Jun 05 2010

The Iowa

They don’t build them like that anymore.

Oil pours from cap over Gulf gusher, some captured

By MELISSA NELSON and HOLBROOK MOHR, The Associated Press

Saturday, June 5, 2010; 3:31 AM

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. — Oil poured out of a cap that robots adjusted over the gusher in the Gulf, though some was being collected, as the slow-motion catastrophe spread deeper into the marshes and beaches of four states along the coast.

The spreading slick arrived with the tide on the Florida Panhandle’s white sands Friday as BP continued its desperate and untested bid to arrest what is already the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

“Progress is being made, but we need to caution against overoptimism,” said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man for the crisis. Early Friday, he guessed that the cap was collecting 42,000 gallons a day – less than one-tenth of the amount leaking from the well. Later, BP said in a tweet that since it was installed Thursday night, it had collected about 76,000 gallons.

On April 19th, 1989, 47 sailors were killed following an explosion in the Iowa’s No. 2 turret.

Forty seven, eleven, the Iowa was not retired out of respect for the dead.  It was because we simply did not have the technology to replace that turret any more.  All the machines to build it had been disassembled and sold for scrap.

Want to go to the Moon?  How about vacation in low Earth orbit?

We don’t do that any more.  We have iPhone 4Gs assembled in China by suicidal slaves.

Welcome to your virtual life (not to be confused with your real one).

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience. – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

3 comments

  1. Hadrian’s Wall was never breached.

    It was abandoned.

  2. From the AP story:

    He came back after Hurricane Katrina, and if he has to close his doors, he figures he’ll find a new venture. But he worries about the greater community.

    “BP has to take care of us,” he said

  3. …. one of the best wiki links I’ve ever plowed thru.


    Also on 18 April, Iowa’s fire-control officer, Lieutenant Leo Walsh, conducted a briefing to discuss the next day’s main battery exercise. Moosally, Morse, Kissinger, and Costigan did not attend the briefing. During the briefing, Skelley announced that Turret Two would participate in an experiment of his design in which D-846 powder would be used to fire 2,700-pound (1,200 kg) shells.[23]

    D-846 was among the oldest of the powder lots on board Iowa, dating back to 1943-1945, and was designed to fire 1,900-pound (860 kg) shells. In fact, printed on each D-846 powder canister were the words, “WARNING: Do Not Use with 2,700-pound projectiles.”[24] D-846 powder burned faster than normal powder which meant that it exerted greater pressure on the shell when fired. Skelley explained that the experiment’s purpose was to improve the accuracy of the guns. Skelley’s plan was for Turret Two to fire ten 2,700-pound practice (no explosives) projectiles, two from the left gun and four rounds each from the center and right guns. Each shot was to use five bags of D-846, instead of the six bags normally used, and to fire at the empty ocean 17 nautical miles (30 km) away.[25]

    Ziegler was especially concerned about his center gun crew. The rammerman, Robert W. Backherms, was inexperienced, as were the powder car operator, Gary J. Fisk, the primerman, Reginald L. Johnson Jr., and the gun captain, Richard Errick Lawrence. To help supervise Lawrence, Ziegler assigned Second Class Gunner’s Mate Clayton Hartwig, the former center gun captain, who had been excused from gun turret duty because of a pending reassignment to a new duty station in London, to the center gun’s crew for the firing exercise. Because of the late hour, Ziegler did not inform Hartwig of his assignment until the morning of 19 April, shortly before the firing exercise was scheduled to begin.[26]

    The rammerman’s position was of special concern, as ramming was considered the most dangerous part of loading the gun. The ram was used to first thrust the projectile and then the powder bags into the gun’s breech. The ram speed used for the projectile was much faster (14 feet (4.3 m) per second) than that used for the lighter powder bags (1.5 feet (0.46 m) per second), but there was no safety device on the ram piston to prevent the rammerman from accidentally pushing the powder bags at the faster speed. Overramming the powder bags into the gun could subject the highly inflammable powder to excessive friction and compression with a resulting increased danger of premature combustion. Also, if the bags were pushed too far into the gun, a gap between the last bag and the primer might prevent the powder from igniting when the gun was fired, causing a misfire. None of Iowa’s rammermen had any training or experience in ramming nonstandard five-bag loads into the guns. Complicating the task, as the rammerman was shoving the powder bags he was also supposed to simultaneously operate a lever to shut the powder hoist door and lower the powder hoist car. Iowa crewmen would later state that Turret Two’s center gun rammer would sometimes “take off” uncontrollably on its own at high speed. Furthermore, Backherms had never operated the ram before during a live fire shoot.[27]

    Take a WW II ship out of mothballs, re rig it up and plan to send it to the first Gulf War under Poppy Bush.   Experiment with cheaper gunpowder, (ancient gunpowder….  )  on an ancient ship that flunked inspection, and when it blows up,  quickly clean up and destroy the evidence and….  blame the homosexuals.


    Forty-four seconds after Moosally’s order, Lieutenant Buch reported that Turret Two’s right gun was loaded and ready to fire. Seventeen seconds later, he reported that the left gun was ready.

    A few seconds later, Errick Lawrence, in Turret Two’s center gun room, reported to Ziegler over the turret’s phone circuit that, “We have a problem here. We are not ready yet. We have a problem here.”[30]

    Ziegler responded by announcing over the turret’s phone circuit, “Left gun loaded, good job. Center gun is having a little trouble. We’ll straighten that out.”[31]

    Mortensen, monitoring Turret Two’s phone circuit from his position in Turret One, heard Buch confirm that the left and right guns were loaded. Lawrence then called out, “I’m not ready yet! I’m not ready yet!”[32]

    Next, Ernie Hanyecz, Turret Two’s leading petty officer suddenly called out, “Mort! Mort! Mort!”[33] Ziegler shouted, “Oh, my God! The powder is smoldering!”[34]

    At this time, Ziegler may have opened the door from the turret officer’s booth in the rear of the turret into the center gun room and yelled at the crew to get the breech closed. About this same time, Hanyecz yelled over the phone circuit, “Oh, my God! There’s a flash!”[35]

    We have a problem here.

    About sums up the Carlyle Group.  Can we get over them now ?

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