Who comes up with this?

Marcelle Shriver is sending an unusual care package to her son in Iraq. She is collecting Silly String to ship to her son. The troops over there have discovered Silly String is a good way to find tripwires in hostile areas. They just shoot the stuff into a room and it will hang on any wires.

While this is completely ingenious, I have to wonder who the heck came up with this. What soldier decided to pack Silly String when he was getting ready to ship out? Which guy wrote his girlfriend and told her he had this great idea and she should send him a can of the stuff?

I just can't imagine your local Baghdad 7-11 has Silly String on the shelves – somebody had to get this idea and get some from home.

I bet the next step is Just for Kicks Inc., maker of Silly String, will become a military contracter. That just sounds like a bad movie plot to me.