"Automated Helicopters Could Make Roads Safer"
[Ben Shouse, that Sioux Falls paper, 2007.11.12]
[Ben Shouse, that Sioux Falls paper, 2007.11.12]
That's how it always is: they tell us it's for our safety, they appeal to our faith in technology, and then... Kablooie! It's Blue Thunder and Airwolf and the General Secretary Ban peeking in the window watching me blogging instead of doing my homework! Aaaah!
I liked Airwolf much better... it was a cooler-sounding helicopter!
ReplyDeleteMe too -- I'll bet Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine would have found Osama before the second commercial break.
ReplyDeleteThe reporting from the Argus and RCJ is downright confusing on these creepy little machines.
ReplyDeleteThe Argus says mini copters are for road repair. mm hmm. ANd I have a rain forest in the badlands for sale. The RCJ says they're like out of a DARPA project - use tech machines instead of humans in combat situations. Do we really want to become a country so crass against the peoples of other countries we just send little machines and no bodies of our own? I guess cluster bombs aren't enough. Too late. btw, we already have drones.
And why no one whining about all the earmarks for defense projects in SD? Why not just send every freaking tax dollar we have to the Pentagon's budget if it isn't going to raise anyone's ire? Hell, we don't need no stinkin' social services or health care or decent roads. Give me a good ol' war against islamofascists anyday. And if the little "road" helicopters aren't the same project as the combat helicopters, why aren't they, why spend for dual programs (what pork!)? And which corporation gets to reap the rewards of this federal research once its done? And why isn't this called an earmark? Because Daschle's name isn't on it?
Inquiring minds are furious.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/11/10/news/top/doc473520d7d3e46297096416.txt