Media on the Military

[system]

<p>Zap, I know where 24 tons of the scrap metal went… GRIN… This is just for you: It’s SWEET!</p>

<p>New Navy Ship Built With WTC Steel
Associated Press | April 04, 2006
NEW YORK - With a year to go before it even touches the water, the Navy’s amphibious assault ship USS New York has already made history - twice. It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center, and it survived Hurricane Katrina. </p>

<p>That combination of disasters gives the ship a unique standing among the 500 or so Avondale, La., shipyard workers building it, said Tony Quaglino, a crane superintendent who postponed retirement to have a hand in the New York’s construction. </p>

<p>“I think Katrina made us more aware of the tragedy in New York,” said the 66-year-old Quaglino. “One was manmade, one was natural, but they’re both a common bond.” </p>

<p>USS New York is about 45 percent complete and should be ready for launch in mid-2007. Katrina disrupted construction when it pounded the Gulf Coast last summer, but the 684-foot vessel escaped serious damage, and workers were back at the yard near New Orleans two weeks after the storm. </p>

<p>The ship was an impetus for many of the yard’s thousands of workers to return to the job, even though hundreds lost their homes, Quaglino and others said. </p>

<p>Northrop Grumman employed 6,500 at Avondale before Katrina. Today, roughly 5,500 are back on the job, working on the New York and three other vessels. More than 200 employees who lost their homes to Katrina are living at the shipyard, some on a Navy barge and others in bunk-style housing. </p>

<p>“Their dedication and devotion to duty has been, to say the least, epic,” Philip Teel, a vice president for Northrop Grumman Corp. and head of its ship systems division, told a Navy League dinner audience in New York on March 22. </p>

<p>“It sounds trite, but I saw it in their eyes,” Teel said in a separate interview. “These are very patriotic people, and the fact that the ship has steel from the trade center is a source of great pride. They view it as something incredibly special. They’re building it for the nation.” </p>

<p>USS New York is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. </p>

<p>“It would be fitting if the first mission this ship would go on is to make sure that bin Laden is taken out, his terrorist organization is taken out,” said Glenn Clement, a paint foreman. “He came in through the back door and knocked our towers down and (the New York) is coming right through the front door, and we want them to know that.” </p>

<p>When terrorists crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, destroying the twin towers and killing nearly 2,800 people, the $700 million ship was already on the drawing board but had not been assigned a name. </p>

<p>Months later, New York Gov. George Pataki asked the Navy to commemorate the disaster by reviving the name New York for a ship whose role would include fighting terrorism. That required an exception to Navy policy of assigning state names only to nuclear submarines, as they had been to battleships in earlier era. </p>

<p>Then-Navy Secretary Gordon England, in announcing the decision, said the New York would “project American power to the far corners of the Earth and support the cause of freedom well into the 21st century.” Its motto is “Never Forget,” a slogan among New Yorkers since Sept. 11. </p>

<p>Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.” </p>

<p>Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.” </p>

<p>“It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.” </p>

<p>The next big event came on March 14, when shipyard cranes lifted that bow section and guided it into place with the rest of the hull. </p>

<p>Later ships in the class will include USS Arlington, the location of the Pentagon, also struck by a hijacked jetliner on Sept. 11, and USS Somerset, named for the Pennsylvania county where United Flight 93 crashed after its passengers fought off hijackers apparently planning to attack another Washington target. </p>

<p>The New York revives a name borne by at least seven previous ships - most recently the nuclear submarine SSN New York City, retired in 1997 after 18 years service.</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>Ah, yes! I’d forgotten!</p>

<p>Would have been better to deliver it air-mail upon the heads of our enemies. :mad:</p>

<p>Still, that’s far better than making bumpers for cars.</p>

[weski]

<p>And as everyone is whining about expensive gas, I don’t see folks filling their SUVs for carpools…whatever happened to conservation? If we weren’t so dependent on foreign oil AND we were more frugal and had continued many of the '70s era programs, we might not be in this mess (woulda, coulda, shoulda). And with China coming on like gangbusters, sucking up energy and raw materials, we might want to turn our attention in that direction…ships loaded with scrap metal and food going to the Far East, and coming back with Wal-mart, Costco, IKEA goods, clothing and furniture, and don’t forget the electronics…</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>So long as there are countries where the people will work for 10 cents an hour (and thank you for it), we will be importing goods from them. It’s basic economics.</p>

