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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."
New slogan? "Iraq: It's a Party Over There!"
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
Its for the war on iraq!!
If they don't accept it they're TERRORISTS!
:x
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
Improvised Explosive Device :)
You have to love email forwards disguised as news articles.
This has been floating around for years -- I first saw it as a piece promoting British Special Forces ingenuity. Our very own Bruce Schneier mentioned it (and the suppressed Cockeyed piece) around this time last year.
No, I'm not kidding.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
This was mildly interesting when it was reported about the SAS ages ago.
It's like Napalm in a can! "I love the smell of Silly String in the morning!" Surfs Up!
In the post Janet Jackson FCC gestapo tactics landscape, anchors on CNN are afraid to use the following terms:
boob
booby
boobies
tit
titties
fun bags
dirty pillows
natty-sags
I'm sure there are plenty more. This is the reason for the INAs we're hearing (Improvised Non-sensical Acronyms) such as "IEDs".
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
They use dogs with bees in their mouths, and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
It's a devastating weapon.
"Silly String?"
Couldn't we at least change the name to Freedom String-In-A-Can?
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
I'm sure they once called these "booby traps". What's the obsession with acronyms?
When's the last time you referred to memory as Double Data Rate Random Access Memory rather than DDR RAM? If you work with something every day, you tend to shorten things. You also define terms more specifically than general usage (RAM vs memory).
An IED is a booby trap consisting of a rigged Device containing a large amount of Explosives in a fairly jury-rigged fashion (i.e. Improvised). It's not uncommon to find multiple anti-tank mines stacked together or even unexploded bombs. When talking about risks and countermeasures, it pays to be specific. Just like you wouldn't refer to large artillery as a "gun" when describing it to someone else, because it is too imprecise without qualification. A "gun" could be anything from a pistol to a 155mm howitzer. This is the same reason Lawyers define a bunch of "useless" jargon and acronyms; They can put a precise meaning on it for their purposes. Now, the military does have a huge number of acronyms, and maybe more than are needed, but it is just as specialized an occupation as practicing law.
Now, IANAL and I did not RTFA or GP, but AFAICT, we are now a nation of acronyms, especially TLAs. If you don't like it you can STFU while I LMAO <JK>.
At least they're Very Apt Germane Improvised Nonsensical Acryonyms
which is totally what she said
"The military is reluctant to talk about the use of Silly String, saying that discussing specific tactics will tip off insurgents."
As a consultant a few years back I worked on a product called GIS which ~half of the clients (the naive ones I guess) pronounced "jizz", with the unfortunate consequence of me sometimes being referred to as the "jizz expert". Hard work maintaining a professional air at one of those meetings...
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
Would that then make silly string an IIEDDD?
improvised improvised explosive device detection device
Except in military usage, it wouldn't be called "silly". (This, besides being pejorative and politically incorrect, might infringe upon trademark.)
Expect instead "long-chained nontoxic polycarbon semi-liquid fast drying compound."
Also, some of your information seems to be missing. Accounting forwarded the following rejection notice:
Please supply
Department
Cost Code
Category type
Expected use rates for prepaid asset scheduling
Routing number
Authorized sign-off official
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Nobody gets attached to the bees, so there's no hard feelings should the bomb blow them up.
i ffing.bees.reut/index.html
Seriously, though http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/28/bombsn
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
After the whole Janet Jackson/FCC thing, mainstream media prefer IED.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
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.
I thought IED was some kind of contraceptive.
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.
-1 inaccurate...
Homer: (taunting Mr. Burns) What are you gonna do? Release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark, they shoot bees at you?
Marcelle Shriver said that since the string comes in an aerosol can, it is considered a hazardous material, meaning the Postal Service will not ship it by air. But a private pilot who heard about her campaign has agreed to fly the cans to Kuwait _ most likely in January _ where they will then be taken to Iraq.
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
Using every day objects and the sort is pretty commonplace on the battlefield. Back during the Napoleanic war soldiers used to piss down the barrels of their guns to clean them out. In World war I, allied soldiers brought bathtubs with them into the trenches, and would launch them with catapults into the enemy trenches. The Germans and Turks had developed completely different bathtubs at the time, and were terrified of the Allied tubs. This always led to a horrendous panic in the German trenches, which would almost always be followed by a push across no mans land by the allies. It's said that the Dardanelles could have been taken, had Churchill been provided with adequate bathtubs. During World War II allied soldiers brought white makeup along with them so if they ever got caught they'd paint themselves up like mimes. When the Germans tried to question them and saw the white makeup they just let them go, knowing that there'd be absolutely no way they could get a mime to talk. Then during the Korean war soldiers made good use of old coffee grounds. Since the North Koreans knew soldiers always drank a lot of coffee, if they found old coffee grounds they assumed there was a base near by and retreat. In the first Iraq war American soldiers used to bring soccer balls along with them. At the outbreak of the war almost all of Iraq's soccer balls were destroyed in a freak smoke stack toppeling. When ever the Americans got in a serious fire fight, they'd just lob their soccer ball into the frey and all the enemy soldiers would just stop and try to get it, which usually ended quite badly for the enemy. Unfortunatley Iraq was able to build up a tremendous stock pile of soccer balls since the first war, so the strategy doesn't work any more.
It's quite remarkible how such common things can prove to be so useful. I think it's overall a great testimant to human ingenuity in time of war.
I don't own a snook, and if I did I wouldn't leave it cocked.
Bet your wife is not too happy about that...
Playtex(tm)