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"Never underestimate the power of the Schwartzkopf"
Sorry. More Spaceballs.
RIP General Stormin.
Sorry. More Spaceballs.
RIP General Stormin.
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"...when Hibernian won the Scottish Cup final and that celebration, Sunshine on Leith? I don’t think there’s a better football celebration ever in the game.”
Sir Alex Ferguson -
Music we lost in 2012 - The Music They Made
Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."Comment
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Well-known people who died in 2012
December 30, 2012
Joe Paterno, 85. Longtime Penn State coach who lost his job in 2011 amid an assistant coach's child sex abuse scandal. Jan. 22.
Florence Green, 110. Last known veteran of World War I. Feb. 4.
Whitney Houston, 48. Singer accidentally drowned in a bathtub. Feb. 11.
Davy Jones, 66. Actor, singer with the Monkees. Feb. 29.
Robert B. Sherman, 86. Songwriter who wrote "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins." March 5.
F. Sherwood Rowland, 84. Nobel-winning chemist who crusaded against the use of chemicals harming Earth's atmosphere. March 10.
Earl Scruggs, 88. Bluegrass legend and banjo pioneer. March 28.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, 76. He designed Porsche's classic 911 sports car. April 5.
Thomas Kinkade, 54. Artist. April 6.
Mike Wallace, 93. CBS reporter and "60 Minutes" mainstay. April 7.
Dick Clark, 82. TV entrepreneur. April 19.
Charles Colson, 80. Special counsel to President Richard Nixon who went to prison for his role in a Watergate-related case and Prison Fellowship founder. April 21.
Vidal Sassoon, 84. Celebrity hairstylist. May 9.
Carroll Shelby, 89. Legendary car designer. May 10.
Robin Gibb, 62. One of the three singers in the Bee Gees. May 20.
Ray Bradbury, 91. Science fiction-fantasy master. June 5.
Nora Ephron, 71. Essayist, author and filmmaker. June 26.
Yitzhak Shamir, 96. Former Israeli prime minister. June 30.
Andy Griffith, 86. Star of "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock." July 3.
Ernest Borgnine, 95. Hollywood and TV star. July 8.
Celeste Holm, 95. Versatile actress. July 15.
William Raspberry, 76. Widely read Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. July 17.
Sally Ride, 61. First American woman in space. July 23.
Sherman Hemsley, 74. TV actor. July 24.
Gore Vidal, 86. Author, playwright, politician and commentator.July 31.
Phyllis Diller, 95. Housewife-turned-humorist. Aug. 20.
Neil Armstrong, 82. First human on the moon. Aug. 25.
The Rev. Sun Myung-moon, 92. Self-proclaimed messiah from South Korea. Sept. 3.
Michael Clarke Duncan, 54. Character actor. Sept. 3.
Andy Williams, 84. Silky-voiced, clean-cut crooner. Sept. 25.
Barry Commoner, 95. Scientist and activist. Sept. 30.
Alex Karras, 77. Former Detroit Lion turned actor. Oct. 10.
Arlen Specter, 82. Outspoken ex-U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. Oct. 14.
Norodom Sihanouk, 89. Former Cambodian king. Oct. 15.
George McGovern, 90. Former U.S. senator who lost to President Richard Nixon in 1972. Oct. 21.
Antoni Dobrowol
ski, 108. Oldest known survivor of Auschwitz. Oct. 21.
Russell Means, 72. American Indian Movement activist. Oct. 22.
Larry Hagman, 81. Actor who portrayed J.R. Ewing on TV show "Dallas." Nov. 23.
Dave Brubeck, 91. Jazz composer and pianist. Dec. 5.
Norman Joseph Woodland, 91. Co-inventor of the bar code. Dec. 9.
Ravi Shankar, 92. Sitar virtuoso. Dec. 11.
Daniel Inouye, 88. Second longest-serving U.S. senator, at nearly 50 years. Dec. 17.
Charles Durning, 89. Acclaimed character actor. Dec. 24.
