Norfolk, Va. - After 51 years of service, the USS Enterprise headed to Newport News Shipbuilding for the final time this morning. NewsChannel 3's Todd Corillo was the only television reporter onboard for the trip.
Once at the shipyard the ship's nuclear fuel will be removed from its eight nuclear reactors.
The move will mark the final voyage for the ship before the formal decommissioning, which will take place once the defueling process at Newport News Shipbuilding is complete. She is expected to stay in Newport News until 2016 when she will be towed to Puget Sound in Washington to be scrapped.
Nearly 150 shipyard workers were present for the move as a last tribute to a vessel that many of the workers had a role in building. Same fate as the first Enterprise.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/20/2013 11:55 ||
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#1
Same fate as all the Enterprises. But the fate of CV-6 rankles the most, arguably the finest fighting ship in US Naval history, in a league only with Constitution, it was scrapped in New Jersey after plans fell thru to make it a museum ship in NY. Even saving the tripod mast for the Naval Academy failed..... piss poor performance. But it was so soon after the war it was inevitable.
Sadly nuclear powered ships will never (well not anytime soon) be allowed to be museum ship.
#4
...Was told many years ago by one of the docents aboard USS Yorktown at Patriot's Point, SC (he was a veteran of USS Bon Homme Richard in WWII)and we got to talking about the fate of CV-6. He pointed out that not even Bull Halsey had enough pull to save her, and nobody could figure out why until it finally occurred to them: CV-6 would have been preserved and cared for, and politicians would look at it and say, "Why, this ship looks just fine! You admirals don't need any more new carriers, just keep using the old ones!"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/20/2013 18:10 Comments ||
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Problems with the story of the fiery crash of Hastings' Mercedes Benz abound, but ultimately, the story appears to be what it appears to be: A man in his 30s, possibly drunk wraps his car around a tree in a posh LA neighborhood.
See here. The comments are somewhat amusing.
Michael Hastings, the journalist best known for the 2010 Rolling Stone story that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles, his employers at BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone announced.
Nowhere in there does it say anything about Āthen this sucker is going to jackknife out of control and char you like a steak ordered by a high-school dropout at PonderosaĀ.
#12
It was reported Hastings had been recently talking with Wikileaks and he thought he was being investigated by the FBI.
100 mph in 35 mph zone is asking for trouble. Would like to know more. What the air-bag module has on it? Speed, deceleration, hard braking, etc. Any vehicle component failures? Witnesses are not usually reliable judges of speed unless they are following at the same speed or have radar data.
NSA operatives hacked the carĀs computer causing it to accelerate out of control and crash into a tree.
Meanwhile Dick Cheney, piloting a stealth drone from his secret lair in the mountains of Wyoming, launched a Hellfire missile ensuring that the poor subversive journalist went out in a blaze of glory. The Hellfire also served the secondary purpose of obliterating any evidence of government involvement. Perfect.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/20/2013 14:05 Comments ||
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#19
...then again, I guess an ejected engine may end up in someone else's lap.
#21
Meanwhile - while suicide with a gun is rolled up into the national gun kill numbers, suicide with vehicle is never considered unless there's some obvious note left behind. It's hard to tag and for insurance and 'family' distress issues is often just written off to other causes.
[An Nahar] After an absence of 10 years, the Miss Algeria beauty contest is to resume on Friday in the western city of Oran, organizers said.
A total of 20 women aged between 18 and 26 have been carefully selected from Algeria's main cities to line up for the beauty pageant, co-organizer and jury member Hamza Ameziane told Agence La Belle France Presse on Wednesday.
The women must be "at least 1.7 meters tall with classic (bust, waist, hip) measurements of 90, 60, 90 centimeters," and are expected to have had French language training, he said.
The competition was suspended in 2003 after the death of Cheradi Hamdad, who launched the beauty contest in 1996 during Algeria's devastating civil war and whose son Faycal Hamdad has now taken up the mantle.
