To not scare off the 71% of people that support Obama, I generally get my anti-messiah rage on over at the other blog. Drop by if you like to read (or leave menacing comments) about the inauguration being interrupted by sham-wow commercials, Brownshirts 2.0, and other brickbats.

Also, a new blog from a sub Junior Officer (my old community) has started up called Don't Call Me Sir, which I have high hopes for. There's some pretty solid blogging from senior officers about strategic Naval policy out there already. This is more to revel in the mountains of work controls paperwork, re-live 6 hours of standing watch in a box, and learn about what it's like to have your skin flake off while underway. Fun for the whole fam! I fear he might be subjugated by the "hoo-yah brigade" to write more "upbeat" musings about the submarine force, but I stand by the policy that if you're not pissing off someone with your blog, you're fucking up.

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For some reason, this article in Military Times brought up some vivid memories:

But thanks to modern technology, as many as 50,000 service members deployed to the most remote and rugged locations — think the mountains of Afghanistan, or a submerged submarine — also will be able to catch the big game.

So there we were in 2006 on some underway doing a bunch of exercises and inspections to get ready for a fun-filled deployment of more time at sea. We were able to somehow get the Super Bowl onboard (which kept getting knocked off the broadcast because submarine comms are notoriously shoddy). I was on watch, which didn't matter because I'm not the world's biggest sports fan, and our Supply Officer each hooked us up with, not just one, but two alcohol-free beers! I remember how awesome I thought this was at the time. This was shortly followed by a sudden epiphany that I either need to 1) end my life or 2) get a new life. yvaN ehT nioJ!

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From Al-Jazeera English:

The pirates were among eight men whose boat overturned off the coast of Kenya in a storm as they left the Sirius Star following a two-month standoff that ended on Friday, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said.

"Six of our boys perished at the sea while coming from the released Saudi supertanker," Mohamed Said told the AFP news agency.

"The small boat that was carrying those killed and eight who survived was overloaded and at high speed, we have been told by the survivors.

"They were afraid of a chase from outsiders [foreign naval forces] who invaded Somalia waters," he said.

The group's $300,000 share of the ransom was also lost, he said.

Mmmm, I wonder if they taste like chicken.

Full U.S. Navy photos of the MV Sirius Star available.

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If fire hoses work on Greenpeace and hippie protesters, I suppose it would work on pirates too. A Greek oil tanker chased off some Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. From AP:

Crewmen fired high pressure water jets to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates trying to board a Greek oil tanker in the dangerous Gulf of Aden on Friday in the fourth such attack since the start of the year, authorities said.

The pirates in three speedboats and armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades twice tried to board the Greek-flagged Kriti Episkopi but were scared off when the crew turned fire hoses on them and EU aircraft scrambled from a nearby EU naval flotilla to help, company and Greek government officials said.

A strong statement on the ability of maritime self-defense while these pirates continue to make a laughing stock out of international shipping and worldwide Navies. The USNI blog had some cheap ideas on how to effectively combat this menace, and I hope someone from 5th Fleet was paying attention.

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