Lasers In The Jungle Somewhere

From Flight magazine:

"Boeing moved closer earlier this month to realizing a seven-year goal to demonstrate a high-powered laser as a weapon aboard a Lockheed Martin C-130H.

“Next year, we will fire the laser at ground targets, demonstrating the military utility of this transformational directed energy weapon,” Scott Fancher, VP and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, said in a statement."


So that’s just marvellous. As if the US can’t do enough damage with conventional ordnance, by the middle of next year we’ll all be in Bond-villain fantasy-land. Brown people the world over will live in constant terror of the next death-ray strike, while Dubyah slouches around inside his hollowed-out volcano with that dopey coked-up smirk plastered across his little monkey face.

I know that having your family barbecued by a laser isn’t really any worse than having a bunch of high-explosive come down your chimney, but somehow it feels worse. Until the advent of that ultra-low-frequency-sound weapon they’ve been talking about for the past fifty years – the one that makes you poo your pants and then shatters your pelvis, ribcage and skull (in that order, so you get to enjoy it) – then I reckon the super-laser’s about as bad as it gets.