1) Concerning the insurance salesman who was ostensibly playing with kittens at 1 o'clock in the morning in a hotel room: looks like he got off very
lightly, and presumably the "authorities" are maintaining a (very close) watch on the nocturnal activities (or otherwise) of all the occupants of fore-mentionned hotel room...?!
2)
glad rag's
BBC link about BAE System's new anti-pirate distraction laser system is quite interesting if only for this:
The challenge has been to develop a system that can be used safely - but effectively - over long distances at sea, said Mr Hore.
Weapons designed to cause permanent blindness are banned by a United Nations protocol.
(emphasis added)
Uhmmm, so it's OK to cause "permanent blindness" of your enemy using a bayonet, bullet, artillery, even a "laser-guided weapon" etc., just so long as the "permanent blindness" is also accompanied by death?
Have I got that straight?
PS. And we should all probably reconsider for just how much longer our
superior technologies of $2 billion a piece "stealth bombers" and other laser-guided weapons etc. remain viable in view of the low-costs and availability of laser technology today. That is to say, that I can already imagine low-cost "defensive weapons" based on laser-technologies which might be available to any number of adversaries in the next decade. Capable of "blinding" enemy pilots and smart-weapons over "huge swathes of their territories". What would be the point of all those AWAC aircraft then? The Chinese have already proved their capability to "shoot-down" one of their own satellites, how much easier to (if only temporarily) be able to simply blind your adversary's "spy in the sky"...?