>I'm sorry to see John Edwards and Peter Borst drawing
>conclusions based on false assumptions, with no specific information.

Well, as usual there is more than one side to this story. Certainly there
are many points upon which we may respectfully differ. No one can deny that
billions of dollars have been squandered on research projects AND military
ventures. 

QUOTE:
In an August 2003 article, Los Angeles Times reporter Charles Pillar noted
that DARPA has put forth some of the "most boneheaded ideas ever to spring
from the government" -- including a "mechanical elephant" that never made it
into the jungles of Vietnam and telepathy research that never quite afforded
the U.S. the ability to engage in psychic spying. Little has changed.
According to DARPA's current chief, some 85%-90% of its projects fail to
meet their full objectives.

The Environmental Protection Agency's "National Center for Environmental
Innovation" is a far cry from a DARPA-like entity. It doled out a mere
$737,500 in seven state-innovation grants in 2003. DARPA, by comparison,
spent about $3 billion on some 200 projects that ranged from space weapons
to unmanned aerial vehicles.

In 2002, DARPA researchers demonstrated that they could remotely control the
movements of a rat with electrodes implanted into its brain using a laptop
computer. In 2003 and 2004, DARPA's "Robolife" program researchers will turn
their attention to the "performance of rats, birds and insects in performing
missions of interest to DoD, such as exploration of caves or covert
deposition of sensors." Militarizing the animal world, however, carries its
own risks. Take World War II's Project X-Ray in which bats with incendiary
explosives strapped to their bodies turned on their military masters and set
fire to an U.S. Army airfield. Just imagine what an army of Army rats might do!

More at:

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_201.html

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