Probably Misleading News Story About Trident Launch

There's a story on the wire today about a supposed Trident missile launch in Saudi Arabia; excerpt:

The United States test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads during a joint military exercise Wednesday with Saudi Arabia, a Western military official said.
The Trident missile launch was carried out in the kingdom, the official said, but he would not give a precise location. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue...
...A defense official in Washington confirmed the missile launch on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. He said, however, that it took place late last week and was part of a demonstration.
The Western military official in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, said U.S. Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, head of the Missile Defense Agency, attended the test launch.

[Emphasis mine.] The whole thing really makes no sense. What may have happened is that a Trident missile was launched from a submarine, probably just off the U.S. coast as is normally done, and some Saudis were there to witness it. The AP writer heard about it, and made the assumption that they had brought a Trident missile to Saudi Arabia, set it up on land, and launched it.

On the other hand, if we did really do a launch in the vicinity of the Arabian Peninsula, I'm not sure why we would launch one from land. However, if they brought a boomer into the Red Sea and launched from there, that would be impressive, and a good warning to the Iranians that they could never really ever win a war with the U.S.

Update 0930 01 Apr: Here's the denial that a missile launch happened. I didn't think the story made any sense.

I ♥ Musicals

I'm in a good mood because of an excellent quarterly financial statement from a local business, so I'm inspired to share with my readers what I consider one of the best recent short musicals -- Reptar on Ice:



Enjoy...

PCU Missouri Drydock Photo

From the SUBGRU 2 Facebook page, here's a photo of the crew of PCU Missouri (SSN 780) with their boat in drydock at EB:

Missouri is scheduled to be commissioned in July of this year. Does anyone have any good shipyard stories?

VADM Reynolds Passes

Retired submariner and member of the Dolphin Scholarship Distinguished Advisory Board VADM J. Guy Reynolds has passed on. VADM Reynolds, COMSUBPAC in the late 80s, fought a courageous battle with cancer and showed great fortitude in his final months.

Sailor, Rest Your Oar.

2009 Film Roundup, Part 1: The Oscars and the Year in Review

(Here's the latest Film Roundup, a pre-blog tradition, and something I put up after the Oscars. I'm posting this one much later than I'd like, but it's not the tardiest it's ever been! Per usual, it can be read starting here and scrolling down through the other posts. Previous installments are here.)Many of the best films of 2009 took some effort to find and didn't last long in theaters, but

2009 Film Roundup, Part 2: The Top Six

The Hurt Locker: Director Kathryn Bigelow delivers a taut thriller set in Iraq in 2004, as a three-man bomb squad faces one tense situation after another. (The title is trooper slang for being stuck in physical or mental pain.) Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) is an adrenaline junkie and cowboy who's exceptional at his job defusing bombs, but also take gutsiness far into

2009 Film Roundup, Part 3: Noteworthy Films

An Education: It's 1960s London, and 16-year old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is sophisticated beyond her years. Her parents are determined that she study relentlessly so she can get into Oxford, but then she meets an older man in his 30s, David (Peter Sarsgaard), who seems to appreciate culture as much as she does. David and his friends Danny and Helen live a much more glamorous life than do

2009 Film Roundup, Part 4: The Rest (The Good, the Bad and the Godawful)

(Click any image for a larger view.)Zombieland: Zombieland runs screaming in terror over some familiar post-apocalyptic territory, but it's good, gory fun. The most innovative thing is the "rules" for zombie survival narrated by our hero "Columbus" (Jesse Eisenberg) that then flash up on screen throughout the film. "Columbus," is a young man whose overly-cautious to paranoid nature helped him

Whither The Smoking Lamp? And Other Links

1) Navy Times has a story on the CNO's plan to stop smoking on submarines. Excerpt:

The move is not yet official, so Lt. Cmdr. Mark Jones, a spokesman for Submarine Force, would say only that Vice Adm. John Donnelly “is examining the options of changing the policy of smoking in a submarine to improve the overall health of the entire crew.”
Jones would not speculate on when a decision will be made, but a final order likely will come soon. The catalyst for change is the effect of second-hand smoke on crew members who remain submerged for months at a time.

Interestingly, submarines are one of the few indoor "public" places you can still smoke in Scotland, because they feel it would be too dangerous to go outside on the sub to light up. It makes sense strictly from an engineering sense to get rid of a load on the Burners, but I'm wondering how the submarine crews will take this proposed ban. During my JO tour from '90 - '93 is when they first started really restricting smoking on the boats; during that time, as I remember, they outlawed smoking on watch if you were in a closely-packed area (Maneuvering or the Ship's Control Party; I can't remember if you could light up in Sonar and Radio or not.) By the time I got to my next boat, I think it was a Force-wide policy that you could only smoke off-watch, in Shaft Alley, and only a couple guys at a time. Lots of guys took up smokeless tobacco. What do you think of the proposed ban?

