Cascading Failures

Of nuclear proportions. Ah yes, the crew without a clue strikes again. Why worry about the Russians and their missing nuclear weapons when we can't keep track of our own? Oh well, not all that important, no reason for bunched underwear, it was just a 36 hour screw up. With the potential of ten Hiroshima equivalent bombs. Times six. And supposedly it would never happen here. Uh-huh.

A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly debased, the investigation's early results show.

Well, that makes me feel better. Not. And they call it a "breakdown".

What occurred on Aug. 29-30, the former official said, was "a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew, munitions, storage and tracking procedures -- faults that never were to line up on a single day."

So much for that ridiculous theory. We're in so much trouble that we don't even know the ship is sinking and we keep on believing that we can breathe underwater.

If the terrorists wait long enough (that would be after we sent every able troop to be sacrificed on the altar that is known as Iraq), we'll trip over our own dicks and blow ourselves up. Thereby saving the rest of the world from our incompetence. And hubris.

Isn't it nice how that works out? Sort of like designing a lack of bathrooms at the Getty museum.