Wednesday - February 15, 2006

Most Ridiculous Headline Of The Day

How can anyone use the words “mighty French warship” in a sentence and keep a straight face? That is a phrase that is way up there on the list of oxymorons, right next to “peaceful Muslim” and “honest Democrat”. All descriptions of things that do not exist, never did exist and never will exist. Sacre bleu, mon ami! Que pensaient-ils ? Nous nous rendrions plutôt que combattre!

Mighty French Warship Ends Its Days
February 15, 2006, 6:20 AM EST
PARIS (AP)

When it first took to the seas nearly 50 years ago, the Clemenceau was the crown jewel of French naval prowess. Today, the decommissioned aircraft carrier is an albatross for France amid an uproar over the toxic waste the hulking ship carries. The saga underlines the trouble many countries face in getting rid of retired vessels. It has also become an embarrassment for the French Defense Ministry, which environmentalists criticize for not addressing the potential risks of sending the ship to India for dismantling.

The Clemenceau—now known as the Q 790—first set sail in 1957. Taken out of service in 1997, it is now in the Arabian Sea, having left the French Mediterranean port of Toulon on Dec. 31. Egypt kept the ship from crossing the Suez Canal for more than a week last month before officials there ruled it would not harm the environment. It’s expected to reach a shipbreaking yard in western India early next month, though the ship’s journey has been stalled as French and Indian courts seek to determine how much asbestos is on board and the risks to workers taking it apart.

French officials have said there are 45 tons of asbestos on the ship, but environmentalists put that number at up to 1,000 tons. Environmentalists insist the Clemenceau should have been cleaned up before leaving port and say France’s transfer of the vessel violates the Basel Convention, an international accord on trade in potentially hazardous waste. On Tuesday, President Jacques Chirac’s spokesman announced that the French leader was personally handling the Clemenceau issue, just days before leaving for a visit to India. The spokesman did not explain why Chirac was intervening, but it was a measure of France’s discomfort that he felt the need to get involved.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France had few options other than sending the ship to India. “There’s no solution for dismantling thousands of warships now rusting in certain places in the world, which is extremely harmful to the environment,” she said Tuesday on Europe-1 radio. “There are no dismantling yards in Europe; none in the United States.” Capt. Lawrence M. Jones, who runs the U.S. Navy’s Inactive Ships Program, corrected her in an Associated Press phone interview, saying his program uses three scrapping yards in the United States.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/15/2006 at 08:06 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • Satire •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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