2) Wired magazine has a story on the Submarine Escape trainer in Groton, with a video:



3) Here's a really nice summary of the five WWII U.S. submarines whose Eternal Patrol locations have been found since 2005. Toll the Bell.

FY11 URL Flag List Released

Although the ALNAV hasn't been released yet, word on the street is that the following Submarine Officers have been selected for O-7:

CAPT Dave M. Duryea
CAPT Dietrich H. Kuhlmann III
CAPT Frederick J. Roegge
CAPT Phillip G. Sawyer
CAPT Joseph E. Tofalo

This list might not be exhaustive; it's just everyone on the list who I know (or am pretty sure) is an 1120. Interestingly, the list is a lot later than last year; the FY10 list was released on 11 Feb in 2009. Of the five officers listed, the one I know best is RADM RDML (sel) "Fritz" Roegge. He was my last CO on USS Connecticut (SSN 22) when I was Eng, and while I didn't necessarily like his Engineer leave policy (to not allow the Eng to take leave, even with his relief on board, to drive his family cross-country for a PCS move when the Eng got extended three months due to an unscheduled BATREP), I really liked his command style, and always thought that had I earned Command I would have emulated him more than any of my other COs. He is the first of my sub COs to earn his flag, and I thought he was the most likely of the five I had to make it.

What do you think about the list? Be nice (if possible)...

Bell-ringer 1519 28 Mar: Corrected the abbreviation for 1 star Admiral.

Update 1513 30 Mar: Here's the ALNAV. Looks like the list above is accurate.

PCU New Mexico Being Commissioned Saturday

PCU New Mexico (SSN 779) will be commissioned at the Norfolk Naval Station at 1100 EDT on Saturday. You can watch the ceremony live via streaming video from the link on this page. Some more information, including pictures of preparations, can be found here. A Navy League website for the boat is here.

And for the crew of what will soon be America's newest warship, remember... the new guy has to bring in doughnuts for everyone on Monday.

Update 2236 26 March: Here's some more information from SUBGRU 2, and here's a picture of New Mexico's torpedo tube breech. Isn't it cute? It's so tiny!

Update 1333 27 Mar: If you missed seeing the ceremony live, you can still download and watch it here. (If that link, which pulls up the video directly, doesn't work for you, you can access it from here.)

Update 1454 27 Mar: Here's the official Navy report on the commissioning. Looks like Missouri is next, with her commissioning tentatively scheduled for July of this year.

Friend Of Submariners Passes

Sad news out of Groton. Terrence Garbuzinski, a VP at Sonalysts and a Submariner in the Reserves himself, and who is well known to at least the wardrooms on the Groton waterfront, died last night in a car accident on I-95 in Mystic, CT. Terry was known for providing lots of good information for those heading out on the "tip of the spear".

The Submarine Brotherhood has lost a good friend and a brother.

This Could Be Bad

Initial reports are often suspect, but this BBC report that a South Korean naval vessel is sinking following a possible torpedo attack, if even halfway true, could cause things in Korea to get very hot very quickly. If true, it probably wasn't a planned attack, but some North Korean Captain who believed his government's propaganda and went too far.

According to Global Security, North Korea has 22 old Soviet Romeo-class diesel boats, and 4 even older Whiskey-class boats, along with 71 mini-subs. They also have hundreds of small surface ships that could potentially fire torpedoes.

Based on the reported crew size of the South Korean vessel, it could be a Pohang-class corvette that was attacked.

Staying at PD...

Update 1019 26 Mar: According to this report from The Sun (admittedly not the most authoritative source), the ship has now sunk, with dozens reported dead or missing.

Update 1513 26 Mar: The South Korean government is downplaying possible North Korean involvement until they get more information. I suppose it's possible that one of their corvettes had a catastrophic engine room explosion while it just coincidentally happened to be near the Northern Limit line. On the other hand, I'm hearing rumors of more weapons fire at sea. Remember, the ship was attacked on Friday night (their time), and right now it's just before sunrise on Saturday morning, so the entire rescue and investigation has been taking place in the dark.

Update 1528 26 Mar: As I suspected, the sunken ship is reported to be a Pohang-class corvette; it's identified in this article from The Korea Herald as ROKS Cheonan (PCC 772).

