Tue-Tuesday, November 9th

Have you seen those ads for the new USS New York? You know, the ones about how it has tons of steel from the World Trade Center in its hull and how it is the Navy’s newest combat ship design? Well, hold on to yourselves. This class of warship (the San Antonio Class) is built by Northrop Grumman and they are trying to sell their shipyard business. Northrop Grumman’s shipyards may have become a bit harder to sell in the wake of a story that the $1.7 billion San Antonio class it built would not be effective in combat. The story was broken Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg.

The Department of Defense’s top testing official, Michael Gilmore, told Tony, according to his story, “that critical systems, such as electrical distribution, ship-wide fiber optics and voice– communications networks, are not reliable.” Perhaps even worse, Tony reports that “the ship’s armaments can’t effectively defend against the most modern anti-ship weapons.”

Raytheon does not come out of this very well either. They supplied electronics, a fiber-optics network and an anti-missile system that Tony reports “the testing office concluded had ‘persistent engineering deficiencies.’”

Bottom line: Gilmore told Tony in an email that the ship is “not effective, suitable and not survivable in a combat situation,” he said.

What this says about Navy oversight and Northrop’s management would appear to be obvious. We wonder how much these deficiencies, which the company has known about for several months as they were provided in a classified report to Congress, played a role in the company’s decision to put its shipbuilding business up for sale. The Navy told Tony it is “aware of the problems and will correct them on all ships in the class.”

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Police say a North Dakota man was surprised to find two people sitting in his hot tub when he went to check on a noise at 4 a.m. Officer Ron Van Doorne told The Dickinson Press that the man asked them what they were doing. They said, "We're sorry," then left. The incident occurred Monday. Van Doorne said there was no disorderly conduct or damage, "other than the fact that they were sitting in his hot tub at 4 o'clock in the morning."

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 On this day in history in 1799 Napoleon becomes dictator (1st consul) of France; in 1904 1st airplane flight to last more than 5 minute; and in 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates after German defeat in WW I 

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Sister Mary Margaret

Sister Mary Margaret enters O 'Flynn's liquor shop.

"I'd like to buy a bottle of Irish whiskey", she tells O 'Flynn.

The owner of the store shakes his head and frowns.
"A bottle of Irish whiskey? And you being a nun too."

"Oh no, no," Sister Mary Margaret exclaims. "It's for Father Reilly.
His constipation, you know."

O'Flynn smiles, nods, and puts a bottle into a bag.
Sister Mary Margaret pays, takes the bag and goes on her way.

Later that day, O'Flynn closes shop for the day.
On his way home he passes an alley. There in the alley is Sister Mary Margaret.
She's rip roaring drunk, the empty bottle at her side.

"Sister!" O'Flynn scolds.
"And you said it was for Father Reilly's constipation."

"It is," answers Sister Mary Margaret.
"When he sees me, he's gonna shit!"

Live Long and Prosper....