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Armed Dolphins Released Into Gulf of Mexico
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian is reporting on what may be the weirdest Hurricane Katrina story yet. Military trained dolphins may have been released into the wild by the Hurricane's devastation." From the article: "Experts who have studied the U.S. navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The U.S. navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing. Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The U.S. Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the U.S. defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly."
I heard about 6 other dolphins from the area that got free and they found all 6 hanging out as close as they could get to their former pen.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
The history channel had a show on the Dolphins. They are trained to do things like look for mines or spot enemy divers in a bay. If the dolphin sees a diver he doesn't know he will poke them with is nose. I don't think it matters who they are. The way this kills the diver is that the dolphins have these special nose guns that go off on inpact.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Huh. How'd they do that?
I hope they didn't do it in the same way the Russian army taught dogs to drop satchel charges under German tanks. You see, they used Russian tanks to train them. So when they got into battle with the Germans, what did the dogs do when given live, armed satchel charges? Delivered them right under Russian tanks, of course. That plan was rather quickly abandoned.
The US Army hasn't faired much better; they armed bats with incendiary devices- the plan was that, release from a plane over Japan, they'd find refuged in building overhangs and whanot. They were kept calm by refridgeration. So during one of the trial runs (incidentally, the first trial run with live ammo), some genius decides they need a picture of the bats. It's pitch dark, so the photographer uses a flash. Which not only wakes up the bats, but startles them as well...
...and as they say, "hilarity ensued."
Please help metamoderate.
+5: Informative?!
That's it. I'm not reading Slashdot anymore...
Hate to discontinue the comedy thread in this article, but dolphins don't have breasts. The females do have two or four mammary slits either side of their genital slit, on the ventral side of their tail.
Imformative increases karma, funny does not. That's why some mods mark it imformative if they're feeling generous.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
The US Navy refers to its dolphin units as "Marine Mammal Systems", and documents the purpose of each unit. Individual units are trained for mine hunting, force protection, and object recovery.
Assuming that these dolphins are not part of a separate program, presumably the loose mammals are part of Marine Mammal System Mark VI. Note that the Navy Marine Mammal Program FAQ includes the following item:
Does the Navy train its dolphins for offensive warfare, including attacks on ships and human swimmers or divers?
No. The Navy does not now train, nor has it ever trained, its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships. A popular movie in 1973 ("The Day of the Dolphin") and a number of charges and claims by animal rights organizations have resulted in theories and sometimes actual beliefs that Navy dolphins are assigned attack missions. This is absolutely false. Since dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal. The animals are trained to detect, locate, and mark all mines or all swimmers in an area of interest or concern, and are not trained to distinguish between what we would refer to as good or bad. That decision is always left to humans.
I find trace references to the fact that the former anti-swimmer system (the Shallow Water Intruder Detection System) was supplanted by something new involving dolphins. In the old system, a sea lion would swim up to an unknown frogman with an open-jawed clamp attached to a line attached to its nose, ram into the frogman, and then signal the handler -- the frogman would essentially become "handcuffed" to the line, easy to reel in.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
And discover the following:
Does the Navy train its dolphins for offensive warfare, including attacks on ships and human swimmers or divers?
No. The Navy does not now train, nor has it ever trained, its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships. A popular movie in 1973 ("The Day of the Dolphin") and a number of charges and claims by animal rights organizations have resulted in theories and sometimes actual beliefs that Navy dolphins are assigned attack missions. This is absolutely false. Since dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal. The animals are trained to detect, locate, and mark all mines or all swimmers in an area of interest or concern, and are not trained to distinguish between what we would refer to as good or bad. That decision is always left to humans.
Does the Navy ask the dolphins and sea lions to do dangerous things?
The dolphins locate and mark the location of sea mines which are designed to be set off by large ships, not aquatic animals. In the swimmer detection program, dolphins and sea lions move so quickly and with such accuracy that human swimmers in dark or murky waters are located and marked before they know what has happened. Once the marking has been completed, the animals are removed from the area before mines are disarmed or swimmers are apprehended by trained security forces. Marine mammals are actually in more danger from sharks, and wild marine mammals are put in much more danger by people who feed them (which is why it is illegal).
Why have there been so many rumors about the NMMP over the years?
Several decades of classification of the program's true missions of mine-hunting and swimmer defense, led to media speculation and animal activist charges of dolphins used as offensive weapons, speculation and charges that could not be countered with facts due to that classification. Additionally, fantasy is often times more interesting than reality. With declassification of the missions of the program in the early 1990s, the Navy has repeatedly and openly discussed those missions, but rumors are not easily forgotten, and there are those who continue to actively promote them.
In response to charges that the program abused the animals, the presidentially appointed Marine Mammal Commission investigated the program in 1988 and 1990. The Commission reported that the allegations were not only false, but that the Navy's care of its marine mammals was "exemplary."
Then, of course, we'd realize this guy was a kook, and that Slashdot is recycling stories that Art Bell wouldn't cover. Certainly makes you think twice about the journalistic integrity of the Guardian, though.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Hmm... somebody is having trouble keeping their various cute and lovable kid's show characters separate...
For the record
Don't mean to troll, I'm just sayin'
dolphins ARE whales. if you skip the sharks, there would already be 'armed whales' in the water.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
For once in his life he could have been useful.
-G
"If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern"
You're referring to fascism , "the merger of state and corporate power" (according to Mussolini, its first biggest booster).
"Corporate" doesn't mean what you think it means in this context.
Wikipedia gives a good history of corporatism.
"Under Fascism in Italy, business owners, employees, trades-people, professionals, and other economic classes were organized into 22 guilds, or associations, known as "corporations" according to their industries, and these groups were given representation in a legislative body known as the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni."
So you see, "the merger of state and corporate power" doesn't just mean businesses. Today such a system might include corporations such as the AFL/CIO and other labor unions. Yes, they are corporations, too.
And business never "owned" government under Fascism. Fascism is primarily about putting the state above the individual, indeed above everything, include businesses.
Doctrine of Fascism
"The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and usefu [sic] [typo-should be: useful] instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.
State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management. (pp. 135-136) "
Benito Mussolini, 1935, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, Rome: 'Ardita' Publishers.
Did you read the link?
.95 ^ 100 = 0.5% which is going to be ever so usefull...
On the other hand, water (seawater, that is) transmits blue-green light pretty well -- losing "only" about 5% of its original intensity for every meter it transmits through water.
It drops to 1/2 power every 14m. So at 100m your down to