Update 1329 27 Mar: Although they don't know yet what caused the sinking, the South Korean government is all but ruling out North Korean involvement.

Going deep...

TBogg Slaps Galt

Reason magazine's "libertarian cruise" sounds about as dreadful as the National Review cruise. Well, they can curl up with their Ayn Rand books; liberals can stick with TBogg snark: That’s right. You can spend your evenings hobnobbing with stars of the “libertarian intellectual universe” at the nightly reading of John Galt’s 70-page speech (Thursday Night is Esperanto night!), afterward it’s

She and Him - "Thieves"

Here's their recent KCRW session.

Web Of Connections

A Farm Story

Speaker Pelosi was being driven back to the airport one dark Northern California night from her vineyard home. Coming around a bend, there was a terrific crash and the car skidded off the road. “What happened?” shouted the Speaker from the back seat. The driver said, “I hit something, it just appeared in the dark. Lemme see what it is.” The driver and the Speaker shortly thereafter stood over the expiring corpse of an cow. “Well, Madame Speaker,” the driver said, “I was raised on a farm, and from the look of this cow she was really, really old and wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway.” He looked up the hill to a small farmhouse. “I guess I’ll go tell those people the news, it’s probably their cow.”

The driver trudged up the hill, and was gone for several hours. Finally he comes back down the hill, inebriated and disheveled. “What happened to you?” screeched the Speaker, now several hours late for her flight. “Why were you gone so long?”

“Well,” began the driver, “I walked up to the door and explained who I was and what had happened. The family really didn’t seem that upset. They invited me in for a bottle of their own wine, which led to another bottle, and then we were hungry and they cooked us a fabulous meal, and since I had killed their cow I didn’t feel I could refuse. While we were eating, their daughter came home. She’s an Oakland Raiders cheerleader, and when they explained who I was she insisted on showing me the room she grew up in. Well, one thing led to another and she was really, really friendly, and how could I refuse?”

“That’s crazy!” shouted the Speaker. “Why would they react like that? What did you tell them?”

“Well, when they answered the door I told them I was Speaker Pelosi’s driver and I had run over the old cow and she was dead.”

Ba-dum-bum!

ISAF To Cut "Nonessential" Amenities

From a blog posting by Command Sergeant Major Hall of the International Security Assistance Force - Afghanistan:

Many of you have heard that there are plans to shut down some of the “amenities” throughout Afghanistan. This is not rumor. It is fact. This is a warzone – not an amusement park. From the moment GEN McChrystal and I arrived in Afghanistan last summer, we began looking for ways to do things more efficiently across the battlefield – the optimization of ISAF. This effort includes moving and reallocating resources to better accomplish our mission.
One of the ways we’re going to do that -- in order to accommodate the troop increase and get re-focused on the mission at hand -- is to cut back on some of the nonessentials. That includes some of the morale, welfare and recreation facilities throughout Afghanistan. In the coming weeks and months, concessions such as Orange Julius, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and Military Car Sales will close their doors.
Other changes will not be so obvious. We will also reduce the amount of canned and bottled goods coming into country, as well as first-run movie showings and non-USO entertainment shows.
What it comes down to is focus, and to using the resources we have in the most efficient and effective ways possible. Supplying nonessential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need resupplied with ammunition, food and water...
... Some will say the decision to do away with these amenities is meant only to make things harder for deployed service members, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Closing these facilities will free up much-needed storage facilities at both Bagram and Kandahar, space which is critical as 30,000 additional American and up to 7,000 international troops flow into Afghanistan over the next several months.

OK, some of this I can see. But what's the deal with no longer showing first-run movies? He doesn't say they're taking down the movie theaters (which in a lot of cases are probably the mess halls with a screen and portable projector), so they'll probably still show old movies. Is he saying they can't carry in a few extra DVDs in their resupply flights? I really don't get that.

So what do you guys think? Will this help us Solve The Problem and Win The War? Or are these the actions of a command team that wants to look like they're doing something, and have forgotten what life is like outside of the headquarters building? Maybe when they tour around the bases and talk to "randomly selected" servicepeople, they should realize that they only get to talk to the kiss-asses, and that's the reason they hear complaints about "too much fun stuff to do during our down time". Stuff like this makes me think back the the time I was at CENTCOM HQ in 2003-2004, and we passed around (and contributed to) the Staff Officer's "Hard Sayings" Log.

I don't know. Maybe times have changed in the last 5 years, and today's Soldiers want to have fewer first-run movies and more time spent studying excessively restrictive ROEs.