<p>If the government slaps on tarrifs, all that will happen is that Americans will pay more for the same goods, so who really suffers?</p>

<p>The only way to address the energy problem is to drill more, refine more, and distribute more, RIGHT HERE IN THE UNITED STATES. Throw in some nuclear plants, and we’ll be much better off.</p>

<p>But nooooooooo. Castro can drill for oil 45 miles off of our coast, but Exxon can’t. Caribou are more important than security. Nuclear plants are equated with plutonium bombs going off (which is utter BS). etc., etc…</p>

<p>Until we start thinking with our heads instead of FEELING with our … seats, we’re going to be at the mercy of the mullahs and the nutcases like Chavez.</p>

<p>God has a sick sense of humor. Almost all the energy sources in the world are controlled by nutcases. Swell.</p>

[usna09mom]

<p>Let’s dedicate 24 tons of the scrap metal to the legacy of those who perished on September 11, and American military lives lost in Afganistan and Iraq. </p>

<p>Weski, you hit the nail on the head. Look at Europe. Recycling programs in place years ahead of the U.S. Serious tax on petrol and many options for public transportation including light rail, busses, and trains. Public transportation also affects quality of life in a positive way. People who can’t afford cars have more employment options, and elderly people who no longer drive can have a full life and not be isolated. Last time I was in England with a rental car (I am intrepid to drive in the UK), I paid the equivalent of $5.00 a gallon for gas (converting liters and dollars to pounds). It’s all about durable goods and GDP.</p>

<p>I’d like to remind people that President Jimmy Carter was the vanguard of alternate sources of energy and conservation. (I know how to bring GEB out of the woodwork). I personally know people who started geothermal and solar engineering
companies with the promise of government support in the1970s. This technology isn’t new. Why do people today in Southern California, where it is sunny 350 days of the year, get their electricity from oil??? It’s downright immoral.</p>

[system]

<p>Yes, lets. I find importance in the job the new ship will be doing. Protecting us.</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>

'd like to remind people that President Jimmy Carter was the vanguard of alternate sources of energy and conservation.

</p>

<p>By creating gas lines, the misery index, stagflation, Iran, Afghanistan, and a completely castrated military. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>If you want to talk about rank incompetence, you’ve brought up the right guy.</p>

<p>

Why do people today in Southern California, where it is sunny 350 days of the year, get their electricity from oil??? It’s downright immoral.

</p>

<p>No, it’s called ECONOMICS. Like it or not, solar energy has still not broken through the barrier where a solar panel creates more energy than it took to create the panel itself. </p>

<p>It’s just like the fools who think driving electric cars will save oil. Oh really? And where do these people think the electricity to charge the cars comes from? Thin air? No, it comes from a power plant that will have to burn coal, or oil, or natural gas to create it.</p>

<p>Of course, if you try and mention the idea of building a nuclear power plant, the first place the envirowhackjobs come crawling out of the woodwork howling for your scalp is… SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.</p>

<p>If solar, geothermal, and wishful thinking were all more efficient to bring to market than oil, they would already be on the market and in NO NEED of government subsidies. </p>

<p>As for wishing us to be like Europe, no thanks. I’d rather live in a free and prosperous America than in a socialistic and whiny Europe, where the governments are going bankrupt DESPITE the rediculous tax burdens, and there is ZERO incentive for the average Joe to do anything like start a business. Jeepers! In France they’re having riots because the government actually considered allowing employers to be able to fire someone during the first two years of employment if they don’t measure up. THE NERVE! :rolleyes:</p>

<p>The unemployment rate in the Eden you describe is TWICE that of the decrepit United States. No thanks. I’ll stay here with our SUV’s (and cleaner air). If you want to go Euro, I recommend KLM airlines.</p>

<p>Jimmy “our best days are behind us” Carter. PLEASE! :rolleyes:</p>

[TacticalNuke]

