Enemy combatant defeated.
I kid, I kid.
This country may be out to get women, but it isn’t using Silly String to do it.
It is, however, using Silly String to make a difference in Iraq:
As The Star-Ledger explains, U.S. troops in Iraq have discovered that Silly String can help them find deadly tripwires attached to bombs. Spray it into a room before entering, they say, and if the strings all settle safely on the floor there aren’t any wires. If the strings hang up on something — the troops know not to go in.
Hooray! Lives saved. Boo! Imperialism furthered. You know you live in complicated times when something like Silly String ties you up in a moral knot.
And is it just me, or does anyone else have the distinct mental picture of George Bush sending over some Silly String to “raise morale,” chuckling to himself about what an awesomely fun leader he is, only to have accidentally provided something useful? Because his (outgoing) people don’t seem to do it intentionally:
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, is lobbying hard for more money to repair what he calls the “holes” in his force, saying current war funding is inadequate to make the Army “well.” Asked in a congressional hearing this past summer whether he was comfortable with the readiness levels of non-deployed Army units, Schoomaker replied: “No.”
That picture is hot.