just can't resist...
many goats died for this information......
Pain ray really killer ray gun, many goats dead, says 'expert'
The US military's pain ray, aka the Active Denial System, is a certified excrement magnet. In March Reg readers learned that the US Air Force wonder weapon is still being pitched as a game changer in Iraq, a prediction that's never even been close to being tested. ADS defenders claim the Pentagon, afraid that using it would be …
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Thursday 1st May 2008 14:10 GMT Rob Dobs
WOW whats that about FBI suppression?
Burried in this story is the allegation that the FBI forced a broadcaster to not show a program disparaging the current administration and intelligence communities.... how is that legal in any way? What kind of Nazi state are we becoming if this is true?..... Come on Reg, I know you are not the BBC, but where is your reporters hat... don't you all want to know more about the alligations that the current administration is using Nazi tactics (propaganda and media suppression)?
Can anyone else not see the issue with the "secret police" (HSA, NSA, FBI, CIA etc) being the ones who get to decide what is secret? Shouldn't congress or a citizens panel be the ones to make this ultimate decsion on what the public should get to know?
I can see why the government would keep weapons and other military secrets suppressed but when they F&*k up they should not have the capacity to hide it, or how will they ever learn to improve?
I can also see why this has not been deployed.... can you imagine the political and military backlash when its learned by the world that a jeep with a ray gun melted the brains of an entire city.....? Besides, its not the cost of bullets that is making this endeavor so difficult.
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Thursday 1st May 2008 15:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Goat stew
"lots of good-hearted people thought they saw something" in Iraq
Cool. So the New Mexico UFO spotters and "alien eggshell found on us.gov sites" specialists will finally move their trailer homes to new sandy locations.
Jacques Vallée predicted that UFOs would in time morph into a concrete physical manifestation of the prevailing idea of otherworldliness - thus gnomes in the middle ages, mysterious airships in the 19th century, alien-manned flying saucers in the 20th and now ... floating WMD factory trailers, briefly spotted on maps (possibly manned by gnomes?)
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Thursday 1st May 2008 19:51 GMT StopthePropaganda
bullsh*t
there were attempts to build man-portable microwave weapons back in the 90's. one big tactical problem though. It couldn't kill before a target fired off his RPG or other weapon. Plus, it activated some suicide belt types, backscatter played merry hob with our own communications and computer gear-and the Media, while allowing middle eastern governments to build dirty bombs and send out their own handicapped or drugged to the gills children as suicide bombers, would never allow America to use a weapon that produced spectacularly nasty results (think cheap hot dogs in the microwave!)
Which, in retrospect, is the type of weapon that Tony Stark (Iron Man) refers to as the weapon "you only have to use once."
Is El Reg doing nothing but being a propaganda arm for anti-western forces these days? two "conspiracy" articles in one day by proven self-interested parties with an agenda to take down "The Man".
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Thursday 1st May 2008 23:09 GMT Matt Bryant
All so funny.....
I mean, what a stooooopid lot them Yank scientists are, all those silly weapons, why on Earth would they want to develop them when the World is such a peaceful place? And Saddam didn't have any WMDs, ever! In fact, it was all so gosh darn funny I was going to ring an old Kurdish friend to share the humour, but then I remembered his parents were two of the 30,000 Kurds killed by Saddam's non-existant WMDs in 1988 in Halabja, so he probably wouldn't get the joke.
Face it, there are three kinds of people in the World - dicks, pussies and assholes. If you've seen the movie, you'll know where that's going! Dick, you're a pussy (and I suspect gender confusion is probably not new in your life). You should take comfort in the fact the US administration actually worries about how the Pain Ray is perceived, as there are plenty of asshole governments out there who wouldn't give a damn if it was in their hands.
And who cares if Obama was brought up a Muslim, I'm more worried about his association with the nutty Rev Wright, the crooked Tony Rezko and ex-"revolutionary" Bill Ayers.
So please leave one of our fave pieces of (non)death tech (fries bad guys and does the popcorn all in one!!) alone and go take your politics back to Indymedia where they might be appreciated.
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Thursday 1st May 2008 23:10 GMT Andy Bright
Scared yet?
Now consider that people like this and the other nutters described in this story, make up a large percentage of the population of certain states in the US. Also consider that many similar people broadcast incessantly on national broadcast radio, as they have no neutrality policies or laws to stop them.
So a right wing nutjob can broadcast his inane ramblings and conclusions all day and night, and the aforementioned retards populating certain states just lap it up.
