Text 14681, 89 rader
Skriven 2005-08-20 20:40:28 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 14676 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: San Francisco
=====================
Jeff Binkley -> All wrote:
 JB> I am all for selling San Francisco to a foreign country...

 JB> ==========================================

 JB> http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/20/D8C3PH0G0.html

 JB> San Francisco Shuns Retired USS Iowa
 JB> Aug 20 4:54 PM US/Eastern


 JB> By BRIAN SKOLOFF
 JB> Associated Press Writer


 JB> SAN FRANCISCO


 JB> The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian
 JB> Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran
 JB> conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of
 JB> the nation's most deadly military accidents.

 JB> Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San
 JB> Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese
 JB> machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across
 JB> the South Pacific.

 JB> Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles
 JB> inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin
 JB> River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.

 JB> Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped
 JB> secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in
 JB> 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.

 JB> But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship,
 JB> citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on
 JB> gays, among other things.

 JB> "If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then
 JB> it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now,"
 JB> Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.

 JB> Feinstein called it a "very petty decision."

 JB> "This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in
 JB> and was born in," Feinstein said.

 JB> San Francisco's maritime museum already has one military vessel _ the
 JB> USS Pampanito, an attack submarine that sank six Japanese ships during
 JB> World War II and has about 110,000 visitors a year.

 JB> Officials in Stockton couldn't be happier. They've offered a dock on the
 JB> river, a 90,000-square-foot waterfront building and a parking area, and
 JB> hope to attract at least 125,000 annual visitors.

 JB> After the Korean war, the Iowa was decommissioned and placed in reserve
 JB> in a Philadelphia shipyard for three decades. In 1988, it was recalled
 JB> to duty escorting oil supply ships safely in and out danger in the
 JB> Persian Gulf. In 1989, 47 sailors were killed in an explosion that tore
 JB> through a gun turret during a training exercise.

 JB> The warship, decommissioned by the Navy in 1990, is currently anchored
 JB> with a mothballed fleet in Suisun Bay, near the mouth of the San Joaquin-
 JB> Sacramento River Delta.

 JB> San Francisco's rejection of such a storied battleship is a slap in the
 JB> nation's face, said Douglass Wilhoit, head of Stockton's Chamber of
 JB> Commerce.

 JB> "We're lucky our men and women have sacrificed their lives ... to
 JB> protect our freedom," Wilhoit said. "Wherever you stand on the war in
 JB> Iraq ... you shouldn't make a decision based on philosophy."

 JB> Rep. Richard W. Pombo, R-Calif., has sponsored legislation authorizing
 JB> the ship's permanent move to Stockton. Feinstein has countered with a
 JB> bill to open bidding to any California city.

 JB> The two versions will have to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference
 JB> committee considering the Pentagon spending bill.


Somebody oughta burn that goddamn city to the ground.  Its a modern day Sodom
and Gomorrah if ever there was one.  I'd make damn sure all the politicians who
voted against the Iowa were in the middle of it when it went up.

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