Latch-key dog exerciser

I especially like it when about 1/2 way through the video the dog isn't really done chewing on the ball yet, but the machine goes into its launch cycle. He just doesn't really want to give it up quite yet.

I can see Kohl making good use of a machine like this, maybe in the yard, as I rock in my porch chair sipping sweet tea and smoking my pipe...

thanks to boingboing

Iraq war insights

In a fascinating NYT article, the insurgency in Iraq is being blamed for turning Muslims away from their faith. “Before, parents warned their sons not to smoke or drink,” said Mohammed Ali al-Jumaili, a Falluja father with a 20-year-old son. “Now all their energy is concentrated on not letting them be involved with terrorism.”

Evidently, the Iraqis are growing weary of not only the constant Iraqi on Iraqi violence, but also having to live under the harsh rule of Sharia law, having "found themselves stranded in neighborhoods that were governed by seventh-century rules. During an interview with a dozen Sunni teenage boys in a Baghdad detention facility on several sticky days in September, several of them expressed relief at being in jail, so they could wear shorts, a form of dress they would have been punished for in their neighborhoods."

The blame, it seems, is being squarely placed on the religious clerics of the region.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

This story appeared 3/4/2008. As one commenter on Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog put it:

Like it or not, the NY Times sets the agenda for the entire left-of-center media and virtually all Dems. The piece is significant mostly for that reason, although whether other segments of the liberal media will push back remains to be seen. Hillary and Obama will ignore it, b/c their narrative of a failed war is central to their foreign policy ideas.

I won't hold my breath as I wait for this news to work its way through the mass media; moreover, the campaign. But the authority of the NYT is hard for the left to resist, and convenient for the right to laud when it serves our purposes.

I remain convinced that President Bush will be vindicated in the long run. Perhaps this article is just a crack in the mighty edifice of the anti-Bush rhetoric. As the Contentions blogger put it:

This Times piece represents a tectonic shift in the Iraq War and in the larger ideological struggle. From this date on, the War cannot be talked about in quite the same way. Those opposed to it can no longer snicker so easily when recalling the President’s assertion that people everywhere want freedom, and they may have to check their rage before declaring we’ve created more terrorists. There are some who understood that changing hearts and minds was the only way to triumph in the long run, but felt that Iraq was a huge setback in that pursuit.

Anyway, if this trend does in fact continue, it will bring interesting and significant changes to the region. Let's hope so, anyway.