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An animal rescue group on Sunday picked up a U.S. soldier’s adopted dog from Iraq, ending the soldier’s weeks-long struggle to send the animal to her Minnesota home.

Operation Baghdad Pups, which said the U.S. military prevented its first attempt to take Ratchet the dog on October 1, picked up the animal in Baghdad with military clearance and flew it to Kuwait on Sunday.

The dog is expected to be flown to Washington on Monday, and if a veterinarian determines it is healthy, sent to Sgt. Gwen Beberg’s home state on Wednesday, Baghdad Pups publicist Larry Garrison said.

Beberg, who adopted the dog after soldiers rescued it from a burning trash pile in May, tried to have the group fly Ratchet to the United States on October 1 as her deployment neared an end.

But the military, which prohibits soldiers from adopting pets abroad and bringing them to the United States, confiscated the animal after Beberg put it on a convoy bound for Baghdad Airport, according to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which runs OBP.

Ratchet and Beberg, 28, drew the attention of thousands of people who signed two online petitions — linked through the SPCA’s Web site — urging the military to let Ratchet go to the United States.

The military cleared OBP to take Ratchet on Wednesday, but not in time for the group’s flight from Baghdad that day, the SPCA said.

Unfortunately, I didn’t watch the whole debate. I have it pretty much narrowed down to who I am going to vote for but I still like to watch the two titans spare. I have a lot of respect for both of the major party candidates. But there is one thing tonight that John McCain said that honestly made my head spin. I had to check the transcript of the debate to make sure that I heard it correct.

I got a letter in the mail the other day from my internet, phone and cable TV provider Mediacom. The letter stated that due to the higher costs of providing the service and the decreased demand, Mediacom would no longer be offering voice mail as part of my included service. That’s right, as a “triple play” subscriber, someone who is now paying well over $100/month with the company, they will no longer offer voice mail as a part of their voice package.

I’ve finally taken the plunge. I have purchased an iPhone.

I have to say, I love the thing. I had exchange rocking with this thing within 3 minutes of getting it home on the wifi network. I had a Sprint service for many many years and they were pretty good to me for the most part. But the fact that they didn’t have the iPhone and the fact that Apple released as SDK for the thing put me over the top.

The New MacBook from First and last name on Vimeo.

Ok, I like the fact that it is made from one piece of metal to form the body. There are a lot of advantages to that. Apple has also continued to make a very nice looking laptop. But do the users care about these things? I think that the business traveler will, but the home user sitting on the couch, I’m not so sure.