The Ideal Submarine 'Field Day'

Field Day according to Merriam Webster:
1. a : a day for military exercises or maneuvers. b :an outdoor meeting or social gathering .

Field Day according to Wikipedia is a noun derived from military terminology:
1. (military) A parade day.
6.  (US Navy & US Marine Corp) Top-to-bottom all-hands cleaning.

To the uninitiated public, however, Field Days on navy submarines has some amusing notions:


Submarines are always silent and strange.

Lawyer-Lobbyist describes insider observations

American voters dismissive of broad conflicts of interest, unique concentrations of power, and potential excesses of authority brandished by lawyers empowered by election to representative offices take note. Those who pan the existence and significance of a Lawyer-Political Complex at odds with what is good for the U.S., don't take it from M.E., take it from an insider:

The latest testimony from a lawyer-lobbyist insider underscores our observations of the powerful, yet invisible network of lawyers:

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"Money is the basis of almost all relationships in D.C.,” he writes. “And, in a nutshell, this is why our political campaign system and DC’s mushrooming Permanent Class — who alternate between government jobs and lawyering, influence-peddling and finance — mean Wall Street always wins.”

Democrats, he argues, aren’t much different than Republicans when it comes to selling out. Connaughton describes the Washington taxonomy of the lobbyists, consultants and lawyers he calls “Professional Democrats.”

“If the Marine Corps’s hierarchy of allegiance is unit, corps, country, God, then the hierarchy for a Professional Democrat is current firm, former-elected-official boss, the congressional Democratic leadership, and the president (if he or she is a Democrat),” Connaughton writes. - Jeff Connaughton, a lawyer and Biden Senate staffer turned lobbyist,  author of “The Payoff,” 
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Submarines are always silent and strange.

Bye, bye Secretary of Defense *** Question of the Week ***

Background

PART ONE
In September 1993, General Powell asked Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to approve the request of the U.S. commander in Somalia for tanks, armored vehicles and AC-130 Spectre gunships for his forces. Aspin turned down the request. Shortly thereafter Aidid's forces in Mogadishu killed 18 U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 75 in attacks that also resulted in the shooting down of two U.S. helicopters and the capture of one pilot (see the Battle of Mogadishu).

On 15 December 1993 President Clinton announced Aspin's resignation, for personal reasons. Given the problems that Aspin encountered during his short term, most obviously the losses in Mogadishu, observers assumed that the president had asked him to step down.

Aspin's decision on tanks was political ; Senate Report on Somalia says Aspin gave in to U.N.

PART TWO    
According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from [for requested Spectre gunship support].

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (lawyer) told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.


QUESTION of the WEEK

Obviously, Secretary of Defense Panetta (a lawyer) will not be around very much after the next election,regardless of who becomes president.  How long will Panetta last in his current role as Defense Secretary based upon an almost identical failure and outcome of Secretary Les Aspin in 1993?

ANSWER (predicted):
If Romney is elected, Panetta will be replaced by January 20th. If Obama is re-elected, Panetta will be replaced (leave for personal reasons) before March 31st.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Hillary Clinton bitten by her own words

Sen. Hillary Clinton's most famous quote has come back to bite her as Secretary of State:

Then...(2007)

[color emphasis added]: " ...I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."  - Sen. Hillary Clinton to Gen. Petraeus, September 11, 2007

Now...(2012)

Nearly from the beginning of the investigation into the attack, there have been questions surrounding the administration: whether the State Department had provided adequate security for its diplomatic team in a nation struggling to control powerful militias; and how quickly it concluded the attack was the work of organized militants and not simply a spontaneous outgrowth of protests against an anti-Islam film.  - CBS/AP October 24, 2012

UPDATE (October 27, 2012}:  (Bill Clinton told Hillary To Resign, US Arming ‘Syrian Rebels’ With Ties To Al Queda)

UPDATE (October 25, 2012}:  (Hillary Clinton suggests she could stay at State)  Clinton faces the possibility that her legacy will be marred by the attacks in Benghazi and questions about diplomatic security.

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Being correct in the longer run...

As with many of our posts, it seems to take a long time for some of our more controversial posts to achieve credibility despite the heft of underlying logic from which many of today's graduates are noticeably immune. 

Congratulations, therefore, to our patient, intellectual readers!  In the latest case, as in so many before, it has taken all of 7 years (less 4 days) for convincing relevance to be reported by trained observers (scientists) and 'professional' (yet unlicensed) journalists regarding M.E.'s Lessons in Critical Thinking # 51026:
 
Oct. 22, 2012 |  The Associated Press   Study: Male beluga whale mimics human speech.  Relatedly:

Scientists who have studied sounds of white whales in the wild sometimes heard what sounded like shouting children. Caretakers at the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada previously said they heard one of the white whales say its name.