Pretty Blue Water

Check out this photo of USS Annapolis (SSN 760) departing Souda Bay last week:

Another photo is here. Where was the prettiest water you've ever seen? I was really impressed with how clear the water was in the Caribbean.

All Your Prosperity Are Belong to Us

Via Tristero, here's a great letter in response to The New Yorker's portrait of Paul Krugman. The letter describes the different approaches of liberals and conservatives very sharply:Larissa MacFarquhar’s Profile of Paul Krugman suggests that the economists with whom Krugman does battle could use a little history of political philosophy mixed in with their economic prophesying (“The Deflationist

Kurosawa Centennial

Today would have been Akira Kurosawa's 100th birthday. Here's a pretty good fan video using footage from Ran and music from the band Dead Can Dance:Here's a jittery copy of his lifetime achievement Oscar presentation:And here's a brief clips from Dreams:Kurosawa originally wanted to become a painter, and his idol was Van Gogh. You can see it in Ran and some of his other color films. While I

Health Care Reform Passes

(The Washington Post's web page. Click for a larger view.)There's still the reconciliation fix to go, and other details. But the biggest deed has now been done. As Paul Krugman writes:There is, as always, a tunnel at the end of the tunnel: we’ll spend years if not decades fixing this thing. But kudos to all involved, with special praise for Nancy Pelosi, who is now a Speaker for the ages.We

USS Florida Ship Control Party

Here's a photo from the official Navy website showing the Ship Control Party of the USS Florida (SSGN 728) while on station in the Sixth Fleet AOR:

The hi-res version is here. It's pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as the SCP/BCP of a Seawolf-class boat. The Virginia-class counterpart isn't nearly as imposing.

What type of SCP/BCP do you like? The old analog versions, or the new digital ones?

Tournament Time

With the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament now in full swing (leading up to the inevitable victory of the Kansas Jayhawks on April 5th), I renew my call to the media to show restraint in anointing teams as "Cinderella". From this post in 2006, I repeat my two rules that should be followed before bestowing this title on any team:

1) They must have beaten at least two higher-seeded teams in the tournament.

2) The only exception to Rule 1) is if a 16 seed ever beats a 1 seed.

As you see, unless Duke or Syracuse gets beat tonight, the first time a "Cinderella" could potentially be named would be on Saturday. Even then, I would hesitate to name Washington as a Cinderella if they beat New Mexico, since I think that beating a team from the Mountain West Conference shouldn't really count.

How 'bout that Big East? Isn't it cute when people think that conference is supposedly the best in basketball? They're so funny...

Update 1327 20 March: OK, so St. Mary's now qualifies as a "Cinderella", but let's face it -- it appears that beating a "Big Least" team this year isn't really that much of a surprise...

Anonymous Commenting

Some people have suggested that I turn on the functionality that requires people to sign in to make comments. I'm hesitant to do that because I like having active duty guys being able to comment without fear of repercussion -- although, to be honest, the Navy would either have to get Google or Sitemeter to give up the URL information if they wanted to track someone, since I use the free Sitemeter version that only displays the last 100 visitors.

That being said, sometimes (especially in long comment threads) it gets tough to figure out which anonymous commenter is saying what. I suggest that commenters who wish to remain anonymous use the "Name/URL" option when posting their comments; you can pick out some "handle", then leave the URL space blank. You don't have to have a Blogger account to do that, and it leaves no more of a paper trail than commenting anonymously. (The disadvantage, of course, is that anyone could hijack that identity.)

Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to make the commenting here more enjoyable?

U2 - "One"

Continuing with our Irish theme...

To Hell with Nuns

You may have heard that Catholic nuns have broken with the Catholic Bishops (but joined the Catholic Health Alliiance) to support health care reform. That's not swaying good ol' pro-lifer Bart Stupak:Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich, responded sharply to White House officials touting a letter representing 59,000 nuns that was sent to lawmakers urging them to pass the health care bill.The

Corporate Theft

I'll be linking some pieces on Michael Lewis and his new book on the Wall Street collapse later, but this is a fantastic Daily Show segment on how some major corporations get away with what should be illegal.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cIn Dodd We Trustwww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorHealth Care Reform

Blogger Alicia Morgan in Danger of Losing her House

Los Angeles-based musician and blogger Alicia Morgan of Last Left Turn Before Hooterville is in danger of losing her house, although she and her husband did win another six weeks at least. Any advice on dealing with banks and lawyers on such things would be appreciated.

