Did you know that you can get in touch with the big cheese fat cats in the Pentagon right from your living room, by simply going to the U.S. Department of Defense website and clicking the "Contact Us" button? And did you further know that "among land animals, a bear arguably has the keenest sense of smell" and are fantastic at tracking?

But, you know what? Don't bother making the incredibly obvious connection between those two pieces of information, because some concerned citizen already beat you to it…

"Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be… Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing."

That's all well and good. We probably can use trained airborne bears to hunt down every member of al Qaeda. I'll give you that. But will that really be enough to stave off the "emerging Global War starting in the Middle East"? Probably not. Any other brilliant geniuses have any ideas? Maybe just some projects you've been working on in your back yard?

"Would there be time to construct a Noah's Ark Biosphere in North America if there is an emerging Global War starting in the Middle East?" asked one concerned citizen. "I don't know… I only know that I have worked on such a project for many years now." The specifications for the recommended ark are outlined in the Bible…

Ah, you can find everything thing in there. Pretty much just a huge collection of useful ideas and real things, that book is, huh? They should rename it the Fact-ble.

Anything else, people? C'mon, don't be afraid to look silly and time-wasteful…

One writer let the Defense Department know of a dream something was about to happen. Likely on a Friday. "I have no idea what this might be, do you?" the person asked.

I do, in fact. Meet me in the lobby of the skyscraper made out of of Jolly Ranchers that you dreamed about (the taller of the two) just after the Centaur's ball — I'll be wearing an ennui-colored pork pie hat with a lion feather in the band — and I'll explain everything.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Hey, while we're on the subject of fundamentalist religious terrorists today, I'd be remiss to not mention that queen diva Osama bin Laden has wedged herself back into the news again.

And apparently, she finally got around to watching An Inconvenient Truth…

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.

Uh oh! When you consider how popular this guy is in the world, this proposed boycott could really break America's back.

In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

This from the guy who used three commercial jets to take down a couple of buildings. Does he not realize how much CO2 those things release into the atmosphere? He's almost as bad as those guys in Copenhagen.

What's wrong with some bombs strapped onto the handlebars of a few bicycles. That's better for the environment and it helps burn calories. (Nobody wants to great their 72 virgins with a big spare tire, do they? Gross.)

Anyway, I'm really disappointed in bin Laden. I really expected better from this guy.

Now that we have official word that President Obama is sending an additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, it's time to celebrate with best clips we could find from The Colbert Report.

It's one clip for every 3,000 soldiers going in! Hurray!

The Road Ahead in Afghanistan – Lara Logan

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

Read more »

The U.S. Senate is today releasing a report entitled "Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today," which — if I'm not mistaken — is a kind of modern retelling of Evelyn Waugh's classic "Brideshead Revisted."

Except instead of dealing with "the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself," it's more about how former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld let Osama bin Laden slip away from U.S. troops way back in 2001…

It points the finger directly at Rumsfeld for turning down requests for reinforcements as Bin Laden was trapped in December 2001 in caves and tunnels in a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora.

"The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the marine corps and the army, was kept on the sidelines," the report says. "Instead, the US command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack Bin Laden and on Pakistan's loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes."…

[T]he report — commissioned by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — says Bin Laden expected to die and had even written a will. But the Al-Qaeda leader would live to fight another day."

From what I understand, they're hoping to get Colin Firth to play Bin Laden in the film version.

You know, so they can capture the terrorist's roguish good looks and recapture some of their "Bridget Jones' Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq" audience.

Osama bin Laden, audio tape surfaces, death to America, blah blah blah…

In a tape released Sunday by al-Qaida's media wing [Ed note: al-Qaida's media wing??], terrorist leader Osama bin Laden said President Barack Obama is "powerless" to stop the war in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's address to the American people comes two days after the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He typically addresses the United States in a message around the Sept. 11 anniversary.

It's kind of like our anniversary. And here we were thinking he'd forgot.

When Obama became president and retained many of the Bush administration's military leaders, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "reasonable people knew that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised," bin Laden said.

"If you end the war, so to it," bin Laden said. "But if it is otherwise, all we will do is continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes."

Ugh! This guy. I'm sorry; I don't mean to be impolite, but I just have to say it: I really do not care for this Osama bin Laden fellow. Not at all.

I mean, first there's the whole thing with him killing several thousand innocent Americans, which right there makes him pretty much a total jerk. And there's the protracted war in the Middle East, which, I know, was really more the doing of the Bush administration than al-Qaida, but still, bin Laden's being a real d-bag about it.

And now there's this thing with the needling and the yelling names at us from some hiding place in a Pakistani cave or wherever. Not for nothing, but that is just classic douchebag behavior.

Yeah, I don't like him at all. He's pretty much even worse than Taylor Max.

* Sam Harris: Not for nothing, but why do we have a top government scientist who believes in magic?

* DADT to get asked, told in Senate this fall.

* Michael Steele, Eric Cantor BFFs with Orly Taitz, the leader of the birther rebellion on Facebook. (So, BFBFFs?)

* The Onion: Ordinary Americans respond to the death of Osama bin Laden's son.

* Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) retiring due to lack of people giving a shit.

* Nancy Pelosi doesn't care if she's unpopular. Good thing.