Listen to some of the recordings here. 

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Answer: last (USN) submarine fitted with teakwood decks

Questions (and dates originally posed): 

When was the last submarine built with teakwood topside decking decommissioned and what was its hull number? (October 05, 2012)  

When was the last United States Navy submarine built with a teakwood main walking deck (not bridge deck) commissioned and what was its hull number?  (August 08, 2010)   

When was the last submarine fitted with teakwood decks commissioned and what was its hull number? (September 26, 2008)  
Answer:  Sunday, 14 OCT 2012 

The last submarine built with teakwood topside decking was decommissioned June 2, 1989.   It was the USS Swordfish, a flat-decked sub of the Skate class, and its hull number  was SSN 579.

Note bene:
Anyone 22 years of age (or older) on January 1, 2013, lived during the age of at least one commissioned U.S. nuclear submarine fitted with teakwood decks!  Hmmm!

Submarines are always silent and strange.





Submarines are always silent and strange.

Open Questions

From  March 01, 2012:

1) In which portion of the Orion program is input from a Muslim country likely to be forthcoming in a few years?

2) Which Muslim country (Pakistan) is now destined to be credited with a significant contribution to the ISS space exploration effort?








From July 10, 2012:

3)  Suppose Satan wished to assure that Americans feel and remember the hellish climate adjustments in what is certain to become Al Gore's eternal abode.

Since typical Americans are known for somewhat short attention spans, how close would Satan's latest signs be to Mr. Gore's appointment with posterity? 


Submarines are always silent and strange.

Open Question

Reverse psychology is no longer just what we have long believed.
We would do better to think of reverse psychology along the lines of reverse engineering:

Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation. .^[1]

Reverse engineering has its origins in the analysis of hardware for commercial or military advantage.^[2] The purpose is to deduce design decisions from end products with little or no additional knowledge about the procedures involved in the original production. The same techniques are subsequently being researched for application to legacy software systems, not for industrial or defence ends, but rather to replace incorrect, incomplete, or otherwise unavailable documentation.^[3]n.

^{In the near future politicians will come to a bipartisan agreement on submarines. If the right-wingers want to maintain even a downsized nuclear submarine fleet they will have to cede something to the left-wingers.  Reverse psychology suggests what might be palatable to both wings.  The compromise helps answer this question:}

^{When will the first JAG officer be assigned to a US Navy submarine?  The TV series Last Resort is laying the groundwork now.  Expect to see (on a popular TV series) a female JAG officer deploy on an SSN soon.  No one is being asked to agree with M.E.  Time will referee any skepticism.}

^{Submarines are always silent and strange.} 

 

Submarine Question of the Week 5 Oct 2012

Almost everyone today imagines falsely that he/she was born well after the last U.S. Navy warship was ever fitted with teakwood walking decks (topside).  Many older folks would be wrong in that assumption, however.  For further background to the topic related to submarines visit a link below. 

Question (and date originally posed): 

When was the last submarine built with teakwood topside decking decommissioned and what was its hull number? (Today)  

When was the last submarine fitted with teakwood decks commissioned and what was its hull number? (September 26, 2008)  

When was the last United States Navy submarine built with a teakwood main walking deck (not bridge deck) commissioned and what was its hull number?  (August 08, 2010)  

Answer:  Sunday, 14 OCT 2012 

Submarines are always silent and strange. 

 

Fomer O-6 cauught as suspect in major Navy charity scam

First (Jun 2012) there was the confessed arsonist who damaged USS Miami (SSN-755) to the tune of $450 millions.  

Then there was (Aug. 3, 2012) Cmdr. Michael P. Ward II, the submarine commander who faked his own death to end an affair.   

Now (October 3, 2012), we have a likely double black eye for Harvard Law School graduate. The suspect had also served as a captain in U.S. military intelligence.  Suspected of running a $100 million cross-country scam collecting donations for Navy veterans has been identified as a Harvard-trained attorney wanted on unrelated fraud charges since 1987, authorities said Monday.  U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said the man who identified himself as Bobby Thompson and signed legal papers as "Mr. X" is really John Donald Cody, 65, whose true identity was uncovered through 1969 military fingerprints that didn't make it into the national crime system.

 

He was arrested in Portland, Ore., in May and has pleaded not guilty. Found in his apartment was a DVD: Catch Me if You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a fugitive con man on the run. 

Now, "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports that authorities believe that Cody and a man named Bobby Thompson are one and the same person and allege he is responsible for the largest charity scam in U.S. history.

 Submarines are always silent and strange.