There's plenty of studio hand-wringing and noose-tying to go around as movies about the Iraq War yield one box-office bomb after another. But a feature in this week's Village Voice reveals a new strategy for getting over those wartime blahs and rolling back into the black: Make 'em laugh! Not that the heirs to Dr. Strangelove or M*A*S*H are any new breed, of course, but if we can't cash in on grave exposes of torture and failed diplomacy (not to mention Ryan Phillippe's abs), we may as well have fun with them, say filmmakers like Morgan Spurlock:

A judicial panel in Iraq has dismissed all charges against Bilal Hussein, the AP photographer who has been held by the US military for two years on vague, unsubstantiated charges of working with terrorists. The panel has ordered Hussein to be freed, presumably bringing his ordeal to an end. [Earlier]

"Lance Corporal McCain and his fellow riflemen had trained for the worst in the spring of 2007, using paintball guns rigged as M-16s to apprehend costume-clad 'insurgents' in fake Iraqi villages. In the real Iraq, they saw little combat. 'We were expecting to get shot at all the time," said Lance Cpl. Justin Murdock, 20. 'But 95 percent of the time, nothing was going on.' The marines were stationed in Anbar Province, where some of the war's bloodiest battles had been fought. But the fighting had moved on to other areas, and Lance Corporal McCain's company mostly did security work, which meant keeping an unceasing eye on the locals, poor Sunnis who grew rice and other crops on small plots." Jimmy, 19, is apparently a modest kid who doesn't like special treatment-unlike some candidate-kids who spend all their time hounding superdelegates.

Sunnyvale computer-chip manufacturer AMD has strained ties between the United States and Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. In 2005, AMD chips were discovered inside unexploded roadside bombs similar to the kind depicted in the propaganda clip below. An anonymous American official told the New York Times that no deaths are "known" to have been linked to bombs with AMD inside.

We know what the buzz is among the Drudge/Post/Times crowd, but what about normal Americans? We need some sort of automatic list just to keep tabs on them. Thankfully Yahoo has just such a list. As the most-viewed news site, Yahoo News is the news for tens of millions of normal Americans. The site's "Most e-mailed photos" list constantly cycles, but the photos always belong to these five genres:

The internet has inured us to everything — violence, weird porn, etc. Nothing is off limits — except puppies. There's no doubt about it: America loves puppies. I do, too! Which got me to thinking: why does hurting a puppy (or any animal) elicit such intense emotion, often far more than, say, hurting people? Why are puppies the last taboo? Is it because they are innocent, like babies (and unlike people)? For your career, kicking a dog is basically the worst thing you can do.

The puppy torture video will end the Iraq war. [Fimoculous]

Even battle-hardened, still-occupied, America-hating Iraqis are embracing this brave new media landscape of ours. According to newswire AFP, our wacky post-colonial subjects are posting some hilarious YouTube material lampooning us, our little war, and even themselves! Sort of. Mostly us, though.

After convincing his wife and fellow journalist to join him in Baghdad to cover the war, Times writer Damien Cave discovered that theirs was not the ideal situation in which to work out relationship issues. Theirs is a story of two communicators, a writer and a videographer, learning to communicate with each other during wartime. The troubles seems to be these: Mr. Cave was acting like a husband, Mrs. Cave was acting like a wife, while they were both trying to be act professionally while soldiers, friends and assorted other people were constantly being blown up all around them. Cave has found his closure in the pages of the Times style section and also the makings of a topical, romantically-charged dramedy starring, obviously, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. [New York Times]

Andrew Olmstead just updated his blog to announce that he's been killed in Iraq. He seems mostly good-natured about the whole ordeal, unlike suicidal blogger Theresa Duncan. No mournful poems or ghost stories here, just straight talk and, well, a Team America quote. And seven Babylon 5 quotes. Let us forgive the dead their taste. [Andrew Olmsted via Metafilter]

• Hills victim Heidi Montag has a new set of lips to suck with. [US Magazine]

Private security firm and deadly, answerable-to-no-one mercenary army Blackwater was involved in yet another shocking display of deadly gunplay in Iraq. Just months after Blackwater guards shot 17 civilians in cold blood on the streets of Baghdad, they SHOT THE NEW YORK TIMES'S DOG. Which, wow. The New York Times had a dog? And Blackwater just... shot it? "State Department investigators have made two follow-up visits to the Times compound to investigate the shooting of Hentish [the lovable, and no doubt absolutely adorable dog belonging to the Times]," according to Reuters.

New York Times in Iraq: "Blackwater shot our dog" [Reuters]

"British Prime Minister Gordon Brown talks to troops, during a surprise visit to soldiers stationed at Basra Air Station in Iraq, Sunday Dec. 9, 2007. Brown announced that control of the Basra province is to be handed over to Iraqi forces within two weeks. (AP Photo / Stefan Rousseau, Pool)"

On "Donnie Darko" director Richard Kelly's latest film, "Southland Tales": "Characters are as apt to quote Marx and the New Testament as they are to recite lyrics by Jane's Addiction, whose song 'Three Days' is prominently featured. The music is as lovingly chosen as the '80s staples in 'Donnie Darko.' In a druggy fantasy sequence Mr. Timberlake's character, a disfigured war veteran, sneering and clutching a can of Budweiser, lip-syncs to the Killers' "All These Things That I've Done.' 'I heard that song and couldn't stop thinking about Iraq,' Mr. Kelly said." [NYT]

During a briefing yesterday concerning the recommendations of a panel appointed to investigate the treatment of our wounded soldiers, President Bush singled out former ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, who was grievously injured in Iraq.

The new Times ombudsman won't take any guff from anyone, especially lefty media watchdog groups. Hoyt, who knows a thing or two about Iraq coverage, drops a chemical agent on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: "In the case of Iraq, the anti-war movement has plenty of factual material to work with. I'm astonished that FAIR would feel the need to play so fast and loose with the facts about Fallujah." [NYT]

See, this is why you never enter unfamiliar territory without adequate protection. We should have thought about the effects an ill-timed withdrawal of our military would have on Iraq before we decided to stick it in. [LAT]

Urban Dictionary defines "trashball" as "an innovative game composed of a trashcan and a ball-like object created from newspaper and duct-tape"—a game so innovative that it's not really clear how to play it, since "rules may vary depending on region." They may even play trashball in the region known as the Middle East, which UD defines as "A giant sandbox. People live in it" (author: "YayForSuicide").

NICK DOUGLAS — A simple Internet search could have prevented the war in Iraq, says Washington Post editor Peter Eisner in his new book, The Italian Letter. Searching for terms from a "smoking gun" letter (later used in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address as evidence that Saddam was building WMDs) would have shown it was a forgery. Granted, given the war machine already in motion, the CIA was one Google away from preventing the war in the same way that my scrawny ass is one Google away from a rigorous exercise program.

A few weeks ago, Gawker Weekend had an idea. We had just read George Gurley's piece in the New York Observer, the one where he went to Bungalow 8 and asked the partygoers what they thought about the war in Iraq. It was a pretty funny article—the people all said really shameful things, and it made you realize how frivolous we are here in America and how stupid all our problems are.