T. Jayasinghe is a Jadetimes news reporter covering Travel News
Image Source : Caldera Kayak
Tucked away in the glorious Eastern Sierra region of California lies the shimmering Crowley Lake-a reservoir of rich history and natural beauty. Lying 15 miles south of Mammoth Lakes in southern Mono County, Crowley Lake is anything but a plain body of water; it's an enviable hot spot for outdoor enthusiasts, nature lovers, and adventure-seeking individuals alike.
A Man-Made Marvel with Natural Allure
Crowley Lake was created in 1941 with the construction of the Long Valley Dam on the Owens River for water storage for Los Angeles as part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct system. Since then, it has taken on a life of its own and developed a unique ecosystem within its picture-postcard surroundings that fold almost seamlessly into the dramatic beauty of the Eastern Sierra.
Its tranquil, azure waters, reflecting towering peaks of the Sierra Nevada, afford in each direction beautiful scenery. But its natural appeal extends considerably beyond the beauty of its landscapes.
A Paradise for Fishing
Crowley Lake is one of the most well-known lakes that anglers like to come and participate in fishing. Thousands of fishermen visit Crowley Lake every year due to prestige among anglers for being one of the hotspots to find "rainbow, brown, and cutthroat trout". The most particular trout fishing season takes place from April to November. In a nutshell, cooler waters and nutrient-rich habitat are perfect for large, healthy fish populations.
Crowley Lake has also hosted many fishing tournaments, plenty of excitement for amateur and seasoned anglers alike.
Image Source : Caldera Kayak
Adventure and Recreation for All
Besides fishing, Crowley Lake is an adventure playground. "Boating, kayaking, paddleboarding, and jet skiing" are the more popular options to get out on the reservoir's sparkling waters, while its surrounding landscapes are perfect for hiking, bird-watching, and photography.
The environs of Crowley Lake offer excellent camping facilities for a serene experience amidst nature. The sunset over Crowley Lake is incomparable with the stunning shades reflected on the water and in the mountains.
Crowley Lake's Mysterious Columns
Another of the most interesting-less well-known-features of Crowley Lake is the **Crowley Lake Columns**: hundreds of tall, pillar-like columns dramatically rise from the shoreline along its eastern shore. Formed by volcanic activity and erosion, these natural wonders liken them to ancient ruins, even alien landscapes. Their actual origins remain a matter of scientific study, but beauty is not in dispute, which draws curious travelers and photographers from far and wide.
Image Source : live small ride free page
A Destination for All Seasons
From the splash of a trout bite to the serenity of paddling across glassy waters, Crowley Lake offers something for every taste. Its proximity to "Mammoth Lakes" and other nearby attractions makes it an ideal base from which to explore the wider Eastern Sierra region. Crowley Lake enjoys year-round beauty and recreation, from snow-capped peaks in winter to vibrant fall foliage and summer wildflower blooms.
Crowley Lake welcomes for rest, adventure, and proximity to nature all those who are running away from the hustle and bustle of city life.
C. Janith is a Jadetimes news reporter covering science and geopolitics.
A number of recent events related in some way or another to the issue of Taiwan serve as reason to return to this topic.
Image Source : (Andrea Izzotti/shutterstock.com)
The ‘week of China’ in US Congress
As has been noted repeatedly in Jadetimes, US Congress demonstrates enviable efficiency when it comes to forming a legislative framework to carry out various kinds of attacks against its main geopolitical opponent: China. At the same time, the process of stamping various legislative acts in relation to certain ‘violations’, as well as ‘threats’, is continuous, and the focus is periodically shifted (depending on the current political situation) from one of several well-established topics to another.
These include almost everything that happens in Xizang (Tibet Autonomous Region), Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Hong Kong and, finally, Taiwan. Moreover, the resolution of various problems arising here, generally speaking, falls within the competence of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China. In relation to this, the following question arises: dear congressmen, what do you want 15,000km away from your territory? Don’t you have enough problems at home? They should instead put in a similar effort for the benefit of their own citizens, who already seem ready to shoot at each other.
Seeing as Beijing cannot yet exercise direct control over Taiwan, and Washington’s real political goal (although not advertised) is to deprive the former of such an opportunity for the foreseeable future, Congress is particularly zealous regarding the Taiwan issue. The most recent event in this regard was the September 9 adoption of the draft law ‘Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act’ of 2023 118th Congress (2023-2024), by the lower house of Congress.
Against the background of other acts adopted in recent years on the topic of Taiwan, this latter is very specific in nature; it is almost the first time that it is targeting certain specific individuals of the ‘top Chinese leadership’, who are threatened by having ‘confidential information’ published, for example the unearned incomes of some of them. The reason for this may be Beijing’s ‘non-peaceful way’ of solving the Taiwan problem.
The Taipei Times commentary on the adoption of said act says that this time US lawmakers “creatively and effectively” approached the problem of the ‘defence’ of the island. It should be noted in this regard that the Chinese leadership itself (and often with extremely harsh methods) is fighting corruption in various echelons of power. However, apparently, US lawmakers have reason to believe that it is insufficient.