<p>As Zaphod said, if it were economically viable to create energy with alternative sources, we’d be doing so. Why is it that people think there’s some magical force that’s keeping alternative energy from becoming viable. If only we could remove the invis-a-barrier, we’d have all the cheap, clean power we wanted.</p>

<p>You want cheap and clean power? Go nuclear. I work at a nuke plant. A coal plant releases more nuclear waste into the atmosphere than a properly functioning nuclear power plant.</p>

<p>And again, as Zaphod said, I love people who think you can just plug the 'ol electric automobile into the wall, and voila, clean cars. Oh, what’s that, electricity has to be produced? Ah, reality, the bane of our existence.</p>

<p>Hydrogen will save us, though, right? Same problem, same inane solution. Hydrogen fuel cells are a way to utilize a different storage medium for energy. To get all that hydrogen, you must electrolyze water. Then, you store the hydrogen and utilize a fuel cell to create the energy. Again, you need energy from some source to electrolyze the water.</p>

<p>On to Europe. That bastion of good. If you actually look at the facts of that country, you’ll realize how stupid it is to put them on a pedestal. I’ll get some figures from a book I’m reading when I get home, but until then chew on this:</p>

<p><a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1047265,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

Britain’s NHS (National Health Service) is the world’s third largest employer, at 1.3 million employees. It is second only to the Chinese Army and the Indian State Railways System. For comparison, Wal-Mart employs 1.2 million people.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9317[/url]”>http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9317&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Good explanation:</p>

<p>

Britons were shocked recently by newspaper headlines saying there are now a million people on National Health Service (NHS) waiting lists. The figure means one in 60 British citizens are now waiting for medical treatment. Of those who are sick and actually need the NHS to do something for them, one in six are condemned to wait.

</p>

<p>

Waiting lists are the inevitable consequence of a politically driven, tax-funded, centrally run health service. Users have no customer power over the system. Since the amount people pay (through taxation) is unrelated to the volume of services they use, they have every incentive to demand as much service as they can get, however marginal or even unnecessary. And because—unlike almost all other goods and services—there is no price mechanism to inhibit the over-demand, the central authorities must resort to the only other strategy open to them, that of rationing.

</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>

I work at a nuke plant.

</p>

<p>Oh, MAN! I am INSANELY jealous! :D</p>

[TacticalNuke]

<p>It’s more fun than one should be allowed to have.</p>

[shogun]

<p>“On to Europe. That bastion of good. If you actually look at the facts of that country, you’ll realize how stupid it is to put them on a pedestal. I’ll get some figures from a book I’m reading when I get home, but until then chew on this:”</p>

<p>Nice, but you completely skirted the point usnamom was making. She discusses the European answer to recycling and mass transportation and you respond by quoting something on their socialistic welfare system and from that we are supposed to come to the natural conclusion that all they do must be wrong? Just exactly how does your point negate the fact that they simply do a better job at recycling and mass transportation? Because they don’t “get it” in one venue doesn’t mean they can’t build a better mousetrap in another. The truth of the matter is that at one moment in history alternative fuels and sources of energy might not be economical, and then the next moment we may find that they are a necessity. Alternative fuels will always be less economical when gas is two bucks a gallon—but how about when it is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 bucks a gallon? How about when the airlines start going belly up and Jet Blue’s fares begin to go sky high? How about when China begins importing oil at the same 12 million barrel a day rate that the US does (which experts predict will be within the next two decades)??. Then we will have these two nations alone consuming 50% of the worlds output, assuming NO ONE ELSE USES ONE MORE DROP THAN THEY USE NOW! Oil will soon become “less economical”, and unless we are technologically savvy enough by then to put nuclear reactors in our SUV’s we in America are in for a rude awakening. If you think the price of gas is bad now…</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>All true, Shogun. However, what frosts me is the alarm bells being rung by the same people who then turn around and forbid us to drill off our own coasts or in the middle of an arctic wasteland in the name of the environment. We have supplies we can exploit, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO! We have to worry about the red-nosed snail darter bat or some such stupid thing.</p>

<p>If we built nuke plants for electricity, oil wells for supply, and refineries for capacity, we’d be able to be MUCH better off than we are now under these rediculous environmental regulations, most of which are simply thinly-veiled attempts to impose a political agenda upon a capitalist society.</p>