Tweet (or Call) for Health Care

skippy is tweeting for health care and has a list of twitter addresses for key congresspeople. Tim F. of Balloon Juice has a guide for calling your congresscritters. Meanwhile, David Dayen (DDay) continues to update his whip count for the House of Representatives based on public statements. If you live in a swing district, your voice is especially important. But as Tim F. has pointed out, even

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2010

I've used these before, but I still think they make a great pair for St. Paddy's Day - "Four Green Fields" and "The Patriot Game":

I'm Buying In...

I've decided to buy into the political philosophy frequently expressed by Tea Party types that the Federal Government shouldn't Constitutionally be allowed to do anything not expressly specified in the Constitution. To that end, I'm calling for all previous acts of the Federal Government that were not specifically allowed by the Constitution to be reversed. Noting that there's nothing in the Constitution that allows the Federal Government to pay another government for land to add to the United States, I'm calling on all strict Constitutionalists to join me in demanding the immediate return of the Louisiana Purchase to France, Florida and Puerto Rico to Spain, Alaska to Russia, and the Mexican Cession and Gadsden Purchase to Mexico.

Next, I note that there's no mention of the word "veterans" in the Constitution...

Movement Conservatism in a Nutshell

Movement conservatism in a nutshell:We need to bomb brown people over there so we can deny them health care over here.

USS Chicago CO Fired

The CO of USS Chicago (SSN 721), CDR Jeff Cima, was fired yesterday for Conduct Unbecoming following some sort of drunkedness episode at a recent ROTC visit. Excerpts:

Cima was relieved of command yesterday following what's known as a captain's mast, an administrative review that does not entail a court-martial, officials said. The drunkenness occurred at a Navy ROTC visit on March 10, Benham said. He said he couldn't identify what ROTC program was involved for privacy reasons.
Benham said Cima was relieved of command for misconduct and loss of confidence in his ability to command. The charges that the Navy said Cima was found guilty of are a career-ender in the Navy.

SUBPAC quickly replaced the link to CDR Cima's webpage from the Chicago with a link to the new temporary CO, but left Cima's main page (linked above and here) on the site, so you can see his biography until they read this and take it down.

I'm off two minds on this. Obviously I don't know for sure what he did, but it always used to be that ROTC visits were a time where the CO could blow off a little steam away from always having to be "proper" in front of the crew. On the other hand, there's something to be said for a guy who has the self-discipline to go three years without having to blow off steam.

I had one XO who said that one of his main duties was keeping the CO from doing something stupid while on the beach during liberty. What do you think? Is a CO allowed to get rip-roaring drunk every once in a while, especially when he's not in the same town as the boat? Or is any public display of alcohol-fueled stupidity verboten for the CO?

(Navy Times also has the story posted, with a list of other Navy COs who have been fired so far this year. Also, thanks to everyone who E-mailed me that this was going to come out; as I've said before, I don't like posting stuff like this until at least something comes out in the media.)

Update 1912 18 Mar: Navy Times has an update with some details from the incident. Excerpts:

An attack submarine commander fired Monday for “drunkenness” was attending an annual event for NROTC midshipmen at Cornell University in New York when the incident occurred, Navy Times has learned...
... Around 7 p.m. March 10, Cima and an unidentified lieutenant junior grade who accompanied him joined a dozen mids for dinner at a local pizza place, Olsen said. This was typical of the host unit, he added, as it offers a “less formal” environment where the midshipmen can talk about the Navy or the subject that was earlier briefed.
Olsen said alcohol was consumed at the event, and sometime after 11 p.m., the midshipmen were ready go back because “they have a busy week before spring and have tests coming up.” But by that time, Cima and the junior officer were drunk and the mids didn’t know what to do, he said. They called a lieutenant from the NROTC unit, who took the pair back to their hotel.
The lieutenant reported the event to Olsen the next day, who turned the matter over to Submarine Squadron 3.

If that's really all there was to it, it makes the justification for the firing all the more curious. If the midshipmen got that flustered from a situation like this, I hope they'll get a little more worldly before they hit the fleet. It makes me wonder if Ithaca, NY, doesn't have taxis...

Update 1654 20 March: Once again, comments have exceeded the limit of what it's easy to read (you have to click the button to add a comment to see everything after yesterday afternoon), so I'm closing comments.

