If you haven’t looked at lordradish’s diary Peter Welch (D-VT) gets an earful about the war. People are pissed., definitely check it out. In it, I gave pause for a moment when I got to this point:

Welch wanted to clarify his voting history on Iraq. I don’t have the specifics on what he said. He laid out his history on the votes on Iraq so far, and why he voted the way he did on them. Two things… he did clarify one point about something that I don’t think many people know. Voting to allow a vote on something is not the same as voting for something. There was a particular vote that Welch voted to allow to the floor, only to vote against the actual measure itself. Some had misconstrued voting to allow a vote as a support of the bill itself.

Emphasis mine.

The point is an excellent one — we need to track the votes, and accurately discern the nature of them, if we are to have any credibility when holding pols responsible.

There’s more…make the jump.

Dedicated to our soldiers, past and present, and all those currently fleeing Dick Cheney’s weekend hunting spree in New York.

The Google “Quote of the Day” add-in for today as shown on my “Personalized Start Page” is from Bertrand Russell:

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
   – Bertrand Russell

I think that holds a lot of meaning when considering the levels of propaganda being catapulted toward the masses by the miscreants currently occupying our highest levels of office. With this in mind, I’d like to take a moment before launching into our musical interlude to remind everyone of the biggest offender — the one who, in my estimation, best embodies the meaning of the opening quote: George W. Bush.

Offer expires…Offer good until…Product Sell-By…Born Date…

Timelines.

Markers denoting the beginning, ending (or ongoing) and significant dates pertaining to a series of events denoting a particular topic. Topics covered by timelines could be lives, political movements, catastrophes, the rise and fall of nations, evolutionary periods of biological or geological import, or — in the case of the George W. Bush Administration — any and all of the above.

This is troubling, not because it is unexpected but more due to the fact that many have predicted it and watched as their dire predictions came true. From CNN Money:¹

With oil prices setting records over $90 a barrel – and $100 looking ever more likely – experts say there’s a good chance drivers will see $3 gasoline before the end of the year.

“Three dollar gasoline in this market is unavoidable,” said Stephen Schork, publisher of the industry newsletter the Schork Report. “At this rate, we’re going to see $4 a gallon.”

If you think that’s bad, make the jump and read more…

I just frontpaged a short piece over on ePluribus Media called “About that weapons cache…” — Good News and Bad News, but it’s important enough to repeat in full here…

Great news, folks! This just in from Reuters:

19 tons of explosives found in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. forces in Iraq discovered nearly 19 tons of explosives in a weapons cache north of Baghdad this week, one of the biggest finds of its kind, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

[…snip…] More at link in title

Isn’t that wonderful? 19 tons!

Of course, if the Bush Administration hadn’t lost 380 tons of explosives just over three years ago, we might have something more significant to crow over. (Make the jump…)

Where to begin…? Sifting through the various remnants of news that percolate through the blogosphere and occassionally leak out onto the traditional media, watching as the words stain and run like ink written in blood, I’m trying to piece together several aspects of the current state of our nation after six and half years of a maniacal, arrogant Executive Branch that’s been desperately protected by the Republican leaders in Congress.

The topics are many.  Environmentally, they range from enhancing the denial of global warming evidence to outright enabling of faster destruction of national rivers, streams, mountains and forests. In terms of national security, New Orleans recovery from Katrina stains mix heavily on the page along with the Walter Reed scandal and screwing the troops, all while the military is stretched to the breaking point and beyond, and the same imbeciles who brought us into Iraq — based on lies that switched between false claims of ties to a preventable 9/11 disaster to false claims of Al Qaeda support or possessing and developing WMDS — are now actively striving to get us into position to bomb the sh!t out of Iran.

So, where the hell to begin? What kind of legacy have these feckless fools crafted for our upcoming generations?