soapbox

Apparently there was a Bull on the loose, ravaging the streets of Newark New Jersey recently.  They even had to call in a “cowboy” to lasso him in.  I found it pretty amusing…

Bovine on the loose

Well, it looks like everything is turning out ok. I don’t think a lot of you folks were really politically aware in 1994 when the Republicans swept into office with the “Contract with America”… Newt Gingrich, an impressive-sounding list of things that congress was largely already doing, followed by dramatic cuts to social services and science spending. The day after that election, people on college campuses everywhere wore black clothes. (To be even more patronizing… yes, I know most of you were in middle school.)

So now the question is whether a Democratic majority can actually get the country back on track. It’s not exactly an easy task and a large part of the campaigns seem to have been “We’re not Republicans.” rather than “Here is a plan to move forward.” Of course, if the Democratic majority doesn’t extend to the senate, then we can just blame everything on the Republicans again.

I have sad news from the state of Alaska though. The democratic candidate lost by around 16,000 votes (out of ~200,000 cast (maybe 50% of the voting population)). The bad thing about it though is that there was an independent candidate who got almost 20,000 votes. You really have to believe that if he hadn’t run, Tony Knowles would have gotten most of those votes and won. If the senate race in Montana doesn’t go to the Democrat it’s going to be the same problem with the Libertarian candidate stealing defeat from the jaws of victory.