Brit Submariners Reprimanded

It looks like the Royal Navy leaves their submarine officers who crash their boats dangling in the wind a bit longer than we do. Here's a story about the court-martial of the former CO of HMS Superb (S 109) that grounded while running submerged in the Red Sea in May 2008. Excerpts:

The hearing heard that the three officers had failed to notice on a chart that they were heading towards a pinnacle that rose to 132m as the submarine travelled in about 1,000m of water in the Red Sea.
Cpt Stuart Crozier, prosecuting, told the hearing that when the submarine collided with the pinnacle, the vessel was brought to an almost immediate halt...
...Cpt Crozier said: "The submarine collided with the underwater obstacle reducing its speed from 16 knots to three knots in a very short time...
...She said Cdr Drysdale, who has served in the navy for 25 years, had inspected the chart but had misread the depth of the pinnacle as 723 metres rather than 132 metres.

Interestingly, it looks like the Navigator is continuing his career in submarines. Glad to see the Royal Navy understands the concept that people can learn from their mistakes.

Lehman's Dirty Moves

This segment on Dylan Ratigan's show with Eliot Spitzer does a pretty good job of explaining Lehman Brothers' dirty moves:Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyOne of the first major stories on Lehman Brothers was The New York Times' piece "Report Details How Lehman Hid Its Woes." Their Lehman category has many more articles, and is sure to have more.After the

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Seeing this story about the residents of Portland, England, getting all in a tizzy and losing their stiff upper lip in response to a nuclear disaster drill made me think back to the "End of the World" drills we do periodically in submarine homeports. I always enjoyed the difficulty in coming up with a believable scenario for this drill, since, as us nukes well know, an actual nuclear accident in port is vanishingly unlikely with a naval reactor. (One time, we just said "Screw it" and had an RO run out of the Reactor I & C space with a black box shouting "I did it! I figured out how to melt down the reactor!" as the method of initiating the drill.) My favorite EOTWAWKI drill story involved a JO whose wife was several days overdue to have a baby, and had tried everything (including, reportedly, driving over railroad tracks) to speed up the birth. We decided that he'd be the guy to go up in the helicopter as a drill monitor, figuring that would be the one sure way to get the labor kick started. Unfortunately, even that didn't work.

What are your favorite stories from the End of the World drills? (Please remember the bounds of NNPI.) Did you ever have the locals react in humorous ways when they saw Navy guys running around with radiacs?

USS Connecticut Returns From Deployment

My old boat, USS Connecticut (SSN 22), returned from a six month deployment earlier this week. According to SUBPAC, the boat "...successfully completed two missions and one major inspection, and conducted liberty port calls in the Philippines, Guam, and Japan."

You can click here to find lots of great pictures of the homecoming from the Kitsap Sun.

Welcome home, guys!

Using Justice Against Us

I originally posted this piece on November 7th, 2008 over at the Campaign For America's Future. Obama had won the election, but Bush was still president. Some of the piece is necessarily dated, but I'm re-posting it here for a few reasons. The tiniest one is that CAF has changed their template, and now all block-quoted text is also italicized, which obscures italics used in the original post.

Lissie - "Wedding Bells"

This is a cover of a Hank Williams tune. I've liked pretty much everything I've heard from Lissie, and this is a good performance. (Still, ya gotta check out the flannel and giant specs version, too.)

Creeping Nanny-Statism In Idaho

The Idaho legislature is mostly made up of people who claim to support less government interference in people's lives, but it sure seems like they're happy to support more government interference in people's lives. The latest example is the passage of a bill in the Idaho Senate on a 29-5 vote to ban "texting while driving". While some Senators seem to be saying that the bill would not criminalize the simple act of reading a text while stopped at a stoplight, a quick review of the actual text proves otherwise. The bill defines "texting" as: "engaging in the review of, or preparation and transmission of typed messages via wireless devices." The section of law that's being amended, dealing with Inattentive Driving as a less included offense of Reckless driving, says it applies to "Any person who drives or is in actual physical control of any vehicle upon a highway, or upon public or private property open to public use..."

Unless the apologists for the new law want to claim that the police can't arrest someone for DWI who's passed out at a stoplight with the car running, then clearly the law applies to people stopped at a stoplight, and it clearly applies to reading texts. This whole issue is just the latest example of Idaho legislators who want to control the lives of those without political power -- in this case, teenagers. They claim they want to save lives, but what they're really interested in is passing a law that criminalizes behavior they lack the technical wherewithal in which to engage that's mostly being practiced by people they don't understand.

There are approximately 250 people a year who die in Idaho traffic crashes every year, and in essentially every case the accidents involve cars going over 20 MPH. However, I note that there's no bill currently introduced to lower the speed limit to 15 MPH (with exceptions for emergency vehicles, of course). I guess Idaho legislators are happy sending these 250 people to fiery deaths each year so they can race along at 50 MPH to get to the coffee shop for their mocha latte. [Rant inspired by Berkeley Breathed] Who knows, maybe next the Idaho Senate will decide that people are at risk of running off the road if they're outraged by the sight of people of different races walking down the street engaged in PDA, so they'll outlaw miscegenation. All in the interest of public safety, of course...

