The Hound Of Ulster

This is one of those days where I keep running across "end of the world premonition" stories.  We have alien VISITS being supressed by the Government on one hand, and 50-year-olds PLAYING "professional" "basketball" on the other.  We have the Governator THREATENING to do something unpopular, and we have the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of the great "scorched earth" MOMENTS in all of sports.

And then there's THIS, which is a slightly different kind of apocalyptical indicator:

Air Force officials say three ballistic missile crew members in North Dakota fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices earlier this month, triggering an investigation by military and National Security Agency experts.

The probe found that the missile launch codes were not compromised, but the incident comes on the heels of a series of missteps by Air Force that has put the service under intense scrutiny.

Officials called the incident a "procedural violation," and said the Minot Air Force-based crew had code devices that were no longer usable, since new codes had been installed in the missiles.

Since I know nothing about the procedures employed in these instances, I'm sure there a way in which everyone falling asleep makes perfect sense.

I just can't think of what it is at the moment.