PBS Forum

Today I read someone draw a parallel between the Nordstream and the Berlin to Baghdad railway. Before WW1, the B-B railway was the German's way of getting oil. One of the first moves of Britain was to invade Iraq and stop work on the railway when it was just 400 miles short of completion.

Quote from: CG100 on March 22, 2023, 04:18:46 PMIt is utter nonsense.

"Truth is treason in an empire of lies."  Attributed to Dr. Ron Paul.

Quote from: David Pilling on March 23, 2023, 05:45:30 AMOne of the first moves of Britain was to invade Iraq and stop work on the railway when it was just 400 miles short of completion.

Was this accomplished with the aid of Lawrence of Arabia - T.E. Lawrence? 

On a lighter side now that Spring has sprung this week.  One of the heralds of Spring is the return of the peregrine falcons to Salisbury Cathedral in the UK. Each year they return to raise the next generation of young falcons in their eyrie high atop the spires of Cathedral. 

The good folks there have placed a series of webcams for us to be able to observe the pair lay eggs, hatch them, and feed and raise the young falcons.  After many months, the babies mature and fly away. 

It was nice to watch this happen during the covid years.  Here's the link.  But beware, when the chicks get larger, the parents bring them lots of prey to eat, mostly large pigeons and rooks.

https://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/discover/peregrine-falcons/peregrine-live-webcam/

Enjoy.

Peregrines are verging on common-place in the UK these days - the limiting factor will be suitable nest sites as they always choose tall rock/concrete formations of some kind. Most areas have ample feral pigeons for them although them taking significant numbers of rooks is a surprise as rooks are becoming extremely scarce - I would imagine that magpies, jackdaws and carrion crows would all out-number rooks by quite a margin.

Maybe there is a convenient rookery providing easy pickings?

Ravens are similarly common now too - if I spend any significant time outdoors here at home, I would expect to hear at least one and it is usually a pair. They even nest at work on a gantry and that is on the outskirts of Derby (peregrines also hunt the pigeons there). Ravens are easily missed unless they call and if they have nothing near to them to indicate their size, they are easily ignored as just being crows. (Oddly, UK ravens are actually a bigger race than the same species in NA.)

Quote from: Bern on March 23, 2023, 06:29:38 AMWas this accomplished with the aid of Lawrence of Arabia - T.E. Lawrence? 

I was thinking of my grandfather. The mind's eye sees that movie clip, Peter O Toole, blowing up trains:

https://youtu.be/vOlRhGEhG7k?t=54

As far as I can discover TEL was elsewhere in the Middle East.

There was a long Mesopotamia ("Messpot" aka Iraq) campaign, the horrors of WW1 were not confined to the trenches in France:

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/mesopotamia-campaign

My grandfather did not get back until the 1920s.

He fought for the British Empire when he was 20, by the time he was 50 the Empire was gone. By the time he was 80 I was sharing an office with an Iraqi scientist who told me my grandfather was a criminal (along with everyone else involved).

Quote from: CG100 on March 23, 2023, 06:56:40 AMPeregrines are verging on common-place in the UK these days

I was excited to have a Kestrel in my garden for a year or two. But it is a bargain basement bird of prey, no big deal for the experts. It did not tackle the aggressive seagulls, probably a pointer to the plentiful supply of mice.

Peregrine Falcons Nesting Webcam - Salisbury Cathedral UK  Here's the link.

https://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/discover/peregrine-falcons/peregrine-live-webcam/

Here are a few photos to cue people who are used to seeing text that this link is worth following for the next few months.



 









 

Quote from: David Pilling on March 23, 2023, 10:44:22 AMHe fought for the British Empire when he was 20, by the time he was 50 the Empire was gone. By the time he was 80 I was sharing an office with an Iraqi scientist who told me my grandfather was a criminal (along with everyone else involved).

When I first moved to Virginia in 1989, Robert E. Lee was a revered figure and native son.  After the Civil War, Lee's full rights of citizenship were posthumously restored by a joint congressional resolution effective June 13, 1865.  Tourists came to the state from all over the world to visit the historic monuments and battlefields.

Rioters defaced his statue in May 2020 and it has since been removed. It had stood at its location for 130 years.  He has now been cancelled.  What a difference a few years make in the popular mind.

My only comment is that things just happen faster now than 10-30 years ago. 

No one wears leather shoes that I know, shoemakers have all but vanished in this area.

I could go on. 

Quote from: Arnold on March 23, 2023, 06:09:26 PMNo one wears leather shoes that I know

Fortunately, the UK hasn't reached that level of stupidity, not yet anyway.

I really just cannot get my head around all of this current PC madness - we have had plenty of that, including removal of statues, here in the UK too. What on earth does it achieve? Some people seem convinced that they can change the past through meaningless empty gestures.

The further you go back in history, as a generalisation, the more barbaric and unjust people become, so why are only recent figures attacked? Why does no-one bother with equally large symbols of man's inhumanity to man from more than 200 years or so ago? There are plenty in the UK from times going back to long pre-Roman (essentially BC for the non-Brits).

Quote from: CG100 on March 24, 2023, 03:34:32 AM

Quote from: Arnold on March 23, 2023, 06:09:26 PMNo one wears leather shoes that I know

Fortunately, the UK hasn't reached that level of stupidity, not yet anyway.

You mean I can get cancelled/un-friended for having leather uppers... 

Confederate flags are not as common as they once where (even here) and the Dixie car horns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAKksqKR3pI

of my youth are long gone.

For me the story is how governments manage their mistakes. They don't tell their returning troops they have been part of a criminal enterprise, they're heroes, then years later they apologise.

History was not taken as seriously in the past. I can see the modern point of view. On the other hand history is rarely accurate and seeing everything from the point of view of the past is a proven recipe for disaster.

There's a George Orwell quote that addresses this.  I'll have to dig it up.

Lately there is mass insanity wherein schools are eagerly granting parents "more say in their children's education." This seems to express itself in book banning. Primarily seems to demand that children are too innocent to read about sex (haven't seen anything about banning books with a focus on violence) Yank the books off the shelves. Don't even have to read the book to demand it be banned, someone else has already screamed for banning and they just agree.

Someone has now demanded that the bible be banned - all that rape, incest, etc Oh the humanity . . .

Quote from: David Pilling on March 20, 2023, 06:22:32 PMToday UK media has been remembering 20 years since the invasion of Iraq - they've been quite scathing about the false information used to support it.

There were a lot of US weapons inspectors who said that there were no WMD in Iraq and that an invasion was not called for.  I believed their viewpoint until the UK government came out in support of the war.  I thought that UK government must know more about the WMD issue and that their support for the war brought it credibility.  Boy, was I wrong. 

The suicide of Dr. David Kelly and the fallout resulting from it was only the beginning of the revelations about the falsehoods used to justify the war.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/do-you-remember-what-happened-to-david-kelly/

The Chilcot report published in 2016 was revelatory, to say the least.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/iraq-inquiry-key-points-from-the-chilcot-report

"For me the story is how governments manage their mistakes. They don't tell their returning troops they have been part of a criminal enterprise, they're heroes, then years later they apologize."

In the US, they are always heroes; there is no apology.