Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Happy Ending: Soldier, Puppy to Be Reunited

· Ratchet the Iraqi puppy has been saved!

An animal rescue group flew into Baghdad on Sunday and picked up the dog.

Army Spec. Gwen Beberg of Minneapolis had rescued the playful black mutt from a burning pile of trash in May with the help of another soldier.

Beberg took care of the dog -- even though the military bars soldiers from having pets while they are serving in Iraq and from taking any animals back to the United States. She wanted to adopt Ratchet.

Military officials at first said no. But after an online petition urging the Army to let the puppy go won 65,000 supporters, the Army agreed.

Operation Baghdad Pups is a U.S. rescue program run by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International. It has brought 56 dogs and six cats from Iraq to the United States since February. It is flying Ratchet to Minnesota, where Beberg's mother will care for the dog until she returns home from Iraq next month.

The U.S. military says it does not want soldiers having pets in Iraq for several reasons, including health issues and the difficulty of caring for animals in tough circumstances.

· At least five members of Congress have known that to be true -- because they won their elections by a single vote.

The good folks at MathCounts, a national math organization, found that in the 1882 election to represent Virginia in the House of Representatives, Robert M. Mayo defeated George T. Garrison by a vote of 10,505 to 10,504. Competition organizers found four other examples.

Their study also concluded that the outcome of the 1948 presidential election between Harry S. Truman and Thomas E. Dewey would have been different if just one person in each voting precinct in Ohio had voted differently.

So be sure to tell your folks that their vote counts on Nov. 4. For more fun math facts, check out http://www.mathcounts.org.