Huh? Air Force Blocks Pentagon Channel

The Air Force -- and let's make it really clear, we're talking here about the U.S. Air Force headquartered in the Pentagon -- has blocked computer access to the Pentagon Channel, the Defense Department's 24/7 news channel designed to provide personnel with "more timely access to military information and news."

The channel says it serves 1.4 million active duty service members, 1.2 million members of the National Guard and Reserve, and the 650,000 Defense civilian employees via cable TV, satellite systems or over the Internet.

But, the men and women in Air Force blue, as well as civilian Air Force workers, who want to view the Pentagon Channel's offerings -- such as the cooking show The Grill Sergeants -- on their office computers can't do so because of a prohibition against streaming media on Air Force networks, a service spokeswoman told me.

This policy is in place to conserve bandwidth on Air Force networks and applies to other (unspecified) streaming media Web sites, she said.

The irony here is that since the Pentagon Channel is on the Internet, it means that anyone in the world (except Air Force personnel) with an Internet connection -- including North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il -- can tune into the channel, which today was broadcasting a special on the Korean War.