<p>Oh, and it would also be nice if the money-grubbing government would reduce the taxes they slap onto each gallon of gas. Interesting, isn’t it, that government makes more profit on a gallon of gas than the EEEEEEVIL oil companies do, and it does NOTHING to produce it! PATHETIC!</p>

<p>As for recycling, you will note that more and more of it is happening as it becomes more and more cost-effective. Sure, I’d love to see more, and we will. In fact, I suspect that one day we’ll start digging up old landfills to recover what we can from them. Wouldn’t THAT be cool!</p>

[shogun]

<p>I don’t think it’s too smart if our energy “strategy” is to wait until we have sucked every drop of oil from the good earth before we decide its time to get serious about alternate sources. Oil companies are not evil, they are just greedy by nature. As Michael Douglas’s character said, in business “greed is good” and we can expect the oil companies to act in their own best interests. That is why we need to ensure the government acts in ours. Environmental regulations aren’t all bad. I look at them like the health department—a big pain in the “buck”, but I’d rather live in a world with them than without them (remember Eastern Europe as shown to the world when the iron curtain fell to reveal a cesspool in the ground and crud in the air if you want to see the result of no environmental regulation on industry). Usually when environmental regulation goes awry or ends up ineffective it’s when career politicians and pundits try to play scientist. I still love to listen to “Dr.” Rush expound on the Global Warming issue–what a hoot!</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>

I don’t think it’s too smart if our energy “strategy” is to wait until we have sucked every drop of oil from the good earth before we decide its time to get serious about alternate sources.

</p>

<p>Who is arguing about not getting serious? I wish we’d do a Manhattan Project on the matter.</p>

<p>However, I don’t think it’s too smart if our energy “strategy” is to sit on top of known reserves and do nothing, or have tried and true options like nuclear and not pursue them.</p>

<p>

I still love to listen to “Dr.” Rush expound on the Global Warming issue–what a hoot!

</p>

<p>He makes a lot more sense than “Dr.” Al Gore.</p>

[shogun]

<p>Gore is no scientist either :)</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>No, but he sure does try to pass himself off as one. Rush simply makes fun of the idiocy of the “human-made” global warming crusade, which is totally bunk. </p>

<p>Good grief! The other day a “report” came out whining about how CLEANER air was making global warming WORSE! </p>

<p>Does this mean that all the 1990’s liberals who were accusing the Republicans of wanting dirtier air are going to come out and recognize that the GOP was ahead of them on combatting global warming? :rolleyes:</p>

<p>WE CAN’T WIN WITH THESE PEOPLE! :rolleyes:</p>

<p>

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/luismulet/.Pictures/Banners/I’ll%20Kick%20You%20Off%20The%20Internet.jpg[/img]"&gt;http://homepage.mac.com/luismulet/.Pictures/Banners/I’ll%20Kick%20You%20Off%20The%20Internet.jpg

</a></p>

[usna09mom]

<p>Shogun for President!</p>

<p>:) reasonable
intelligent
proud father of successful children! (bonus points here!)</p>

[Zaphod]

<p>Don’t you mean “reasonably intelligent”? ;)</p>

[usna09mom]

<p>No, I mean profoundly wise and intelligent. He also has a smart wife who has probably been a good influence on him! ;)</p>

[TacticalNuke]

<p>We should go mostly nuclear.</p>

<p>Utilizing hydrogen fuel cells (or electric cars) we’d have plenty of electricity to “charge” fuel cells (ie electrolyze water to get the H2).</p>

<p>Nuclear is an extremely safe form of energy. Sure, we’ve learned some lessons here and there, but the fact is that nuclear power is one of the safest forms of energy.</p>

<p>My power plant is, I imagine, better guarded than most military facilities. Obviously I can’t name most of the details, but suffice it to say that it would be nearly impossible to break into a power plant, or to cause harm to safety shutdown equipment. I’m a pretty creative individual, always thinking, and there really aren’t any flaws in our security. I mention all this because security is a big issue with most people. However, having seen what is in place first-hand, I can tell you that even with a force of 50 men, armed to the teeth including rocket propelled grenades and armored vehicles, I would NOT want to attempt to break in to my plant.</p>