryandvm 1mo agoJesus, please do not remind me that the President in Idiocracy had better leadership skills than our actual President.
- jameskilton 1mo agoNo, I'd much rather have Idiocracy than the orange buffoon we actually have in office.
- lokipumper 1mo ago[dead]
- fallingfrog 1mo agoPretty sure lake Ontario was named after the native people who lived on its shores, not after the Canadian province. I suppose, lake Michigan and lake Huron are the same. Perhaps we can name them all lake America.
- roenxi 1mo agoThis is an improvement on starting a war on oil markets and getting I've-lost-count-how-many innocents killed in the Middle East. So in many ways this could be considered a step up for US foreign policy. If Trump can stick to low-stakes pettiness that would be a real win for us all.
- Steve16384 1mo agoHe's doing this as well as all the wars.
- kijashdkujdfhas 1mo agoWhat high stakes stuff stopped when he did this, specifically?
- gmuslera 1mo agoHow much till Planet America?
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- diego_moita 1mo agoAs a Canadian, I have to admit: Trump is very, very talented in manipulating the discourse in the public arena. Gradually, he is steering away the public discussion from what matters: the Iran War, inflation, the abusive police state created by ICE, the rise of China and weakening of international standing of US... We're making a lot of noise about what doesn't matter: what's the name of a lake. It is like when I admonish my 4 year old son about something he did and he replies: "Look over there!". I think the name of this trick is "non-sequitur". And you know the funniest part? It has been working for years and will keep working! Remember the "immigrants eat our cats and dogs"? This low-level debating is exactly what Neil Postman described in "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business", in 1985. The entertainment industry makes everyone stupid.
- drstewart 1mo ago>And you know the funniest part? It has been working for years and will keep! On Canadians too. Remember what party was leading the polls before Trump started mean tweets?
- tavavex 1mo agoCorrection: remember what party was leading before they had to fight a far more popular opposition, before they became the recommended choice of the US, before they tried to import the American culture wars into Canada and before they infamously twiddled their thumbs and did nothing while the Americans were starting to talk of annexation?
- throw0101a 1mo ago> Gradually, he is steering away the public discussion from what matters: the Iran War, inflation, the abusive police state created by ICE, the rise of China and weakening of international standing of US... The Epstein Files.
- graemep 1mo agoLots of countries change the names of things, even countries themselves.. Bombay to Mumbai, Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Turkey to Türkiye etc. Yes, some of those are specific to a name in a particular language and all have precedents rather than being entirely new. However, it is a precedent for governments deciding the names of things. This, as its just made up, reminds me a lot of political/nationalist renaming of things like roads which is very common in parts of South Asia.
- kijashdkujdfhas 1mo agoWorse than made up, it's the sort of thing an angry 6 year old would come up with. Totally unserious behavior, and it's ridiculous that Americans and the rest of the world have to put up with this nonsense. A small number of Republican representatives and senators could end it all today by publicly supporting impeachment.
- butokai 1mo agoI feel like instances of this kind of decision (also from your examples) fall into two groups: replacing names from colonization with local names, and... Second group name left as an exercise to the reader.
- graemep 1mo agoThere is less difference than you imply. It is nationalists who are keenest on replacing colonial names. Not all name changes are of colonial names either. What about when the locals are perfectly happy with the colonial name and politicians (maybe distant from the place) want to change it? I read elsewhere that Map Quest refused to use "Lake America". I was pleased to find, pretty much on the other wide of the world, their maps also still use the name "Duplication Road" after many decades.
- Gormo 1mo agoAttempts by political states to attempt to nationalize the vernacular should be ignored and rejected in all cases. The examples you're citing are less ridiculous than these recent stunts, but still should be considered in terms of their intentions and effects. What's the motivation for trying to detatch the name of something from its existing understanding and historical context? Why should the attempts to "rebrand" an entire country or geographical feature made by a government -- a particular instituion within society, usually under the control of one narrow faction in opposition to others -- be respected by the whole of society within that country, let alone by people in foreign countries speaking a different language? Why should, for example, the Turkish government -- which operates in the Turkish language, where "Türkiye" already was the standard name of their country -- be respected in its attempt to get English speakers to write the country's name in orthography that is not readily pronounceable by English speakers, and using characters that aren't standard on our keyboard layouts?
