Only 45 Pounds

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/03/sonic.weapon.ap/index.html

This is an article on the CNN.com about new technology for our troops. That’s right; the Army’s getting new weapons. And they are…you guessed it, high school assistant principals!

No, seriously, they are apparently noisemakers. Now when you first hear this, you think of those little plastic thingies that they give out for party favors that entertain you and your parents for several days (and by entertain, I mean annoy to the point of a preference for court hearings over toothpaste tube size regulations over being in the same room as that dratted noisemaker) until the battery runs out.

Of course, our Army isn’t getting that. It would be far too effective. Instead, they get a little device called a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD for short. Well, maybe not little. It weighs 45 pounds, which could lead to odd scenarios if the soldiers are outfitted with just an LRAD:

SOLDIER: Don’t move or I’ll shoot!
INSURGENT: With what?
SOLDIER (TRYING TO HEFT LRAD): With this! Just…give me a second here…

But I’m sure no one would be that stupid, except perhaps Michael Jackson, whose music can melt brain tissue anyways. Which brings me to my next point: why invest money in a device that, I quote, “blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam”, when we’ve already got them? In fact, every teenager has them, along with ample ammunition.

CD players, loaded with modern music, can disable anyone over thirty in just a few minutes. If they were equipped with a Michael Jackson CD, of course, they could drop anyone unconscious in a matter of seconds. Thank God that Michael Jackson music is, by federal law, illegal to broadcast without proper ear protection.

A SIDE NOTE: Another system that the government is testing is the Active Denial system, which seems as if it should work like this:

A terrorist is trying to enter a maximum security U.S. Army building, perhaps a kitchen.
ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEM: Access Denied. Please use other door.
TERRORIST: (no response)
ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEM: I said, Access Denied, you moron. Please leave or I will be forced to pipe Michael Jackson music directly into your brain.
TERRORIST: NOOOOOO!!!!!!! (runs)

Instead, the Active Denial System is, I quote, “a painful energy beam”. I suppose it’ll zap anyone who attacks it. You’ve got to wonder, though, the usefulness of this in other walks of life. Picture a courtroom…

JUDGE: Any objections?
ATTOURNY: Your Honor, my client was brutally hurt because his nail scratched his palm on account of a smaller toothpaste tube size. This is obviously an example of faulty manufacturing on the part of the huge toothpaste tube conglomorates, which want nothing more than to corrupt our youth and rule the- ZAP *thud*
JUDGE (HOLDING SMOKING ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEM) : Any other objections, you chatterboxes?
COURTROOM: (silence)

I just hope the government keeps a close watch on its new toys. What’s to say some rebel faction doesn’t get hold of these devices and use them to quash anyone who’s discovered their plans and are writing about them in, say, an online column. What if…hey, what’s that noise? Oh no! They’re on to me! Tell the people! They have a right to know the tr- ZAP *thud*