A Million Dollars. . .

Think about it. . . A million dollars.

It's the capitalist's dream. It has become the benchmark of success and financial independence. . . "When I make my first million, I'm gonna. . ."

What would you do?

Tonight, as I prepared for my nightly pre-writing ritual, I had the opportunity to take in a show on TV that highlighted the newest, state-of-the-art weaponry in use by military agencies the world over. The one that stood out was the 'Sensor Fuzed Weapon'.

In a nutshell, the SFW is actually a 'canister' that, shortly after being dropped from the delivery aircraft, breaks open, deploying ten cylinders by parachute that, each, holds four hockey puck-shaped 'skeets'. These 40 skeets are bomblets that use infrared sensors to detect targets for their small-yet-powerful warheads. The particular test they televised was against an armored division of retired assault armor. Each skeet warhead was loaded with molten copper, decimating its target on impact, or, if the warhead couldn't find a target, exploded in midair, spraying the battlefield with the molten metal.

The cost of the test-fire: One million dollars.

Now, let's step back a bit and look at the situation. I have always been a science wonk and, throughout high school and college, I favored physics because, well, it's fun to make things go kabloey. But a million dollars?!! I'd have to look at the money awful hard before sacrificing it to mere pyrotechnics.

We are invested, militarily, in a seemingly-unending commitment in Iraq that is bleeding money from our budget at a freakish rate. I understand that a weapon of this type could end a conventional military confrontation very quickly, but we're not dealing with that type of battlefield. It's useless.

Turning towards the home front, we find several storm-ravaged areas still in ruins, neighborhoods cleared of homes, grocery stores and gas stations empty and abandoned, and schools and churches falling apart. What would a million dollars do in the effort to rebuild?

Perhaps I'm picking nits. I mean, the atomic bomb cost about two billion dollars to develop and, at just over one billion dollars, the American Seawolf-class submarine is a venture that even the government had a hard time affording to produce. A million dollar bomb doesn't sound so bad in comparison. If you could buy such weaponry at the average retail stores, the Sensor Fuzed Weapon would be on the clearance shelf in your local Wal-Mart.

Ah, free Capitalism! I suppose we can't blame the government for using their money to develop a new toy. They know best, don't they? Besides, if I had a million dollars, I'd probably waste it on frivolous things like paying off my house or saving for my retirement and the kids' college tuition. At least the government is using the money to help insure the freedom and independence of our country.

. . .By blowing up a large piece of it.