Perhaps you'll begin to understand how Bush became President.. twice. In comparison he's a tolerant, socially responsible and intelligent fellow whom the crazies put up with. Yes that's right - put up with. They'd prefer someone a lot more fanatical about religion, invading other countries and dealing with the Mexican invasion. Now be scared. These people gave Bush the popular vote - in other words they outnumber the sane. Amongst their number is Dick Cheney - a man convinced that not only are there huge numbers of Hezbollah sleeper cells in the US, but also that they're awaiting a completed nuclear program in Iran to supply them with the weaponry required to blow up US cities. Neat huh? This guy takes over if Bush fails to recover from another pretzel attack.
Now while Hezbollah are usually a group of individuals living very much in Lebanon, he's stuck with them because Al Quaeda and other terrorist groups aren't allowed in this country on political grounds. Remember the chase for WMDs turned into "fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here".
So there you have it. The US will try desperately come up with a sane President next time around, but actually you should be grateful he isn't the sort of person described in this story. Meanwhile the two relatively sane contenders are doing their level best to destroy each other's careers and let a GW clone back into the White House. Three cheers for the man that wants another 100 yrs of war in Iraq.
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Thursday 1st May 2008 23:10 GMT Schultz
Commercial technology
Why do they waste big amounts of money to duplicate commercial technology? I can tell you from firsthand experience that commercially available Microwave Ovens are perfectly capable to produce some well done pieces of goat. OK, need to tether and slaughter before, and it won't have the redneck feel of open air roasting, but tasty nevertheless. Better, of course, if you use the grill, but nuking it is, in all cases, a lot faster.
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Friday 2nd May 2008 04:37 GMT Rogan Paneer
Good ol' USA
What is it about the USA that nurtures the barking mad activists like Mr G? Is it just a distrust of organised society, or does conspiracy theory take over the mind, as in 'when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail'.
The coat, because the following old Goon Show exchange seems very applicable to Mr Gaubatz:
Neddy- 'is my jacket straight?'
Gritpype- 'yes, and i must say a straightjacket suits you perfectly'
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Friday 2nd May 2008 08:34 GMT Wayland Sothcott
I don't believe it's that effective
It sounds like you can just focus the ray on any sized area upto football pitch size and instantly kill anyone in the area even if they are indoors.
Anyone who has played with WiFi (120mm wave size) will be aware that it's particularly fussy about walls and trees and foil backed plasterboard. The smaller the wave size the more fussy it gets, the Ray Gun has what was it 10mm waves?
The other thing you will notice about radio waves is they also tend to go where you least expect them to. You may not be able to get a good signal in the bedroom from the router in the front room, but someone across the valley 1km away is surfing on your signal.
This weapon does cause a very strong burning sensation in the line of the beam, we know this, reporters have tested it. I expect the power can be turned up and I expect the experimental version can kill. However all those stray waves would cause serious problems at high power levels. No wonder people were not allowed too close to the testing labs.
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Friday 2nd May 2008 08:52 GMT Daniel Wilkie
@Matt Bryant
Of course you know who shipped them "Crop Spraying helicopters" and permitted Dow Chemicals to export chemicals for use on humans for the war on Iran don't you... And supplied them kit to extend their missiles range...
And indeed France, Italy, and Portugal supplied them with Uranium and Germany helped them build centrifuges...
And indeed good old blighty supplied them with other weaponry too.
Then they decide to stop fighting each other, and all of a sudden we realise it was perhaps a bad idea... Politics is an interesting old game.
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Friday 2nd May 2008 15:28 GMT Steve Mann
Weapons of Mass Repulsion
I wonder if the pentagon would be interested in developing my own non-lethal -I-s-l-a-m-i-c- unspecified future combatant repulsion system.
I call it the Mk 1* Bacon Catapult. The strategic, long range version - the Rasher Rail Gun - has proven disappointing in tests, but if I can get enough money from the taxpayers I'm sure I can get it to work "properly".
* - Always indicate room for imrovement when proposing public-funded research - gotta keep those cash taps wide open.
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Friday 2nd May 2008 16:52 GMT Matt Bryant
RE: Daniel Wilkie
Yes, a very funny game indeed. But before you try to imply that it was just nasty old Reagan and the Republicans, you may want to check the number of export licences for similar kit granted by the Democrat Presidunce Carter's administration
In the meantime, I'm all for the US developing a version designed to kill. At the end of the day, whether you shoot them with a rifle, shake'n'bake 'em with Snake and Nape (sorry, that would be "incendiary agent" as the Mark 77 bombs use jet fuel and polystyrene and not petrol and polystyrene, so it's officially not banned napalm), or just fry them with a microwave cannon, the result is the same - one very dead and probably mangled corpse. The difference is how many US/allied lives could be saved by using whichever weapon. And to be honest, unlike Dick, I probably care more about the US soldiers coming home safe and sound rather than infringing some jihadi's rights by frying him.
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