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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (96731)	2/28/2005 10:56:33 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Not to change the subject, but this story is about our tour guide... story.news.yahoo.com Crows Culled to Save Tower of London Ravens Mon Feb 28, 8:51 AM ET Oddly Enough - Reuters By Paul Majendie LONDON (Reuters) - If legend is to be believed, the future of the British monarchy lies in the hands of a sharp-shooting warder at the Tower of London. For the six ravens who roam one of Britain's landmark fortresses are under threat from up to 200 crows who have invaded their royal domain, spreading disease and stealing food. So every Sunday at dawn, before the daily tourist invasion begins, Yeoman Warder Derrick Coyle roams The Tower with his .22 air rifle to cull the crows. For the beefeater, it is a weighty responsibility securing a haven for the ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens leave, The Tower of London will fall and so will the monarchy. The 17th century monarch Charles II decreed that there must always be six ravens in residence. "Urban crows are on the increase and they are a growing problem for us," said a spokeswoman for Historic Royal Palaces, which runs the Tower of London. "The ravenmaster has his own culling strategy. He goes out at dawn and looks for the crows that he knows are ill -- they have matted feathers and a mangy appearance," she told Reuters. Rarely has a collective noun been more appropriate in English -- a gathering of crows is known as a murder of crows. The sharpshooter is particularly on the lookout for crows who might have swallowed rat poison. The ravens themselves eat like kings -- from chicken hearts bought each morning by the ravenmaster at London's Smithfields Market to biscuits soaked in blood. But life in the lap of avian luxury has apparently not always been so appealing. One raven, Grog, spent 21 years at the Tower when he suddenly felt the need for a change in 1981 -- he was last spotted in the East End of London outside a pub called the Rose and Punchbowl. Neither is it a job for life. The Governor of the Tower has been known to dismiss ravens for "conduct unbecoming." In 1986, one miscreant called George was given his marching orders after developing a taste for TV aerials.

To: epicure who wrote (96731)	3/1/2005 9:24:38 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

"that the USSR might have been a force for stability in the ME and republics does not mean they were ALWAYS a stabilizing force. " The problem I see there is that I can come up with numerous examples from history where the USSR was a serious DEstabilizing influence. But none where they were a stabilizing influence. For example, just considering the ME for the moment and looking at a few big conflicts: - the USSR poured arms into Saddam's arsenal makig possible his unnecessary wars which killed millions of people - the USSR provided arms and military advisors/personel (Russian pilots are known to have been shot down by Israel) to Syria and Egypt so they could go to war and threaten war against Israel (the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza might never have occurred if not for Soviet encouragement of Syria and Egypt) - the USSR provided arms, military advisors, and Cuban troops to both sides in the horn of Africa - first to Somalia, then to Ethiopia when the USSR switched sides - the USSR invaded Afghanistan which brought about the destabilization of that country Where are the historical examples of the USSR EVER being a force for stability in the ME or anywhere else? I've been posting historical examples which support my opinion and which refute with your ideas of the USSR. What does your premise that the USSR was a force for stability rest upon other than wishful thinking? Next moving to the "republics" or the now-independent former SSR's - you've claimed in an earlier post that both the republics and Afghanistan are a "mess". The problem with that view is that they've always been "messes" including during the USSR era. Afghanistan in particular is less a mess now than anytime since long before the Soviet invasion. There's a good reason the mainstream media is ignoring the country - there simply is not a major amount of bad news to report. As for the republics, I can recall a shooting conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia but that seems to have ended. There have been some Islamist attempts to stir up trouble in the Stans but that is true also of everywhere Muslims live and the Islamists certainly haven't won any big victories in the Stans. The biggest conflict within the former USSR is within Russia itself, not the republics. So as to the mess, where is the objective evidence any of these places are worse in any respect now than they were during the USSR occupation era? "..lies about my position" Basically your premise is that the USSR was a force for geopolitical stability, that the fall of the Soviet empire was bad for the US, and that we ought to be upset with Reagan and Bush 41 for the fall of the Soviet empire. I've given a bunch of historical examples which indicate your premise is wrong. And the examples I've given are only a small portion of what's available in the historical record. Furthermore, the historical record has an absence of similar examples where the USSR worked for stability. If I'm wrong you can post some historical examples - I would only ask that they be real historical examples, not what-ifs, what-might-have-beens, IOW alternate history tales. The most serious historical example I gave was the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles 90 miles from our southern border, which would have given the USSR the capability to wipe out our entire national leadership and much of our population in one strike with very little advance warning. This was an extremely aggressive act on the Soviet Union's part. It took us to the brink of nuclear war which is about as DEstabilizing as you can get without actually fighting a nuclear war. There are many many other examples I could give showing the USSR to be a force for INstability. The entire cold war was baically an aggressive imperial expansion effort on the Soviet Union's part. They invaded almost every country their land army could reach and sponsored "wars of national liberation" all over the world. These proxy wars received arms from the Soviet Union, military advisors and technicians and frequently Cuban mercenery troops. The US basically confined its efforts to defensive actions, trying to prop up rickety countries likely to fall here and there. It's instructive that following the fall of the Soviet empire, the US was able to reduce the size of its armed forces and its military budget, a clear sign that the world had become safer.