June 22 , 2007
I read about some of the stuff the government spends money on -- our money, let me remind you - and I think the feds could not possibly play any faster or looser with our taxes. Whether it's buying thousand-dollar toilet seats for the space shuttle, or building a stairway to heaven (OK, so that was Led Zeppelin, but you had to stop and think, didn't you?) the government throws money around like a drunken UT freshman with daddy's AmEx card.
But the following news item really takes the cake. Forget your toilet seats, forget your heavenly staircases - relatively speaking, those seem like money well spent.
According to a news story I read last week, back in the 1990s the military was seeking funding to develop non-lethal weapons. At first glance this sounds like a pretty good idea - it would allow us to defeat our enemies without killing them. A closer look, however, makes you wonder if some of these generals spent too much time in the sun without a hat.
One of the weapons was a substance that would make an enemy's skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight. This would make them as vulnerable as Count Dracula, Lindsay Lohan, and other scary creatures that come out only at night. Another proposed weapon was dubbed the "Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks. Although it was ultimately rejected, this one actually showed some promise. Since most soldiers are young men, and nothing is funnier to young men than the old "barking spider," this bomb could have reduced an entire battalion to a helpless, giggling heap. Instead of pulling triggers, enemy soldiers would be pulling fingers.Scientists also reportedly considered a chemical weapon that would send swarms of enraged wasps towards enemy troops. However, this pursuit was abandoned when researchers realized that if it didn't work for Daffy Duck, it probably wasn't going to work for them, either.
These ideas are pretty crazy, but the craziest was the "gay bomb."This proposed weapon would have contained an aphrodisiac that would make enemy soldiers gay. And not just gay, but also so attractive to each other that they'd throw down their arms and spend their time making love, instead of shooting at our guys.
Obviously, this was long before "don't ask, don't tell."But you gotta wonder -- what would happen if the bomb leaked and our own guys were exposed? Might our troops be too busy getting their eyebrows waxed to defend us? Or what if we were invaded during brunch?
On the upside, if you've seen the living conditions over there, you know a little refinement wouldn't be a bad thing. We could ask for volunteers and give them a whiff - not a full dose - of the gay spray and they could redecorate the barracks, or show the other troops how to accessorize and turn those ho-hum desert fatigues from drab to fab! And heroes might no longer be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor; instead, they could get the Martha Stewart Award of Valor.
Website design by Pranamedia © 2007 Jeff Carmack, All rights reserved.