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Silly String Goes to War Against IEDs
Luban Doyle writes "In an age of multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it's the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq.
American troops use the stuff to detect trip wires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq."
Infra-red emmitting diode?
Intermittent Explosive Disorder?
Institute for Educational Development?
Institution of Engineering Designers?
Innovative Electronic Designs?
I'm sure they once called these "booby traps". What's the obsession with acronyms?
Why isn't the government providing the tools the military needs.
Additionally there should be a significant discount if they make a nice large contract
OK call me overly sensitive, I usually am against Political Correctness, but this is a serious issue. DEADLY serious.
I'm glad this low tech method of booby trap detection is being used. My nit however is in leading the article with the "It's Funny, Laugh" icon.
There is a humorous element in using a humorously named children's toy for sure, but I still chafe at the juxtaposition of the Monty Python foot with something that is in actuality so far removed from humor.
Letter To Iran
WHOA! SOmeone not claiming our soldiers are morons, on this site? Thats new.
Whatever. I havn't seen anyone claim that, ever. It isn't the soldiers fault they're fighting a pointless war that their leaders forced them into.
It isn't the soldiers fault they're fighting a pointless war that their leaders forced them into.
Sure it is. They could always stand up against those politicians who are sending them over there.
I'm glad to see something I have always considered to be completely useless and extremely annoying at the office come to such constructive use. Way to go American ingenuity!
Not only is Godwin's "law" stupid but so are you.
This reference to Nazism is a real reference to Nazism and not associating a non-Nazi entity to Nazism. Get with the program you gimp. Or do you expect people to hide their heads in the sand and act like if that little skirmish across the pound some 60+ years ago never happened? You're a disgrace and an asshat.
They volunteered to serve the United States and to defend the country, a very honorable thing to do. However, their leader, the commander in chief aka the president, let them down. He led them astray believing that they were protecting american by getting rid of "WMD's" when the real reason they were sent to Iraq is to secure US oil interests in the middle east.
I got nothin'
And if the officers sent in a requisition, and someone pushed it through, I can see the headlines:
Pentagon spends millions on children's toys
Military awards no-bid contract for toys
Millions of cans of toys bought, unable to track
Military fails to provide tools to troops, uses toys instead
You are 100% right about the edge of irregulars being able to use whatever works. However, clearly our troops are just as smart and figured out how to improvise, and away go the cans of silly string. So it's being done voluntarily by people on the home front, so what, that just makes them wonderful patriots. What is with the statist notion that it is only okay if it goes through taxes and government procurement.
The biggest problem is that we have two generations of reporters that believe their job is to undermine the government, and that that is an example of freedom of the press.
Take the body armor issue... Our troops have some older body armor, and there is a dispute as to which ones to replace. If the government replaced EVERYTHING, we'd be screaming about waste from throwing out our perfectly good 2 year old body armor that we spent billions on. In addition, the guys in the cities don't want the bulkier armor, and were refusing to wear it, so the Pentagon, sick of the bad PR, REQUIRED the use, even for units that didn't want it.
The anti-government press goes beyond reporting problems so that they can be fixed, and tries to play gotcha with our government. So government officials play CYA, instead of doing the right thing. It's a HORRIBLE mess, and it will take more than an emergency requisition of silly string to fix it.
The war isn't about cheap oil. The war in Iraq is about (among other things) access to oil. It's contradictory to the interests of western oil companies for oil to be cheap.
Wouldn't be better to use lawyers? Bees at least provide honey, whereas lawyers serve no useful purpose.
It should be noted that protection of foreign economic interests of the United States is a valid, publicly acknowledged function of the US Armed Forces. Defending US citizens from attack is not their only function.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Of course they should, but nothing they can say or do will bring their children home immediately. Even if the decision to pull out completely were made today, they would still have to survive days or weeks in a very dangerous place. If a can of Silly String allows someone's son to survive long enough to make it to that plane back home, then I say give 'em the Silly String.
Consider that their mothers may believe their children fighting in Iraq are doing a good thing, and support them.
It isn't like the soldiers are there just for the fun of it. They're part of ensuring a stable Iraqi government that will be a democracy good for its citizens rather than a tyranny.
Plenty of mothers support their children risking their lives for the good of others. Life and safety are not the most important values, even for mothers.
Actually the pope has made multiple statements opposing the war in Iraq, and has been generally a voice for peace in recent history. In fact, many Catholic organizations, such as the Catholic Workers have actively opposed US wars.
It was professional killers that created the country that allows you to say stupid stuff. So don't get to high brow, slick.
And it doesn't matter what country tyour in, that holds true.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I hope you aren't offended by my asking, but defend [civil rights] against whom? Unless you are old enough to have served in WW II, no one has bothered to attack the US in a serious way. And by serious, I mean take over our country by force. Terrorist attacks are not an attempt to take over our country by force.
If you really want to protect people's rights, perhaps you should have become a lawyer for the ACLU or the EFF.
I might be willing to fight to preserve american freedoms, but it is another thing entirely to die in Somalia in an attempt to distribute food aid or in Iraq for reasons that are not clear to me.
In my opinion, terrorism is not that big of a threat to the survival of our country. I think it is mostly a pain in the ass for the average person (i.e. TSA security) and a tragedy for those directly affected. I think that the folks who took down the fourth plane were heroes. But more importantly, they proved that such an attack was a one-shot deal. Terrorists might be able to crash an airplane or blow up an airplane, but no group of americans will ever let them fly the airplane again.
Terrorism may be done for a variety of reasons. Plain hatred. Revenge. To try to get attention for a cause. Sure, we need to fight terrorism, but we need to do it intelligently.
Some people say we are in Iraq to create democracy in the Islamic middle east. This is, in my opinion, about as futile as trying to teach a pig to sing.
Some people say we are there to get oil. Since oil production is actually down from where it was to begin with, I think that has not panned out. If we wanted more oil production in Iraq, that could have been achieved by simply lifting sanctions on the Iraqi regieme in exchange for a deal to send oil companies there to improve the infrastructure for oil production. Also, doing this would have helped the average Iraqi a lot more than invading iraq.
Some people think we are there because the regieme had weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors in Iraq were saying that was not the case well before the war started.
Some people think we are there because of a personal vendetta that Bush II had against Sadaam Hussein for trying to assasinate Bush I. This argument actually has some merit because Bush II cited it as a reason for the war. In my opinion, this is a very shabby reason to take a nation to war even if the assassination had succeeded.
Some people think we are there simply so that lucrative contracts can be given to cronies of the administration. While this argument may actually have some merit, it is not generally cited as a reason for the war by opponents to the war because people will think that anyone who says this is a "hater" and "conspiracy theorist". Note that name calling is not a serious refutation of an argument.
I'm totally willing to listen to other explanations.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Many of them may think that they're part of ensuring a stable Iraqi government. They are victims of a serious fscking con job.
The tragedy is that in this case, their children are risking their lives for nothing. Every day that U.S. troops stay there is a day that things get worse.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood