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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, September 26, 2005

Sharks with Lasers on their Frickin' Heads

If you ever need an example of how whacked out our military has gotten, or how fiscally unsound US military priorities are, cite this ......

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns.

I mean, isn't that a joke from an Austin Powers movie? We have soldiers who operate without body armor; we have first responders whose communications equipment still doesn't work together properly; for god's sake, we can't stop whole truckloads of drugs coming across our borders, which tells me that we couldn't stop terror weapons.

But we've got "sharks with lasers."

And this is bigger than the Bush admin. This is just another example of f***ed up priorities from the cold war.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Frickin' insane.

And doonesbury is great today.