French planes have started dropping bomb-shaped chunks of concrete instead of actual bombs on Muammar Qadaffi's tanks in Libya. The idea is that a 600-pound concrete training bomb, dropped from thousands of feet up, can crush a tank without creating a huge explosion that kills a lot of people.

The move was rumored early on to be the result of a munitions shortage within NATO, but that's been debunked. Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday that "[m]ilitary spokesman Thierry Burkhard denied rumours the use of the 300-kilo (660-pound) training devices was prompted by a shortage of real bombs. He said the first such strike crushed an armoured vehicle on Tuesday."

It's worth pointing out that the story hasn't gotten much traction in the U.S. press. While foreign agencies from the Middle East's Zawya to the Philippines' ABS-CBN to Chinese state agency Xinhua have run the story, only blogs appear to be picking it up domestically. Maybe the idea of essentially throwing rocks isn't that impressive.

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Adam Martin