In all the hoo-rah out of Washington lately this one almost snuck by. The Now Permanently Ex-Republican spousal unit brought this item to my attention. I commend it to yours, and suggest you print out the NYT original (to establish the provenance of the story; people tend to be skeptical if you cite a blog as proof of a something) for use during next year's campaign season.

Turns out Biggus Dickus's little iPod fuck-you moment wasn't the worst act of sheer, in-your-face pettiness by Republicans lately:

The House also approved a $453.3 billion military spending bill today, as well as a measure to pay for jobs, education and health programs. Both passed the Senate late Wednesday in a mad dash of legislative activity; in the last-minute frenzy, the Senate Republican leadership stripped $2 billion from the military bill that would have helped low-income families pay their heating bills this winter.

Republicans said the heating oil money was stripped from the bill because the Senate also struck a provision to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Democrats and advocates for the poor said today that the heating oil money was not linked to the Arctic drilling.

People are going to die because of this. Tragically enough, neither Ted Stevens nor Bill "Cat-Killer" Frist is going to be one of them.