I don't know if people know this, but the military, which loves acronyms, has a particularly pungent one for the Mahdi Army. Those dudes are JAM, for Jaish al-Mahdi, the Arabic name for the Sadrist militia. No word on whether they engage in subversive, disconnected sketch comedy in between death-squad operations.

Here's something I didn't know, but Tom Ricks did. The splintering of JAM has led to a surge in sub-JAM references. There's Criminal JAM, Iran JAM, and my personal favorite, JAM Classic. When Sadr decides to go intergalactic, one presumes there'll be Space JAM, which will be playfully animated.

Unfortunately, the name for a member of JAM is a JAMster. How could it not be a JAMmie? Iraq is nothing but missed opportunities.