Night of the Attack Clowns

"What's the new guy's name? Hey Bob! We got sumptin' for you to try over here!"

Here's the latest in the "Here's Something For the New Guy" category for tactical teams, a patent for a launching device to catapult people onto buildings.

What with the Global War On Terror (GWOT), the War On Drugs, the War On Poverty, and the War On Land Mines, it's about time somebody did something about propelling people through the air. The folks at DoD and DARPA are heeding this call, and US Patent #20060086349 is for a "controllable launcher". The picture says it all: a seat mounted on a rail where compressed air shoots the user into the sky. How many times have you worked on a project where the goal was to "shoot the user into the sky?" I bet not many. i hope not many.

Something about this reminds me of circus clowns. Maybe it's the whole "human cannon" thing. The inventors claim to be able to launch people up to four stories high. Let's see. You're in a tough tactical situation: you have hostages and heavily-armed doped up paranoid hallucinating criminals inside a secure building. What to do? Hey! Let's launch ourselves up into the air on top of the building! Certainly seeing a sequence of fully-armed assault techs flying through the air would be enough to calm the situation down inside.

Maybe the clown idea isn't so far off-base. Sort of natural camoflauge for the human launcher. Look! Must be a circus in town! No need to fear. I wonder if we'll get balloons?

I'm not sure I would want to be a member of the "Fighting 42nd Attack Clowns". The camo would be a lot easier to apply, though. And maybe you'd get free red noses.

Can I Take the Flower Squirt Gun With Me?

For those of you wanting links, New Scientist is also running the story.