"This first edition was difficult to organize because of a lack of sponsors," Hamdad told the French-language newspaper Liberte, adding that with this show he hoped to "restore the image of Algeria."
The judges include stars of Algerian cinema, notably the actress Bahia Rachedi, as well as Genevieve de Fontenay, an 81-year Frenchwoman who has presided over the Miss La Belle France contest for more than 50 years.
It is too late for the winner to participate in this year's Miss World contest, due to be held in Bali in September, but Ameziane says she will vie for the "Best model of the world" title in Brussels later in 2013.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013 00:00 ||
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#4
Michael Yon on the subject:
Due to time constraints, I must write this as an unedited stream of consciousness. My apologies for the roughness.
Michael Hastings was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles. The single car accident happened at about 0425. He crashed into a tree and was burned beyond recognition. He was 33.
Mr. Hastings was the war correspondent whose Rolling Stone article led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal, who at the time was the top General in Afghanistan.
Although Hastings was widely read, no serious war correspondents took him seriously, or at least not the ones I know. He did, however, accurately portray my words and context in his book ĀThe Operators.Ā Hastings was like an undisciplined hitman with a pen and license to kill. One of his gonzo articles damaged the career and reputation of Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell, for no cause. My sense was that he picked fights with key people mostly to draw attention. Though Hastings was not respected among war correspondents, it is sad to see a man die so young so horribly. Just why he crashed into a tree at 0425 remains unknown. No doubt the conspiracies will begin to fly.
HastingsĀ bad traits were predominate at this age, but he had some very positive qualities and I hoped he would improve with age. Unfortunately we will never know.
Abuja: Pirates in speedboats attacked an oil supply vessel and kidnapped four Indian and Polish crew members in increasingly dangerous waters off Nigeria's coast last week, two security sources said on Wednesday.
The gunmen launched their assault on the Singapore-flagged tugboat MDPL Continental One around 30 nautical miles from land on June 13, the security sources said. The vessel was ransacked and four crew were taken hostage off the coast of the oil-producing Niger Delta, one of the sources told Reuters.
The boat's management company CS Offshore told Reuters there had been an incident that day but declined to go into further details "in order not to endanger those involved".
Pirate attacks off West Africa's mineral-rich Gulf of Guinea have almost doubled from last year and threaten to jeopardise the shipping of commodities from the region. They have already jacked up insurance costs. The attacks are mostly carried out by armed Nigerian gangs also blamed for kidnappings and oil theft on land.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/20/2013 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Four people, including three coppers, were maimed during a shootout between police and alleged Jamaat-Shibir cadres in Satkania upazila early yesterday.
All upazilas are on the map. Really. Where the map is, well that is a different question.
After the shootout police incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... five Jamaat-Shibir cadres and recovered three arms, two machetes and a knife from the spot.
Marked X, as always. The weaponry is being thoroughly cleaned, as Jamaat-Shibir cadres turn out to be remarkably careless. A rust spot has already been discovered -- discretion forbids the naming of the location -- and a dinged edge. I'll wager the sergeant has been exercising his vocabulary on this one.
They are Md Nasir, 45, Chhagir Ahmed, 23, Md Arif, 22, Abu Sufian, 22 and Md Iqbal, 32. They all hail from the upazila, said police adding, the arrestees were preparing for robbery in the area.
Acting on a tip-off,
Mahmoud the Weasel's youngest double second cousin, twice removed has joined the family business, and shows great promise...
a team of Satkania police conducted a drive at a farm of Iqbal in Churamoni area around 3:30am.
A proper time. The good citizens are all in bed, and therefore not underfoot, leaving police and miscreants to encounter one another in full flower.
Sensing police presence the myrmidons opened fire forcing the law enforcers to fire back, said Yamin Suman, assistant sub-inspector of the cop shoppe.
Young Assistant Sub-Inspector Suman has been studying his Encounter Handbook, it is clear. Well done, lad!
