Once more we are out of the furnace and back into the deep blue sea. So that means that the air is a little cooler, which means more coffee, yaaay. If I had to give an adjective describe this day I would have to say shit. It started okay enough, can’t say nice because of the GQ drill in the moring, I despise GQ’s. Todays GQ was a main space drill in AUX 1. Since I’m in repairs 3 my locker was back up to the back up. In other words my repair locker just went to the Quarter Deck for training while Repair 2 relieved 5. While we were up there killing time DCC decided to hold some training. And did he learn a thing or two. One thing he learned was that half my fire party isn’t even basic DC qualified. When he learned this he told me in such a way as to be holding me accountable, I guess because I’m the scene leader. Of course I refuse to accept it. I don’t recruit these people into my locker they are assigned to me. I train them in the job that they are required to perform while in the locker but I’m not qualified to sign PQS. So I don’t think it’s on me whether or not they get their signatures.
After GQ it was the start of the fresh washdown, and in the afternoon ship wide field day. Of course as always when the whole ship uses fresh water the pressure on the focsle drops to about angel piss. So unless we pull out fire hoses, 150 psi of salt water, we don’t expect to wash away anything more than the illusion of doing something useful. After chow while the rest of the ship did a field day we in OD continued on with the wash down. Oh did I mention that we were still getting water water from over the side. So we broke out the hoses and wash down the deck with firemain water. Then mopped that up with swabs and a bucket. And all the while Neptunes REX helped out by throwing more salt our way.
On top of all this is BMC calling down to the office every 5 minutes asking silly questions, making stupid threats if anything fall through the track.

Back again back again to Jabel Ali. This time though it doesn't resemble the mess decks. I finally got around to getting a replacement ID card, no thanks that is to PNC.
He set up the trip to the Nimitz for those in need of ID's but he didn't see it all the way through. He didn't give any of his people any information as to who to speak to, transportation or anything of the like. He just told his lackey to muster the ID card needy at 0900 and he would be along. Of course that never happened. 0930 we were still standing in the p-way. Finally his rep used a little intiative and said, 'Fuck This,' alright maybe not those exact words but close enough, and herded us out to grab one of the buses that princetons rented. When we got to the Nimitz we waited at the quarter deck for another 30 minutes while the Nimitz tried to find the duty admin guy. This time wasn't as comfortable as the time spent waiting in p-way in the Princeton because the temprature was rising steady as noon approached. It was only 1030 and the heat was about 90 degrees already. When the duty PN came up he at first told our rep that he couldn't comply with our request. He stated that the CO and the XO had mandated that they couldn't give out any cards. But after much begging and pleading by our PN he relented. He told our PN to have us come back in an hour or two and he would support us. When our PN gave us this report half our crew was still discouraged because of the time they had already waited in the heat. Me though, even if I had suffered the same heat as they, and was feeling dehydration creep upon me, did not like the thought of coming all the way out to the carrier pier and going home empty handed. It wasn't like we just walk down a couple of berths to get here. We had to take a van, and it took him 20 minutes. Then I waited in the heat, losing prescious fluid. On and on and on I could go, but the end is always the same. I came this far so I'll cowboy up finish what I started. But first to lunch, we couldn't eat on the Nimitz so we ate in the sand box. The sand box in my day was a dirt field alongside the piers where ships could entertain their crews while they waited on a cab to take them to Dubai. Jabel is actually mostly commercial. Their claim to fame is having the largest harboring system, and that
s alot of warehouses and corporate offices. To see any good Liberty one needs to go to Dubai, Thats where all the Malls and Movie houses and the such are at. The Sand Box though is now only a name that the old salts understand the connotation. All that is gone now, now they have food vendors of every sort. KFC, Subway of course they're everywhere, but even Fuddruckers. Unfortunately I didn't see this until after I he newsworthy events, and to keep writing and talking about the story even when there's nothing new to say. Note that the complete absence of any defense by the pro-Bush forces -- no one is arguing in print either that they didn't do it or that doing it was somehow justifiable -- works toward their basic objective, which is to have everyone forget about it.

I have to admire the capacity of the right wing to maintain silence when anything they say would only make things worse for themselves, and to keep making noise about the misconduct of liberals even when there's nothing new to talk about.

Corn does have one actual item of new (at least new to me) information: He describes in some detail the process by which investigations in such cases go forward, giving great prominence to the discretion given to the Director of Central Intelligence over whether to refer the matter to the Justice Department.

That being the case, George Tenet needs to feel pressure from people he respects. It's a little puzzling to me why we aren't hearing more public outrage from retired CIA officers and from the larger world of people not in the government, or no longer in the government, with credentials to make a fuss about what seems to have been an illegal, politically-inspired act damaging to the national security.
, with credentials to make a fuss about what seems to have been an illegal, politically-inspired act damaging to the national security.