USS Enterprise Takes Its Final Voyage 455
westlake writes "The AP is reporting that the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, is to be retired after fifty years of active service — the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history. Its final deployment will take it to the Middle East and last for seven months. The big ship has become notoriously difficult to keep in repair. As an old ship and the only one in its class, breakdowns have become frequent and replacement parts often have to be custom made. Despite its place in naval history and popular culture, Enterprise will meet its end at the scrap yard rather than being preserved at a museum. This is expected to happen in 2015, after the nuclear fuel has been removed."
Re:That's odd (Score:4, Insightful)
...ahh, you're one of those who buys into the "Enterprise false flag" conspiracy theories? That Enterprise will be sunk, and that Iran will be blamed as an "excuse" to attack it?
Figured some loons would post on this article, but didn't expect it to be the FIRST post. Bravo.
Re:That's odd (Score:1, Insightful)
Remember the Maine!
Re:That's odd (Score:1, Insightful)
Shut up, idiot. We *try* to have intelligent conversation here, but some jackass has to go off-topic and post shit.
This isn't a article about the threat of what could happen, what did happen, or what might. It's an article about the decommissioning of a ship, nothing more. Stay on topic, or get out.
Re:That's odd (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait... there's already a ""Enterprise false flag"" conspiracy theory?
You're talking about the same type of people who really believe the planes that hit the World Trade Center didn't hit the World Trade Center, or if they hit the World Trade Center they didn't have people on them, or if they had people on them they were controlled by robotic pods. And that this was just to somehow cover the REAL method of destruction which was extensive demolition charges in the buildings that no one ever noticed, because flying a plane into a building somehow wouldn't be enough to destroy it so there needed to be a REAL method of destruction that the planes somehow didn't provide. You're talking about the same people who really believe the people trapped above the impact floors weren't trapped, that the photos of them were falsified and took place on a set because the window sizes don't look right - which had nothing to do with the fact any first year photography or film student could tell you that zooming from 1/4 of a mile away will distort perspective.
It's a pathological desire to undermine anything that is believed by anyone. It's not healthy distrust, it's a creepy, nonsensical obsession with being the one, unique snowflake who sees things how they "really are".
Every little bit of information presented to them is disputed due to "inconsistencies" but their basic theories are routinely rewritten over the course of an argument. Their own truth isn't even stable, because they're not stable. Being in opposition to commonly-held beliefs is the only thing that sustains them, and they define themselves and reality solely based on that stance. Nothing else.
Re:That's odd (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, though, given the rather low standard of evidence required for questionably sensible invasions of dusty countries, the notion that 'They' would need to false-flag an entire aircraft carrier seems a bit curious. It would also be a slightly curious choice because aircraft carriers are the absolute finest in highly-visible nationalist force projection, and losing one would be terrible PR.
Re:That's odd (Score:0, Insightful)
No, you're talking about people who know history. It's full of documented false flag events, that's primarily how war is waged to gain public support, because generally most people are against going to war. Considering how much talk there is of an enterprise false flag operation, if it was ever intended it probably won't happen because of all the talk about it.
Re:That's odd (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a pathological desire to undermine anything that is believed by anyone. It's not healthy distrust, it's a creepy, nonsensical obsession with being the one, unique snowflake who sees things how they "really are".
What you've written is the nonsensical psychobabble trying to support the morbid obsession of trusting the people who'd proven time and again that they are constantly scheming to keep getting richer. FYI "coming up with <<conspiracy theories>>" is one of the tasks at the CIA (see WMDs in Iraq, Naiyrah testimony, etc, etc.) and for an outsider, the awareness of being lied to by the gubermint is no more thrilling than the possibility that there really is "terrorism."
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
I love their reactions to me presenting them with the following facts about WTC:
1) It was built on a shoestring budget
2) In the 1970s.
3) Using mob-connected contractors
4) By the (at the time bankrupt) City of New York.
5) Using an untested "open floorplan" design, with over 90% of the building hollow.
6) And some of the first recycled steel.
It's a wonder the damn things stood up at all.
But no, it's much easier to believe they were built to outlast the pyramids and a bunch of CIA types planted detcord throughout.
Re:That's odd (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't have to be destroyed.
this is all it took for Vietnam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident [wikipedia.org]
Re:Gulf to Gulf (Score:2, Insightful)
"Too bad there's nothing to compare to Subic Bay in the Mideast for R n' R."
We once defended people who liked to party and fuck. Now our opponents AND clients are religious fanatics who BOTH hate "freedom".
The military has now also gone "corporate" (and been infested with Bible Thumpers) such that the old "work hard, fight hard, play hard" attitudes are muted.
Maybe letting homosexuals serve openly will chase off some of the religionists. It should improve Sub Sailor recruiting! (I kid! I kid!)
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
And sadly, the facts aren't even an issue for them. They define themselves based on their opposition to what's accepted. It's solely a case of being "special" enough to see the "truth", while the rest of us are "sheep".