Hopefully the Idaho House will see through this attempt at election year political grandstanding, and keep this flawed bill from passing (or at least amend it so that it's clear that it doesn't apply to the simple act of reading texts, especially when stopped).

Update 0923 11 Mar: It was brought to my attention that the bill that actually passed the Senate was amended to specify that it only applies to a "moving" motor vehicle. (I linked to the bill as originally submitted above.) My point remains that this is an attempt to pass a politically popular new restriction on citizens by the state during an election year where there's a lot of anger at incumbents aimed squarely at a group without a lot of political power.

Update 1438 12 Mar: Here's another potentially dangerous activity the Idaho Legislature should outlaw while they're at it -- driving while shaving your "bikini area".

Stewart Takes On Thiessen

Marc Thiessen, a former speech writer for Rumsfeld and Bush, has been playing torture apologist since at least January 2009, but has gained prominence recently with a book and a columnist gig at The Washington Post. (Yes, The Washington Post fired Dan Froomkin, who fact-checked and debunked Thiessen, as well as WaPo columnist and torture apologist Charles Krauthammer - and then the WaPo hired

OMG Liz Cheney was RIGHT!

Following up on this recent post, here's a nice piece of satire from Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. David Frakt, "who served as a defense lawyer for Guantánamo detainees in 2008 and 2009." It's called "Confessions of a terrorist sympathizer," and recounts an interview with Rachel Maddow too dangerous to air:Maddow: Lt. Col. David Frakt is a JAG officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and a law

Broadside Blog

From almost the time I got into the Navy, I always enjoyed the "Broadside" cartoons in Navy Times. Some of my favorite submarine-related cartoons are here. The author, Jeff Bacon, is retired from the Navy now, and living here in Idaho. If you want to check out some of his latest work and thoughts, check out the Broadside Blog at the Military Times website.

Why Does Liz Cheney Hate Civilization?

If you follow politics, chances are you've seen the latest attack ad from the Orwellian-named organization Keep America Safe, run by Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol (and featuring the neocon stylings of Michael Goldfarb):When I first saw this last week, my first reaction was a steady stream of profanity. It may be the most repulsive political ad I've ever seen. Cheney, Kristol and the gang aren't

Would Health Care Reform Help You?

Barbara O'Brien of the Mahablog and the Mesothelioma & Asbestos Awareness Center sent me (and some other folks) the following piece:Would Health Care Reform Help You?Many obstacles and stumbling blocks remain in the way of health care reform. The House and Senate bills will have to be merged, and then the House and Senate both will vote on the final bill. We don’t yet know what will be in the

Submariner Lost In Boating Accident Off Oahu

From this Navy Times article:

Navy officials on Monday identified as a sailor the body of a man found Saturday afternoon off a Hawaii beach a day after reports that a man in a life raft was stuck in heavy surf.
Electrician’s Mate 1st Class (SS) Robert L. Mudd, 29, was a crewmember assigned to fast attack submarine Olympia at Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii, Navy Submarine Force-Pacific officials said in a news release. Mudd, of Fort Mitchell, Ken., had enlisted in the Navy in 1998 and had served with ballistic submarine Nebraska’s Gold crew and at the Trident Training Facility in Kings Bay, Ga., before he joined Olympia in May 2007...
... Lt. Cmdr. Dave Benham, Navy Submarine Force-Pacific spokesman, said Mudd’s command reported him missing on Saturday when the sailor did not report for duty, “before they knew what had occurred.” Mudd subsequently was identified, and his family was notified, Benham said.
The Olympia crew plans to remember Mudd at a memorial service planned for later this week at Submarine Memorial Chapel at Pearl Harbor, according to Submarine Forces-Pacific officials.

Very tragic. My heart goes out to the whole Olympia family.

Submariners Completing Academy Takeover

With the announcement by Submariner and current Naval Academy Superintendent VADM Jeff Fowler that current SUBRON 4 Commander CAPT Robert Clark will become the new Commandant of Midshipmen, Submariners will hold the top two spots at the Academy.

I know this in normally CDR Salamander's area of expertise, but what policy changes would you make if you were in charge of the Academy?

