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Navy May Use Mine-Detecting Dolphins In the Straight of Hormuz
New submitter cervesaebraciator writes "The Atlantic Wire reports that the Navy has a tested solution to the possible mining of the Strait of Hormuz. The Navy has 80 dolphins in San Diego Bay trained to use their own sonar to detect mines. When they find the mines, the dolphins drop an acoustic transponder nearby, so that human divers might return to defuse it. Retired Adm. Tim Keating cannot say, however, whether the dolphins will be used in the Straight."
The Obama administration has reportedly warned Iran that closing the Strait would provoke an American response.
With lasers of course...
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081210140645AADMNkG
Whats the difference between Straight and Strait?
Straight, as in a line without a waver or curve.
Strait: "A strait is a narrow, navigable channel of water that connects two larger navigable bodies of water. "
And for the love of foreigners, if you guys do something about your spelling issues, please remove unsounded letters (like the "gh" in straight"), don't add any more of them. That's just cheating at scrabble!
Given how intelligent dolphins are, and how much technology and money it would take to replicate the functions and capabilities of a living creature, I don't think your view plays out. You talk about how expensive it would be to train dolphins, but it would be many more times expensive to use hardware instead.
... and thanks for all the oil !
Dolphins are a recognised Cute Animal. People like them. People love them. People have made a TV series around one. Some people practically worship them. If a dolphin is killed in action, the public outcry is unpredictable. Maybe it'll be nothing at all, maybe it'll be worse than a human casualty - after all, people expect those. KIA dolphins are unprecidented, there is no telling how it will go PR-wise. Other than that PETA is probably already writing their first letter of complaint, of course.
Except in this case the personnel are dolphins.
Should be simple enough to rig one in ten of your mines with an acoustic package that responds to the presence of a Dolphin sonar frequency fingerprint by detonating. Need to be careful that it doesn't respond to a ship playing back Dolphin frequencies on its active sonar.
From what I understand about the sensitivity of marine mammals to extreme Sonar sound pressure - you wouldn't even need it to detonate - just let out a couple of sonic farts at 140db should deafen the Dolphins permanently. I'm sure the Navy has a nice retirement program for deaf Dolphins. Not like the US Navy could complain - no worse than they do during a typical navel exercise with the active sonar on their submarines and ships.
Always more marine mammals in the sea.
They have sex for fun
They also force their ladies to have sexy times through which is rape! The more you know! ===*
second most intelligent creatures on the planet.
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"This is what I say to Iran. Let me be absolutely clear. If you close the Strait of Hormuz you are making the choice to put innocent dolphins in harms way. The American people will hold YOU responsible for their deaths. Think carefully."
Given how intelligent dolphins are, and how much technology and money it would take to replicate the functions and capabilities of a living creature, I don't think your view plays out. You talk about how expensive it would be to train dolphins, but it would be many more times expensive to use hardware instead.
I work at a university, and this is yet another case where the world should look to academia for the solution.
You need a cheap yet intelligent work force that's willing to work long hours and isn't overly picky about working conditions? That's easy - that's what grad students are for. They're easily replaceable too!
#DeleteChrome
and if sprinkling fairy dust on rainbows begets unicorns and world peace, everyone could live in love and harmony!
However, we live in the real world. The big dogs on the block always push little ones around. Been like that since the first homo erectus climbed down from the trees. You think the any of the previous powers were "respected citizens" that "minded their own business"? How about the British empire? Soviet? Chinese? French? (yes the French were actually a major power as recently as the 19th century)
As far as US goes, it's actually quite benign in comparison to every other dominant power that came before it. What do you think the (insert empire name) would've done in (insert troublespot name)?
But anyhow it looks like all you USA haters will be getting your wish soon. America is declining fast, and the next big dog seems to be lining up to take its place already. You probably know who that is.
But be careful what you wish for.
I can't say that I oppose all USA military operations: I actually think that what they did (and led other nations to do) in Libya was pretty great. I bet we're going to see a lot more problems in that area (Be it terrorism, hanging on the edge of another civil war or just another dictator grabbing the power after a while) but it was still a joint operation by the international community, intended to help people who wanted to overthrow a dictator.
That said... It's hard to deny that a lot of the problems in the area are also more or less directly caused by the USA. It's a very militaristic nation, with a very large and loud minority(?) of islamophobes and every few years it demonstrates that it still reserves itself the right to attack any nation there for whatever reason it wants to, whether or not they have the support of the international community and whether or not those reasons even make sense.
Whenever any dictator faces an uprising or any terrorist organization faces opposition from the locals, the first thing they say "Those are just agents of USA messing around" and the problem is... that doesn't sound as far-fetched as it should. USA foreign policy has been very effective in painting the nation as an evil empire against which the Arabs should unite. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be terrorist nutjobs if not for USA but I am saying that they have more support and credibility due to actions by USA. As far as I'm aware, the main platform of Ahmadinejad is rallying against USA: He gains support during conflicts like these and loses it when people direct their attention to internal affairs.
Every month on roads in the US, a number of people are killed approximatly equal to the deaths in the September 11 attacks. People care a lot more about deaths caused by deliberate action than they do about deaths occuring by accidents. This holds true for animals as well: There is also news fatigue: Once something like tuna-fishing has been going on long enough, people lose the ability to care.
I once saw a tv show where they talked about these military dolphins. I can't recall what the program was, but the outcome wasn't that great. They basically said the dolphins, being such intelligent creatures, sometimes actually lied for the fun of it. Unlike the dogs who simply do what they're told, the dolphins actually played with the rules and would say no mine was there even if they knew they were spotted as being lying.
Maybe the psychological side of the training has evolved since then, or maybe it was just a campaign of misinformation, but if it's actually true, doesn't sound too great for this theory...
[...] during a typical navel exercise [...]
you made my day here
The Obama administration has reportedly warned Iran that closing the Straight would provoke an American response.
I love how it's only the US that can be 'provoked'.
Remember, folks, Iran's apparently nuclear weapon program, while not illegal in any sense, 'provokes' the US. Countries have a perfect right to develop nukes if they want, and cut off inspections that they are only working towards nuclear power, and all it does is get them kicked out of the nuclear weapon's treaty, which means many countries won't sell uranium to them. That's it. It doesn't give anyone the right to attack them, or be 'provoked' into a war with them.
I think people have somehow gotten confused since the Iraq war and think developing nukes are 'illegal', but Iraq signed a surrender in war saying they wouldn't develop nukes, so, if they actually had been doing so, it would be a violation of the surrender and the war would be back on. Iran is not anywhere near the same situation.
However, threatening to bomb Iran in violation of international law is illegal. I don't mean actually bombing Iran, although that's also illegal...just threatening to attack countries over internal matters is actually illegal. As is planning to do so. It's a crime against peace. Somehow, that doesn't count as 'provoking'.
But, if Iran does what is mostly within international law, closing of its own waterways to transit passage of countries threatening it, that is also 'provoking'. Countries are supposed to allow passage of ships through their waters as long as they don't stop, but they can stop that when, for example, people keep threatening to attack them. (And they can certainly keep out warships of countries that keep threatening them!)
To summarize: Iran doing things we don't like that are possibly falling short of their treaty obligations, but are not in any way 'illegal', that's 'provoking' us. The US committing the outright war crime of planning and threatening to bomb them to change their internal behavior, why, it's crazy to think Iran might not like that.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?