Do you remember the MTV cartoon Daria? The cartoon featured an acerbic high school student named Daria and her best friend Jane. The duo could often be found watching a show called Sick, Sad World- a news program like 60 Minutes but about roadside oddities and bizarre events. There was always a voiceover introduction to the fictionalized news show like: "What's that you're really stirring in your tea, honey or bee vomit? Animal secretions that make us say 'yum' tonight on Sick, Sad World."

Sometimes I hear news that makes me think of Sick, Sad World. For example: Wired.com is reporting via RIA Novosit, a Russian news agency, that the Ukrainian Navy has plans to train dolphins to kill enemy combat swimmers.  

The voiceover for today’s blog, “Is Flipper being trained to kill in cold blood? These dolphins won’t be featured at a theme park near you anytime soon!”

The marine mammal program, headquartered in the Ukrainian naval port of Sevastopol, is being revived after it was handed over to the Ukrainian naval fleet when the USSR dissolved.  

Upon receipt of the program and its specialists the military aspect ended and it was used for beneficial and much more heartwarming civilian tasks like work with disabled children. But that was just done to “keep the unit intact” so the Ukrainian Navy could one day return to the program’s roots: teaching dolphins to kill.

The program includes plans to train the mammals to search for mines and mark them with buoys and maybe even attach specially designed guns or knives to their heads to kill an enemy. One would have to assume, if the idea is successfully carried out, that the dolphins will be bumping up against a diver and this action will cause the attached weapon to do the dirty work because dolphins don’t have hands.

Recent research from the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego says dolphins can stay alert with no signs of fatigue for up to 15 days in a row and still use echolocation accurately because only one half of a dolphin’s brain sleeps at a time. This means we could be looking at the future of marine combat: an alert, efficient, vigilant, and intelligent dolphin soldier with a gun strapped to his head.

To borrow the words of one Wired.com commenter: “There is only one option left to us, we will take the fight to them, we need sharks. We need sharks with lasers.” Somehow I don’t think it will ever come to that option.