Jack Klugman, 90. Star of TV's "Odd Couple." Dec. 24.
H. Norman Schwarzkopf, 78. Retired U.S. Army general who led the 1991 Gulf War. Dec. 27.Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."Comment
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Sol Yurick, author of "The Warriors", passed away this week-end.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Yurick"]Sol Yurick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]"This is an empty signature. Because apparently carrying a quote from anyone in this space means you are obsessed with that person. "Comment
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Navy
Obit for a Carrier
By Mark ThompsonJan. 07, 201315 Comments
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Navy photo / MCS 3rd Class Jeff AthertonThe USS Enterprise heads home last fall after her 25th, and final, deployment since her commissioning in 1961.
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The U.S.S. Enterprise has left the oceans. She is survived by 10 flat-topped behemoths. Services will be private.
Last month, the Big E, also known as CVN-65, left active-duty Navy service in a formal deactivation [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0uW1IjILeA"]ceremony[/ame] at Pier 12 in Norfolk, Va., attended by nearly 12,000 family members and close friends.
She was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, able to cruise at 30 knots, thanks to reactors generating more than 200,000 horsepower.
(PHOTOS: A Month with the Military)
Navy Photo / PM 2nd Class Douglas M. Pearlman
The Enterprise in the Atlantic a decade ago.
At 1,123 ft. (342 m), she was the longest warship in the history of the world.
She was the eighth vessel to bear the name Enterprise.
This Saturday will mark the 50th anniversary of the start of its maiden voyage from Norfolk. “She will reign a long, long time,” Navy Secretary [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Connally"]John Connally - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] predicted at her commissioning, “as queen of the seas.”
Admirals and sailors — not to mention Presidents — like to speak of these 100,000-ton monsters as “4 1/2 acres of sovereign U.S. territory.” So it’s a grim moment when one slips into history. Kind of like losing a state, or at least a territory. Albeit one that can move.
For a half-century, Enterprise carried about 60 aircraft around the globe, flinging them skyward from its four steam-powered catapults and enabling their landings with four arresting cables designed to catch their tailhooks. In May 2011 she became the fourth carrier to achieve 400,000 arrested landings.
But that’s all in the past. Hives of contractors are now buzzing aboard the Enterprise, docked at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, removing the tools, furniture and other flotsam that made Enterprise home for more than 100,000 sailors since she was commissioned in 1961.
Navy photo / MCS 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta aboard the Big E in 2012.
Spray-painted orange lines now deface her deck, not unlike those inked on a patient before surgery. The steel will be cut open so cranes can plumb the ship’s depths and haul away close to a half-billion dollars’ worth of gear that can be used aboard other ships.
(PHOTOS: Inside the Armed Forces: November)
“After seeing the ship in action,” Lieut. Commander Sarah Self-Kyler told the hometown Virginian-Pilot newspaper last month, “it’s kind of depressing.”
The designation of ships with feminine pronouns suggests that for those who served aboard, Enterprise was more than mere metal; she was mortal. So do the nearly 50,000 Likes the ship has chalked up on her Facebook page.
And as with all aging relations, old salts’ questions don’t sound that different from those asked by young grandchildren as their parents’ parents pass from this life, even if the Navy’s official answers are as unsatisfying as those from Mom and Dad.
What’s going to happen to her?Hydraulic systems will be drained and expendable materials, tools, spare parts and furnishings will be removed. Additionally, tanks containing oil and other fluids will be drained and cleaned, any hazardous material will be removed, and the ship’s electrical and lighting systems will be de-energized. Concurrent with inactivation, the ship will be defueled using the same proven techniques that have been used successfully to refuel and defuel over 350 Naval nuclear-powered warships.Why can’t we just fix her up and keep her sailing?
The U.S.S. Enterprise has been in service for over 50 years. Many of the major components and other equipment are nearing the end of their useful life, and it is not cost effective to further extend Enterprise for combat operations.Well, why can’t she be turned into a museum?