That's what it's about. They'll create, and continue to create vast conspiracy theories that don't even match the last theory they said was the absolute truth. Their theories clash with their own theories. It's just about being different, and elevating your own worth above that of other people who are seen as dumber than you and need to be saved from themselves.
9/11 isn't even really the issue, it's merely a symptom of their own malignancy.
Re:Story is wrong: (Score:4, Insightful)
Puh: that's nothing. HMS Victory was launched in 1765, and is still in commission. She's even older than the United States! You guys have some catching up to do.
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
Lemme just ask some retarded questions. I'm terribly stupid, naive, uninformed, ignorant, and whole bunch of other horse shit. Oh yeah, can't forget batshit crazy.
With that out of the way - just how large an aircraft do you think would be required to destroy your home, if it were to crash into your home? Alright - how large a plane would be required to destroy your city hall? Your high school? Come on - THINK about it. Have you ever seen a mere 5-gallon can full of nothing but gasoline vapors explode? It's fucking DESTRUCTIVE, man! It will tear your goddamned HEAD OFF!
Now, imagine the explosive power in an automobile's gas tank - 10, 14, maybe 20 gallons of gasoline. Put that in your house. Ignite. Add a bottle or two of pure oxygen - remember, those high altitude aircraft come equipped with an oxygen source, large enough to supply all the people aboard, just in case.
Have you absorbed that yet? Fine - let's move on. How many gallons of aviation fuel did those jetliners carry? I don't even know - but I know damned well that even almost empty, they held more fuel than your family car - or an 18-wheeler.
Pull our heads out of our asses? No - I suggest you study physics.
Skyscrapers aren't exactly "stationary" to start with. They sway. They bend, They stretch. Just like Romper Room, "Bend, and stretch, reach for the stars!"
Impact one side, at a predetermined elevation, in the process destroying some structural elements, and delivering an explosive charge along with some nice long lasting flammables. You don't NEED to bring the building down. All you need do is to destroy SOME structural members, weaken some more - and wait for the building to bring itself down.
And THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE SAW ON 9/11/01 ! ! ! ! !
Those buildings stood for quite a long while after the impacts. It took TIME for them to finish destroying themselves. But, once those impacts, explosions, and fires were started, it was only a matter of time until they fell.
Pull our heads out of our asses, indeed.
Re:Safety First! (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, no-one thought of sandboxing the holodeck? Even after the first 10 times the ship got pwned by it?
In the 1980s, it seemed totally unbelievable that every passing alien ship could drive-by root their holodeck.
The sad thing is, the older I get and the more I experience real Internet security, the more depressingly probable that scenario seems.
Re:Story is wrong: (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to focus on the negative old chap. Mind you, China will do the same to the US in a few years if they keep things up. Nobody stays on top forever.
Re:Gulf to Gulf (Score:5, Insightful)
"Too bad there's nothing to compare to Subic Bay in the Mideast for R n' R."
We once defended people who liked to party and fuck. Now our opponents AND clients are religious fanatics who BOTH hate "freedom".
I've been to Subic several times. In my younger stupid days, I once drank so much at the Tennessee Club in Olangapo City, that I had alcohol poisoning for three days afterwards.
I also wised up and got out of the regular sailor party haunts and actually saw some of the rest of the PI. And far from being a country where people like to "party and fuck", it's one of the most deeply Catholic countries in the world. Outside of Olangapo, the rest of the PI looked at the areas surrounding the Naval (and Air Force) bases as a kind of Filipino Sodom and Gomorra, a stain on the country and an embarrassment. We weren't all that popular once you got outside those gates. Filipinos were truly grateful for our chasing off the Japanese and rebuilding infrastructure after WWII, but were resentful for our continued presence. And yes, they thought... probably not illogically... that we were a bad influence on their kids. We were essentially kicked out just a few years after my time of service.
I think you'll find that overseas US bases are no different from overseas bases of the British Empire or the Roman Legions. Young horny troops with money to spend will always attract party people, prostitutes, and vice operations eager to take their money. Pretty sure there were Jewish hookers servicing those Roman soldiers in Judea back in the time of Jesus. It surely didn't make Judea a land where people liked to "party and fuck". So I think you're looking at the world in a rather skewed lens.
Re:That's odd (Score:4, Insightful)
The core of all "truthers" is wrong common sense being elevated above all else.
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
Which parts are lies is hard to determine, but the official story clearly contains lots of lies,
I've never seen one probably false statement in the "official story." I'm a fireman, so we are taught to never say anything to anyone for that exact reason. The "official story" is the one published on paper from the commission, not any verbal statements made by any "official" or anything else like that. So, what's the lie?
Here's an exercise in futility: review the data and evidence surrounding 9/11 in an open and honest way. You will probably reach the conclusion that there was some sort of inside job,
I have. You are wrong. What now?
