By Their Fruits

This week the Senate voted on an amendment popularly known as the MoveOn Amendment. It's statement of purpose reads:

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

It passed with a vote of 72 to 25 (3 senators not voting). Below is a list of the Democrats who voted for the amendment:

Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Yea
Webb (D-VA), Yea

Both Massachusetts senators voted against.

I am disappointed, more that the Senate wasted time on this silly, symbolic vote than on the results. They have more important things to do. Yet, this amendment hardly comes as a surprise. The Republicans take every oppertunity - manufacture oppertunities - to flont their support for the troops. I don't understand why the Democrats listed above went along with this cheap bit of windowdressing, but that they did shouldn't distract us from the facts.

In every vote in recent years that has actually mattered, such as appropriations for the VA (to provide for those troops who have been wounded and must go through the remainder of their lives with devastating physical and/or psychological injuries), the Republicans form a solid bloc voting "No," while the Democrats form a solid bloc voting "Yes."

Our Lord said, "By their fruits shall ye know them." The MoveOn vote is a silly, childish distraction. Yes, the numver of Democrats who voted in favor annoys any sensible person. But, it is a distraction. Is it more important that these senators voted for this amendment or that they consistently vote for measures that actually support the troops, as well as the rest of the American populus?

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The Jena Six

You'll note that I've added a new banner to the left sidebar. I added it after seeing this post by field negro at My Left Wing. Apparently the big blogs are ignoring this story. Posting the link here doesn't exactly compensate for that, nor can I write much of a stirring entreaty, since I have just barely begun to learn the details of the story myself. But I figured I should at least give it what small bit of additional exposure I can offer.

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Friday Open Thread

Today is the International Day of Peace



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Thursday Open Thread

Dale Chihuly, born September 20, 1941

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Wednesday Open Thread

Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Are ye ready t' celebrate?

Ye can find more pirate fun here, includin' th' translator I used t' write this post!

'n look--Stephen Colbear has even gotten into th' holiday spirit!

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Tuesday Open Thread

Lance Armstrong, born September 18, 1971:

"At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, "But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven." If so, I was going to reply, "You know what? You're right. Fine."

Oh, and on this date in 1895, Daniel David Palmer gave the first chiropractic adjustment.

Shared items here.

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Monday Open Thread

Hildegard of Bingen, died September 17, 1179

Read more about her here.

Today is also Constitution Day.

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A Gathering of Gizmos

This week I begin a new challenge. I will attempt to locate all of the Gizmos in the world and do a follow up on what is currently being done with them. Starting with their Yahoo User Group, and then seeking further information from the inventor. I want to seek out individual stories, but I also want to locate folks who are using Gizmo in clinical research, and gather their work into a database that all the users can learn from.

From there, I'll begin to gather those who own these units into the Harmonic Module chat room to conduct real time experiments on linking hearts in various locations around the world.A member of the team named Marc will be tweaking the Module controls (which make my eyes glaze over) so that there will be push button sign up similar to Yahoo Messenger, and he's even talking about adding a "Second Life" type of game platform in the future.

This all should keep me busy well into October, as I prepare for my final Holiday Extravaganza. My life is changing so quickly, and I'm really looking forward to what's on the other side of the changes.

Namaste,

The Astral Technician

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