Israeli military develops robot snake for battlefield, children's nightmares
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted June 9th 2009 6:03PM
posted June 9th 2009 6:03PM
While this is by no means the first time we've seen a robotic snake prototype, it ain't every day that we find one so close to deployment. This self-propelling, two foot long robot can crawl along the ground, climb through debris, and even stand erect to give the operator a better view through the forward-mounted camera. The Israeli Defense Force says it will use this thing for "routine surveillance and reconnaissance." And if this is not enough? In that case, the prototype can be wired with explosives -- making it, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, a "suicide snake." Fun! And rather upsetting. No proposed price or timetable yet, but you can see the thing in action for yourself after the break.
As soon as I saw the word "Israeli" in the title of this article, I knew there was going to be some gay ass flame war in the comment section.
And when you saw snake you knew christians would get invlved too I bet, but where's the women at.
Run! It's a giant hand puppet!!
You know a great many the famous (christian/hebrew) biblical characters also had several wives and married some pretty young ones, and incidentally the islamics say you can marry (too) young girls but can't have sex with them until they are older I read.
And yeah the christian bible actually also doesn't mind too much if you beat your wife if she gets out of hand, and it's not too long ago that christians in the west did just that, based on their bible saying it's OK (in fact some christian communities still think it's OK)
What's the problem with marrying several women anyway? I mean if they are willing and you can afford it what's the beef? Who thought it up that it's wrong? Mormons don't think it's wrong and they are all christian aren't they?
But I'm a proud atheist and should not worry about trying to make sense out of nutty religion I guess
Although - with most politicians actually also believing in their imaginary friend and basing half their insane rules on it I perhaps should keep track, not that it helps to know it doesn't even makes sense according to their own reference works when they have their cops and courts and armies to support them.
@TareX
Until you can come past the propaganda, you're not going to see any kind of light. You need to be able to see past the lies being produced by Palestinian PR and come up with some actual facts.
In regards to the B'Tselem site, am I going to deny that a few bad apples get into the IDF? No - but they get disciplined and court martialed just like any of the US soldiers that committed crimes while in Iraq. No army on Earth has ever been nor will ever be 100% without crime. The difference is that a few isolated incidents here and there get all the attention against 99% of the operations that are respectful of civilians and don't get reported because it's not news. Be thankful that sites like B'Tselem exist, Israel has freedom of the press. Sites like B'Tselem that bad-mouth the military could not exist in any of the countries surrounding Israel because the people writing for it would have been stolen away by secret police a long time ago.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_apartheid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_legislation_in_South_Africa
Apartheid is inhuman acts "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." Apartheid requires a legal system to be set up creating laws ("institutionalized"... the second Wikipedia article says "With the enactment of apartheid laws in 1948, racial discrimination was institutionalized.") that "dominate" one of the racial groups in a country. South African Apartheid is a result of such laws as the Group Areas Act of 1950 and a whole list of other laws at the link above.
In Israel, ALL Israeli citizens, be they Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, or other minority (like Russian), enjoy the same benefits and protections under the law; thus, apartheid does not exist in Israel. Please point me to an Israeli law that states differently.
@ msgrocks
According to the Wikipedia article on Islam, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam
"Abraham, Moses, Hebrew prophets, and Jesus were all Prophets in Islam, but their message and the texts of the Torah and the Gospels were corrupted by Jews and Christians."
Jews do not believe that Jesus was a prophet, but Christians and Muslims do. Muslims believe that the word of Jesus was the word of God, as has been recorded in much of the New Testament. Muslims take many parts of the Old and New Testament to be from the mouth of God, although perhaps some of it is disputable to them on the basis of what is in the Koran. Perhaps TareX can elaborate further?
Jews do not believe in the New Testament.
But please note that while Islam "allowed" marriage up to 4, this is in special circumstances such as supporting orphans of war. Moreover, the first wife must agree. Also, Islam is the only religion to advise men to marry only ONE (and some interpretations said it was a command). Note that 4 was a downgrade from the usual 10-20 number prevalent at the time.
First of all, does anyone know what the battery life is on this thing?
Second, for all those arguing about who has rights to the land of Israel:
Although many of you bring up the argument that Jews just started showing up there since 1948 and that its creation was an unfair mandate created by world powers, which is all true. However, our claim to the land is not from the Balfour Declaration, it is the fact that it says in our Bible that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish People. Additionally, there has been an uninterrupted Jewish presence in Israel since Joshua initially brought the Jews into the land. Just open up a history book and you will see (not even a Jewish History Book).
Third, there are plenty of other border mandates that have occurred recently in history in which people of certain religion were required to move and were absorbed by neighboring countries. This was done without the need of bloodshed. When the countries of Greece and Turkey were formed, Christians were relocated to Greece and Muslims were relocated to Turkey. No one started complaining that "we were here first, how can you force us to move?" They understood that it was being done in the name of peace and stability. When Israel was created, the Muslims of the area were given land to live in; but, instead, decided to create perpetual refugee camps (and declare war). Borders change all the time on our planet and people have to move if the new, prevailing power doesn't suit them. Its a fact of life. These people living in refugee camps are sore losers and could have had their own country in 1948 alongside Israel as was mandated for them and has been done successfully in over 30 other scenarios across our planet. They were blinded by their hatred for Jews; its a fact.