- gizajob 1mo agoCanada should change the name of the country below them to “Bottom Canada” Honestly can’t believe there’s a few million very smart people in America who have to put up with this. Bridges for Americans worldwide are being burned to the ground and there’s no sign of a new enlightened political age arriving on any horizon. Canadians also don’t seem to understand that this situation is only going to get worse and America can no longer be considered a friend.
- yogthos 1mo agoNorth Cuba yearns for freedom and democracy.
- roter 1mo ago> Canadians also don’t seem to understand that this situation is only going to get worse and America can no longer be considered a friend. As a Canadian, I very much understand that this will/can get worse, and not just for the US. The problems of America do not stop at Trump. He is merely the distracting, mercurial figurehead of a dysfunctional government and populist movement. It is not a matter of friendship --- the average American isn't that different than the average Canadian. Some of my best friends and favoured colleagues are Americans. We can't turn this into Americans v. Canadians. We're all just getting exposed to the same social media cues that feed on fear and despair driven by profit and bad actors which leads to an erosion of trust and goodwill. America may just be a few short years ahead of the rest of us. We need to recognize who/what is driving us apart and fight that.
- gizajob 1mo agoI can totally appreciate that there’s really not much of a difference between Americans and Canadians in terms of mindset and habits. What i mean is that if Canadians are going to want to stay as Canadians, then they really are going to have to fight for it.
- fatbird 1mo ago> "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt," said the late Pierre Trudeau. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-june-17-2018-1.4692469/sleeping-with-a-very-cranky-elephant-the-history-of-canada-u-s-tensions-1.4699017 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-june-17-2...
- PowerElectronix 1mo agoThe clown show will continue until geopolitical goals are achieved.
- butokai 1mo agoI am Italian, and we get quite pissed when the government issues executive orders (the head of state can't do it), although it happens relatively often. I live in France, and when the president resorted to using them it felt like he was threatening democracy. The US mechanism seems the strongest of the three, and people have considered this a normal thing in a democracy long enough for this to happen.
- bakies 1mo agoExecutive Orders really aren't that powerful. They can only command the executive branch to do something and are not legislature at all. Trump is certainly proving you can get pretty creative with enforcement to enact terror though, I'd agree to that.
- nullocator 1mo agoHalf the members of the legislature act like Trump is a king and believe that his Executive Orders are the same as laws signed by themselves. They've said as much on national television.
- kijashdkujdfhas 1mo agoThis also creates these weird situations where the courts (or the Supreme Court, at least) says "Well the executive order is just an order, and federal agencies will actually have to implement it, and until we see the specific implementation, gosh, we can't evaluate whether the order is to do an illegal thing, even though it's pretty clear that illegal things will be necessary to implement the order. Maybe they'll find a legal way to do it, who knows? We certainly don't!" Clown court.
- bufbupa 1mo agoThis feels like the right-wing equivalent of pronoun policing lol. Crazy how the extremes of the political spectrum are so close to each other (like a horseshoe), yet hate each other so much. Doesn't seem like the polarization is near to ratcheting down though, at least not by judging from the comments in this thread.
- morkalork 1mo ago“If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think.”
- Gormo 1mo ago> This feels like the right-wing equivalent of pronoun policing lol. Nothing about it feels "right-wing" at all -- actual conservatism is all about maintaining continuity and avoiding forced changes to traditional conventions and established social norms. Trump and his followers are a competing faction of the extreme left, as should be readily evidenced by his economic policies, and it's not at all surprising that he shares the same mentality of inserting political shibboleths into mundane aspects of everyday life.
- josefritzishere 1mo agoIt has become painfully evident that he has fairly advanced dementia.
- JKCalhoun 1mo agoSimple policy (Apple, Google, etc, can adopt): Changes to major landmarks require a 5-year grace period (wait 5 years).
- ndsipa_pomu 1mo agoWe shall now know it as Lake Epstein
- harkenugent 1mo ago[dead]