Oscar Drinking Game (2010 Edition)

Feel free to adapt or improve this list as you wish. House Rules always take precedence. (And remember, you don’t need to use this drinking alcohol!)Oh, and don't drink and drive, but being a person of culture and taste who can still appreciate the glorious-and-ridiculous excess of the Oscars, you'd never do that, would you?OSCAR DRINKING GAME (2010 Edition)If anyone comes out in blue face

News From Around The 'Net

Here are some news items of interest that have been floating around this week:

1) Female "Captain Bligh" relieved for cause: Captain Holly Graf, former CO of USS Cowpens (CG 63), was relieved for cause for being an insufferable martinet back in January. There are some interesting comments over in this post at the USNI Blog from some people who have worked with her. The question arises: Would a male CO have been kept around so long? (Having worked for such a CO, "He Who Must Not Be Named", back in the early 90s on USS Topeka (SSN 754), I can say that such Skippers were kept around back in the day. As I read the article about the things that Captain Graf did, all I could think was "I've seen worse"...). [Bellringer 1110 05 March: Here's a link to a blog post that has the IG report.]

2) IDF Soldier in Facebook Fiasco: A soldier for the IDF posts on his Facebook account about a mission his unit is about to do, causing the mission to be canx'd and resulting in a court-martial for him. Just a reminder for those of us engaged in classified operations...

3) "9/11 Truther" attempts to attack the Pentagon: It looks like it's not just unhinged right-wingers who can get violent when their fantasies about how the world works start to consume their lives...

4) Finally, a nice picture. Here's a shot of two of our newest warships at sea. USS PCU New Mexico (SSN 779) is in the foreground, and you can just see USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) in the upper right:

Have a great weekend!

Update 1355 06 Mar: I thought there was something wrong with the caption on the Navy picture saying it was of "USS" New Mexico, since I didn't remember the commissioning, but I figured I was just getting old. Then, today, a Facebook posting by SUBGRU 2 discussing the boat's upcoming commissioning ceremony on March 27th jogged my memory, so I corrected the sub's prefix above.

Boito's Mefistofele

"Dio di pietà! son essi!""Lontano, lontano, lontano"Here are two selections from Arrigo Boito's opera Mefistofele. It's a pretty faithful rendering of Goethe's Faust (far more so than Gounod's opera). The singers are Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti. Margarita is in prison, and has just sung her madwoman aria (apparently all the rage in the 19th Century). Mefistofele has secreted Faust in

RIP Jon Swift/Al Weisel

I'm very saddened to learn that blogger Jon Swift (Al Weisel) has died. His mother wrote:I don't know how else to tell you all who love this blog. I am Jon Swift's Mom and I guess I'm going to OUT him. He was Al Weisel, my beloved son. Al was on his way to his father's funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his

I'm Sure There's Some Sort Of Karma Involved...

Posted without comment:

MONTESANO, Wash. — An Elma man was killed by accidentally urinating on a downed power line after a one-car crash near Montesano...
...50-year-old Roy Messenger was not seriously hurt after he collided with a power pole Friday night and called a relative to pull his car out of the ditch.
When family members arrived they found Messenger electrocuted... Messenger apparently urinated into a roadside ditch but didn’t see the live wire...
...(T)here will be an autopsy, but burn marks indicated the way the electricity traveled through the body.

Update 1715 02 Mar: Another story from the same area of the country. Excerpt:

A Lewiston Orchards couple walked out of their kitchen minutes before a pickup truck came crashing through early Sunday...
...The home's kitchen/dining room and laundry room were severely damaged when Jonathan J. Schlee, 30, reportedly drove his pickup through the house. The truck also reportedly collided with a neighbor's fence before coming to a stop in a nearby yard.
Schlee, of Lewiston, was arrested for DUI and booked into the Nez Perce County Jail, according to police. He was no longer in custody Monday.
He had been driving east on Ripon Avenue when Schlee reportedly told investigators he was distracted by a female passenger in the car who police said later allegedly admitted being engaged in some kind of sexual activity at the time of the crash. They were not injured in the accident.

48 Up!

Check out this photo of USS Pickerel from 1952:

From the description:

USS Pickerel (SS-524). Surfacing at a 48 degree up angle, from a depth of 150 feet, during tests off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, 1 March 1952. Donation of Captain Allan Brown, USNR(Retired), 1976. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photo #: NH 85082

What's the biggest angle (or roll) you've ever experienced?

Olympic Hockey

Click for a larger view.Via TBogg, the above snapshot is pretty funny. As I wrote elsewhere, the Men's Hockey Final was a good game. Team USA scored an amazing goal in the last minute of regulation, but Iginla and Crosby earned that OT game-winner. I was rooting for Team USA, but honestly, this meant so much more for Canada - it meant more than any other event for Canadians - so it's hard to