Nothing could possibly go wrong with this thing that Katie Drummond at Danger Room reports about:

The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

So the military is going to build monsters that resist cell death; remove from them free will by somehow “encod[ing] loyalty right into DNA”; and equipping them with genetic self-destruction codes (but weren’t they supposed to resist cell death?) in the event that — as would have to be inevitable, right? — something goes horribly awry and the super unkillable monsters wreak havoc along the eastern seaboard. But if something’s going awry, why have faith that the self-destruct codes will work?

I have no idea how this is supposed to enhance national security or defend the country from attack or what. But 25 years of experience reading comic books tells me very clearly how terrible an idea this is. Can’t the Weekly Standard‘s bizarre crusade against cloning be revived to stop Darpa?

Also: we’re spending $6 million on this. But Obama has a spending freeze on non-national security discretionary spending.