Iqbal sustained bullet injury in his leg during the shootout while Sub-Inspector Kazi Shafiqul Islam, constables Abdul Mannan and Md Belayet were maimed in scuffling with the alleged robbers, he added.
One bruised his elbow in a fall, the other took a small hurt in his pride. But tweezers were employed to remove the splinter, and he's sure to be back on the job in considerably less than the customary fortnight.
Iqbal was taken to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
The arrestees were known as "Iqbal Bahini" in the area
Double dipping? 'Tis not many who could carry off being both Jamaat-Shibir and Bahinis of any sort.
and they were involved in the February 28 mayhem in the upazila, said Suman.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013 00:00 ||
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Taking prisoners at 3:30 a.m. doesn't sound like the RAB MO.
[Pak Daily Times] One died and more than 6,000 people were evacuated in central Russia overnight after a series of massive kabooms at an arms depot blew out windows and sparked a fire, the emergency situations ministry said Wednesday.
The blasts began Tuesday night and continued for hours during an operation to dispose of old munitions at the depot near the town of Chapayevsk in the Samara region about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) southeast of Moscow.
Russian television footage showed huge columns of black smoke and bright orange flames rising from the depot, and a correspondent for Rossiya 24 television at the scene said kabooms rang out every minute during the night.
Almost 6,500 residents were evacuated from the settlement of Nagorny around five kilometres from the depot where the force of the kabooms smashed windows, the emergency ministry said.
President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... -- at a meeting with the emergency situations minister and regional governor -- ordered payments of 10,000 rubles ($311) to cover immediate costs to each evacuated person.The depot contained around 18 million shells, the regional Investigative Committee said in a statement. Television footage showed blown-out glass and window-frames and unwent kaboom! shells lying in yards and on the roads leading to Nagorny.
A section of the highway between the cities of Samara and Volgograd was shut off because of shrapnel and unwent kaboom! shells, Channel One state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported, "We were driving along and then there was an kaboom and the force of it blew out all the windows in the car," a bloodied casualty told Rossiya 24. A total of 48 people needed medical treatment and 11 were hospitalised, the regional Investigative Committee said.
There were no reports of deaths. Russian television showed victims with bandaged heads and limbs. An ambulance worker told Rossiya 24 that most of the injured were in cars, which had glass fly out of windows or even overturned. The emergency situations ministry used aircraft to drop water on the fire, which had spread to surrounding forests. The situation had stabilised on Wednesday, the ministry said, with kabooms ceasing around 6 am (0200 GMT), while fire continued to smoulder at the depot. Samara regional police said the kabooms began during work aimed at disposing of the old shells. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... the emergency situations ministry said there had been "unsanctioned kabooms of munitions". Regional Sherlocks launched a criminal probe into a breach of safety regulations.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] LAHORE: Despite a plethora of claims for the last few years, the Punjab government has failed to protect the lives and property of citizens. Heinous crimes such as kidnapping for ransom and robbery have been on the rise with Lahore alone recording 900 kidnapping cases in the first five months of this year.
With an average of five people a day, criminals continued to abduct maidens of tender years, minor children, youth, government employees as well as traders of the city.
Around 22 people were kidnapped and six killed including a child.
Kidnapping for ransom has become a lucrative business and is on the rise as law enforcers fail to recover the victims. This has left many families with no option but to pay ransom for the recovery of their loved ones.
The crime rate has increased to an alarming level in all the six police divisions including Cantonment, Model Town, The City, Saddar, Iqbal Town and Civil Lines police division in the city despite the inflated claims of top bosses of city police on different occasions.
Around 3,386 incidents of kidnapping were reported in 2012, in 2011, 2,954 were reported. Nine hundred cases of kidnapping were registered in city cop shoppes from January to May 2013.