Fourth, someone pointed out how Israel has plenty of condemnations from the UN, while the PA doesn't have any. Since when is the UN even a reputable organization? I refuse to elaborate; just start reading the paper.
Fifth, Israel is not an aggressor. Just read an Israeli newspaper and you will see. There are plenty that are English. Conversely, start reading translations of Middle-Eastern Islamic newspapers and you will find quite a different story. I read them both all the time.
Kol Tuv
Battery life would depends on its movement and obstruction to its movement I would guess, and as such would vary wildly I would again guess.
Just assume it's longer than an iphone *zing*
oh really? Are you mean to say there are these people who would base their claim to a land in a religion book with self-serving prophesies written by less informed people, can't be proven, and nobody live around there gives a damn, IN 21st CENTURY? Are you serious?
I always wondered about the fact that Israel keeps on breaking UN resolution. You yourself says UN is unreliable organization. Oh really? Just whose mandate approved the creation of the state of Israel? - UN. By not respecting UN mandate, Israel is effectively denying their own existence, so they will have to excuse me when I see them as an illegal company.
I don't know why these people don't realize this artificial country's clock is ticking. They should have taken Saudi offer when they had chance. They are indisputably a squatters, and for their long term survival they HAVE TO make peace with their neighbors - they aren't exactly nice people and you aren't gonna get aloha bouquet on account of being a squatter but they have to do it in order to establish themselves. Only reason they get US support is because they only viable contacts to middle east. Once oil gets depleted in middle east, US will no longer have any interest in that land and they couldn't care less about what happens to that backwater region. If Israel doesn't have friends around there by that time, they are loyally screwed. And we have how much oil supply left? 10, 20 years top?
Don't expect there's gonna be Geneve convention protecting your sorry ass, idiots. You're the ones who didn't respect it. I, for one, am planning to suck my thumb and watch because that's what I was forced to during last December.
The true solution (and least favored one) is the dissolution of Israel and creating a new country that accurately represents demographics of that land. Jews complains that it would make them a minority. Well that's because you ARE minority. There's gonna be a massacre? You fucked these people over for 60 years, what do you expect? Stand your ground, even if it kills you - that's what Jews should have done long times ago against the roman expulsion. That's how it's been done through out the history.
P.S I hail from Korea and we have several thousand years history of getting our ass handed to us. Do we bitch? yeah, but doesn't seem to bother anybody. Are we still there? Yeah.
True solution is to just go on fighting for a few thousand years, people are idiots, and idiots like fighting, and it'll help weapon development and testing and sales, and if religious people aren't fighting they breed like rabbits until they run out of food and start fighting about what's available (see:sudan), so you have the same situation again.
a-hole,
The jews DID live there without having their own state, and there WAS a large war with the intention of getting rid of the jews. They DID stand their ground, and many of them DID get killed, so your stupid idea already happened, and this is where were at right now. Why would we start the process all over again?
To correct the wrong - they need to take a responsibility of taking a land that's not theirs anymore. Otherwise, they have no hope of peace, or survival for that matter.
Wow, politics has even gone into tech threads!
You guys need to take a chill pill. Your hot heads won't resolve the Palestinian/Israeli issue. The Jews have as much right to the land as the Non-Jews, but the point is, it's Arab land. The Israelis living there are of european origin, they came unwelcome, they run the country unwelcome, and they will always been unwelcome unless they give control back to the Arabs.
It's really not an islamic-jewish issue as much as people want to think it is. At the end of the day, Muslims and Jews CAN live together as proved throughout history - in fact, it's mostly been Christians/Catholics who have it in for the jews rather than muslims!
Anyway - this is not a clever invention, snakes are usually disposed of when they're seen, so their choice of animal should have been better :) Aside from the fact that the thing indeed looks like a turd!
I agree. lets kick all the white people out of Africa and America and Australia... and come to think of it Spanish decedents from central and south America too because they were never invited. Lets help The Mayan civilization thrive again and the Cherokees prosper! Long live useless dead civilizations! Am I the only one in this thread who believes in Darwinism?
@TareX
Israel is not apartheid, its Arab citizens are guaranteed the same rights as the jewish citizens. And don't try to bring in this apartheid wall bull-shit, because it stopped suicide bombings of innocent israelis by 99 percent. Hmmm... a wall between two different lands with a two hour wait, does this sound farmiliar? Oh yeah, pretty much EVERY BORDER BETWEEN EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD (that's not the EU). Palestinians in Gaza and the west bank are used as human shields, as proven time and time again. Israel repeatedly drops leaflets, contacting civilians, telling them where they are going to bomb. Hamas militants organize them to make these numbers seem like Israel is just throwing bombs all throughout Gaza without warning. And also, this shit about the refugees. What about all the refugees that fled the Arab world into Israel? Israel found a solution for them, and yes they were put into refugee camps for a while. Israel has built complexes FOR Palestinian refugees, although they are not moving from the camp to act as a pawn to the media.
@msgrocks
The bible can refer to the old testament too.