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're talking about people who know history. It's full of documented false flag events, that's primarily how war is waged to gain public support, because generally most people are against going to war.
I've come to a conclusion about conspiracy theories: They don't matter. They don't matter if they're true, they don't matter if they're false, they don't matter if the aliens abducted you and changed the bits in your brain to make you think they're true or false. They don't matter.
Because it doesn't change anything. You're not going to convince anyone one way or the other. The conspiracy theorists will just make rationalizations and the government is never going to admit to a false flag operation until well after it stops mattering whether it was or not.
The problem is not false flag operations. The problem is that we're all so stupid that we allow ourselves to get manipulated into spending trillions of dollars on bombs and coffins as a result of bullshit propaganda. The War on Terrorism is a stupid failure of an idea. The War in Iraq is a stupid failure of a war. These facts do not depend on how the towers fell. The problem is not false flag operations, it is irrational overreactions to malicious instigators.
The next time some stupid halfwits manage to kill a large number of people in the same place, stop thinking about revenge, and never again say "Something Must Be Done." Just prosecute as many of them as are still alive and then get on with life. Because any other response is letting the terrorists win, whether the terrorists work for the government or not.
Re:Story is wrong: (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe, but when Chinese subs can surface within a US carrier group [washingtontimes.com] without the US knowing about it, the number of planes the Chinese carrier has becomes less of an issue.
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
Boy, ain't that the truth.
Even worse, the people who profit from war know exactly which notes to hit to get everyone to stand up and march around and DEMAND WAR. It's as if the run-up to the Iraq War never happened, when you think about Iran. The same people, saying exactly the same thing, about going to war in the same region, for the same reasons. In five years, we'll be hearing, "Well, everyone agreed at the time that Iran's nuclear weapon program had to be stopped, so you can't really blame anyone for deciding to get involved in a costly, unnecessary war".
The amazing thing is how they've got this formula down to an exact science. The same faces on my TV: Michael Ledeen, Paul Wolfowitz. John fucking Bolton. All looking grave and serious. "We have to stop Iran or it's curtains", they say. Somebody writes an op-ed in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal questioning the rush to war and BOOM! "He's not patriotic", they say, "He's anti-American". The next thing you know the guy who wrote the op-ed finds his entire life under attack. Maybe his wife loses her job. He's collateral damage. And still, in five years, they'll say, "Everybody thought for SURE that Iran was building a bomb", and they'll forget all about Joe Op-Ed Writer.
The other night I heard some guy who teaches at the Naval War College. He wrote a book called "Rush to Judgement" about how someday historians will all agree that George W Bush was our greatest president and how absolutely necessary the Iraq War really was. It was on some right-wing talk show that just a little earlier had Victor Davis Hansen, and (guess who!) Michael Ledeen talking about how weak little Israel is totally going to bravely take out Iran's burgeoning nuclear arsenal and how Israel is the only thing standing between the world and total nuclear winter because of Iran's thousands of nuclear weapons, which they will absolutely have next week unless the feckless islamo-fascist in the White House finally wakes up and immediately starts playing Driving Miss Daisy with Bibi Netanyahu playing the role of Miss Daisy. Oh, and then that Kenyan pretender steps aside to let a real man, oh, I don't know...maybe somebody like Mitt Romney, run WWIII because everyone knows a Democrat can't win a war. And Romney is a job creator and a venture capitalist and so he is totally the kind of guy you want leading the troops into battle with his years of military experience as a Mormon missionary in third-world countries like France. In fact, he's just like Patton when you think about it. Sort of a cross between John Galt and Winston Churchill with better hair.
It's nauseating how predictable it all is. And it's terrifying how they can just get away with it again and again. But I guess when you've got major media networks owned by military contractors, it shouldn't be a surprise that the media is so willing to let this predictable scenario play out. But fucking hell, I'm weary of it.
Re:That's odd (Score:2, Insightful)
The next time some stupid halfwits manage to kill a large number of people in the same place, stop thinking about revenge, and never again say "Something Must Be Done." Just prosecute as many of them as are still alive and then get on with life.
That really does not help if people are convinced that all people with brown skin are associated with terrorists.
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
And you're doing the exact same thing, attempting to elevate yourself as having a superior intellectual position using the same techniques and ad hominin generalizations while ignoring any contradictory evidence which actually is objective and factual.
The only difference between people like yourself and so called "conspiracy theorists" is the amount of trust or distrust one assigns to certains collections or groups of people such as corporations, governments, and nations.
It all stems from group dynamics and evolutionary psychology and it is ingrained into the human condition. No human can escape it, not you, not me, no one.
Re:Story is wrong: (Score:4, Insightful)
The report can probably be taken at face value, but if it would be interesting if the US forces had been tracking the sub all along, but never let on that they knew, so China would be caught "flat footed" in any real conflict.
Re:That's odd (Score:4, Insightful)