[Welcome, Bubbleheads readers!]

Prince Namor is best described as SO not happy about this story. Via AP:

Sailors on the submarine USS Hampton failed to do daily safety checks on the ship's nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission, a Navy investigation shows. [Shades of the nukes that accidentally flew from Minot AFB to Barksdale last month.]

In the case of the Hampton, it appears from a preliminary investigation that sailors in Submarine Squadron 11 had skipped the required analysis of the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine's reactor for more than a month, even though a daily check is required.

"Some of the Hampton's operations and records fell short of high Navy standards," said Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.

"There never was any danger to the crew or the public," he said.

That last line, sez Prince Namor, is what we call a "fib." A "misstatement." "Flat-out fucking lie" is another expression sometimes used when one wishes to be more precisely accurate.

The indoctrination given (and absorbed by serious students) at sub school is such that even all these years later the Prince refuses to tell me specific details about the chemistry under discussion here, so we will describe this in terms of analogy:

* It will give Bush a bounce in the polls \n* It changes the subject from closeted gay Republican pedophiles to crazed authoritarians with nuclear weapons\n* It will enable Bush, when not fund-raising, to show potency and firmness, especially when wearing a moon suit at photo-ops\n* It will energize the base, who believe that Kim Il Sung, because he is not the "Reverend" Moon, is a Satanic force \n* Because EVERYTHING is ALWAYS good for the Republicans!\n