The cost to maintain a ship as a museum is generally cost prohibitive. As the ship is inactivated, equipment that may be of historic interest will be reclaimed and passed on to museums or appropriate Navy commands so Enterprise‘s many contributions to the nation’s defense over the past half-century are remembered.Some of Enterprise‘s old sailors recall her fondly, if a bit mysteriously. “1978–1980,” one notes. “Did the WesPac78 w/Enterprise. An experience I won’t soon forget!”
Others are more somber. “Was on her in Cuba, attack squad 64 black lancers back in 1962,” one posts. “Said good by 2 weeks ago in Norfolk with two of my squadron buddies. I cried.”
(PHOTOS: Remembering the Cuban Missile Crisis)
One woman wishes she could have attended Enterprise’s deactivation ceremony last month. “I would have like to have attended on behalf of my uncle,” she says. “He worked on the Enterprise when she was first constructed. He insulated pipes with asbestos. He died in 1974 from the asbestos. The print he received of the ship, with the letter from management attached on the back, hang on my bedroom wall. He was proud of his participation in building this ship.”
Navy photo
The U.S.S. Enterprise on Jan. 14, 1969.
Others recall her grimmest day: Jan. 14, 1969, when, while in the Pacific, a Zuni rocket accidentally exploded under the wing of an F-4, setting off an inferno that killed 27. “We fought hard, real hard, to keep her afloat during the 1969 fire please don’t let her die like this,” one former sailor pleads.
Yet most seem pleased just to have the chance to bid her fair winds and following seas. “I know that the Enterprise isn’t the youngest girl at the ball, but she can dance with the best of them,” one says. “My respect to the ship and the men and women who served on her.”
Enterprise will spend six months at Norfolk before being towed — towed! — some eight miles (13 km) or so to Newport News shipyard, where her keel was laid in February 1958, for more demolition work. Defueling her eight nuclear reactors (a pair per prop shaft) will begin there. Then she will be towed — there’s that word again! — 14,000 nautical miles around Cape Horn, at the southern end of South America, for final disposition at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state.
Navy Photo / Mike Carrado
At sea aboard the Enterprise, 1996.
In addition to the Navy’s 10 currently steaming carriers, three of the new Ford class are now under construction. The U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford will set sail in 2015, followed by the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy in 2020.
The third ship of the class, the U.S.S. Enterprise, CVN-80, is slated to sail in 2025.
Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/01/07/ob...#ixzz2HKat0ETeBenny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."Comment
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Good story, Tony. When I had the patrol boat out of Cape May we escorted the Forrestal all the way from the mouth of the Delaware River as it was being towed to Philly to be decommed. (that was one looooong ass tedious escort)All of my crew was too young to remember the training video that I saw in boot camp about when it caught on fire in Viet Nam. Did they show that to you in the Navy?I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it onComment
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oh yeah, seeing those fireballs rolling up the deck and realizing they were the emergency crew was a real holy shit momentBenny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."Comment
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Californians lost their greatest champion yesterday
RIP HUELL HOWSER
Last edited by Panoptes; January 7, 2013, 10:26 PM.19.1119, NO LONGER WAITINGComment
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RIP Huell.------------
<<< Jana Cova ...again (8 <<<Comment
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"Whatchu talkin about JD!"
RIP Diffrent Strokes guy....., great sitcom."...when Hibernian won the Scottish Cup final and that celebration, Sunshine on Leith? I don’t think there’s a better football celebration ever in the game.”
Sir Alex FergusonComment
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Dear Abby Dies
Dear Abby?s Timeless Advice
The particular charms of Pauline Phillips? counsel.
By Emily Yoffe
In reading the obituaries for the late Pauline (Popo) Friedman Phillips, who was best known as advice columnist Dear Abby, I enjoyed her unpretentious description of what she felt made her qualified to tell people what to do. As this Washington Post tribute describes, she made no claims for any special knowledge of the human condition. She just confidently asserted that she possessed common sense and could deploy it to help. (She was also happy to turn to a long list of authorities if the question required more expertise.)