Let us also recall that all these anti-Chinese dances around the Taiwan issue are taking place against the background of Washington’s declarations of recognising the ‘one China policy’, recently confirmed during a visit to China by the US President’s National Security Adviser J. Sullivan. At the same time, they announced their intention to continue supplying Taiwan with the most modern US military equipment – a truly amazing way of combining two completely incompatible things.
Meanwhile, the adoption by the lower house of US Congress of the above-mentioned act opened ‘the week of China’, during which it was supposed to approve as many as 28 legislative documents affecting various aspects of relations between the two leading world powers. Still, the fact itself of the adoption of the very specific Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act is particularly noteworthy.
The issue of Taiwan is becoming an organic element of the transformation of the situation in the region as a whole
This has already been noted in New Eastern Outlook in connection with continuous events being held, for example the US-Philippine ‘Balikatan’ exercises and the Pacific Island Forum (PIF). The scenario of the Balikatan exercises, along with the traditional motive of the escalating situation in the South China Sea, for the first time included the Taiwan issue. As for the latest PIF, this issue turned out to be at the centre of plots conducted on the sidelines of this event by both leading world powers.
Let us note the tendency of Washington nominating the Philippines as one of the ‘frontmen’ of the anti-Chinese ‘orchestra’, which the US is forming in the Southeast Asian region. The aforementioned candidate for this role tries not to deceive the expectations of the ‘conductor’. It is reported that Manila is attempting to organise a ‘summit of at least 20 states’ on the topic of the situation in the South China Sea on the sidelines of the upcoming regular UN General Assembly. There are also plans to carry out some ‘defensive’ measures on small islands belonging to the Philippines in the Luzon Strait, the northernmost of which is located 140km from Taiwan.
Thus, there is a prospect of such a level of aggravation of the situation in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan area, which is fraught with an out-of-control ‘conductor’. This is not yet included in the plans of the latter, who seeks to keep the entire system of relations with China within the framework of ‘crisis management’. This is exactly what National Security Adviser to the President of the United States, J. Sullivan, did during talks in Beijing.
During negotiations with the head of the PLA Southern Command, General Wu Yanan, held on September 10 in a videoconference format, the head of the Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral S. Paparo, was faced with the same task. The Pentagon representative also did the same at the Xiangshan International Security Forum (the Chinese equivalent of the Shangri-la Dialogue, which started a day later in Beijing).
The aggravation of the situation in the subregion, which is formed by Taiwan and the Southeast Asian countries, worries not only the players directly involved in it. In this regard, the 12-day trip of Pope Francis to a number of Southeast Asian and Oceanian countries in the first half of September is noteworthy. The official goals of visiting Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore did not go beyond matters of local Catholic Christian communities, but Pope Francis is too important in modern politics, which, we repeat, is becoming increasingly tense in the region of the visit, to limit the goals of this trip in the way indicated above.
By the way, they were awaiting him in Taiwan as well, but the response was not reciprocal. This once again testifies to the desire of Pope Francis to position himself above the current political struggles. As for China, although Beijing does not have official relations with the Vatican, the fact that this tour took place was positively assessed here.
An opposition leader has been arrested in Taiwan
Finally, a remarkable event that happened at the end of August in the domestic political field of Taiwan itself drew attention to itself, i.e. the arrest of the leader of the third most important Taiwanese People’s Party (TPP), Ko Wenje, at the request of the prosecutor’s office on the grounds of suspected corruption during the construction of a certain commercial facility in Taipei during his tenure (until 2022) as mayor of this city.
Following the results of the general elections held in January this year, the TPP has the third-largest faction in parliament and, together with the Kuomintang, which took the first place, forms a parliamentary majority. It is in opposition to the president, who represents the Democratic Progressive Party, and the government he is forming. This creates certain inconveniences (mostly in a public sense) for the island’s executive power, which is acting virtually uncontrollably. It is the TPP and the current president, William Lai, who are the messengers of Washington’s policy on the island.
Immediately after the elections, the opposition announced its intention to establish some kind of control over the president and the government; suspicions arose about the political bias of the prosecution of one of its leaders, who provoked mass street protests, to which the pro-government Taipei Times reacted in two ways: on the one hand, the suspicions were rejected, but, at the same time, transparent hints are made about certain ‘flaws’ in the current political course of the TPP.
As for Washington, it now has to operate in Taiwan in a less comfortable environment than in the previous eight-year period of undivided domination on the island of the TPP. The methods of the former, however, are becoming more sophisticated.
This is illustrated by Congress passing the (quite specific) ‘Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act’.
C. Janith is a Jadetimes news reporter covering science and geopolitics.
US Sanctions against RT, which were announced on September 13th, continue a trend towards the collapse of the US dollar as global reserve currency, and demoting the country to ‘third world status’ as Donald Trump revealed on September 5th, 2024, during the New York Economic Forum.
Image Source : (Bill Clark CQ Roll Call)
This and other sanctions upend The US Financial Empire, based on charging countries tributes as they invest their surplus in the US financial system or use USD for international settlement.
