Sumo Merriment

The Fallenmonk featured this one his blog a little over a week ago and I was so taken aback with it I wanted to share it with you...so you could be as horrified as I was about it. I just copied the whole piece so you wouldn't miss any of it. Fallenmonk said to have your cheap sunglasses ready for this. I had it in the draft stage and tonight seemed the right time to put it up. I'll do my recipe for Saturday...the weekend is always slow anyway. Tonight I worked on a heavy post for The Sirens Chronicles...featured for Friday...so I slipped this in place real easy like.

Its inventors call it the LED Incapacitator (L-E-D, as in light-emitting diode). Weapons buffs call it a nonlethal weapon. But test subjects who have buckled and reeled from its nauseating strobe call it other names—none printable.

A later version of the LED Incapacitator, featuring a trimmer head.

A flashlight designed to make you nauseatingly ill? What fiendish minds would invent such a tool? The minds of Bob Lieberman and Vladimir Rubtsov, president and senior scientist of Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., a small R&D company in Torrance, CA. Under a multiphase contract from the S&T Directorate’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Office, with technical direction from S&T program manager Gerald Kirwin, the two physicists are refining an ultra-bright, multicolored, pulsing “lightsaber” that’s more disorienting, dazzling, and dizzying—though a tad less dangerous—than disco. It’s enough to make you sick. And that, Lieberman says, is not always a bad thing.

How does the LED Incapacitator incapacitate? By simultaneously overwhelming the subject both physiologically (temporarily blinding him) and psychophysically (disorienting him). A built-in rangefinder measures the distance to the nearest pair of eyeballs. Then, a “governor” sets the output and pulse train (a series of pulses and rests) to a level, frequency, and duration that are effective, but safe. The colors and pulses continuously change, leaving no time for the brain or eyes to adapt. After a few minutes, the effects wear off.

The light could be used to make a bad guy turn away or shut his eyes, giving authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the cuffs … all while sparing the lives of passersby, hostages, or airline passengers.

An animated cross section shows how red, green, and blue LEDs are focused through an optical plate.

“There are often confrontations at border crossings with suspected illegal aliens or drug runners,” Lieberman says. “You don’t want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody. With this,” he smiles, “they don’t need to know English to comply.”

Output and size can easily be scaled up to fit the need; immobilizing a mob, for instance, might call for a wide-angle “bazooka” version. Scaling down is more difficult. At 15 inches long by 4 inches wide, the current prototype is more transportable than portable. The next-generation weapon must be as short and svelte as a D-cell Maglite, designed to fit on a duty belt. “Phase 3 will be our shrink phase,” Lieberman says.

This fall, in Phase 2, researchers at Pennsylvania State University will test the LED Incapacitator on volunteers at the school’s Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology. Intelligent Optical Systems will use the test results to evaluate design features and tweak the strobe’s pattern and colors. “There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Lieberman. “Vlad calls it the evil color.” Further tests are scheduled for the fall, and production could begin by December. By 2010, the LED Incapacitator could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents, and National Guardsmen.

So...activists beware! I think the administration is looking to control the crowds of unhappy citizens in any way they can. Gone are the days of freedom of speech and demonstrating when the moment called for it. I think a grand scale march on Washington is what this thing is for...to control the masses of people that are going to be angry at the next things they throw our way. Rove is working overtime I suspect.

Labels: bright lights, scary stuff, something this way evil comes

Posted by sumo on Friday, August 10, 2007 at 12:10 AM | Permalink Return to Top

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Like everything else in LE, it has potential - for the good if used properly, and for the bad, if misused. Given the track record of these clowns...I don't trust them with a slingshot!

I'd like to thank you from the heart for your support recently. It means a lot to me, and will mean much more to my friend, I'm sure. Thank You!!

Posted by The Future Was Yesterday | 3:43 AM

That's a scary development. Why don't they use our tax dollars to work on, say, a cure for cancer instead?

Posted by PBS | 4:58 AM

Once Bush installs Martial Law, this will be perfect for controlling the dissenters.

Posted by Larry | 5:50 AM

Oh, lordy. I work in Torrance CA. This makes me furious.

Posted by DivaJood | 7:31 AM

This thing finally showed up in USA Today a couple of days ago. The article also mentioned what would happen when it got into the wrong hands either by a copy cat device or through the continued incompetence of the DHS.

Posted by fallenmonk | 7:59 AM

Of course, if they've got a mirror you're pwned.

The best part about this is the name of the chief scientist, Vlad.

Vlad.

Before he deploys the Puke-Saber Incapacitator and turns on the "evil color", does he say "I will break you."?

The barf-beamer has been proven to nauseate. But from the weapon's description it seems to me highly likely that it will trigger seizures (known as the "photoconvulsive response") in a certain percentage of those who are vulnerable, children and teens included.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who recently suffered a seizure attributed to epilepsy, might make an excellent candidate for testing the safety of the device. Of course if Roberts is used and suffers no ill effects, we should avoid drawing any firm conclusions until the possibility that he suffers from simple demonic possession rather than epilepsy can be ruled out.

Posted by earlbo | 11:11 AM

What a sick thing to do!

Posted by Suzie-Q (S-Q) | 4:59 PM

What a horror. Even tin foil hats won't help us. What happens if you counter with a shotgun?

Posted by MandT | 6:19 PM

Like TUA said...trust is an issue. Worries me.

Posted by Mary | 6:33 PM

TFWY...I was glad to help. Hope he stays in one piece and comes home.

As far as the light...it's the potential for the bad side that has me worried.

pBS...real glad to hear from you! I agree...do something for the better.

Larry...exactly!

Diva...strange feeling isn't it?

Monk...I considered the same thing...getting into the wrong hands...even our side.

Earl...the seizure thing has me concerned...what a terrible thing to do...and who knows whom it could effect?

Suzie-Q...right on!

MandT...I just through my tin foil hat out after reading this.

Hi Mary...trust is exactly the issue. Unscrupulous people do unscrupulous things...and that's how they think of others.

Posted by sumo | 7:11 PM

Shit, that's nothing.

Wait until they use the weapons we don't even know about yet to control the American People once he declares Martial Law.

Now that' something to scare the crap out of all of us.

God Bless.

Posted by Anon-Paranoid | 9:56 PM

That's disgusting. Back in the 1960s, all we had to worry about was getting our heads opened with a billy club, which happened often enough when police and guard attacked protesters. These people will stop at nothing to undo the First Amendment. :-(

Posted by TomCat | 1:59 PM

hey, maybe pelosi is finally going to come through and, you know, put bush in jail for high crimes and a slew of misdemeanors. and how better to apprehend the man than to bewilder him with one of these little numbers and then put him into a labyrinth never to return? the emperor in a maze, he couldn't possibly understand why!

Posted by Anonymous | 10:08 PM

Anon...I sure there's plenty we aren't aware of...I'd rather not think about it...or I wouldn't sleep at night. Yeah...like we're going to forget about things like this...

TomCat...disgusting yes...because it will never affect them...they have all the rights they can muster.

Hype...that was funny! I can just see Dubbie in a labyrinth...of his own mucking! Heh! Pun intended!

Posted by sumo | 11:02 PM

Sumo Merriment

Eye Light...For That Lightness Of Being...

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