It's a sort of grim realization that they are raking in profits from the misfortune of others. They didn't seem to really mean it. It was more a way to deal with the unusual hand they'd been dealt amid the chaos of postwar Iraq.

It seems he never bothered to put it back after the most recent explosion. He says the windows will shatter again, and he'll have to measure the frames again, so why bother putting it away?

But since then, I have stumbled across a number of other people with very similar stories, people whose windows have been shattered not once, not twice, but several times because of car bombs and mortars.

At the celebration at the Shiite shrine, a cleric gave a scathing speech in the mosque's courtyard. He lashed out at the first Muslim caliphs, the founding fathers of Islam in Sunni eyes, and usurpers of power in Shiite eyes. Though he couched his attacks in the context and vocabulary of early Islamic history, it was clear that he had much more contemporary targets in his metaphorical crosshairs.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.