The numbers of those who agreed with her self-assessment are astonishing. The Washington Post says she received between 3,000 and 25,000 letters a week. To answer these ?she employed four full-time mail openers, six letter-answerers and a research assistant.? (As Slate?s Dear Prudence, I open all my own email, and it is not an onerous task.) Phillips became Dear Abby in 1956?she named herself after the Biblical Abigail, ?Then David said to Abigail ?Blessed is your advice and blessed are you? ??and continued until the column was officially taken over by her daughter, Jeanne, in 2002, with the announcement that Pauline was suffering from Alzheimer?s. Phillips died this week of the disease at age 94. Advice-giving ran in the family. Phillips? twin sister, the late Esther (Eppie) Friedman Lederer, was the equally famous columnist Ann Landers. Lederer?s daughter Margo Howard was Slate?s previous Dear Prudence.
Dear Abby specialized in the clever one liner. To a wife asking about a cure for her husband?s wandering eye, she suggested ?rigor mortis.? To the people complaining about the gay couple who?d moved in next door and wanting to know how the quality of the neighborhood could be restored, she replied: ?You could move.? Her style makes her seem both like a voice from another era?one of those snappy dames Rosalind Russell played?and in the age of Twitter, remarkably current.
I?m sure that she must have sometimes felt overwhelmed by the sorrow that came her way, the cries from people who felt the need to turn to a disembodied stranger. I know she took her responsibilities very seriously; accounts say she sometimes contacted letter writers personally if she felt they were in trouble. I understand her impulse?I, too, communicate directly with people who sound suicidal or in danger. I?m sure she felt the same gratification I do when I hear back that they?ve seen a doctor and are feeling better or have left a threatening relationship.
She had the bedrock values of a nice Midwestern Jewish girl, a liberal point of view about people?s right to make personal decisions, and a willingness to adapt with the times. She started out thinking marriage should be forever but changed her mind on that?both of her children eventually divorced. She was an early supporter of equality for gay people and was a believer in abortion rights. She hated smoking but was willing to entertain the notion of drug legalization.
As Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax wisely points out in her reflection on Dear Abby, just because you dole out advice doesn?t mean you don?t need it yourself. I frequently get letters from people full of resentment or rage at their adult siblings. It?s a little-explored area of human experience, unlike the much-examined relationships between parent and child or spouse and spouse. Phillips and Lederer famously feuded on and off for years because of their competing advice columns. After Lederer had begun hers first, she turned to her witty sister for help with answers. Lederer?s syndicate said she couldn?t farm out replies, so Phillips herself went and convinced the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle to give her her own column.
The resentment between them that bubbled out in interviews over the years was raw and sad. One can understand the rivalry, but both of the sisters must have known from the mailbags to their offices that there was more than enough trouble to go around. Each woman was among the most widely syndicated and best-read newspaper columnists of her day?Dear Abby at its height was in more than 1,400 newspapers, according to the Wall Street Journal. When I was growing up, my local newspaper, the Boston Globe, carried Ann Landers, and I read her column religiously. It has been a pleasure in the past day to read some of the best of Abby?s answers, to see that many of the same dilemmas she dealt with fill my inbox, and to confirm that the advice Abby gave still holds up.
Correction, Jan. 18, 2013: Due to a production error, this article originally included a photo of Esther Friedman Lederer, the twin sister of Pauline Friedman Phillips, but identified the image as Friedman Phillips.
AAL:to be determined
2011 NFL Draft Wish List:
1. Patrick Peterson Cornerback LSU
2. Mark Herzlich Outside Linebacker Boston College
3. John Moffitt Center Wisconsin
4. Steve Schilling Guard Michigan
5. Jeremy Kerley Wide Receiver TCU
6. Carl Johnson Tackle Florida
7. Johnny Patrick Cornerback LouisvilleComment
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Dear Abby, we have a batshit crazy redneck in our forum that drives people insane and will not leave. How do we make it stop?
signed -
Stuck with TrollBenny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."Comment
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