Around 36 incidents of kidnapping for ransom were reported in 2012, while the figure was 32 in 2011 and 31 in 2010. Two high profile personalities Dr Warren Weinstein, an American national and Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain governor Salman Taseer were also kidnapped. A retired Wing Commander Iqbal was also kidnapped from Gazi Road Factory area on May 30, 2013. Police has registered the cases but have yet to recover the kidnapped.
The City Division has registered five kidnapping cases including a case where the accused killed a six-year-old child Shahzeb and dumped his body in a drain. However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the kidnappers were jugged You have the right to remain silent... but the body has not been recovered so far. Tahir Azim, while going to his shop was kidnapped from Shadbagh area. Police started the paperwork but haven't done much else but he was only recovered after a payment of Rs 200,000 by his family. Investigation officer Iftikhar Rasool not only denied his failure to recover the victims but alleged that the incident was faked and dismissed the case.
Furthermore, in Tibbi City police area, Naseer Khan was released after payment of Rs 500,000 ransom money. Abdul Gaffar's family also paid five hundred thousand in ransom after being kidnapped from Main Bus stop. Similarly in Shafiq Abad, four-year-old Husnain was released after a ransom amount of three hundred thousand rupees was paid. The kidnappers were arrested later on.
Canadian national Ali Muhammad was kidnapped from Johar Town police jurisdiction and released after paying a handsome amount of 2.2 million rupees. The investigation officer was again Iftikahr Rasool who once again failed to act.
In addition to this, cantonment division's victim, a businessman Kh Muhammad Jehangir paid 14.5 million rupees to kidnappers while investigation officer Fiaz ul Haq failed to track down the kidnappers.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] LAHORE: Christian women were attacked and paraded naked by a mob with the support of the ruling party, said a blurbd issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).
Three Christian women -- Arshad Bibi, Sajida Bibi and Sauriya Bibi -- the daughter-in-laws of Sadiq Masih, a resident of Sereser Chak No 21, Kasur, were brutally beaten and then paraded naked by gunnies employed by Muhammad Munir, the son of Abdul Rasheed, a landlord who has the support of the ruling party, the PML-N. The incident occurred on the night of June 3 when the male members of the family were attending to their jobs. The attackers, armed with weapons and batons, were able to enter the house by scaling the boundary wall and unlocking the gate from the inside. At that time, the women were sleeping in the house along with their father-in-law Sadiq Masih, 73, and mother-in-law Rani Bibi, 70.
The mob, lead by Muhammad Munir, Abrahim, Muhammad Rafique and their sons Ahmed, Asif, Abid, Wassem, Waqas and Shabir and three unidentified persons, entered the house. When the attackers invaded the house, they started looking for the sons of Sadiq Masih, checking all the rooms and throwing their belongings about. When they could not find his sons, they started beating the three women.
The party workers then took the three Christian women out into the street where the lights were on and tore their clothes off.
Then they started shouting to attract the attention of the people nearby, to let them see the extent of the Dire Revenge™ and the power of the landlord. Nobody dared to stop them as the attackers were holding weapons. Due to the victim's screaming and shouting, some elderly people of the village came out and put their turbans on the feet of the attackers as a sign of high respect and honour. After this, the attackers released the women but threatened the villagers that if they complained about the incident they would face more trouble.
While this was going on, somebody called in the police, and after much time the officers arrived. Instead of taking action against the attackers, the police tried to calm down the mob, which was protesting against the incident.
The cause of the incident was apparently that on two occasions some goats belonging to the Christians had entered the fields of the landlord, Munir, who claimed that they had damaged his crops. As the goats belonged to the Christians, Munir confiscated them.
On the morning of the incident, Shaukat, the son of Sadiq Masih, approached Munir in the company of his sisters-in-law and requested him to release their goats. Munir refused to do so and stared beating him. Munir slapped him many times and cursed him. When Shoukat, in retaliation, slapped him back, Munir became furious and threatened him. It was this incident that lead to the Dire Revenge™ attack. At this time, they also injured Sadiq Masih, who received several injuries to his leg.
