What, you thought that the U.S. government was happy to simply deprive Washington of Congressional representation and be done with it? Ha! A pair of stories released recently indicate that the government is waging a secret war on the District, one in which isolated episodes of ineptitude appear to be the weapon of choice. Bum-bum-bum!
To start, the New York Times reports that the United States Navy actually lost control of one of its drones — similar to the ones usually found blowing stuff up in Pakistan — earlier this month near D.C. A MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing aerial vehicle (let’s call it M.Q. for short, eh?) drifted into restricted Washington airspace at 2,000 feet before operators were able to guide it back to its base in southern Maryland. (This particular drone didn’t have any weapons aboard.) The problem was apparently a “software issue” and a Navy spokesman explained: “When [operators] lose contact with the Fire Scout, there’s a program that’s supposed to have it immediately return to the airfield to land safely. That did not happen as planned.” Maybe the M.Q. was just jealous that MPD helicopters have been having all the fun as of late.
Then there’s this charming story, about people at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital who may have been exposed to radiation after a package was left unattended in the hospital’s main lobby for nearly two days in May. Fortunately for the patients and visitors to the hospital, the package was only of very low-grade radioactivity, but still, yeah, probably not a good idea to just leave those packages marked “RADIOACTIVE” stashed behind the paper clips and the old guest logs.