On September 13th, American’s announced sanction against Russian Media Rossiya Segodnya, the state-owned proprietor of RT, for allegations that Washington could not prove. In a seemingly rehearsed statement, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken blamed RT for being a threat to democracy, citing unproved allegations that it engaged ‘covert’ and ‘Subversive’ activities. Alongside sanctions, Blinken announced Washington’s plan to create a resilient Global Informational System to control and rank the news people around the world received.
Blinken’s statement reflects desperate efforts to maintain Washington’s Empire
The US acted as the judge, the jury, and the executor in a blatant attempt to silence dissent. While blaming RT, for being state-owned, Blinken hypocritically omitted how Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and BBC are also owned and directed by states. Similarly, western corporate media work for western corporations that run the US government. Therefore, Blinken and his puppet masters seek a world where information is monopolized by Washington and London, using sanctions which threatens their financial empire.
An Information Empire to defend a Failing Financial One
Blinken’s statement reflects desperate efforts to maintain Washington’s Empire, which needs centralized control of information to distract exploited subjects by pointing them to some bogeyman they should worry about. Russia has been cast as this monster, which the EU (especially Germany) should deindustrialize itself to fight, by sanctioning Moscow’s energy resources, even to the empire’s detriment. Africans are also distracted away from the US exploitation, endless wars, and European colonialism to instead worry about Russia’s influence which brings security, aid, and investment. Still, the west’s paranoid empire cannot stand the presence of Russians Opinions and has resulted to further sanctions, undermining its dollar for delusions of grandeur that are progressively becoming unattainable each passing day. The American’s Global Informational System has not, and will not, change the underlying reality that the US has lost ground through its love for sanctions, which the Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump warned will make the US a Third World country.
On 5th September 2024, Trump made the most significant revelation yet that the US Empire lives off other countries, and would become a Third World country if it lost this ability by losing the ‘dollar standard’. Ironically, Trump made this revelation at the Economic Club of New York, in which attendants were financialists (debt sellers) and not economists. They included Steve Mnuchin, Jay Clayton, and David Malpass, (all former) Secretary of Treasury, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and Head of The World Bank respectively. They do not run productive units for creating products to meet human needs and wants as economists would, and their role reflect Washington’s. Instead, they sustain a scheme that creates USD out of thin air and sells it for real assets, resources, and labour. This class still has the audacity to sanction countries with resources and factories, (Russia, Iran and China), while expecting the targeted countries to submit to such injustice.
Charging Tributes on Countries through the ‘Dollar Standard’
Trump’s reference to the ‘dollar standard’ emphasizes how the USD, which the world is conditioned to view as a free ‘standard’ is essentially a tool through which Washington charges tributes from parties using it. During the event one moderator introduced his question by describing how the US uses sanctions to advance national security interests, and foreign policy objectives, before asking Trump if he would strengthen or modify sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which bombed by NATO. Washington is not willing to miss any opportunity to squeeze more anti-Russian sanctions, even from destroyed infrastructure. Still, sanctioning Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea based on national security, justification shows how Washington’s ruling class’ views the entire world as a part of its territory. Trump’s, reply revealed that these sanctions were pushing the US Empire towards losing the US ‘dollar standard’, which could be devastating as seen in the quote;
The problem with what we have with sanctions and I was the user of sanctions but I put them on and take them off as quickly as possible because ultimately it kills your dollar and kills everything the dollar represents and we have to continue to have that be the world’s currency. I think it is important, I think we’ll be losing a war, if we lost the dollar as the world’s currency. I think that will be equivalent of losing a war and that will make us a third world country, and we can’t let that happen.
The question and Trump’s response, while reinforcing the US imperial attitude, also denotes cognizance of the empire’s limitations, beyond what narrative managers can conceal. Trump would continue boasting that he imposed sanctions on ‘deserving countries’ and withdrew them, before the targeted countries could seek alternatives, stating, “We are losing Iran, we are losing Russia, and China is trying to spread its currency”, revealing extreme narcissistic behavior. He boasted of destabilizing trade, economies, and hence livelihoods, a behavior that also undercuts the USD by reducing the usury it attracts on foreign trade settlements. His thinking that countries cannot naturally seek alternatives to the US-based payment system after experiencing deliberate sabotage through sanctions reveals an alarming level of imperial hubris.
Sanctions Accelerate Dedollarization
Mr. Trump and now Blinken think that sanctioned countries will always rush to the USD after sanctions are removed, which might not happen. Sanctions against Rossiya Segodnya, and RT continues in this line of shortsighted actions that undermines the US Financial Empire. In the highly unlikely event that these sanctions will silence alternative voice in the global setup, they will achieve this result while also accelerating dedollarization and crippling Washington’s system of collecting tributes. The ultimate outcome is what Trump feared while bemoaning that the US was losing to Russia, Iran, and China. Washington’s ruling class repeatedly smear the three countries using various nasty labels, but it still wants to collect usury from their trade and resources. These countries have created better life than the third world status Trump fears the US would fall into without the dollar as the global standard. Trump’s Revelation should be noted by all American supremacists and should be used to dispel their misplaced superiority complex, as they have built a system that would rapidly fall into third world status if it was not sponging on others.
