While the all-wise Bush administration has been sneaking money into spending bills for the brain-dead, impractical, couldn't-hit-the-side-of-a-barn national missile defense program (a gift to their corporate supporters), the Army has been quietly developing a laser-based system that actually works. And it works rather well, even against small supersonic artillery shells and targets like Katusha rockets. I'm not an expert but doesn't that seem harder than big fat ballistic warheads?