On June 4, Advocate Sardar Mushtaq Gill, National Director at LEAD (Legal Evangelical Association Development) was informed by Rev Saleem Gill to give legal aid and assistance to the harassed family. Advocate Gill visited the victims and collected the details of the case and approached the Pattoki deputy superintendent of police (DSP) for the registration of a case. Consequently, an FIR was registered against the landlord and his henchmen under numbers 231/13 of Section 452, 354, 337/FI, 149,148 of the Pakistain Penal Code (PPC). The victims received a certificate from the Punjab Health Department mentioning the injuries that they suffered, but the police did not take action against the perpetrators, either for the humiliation of parading the women naked or the violence perpetrated on them.
Instead, the police quickly filed a case against the Christians under FIR 234/13 under sections 440, 379, 148 and 149 of the PPC on behalf of the landlord. This came as no surprise to the victims as it is a common practice of the local Mohammedans to create pressure on the Christian community to withdraw FIRs. One member of the National Assembly, Rana Ishaq, from the ruling party, the PML-N, is forcing the police not to act against the perpetrators, as they are also supporters of the ruling party.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2013 00:00 ||
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#3
Then they started shouting to attract the attention of the people nearby, to let them see the extent of the Dire RevengeĀ and the power of the landlord. Nobody dared to stop them as the attackers were holding weapons.
This is even more exciting that the parading of the mighty Uruguayans!
[IsraelTimes] Some 170 troops from Fiji will join the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... peacekeeping force on the Golan Heights in the wake of the withdrawal of Austrian troops.
The new peacekeepers will arrive in the region at the end of the month, the United Nations announced Monday. The 380 Austrian troops left the region last week after fighting between government and rebel forces in Syria's two-year civil war placed them in danger. Croatia withdrew from the peacekeeping force earlier in the year due to similar fears.
There are currently 341 troops from the Philippines and 193 troops from India stationed on the Golan Heights as part of the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which has been stationed on the Golan since 1974, in the wake of a cease-fire agreement signed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
The force is supposed to be comprised of about 1,000 troops. Last week, UN Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... called for adding troops up to 1,250 and enhancing the self-defense capabilities of the peacekeeping force.
#1
Their military program may have changed by now, but years ago Fiji had 3 Infantry Battalions. They rotated between UN duty, training and maintaining the Suva prison, and annual leave [harvest and fishing].
Many federal agencies have small enforcement teams; these are composed of sworn peace officers who must be trained. Postal inspectors are the best example but every agency that has to investigate fraud, mis-use of federal funds, etc., has an enforcement team. It's a dangerous world out there (ask the postal inspectors) and the officers have to be ready.
I don't have a quarrel with an IRS or Treasury team training with AR-15s. Unless they point them at me...
SWAT teams. Secret Service. Federal Marshals. FBI. Everyone has got to have their own duplicating fire teams. Little empires. Of course the 'country founded by geniuses, but run by idiots' moment is the shooting at Fort Hood which was a 'gun free zone'.
#3
Reminds me of the Park Service here in Alaska. Everyone wanted to be a pilot. Got the birds from law enforcement confiscations. Real cherry super cubs and 185s. Then they flew them and wrecked them. 90 day wonders.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/20/2013 17:56 Comments ||
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Dept Education has SWAT teams.
Better question - what Fed dept doesn't have a SWAT team?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] After an absence of 10 years, the Miss Algeria beauty contest is to resume on Friday in the western city of Oran, organizers said.
Abuja: Pirates in speedboats attacked an oil supply vessel and kidnapped four Indian and Polish crew members in increasingly dangerous waters off Nigeria's coast last week, two security sources said on Wednesday.
[Bangla Daily Star] Four people, including three 
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
[Pak Daily Times] LAHORE: Despite a plethora of claims for the last few years, the Punjab government has failed to protect the lives and property of citizens. Heinous crimes such as kidnapping for ransom and robbery have been on the rise with Lahore alone recording 900 kidnapping cases in the first five months of this year. 
