At long last, the long national nightmare campaign season 2006 is over, and I can again tune into the boob tube without having to repeatedly hear about the latest atrocity committed by one’s political opponent. Personally, I’m politically agnostic. In my opinion, both parties are equally self- rather than citizen-serving. Thus neither is particularly dear to my heart. I vote the individual or, given the chance, the issue — not the party.

But this time around I was pleased with the Democrats takeover of both houses of Congress for one simple reason: those who govern least, govern best. When one party holds them both, it’s like an alcoholic at an open bar — much too much gets done that shouldn’t, and we’re left with one big damn headache the next day. And with one party holding the executive and one the legislative, we’ll hopefully get a little gridlock going for at least the next two years.

Despite my recent attempts at avoiding the news of the day, I see the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was actually signed into law on October 17th, essentially poisoning habeas corpus. Oh, and it also appears to somehow allow our country to opt out of the Geneva Conventions of which our country is a signatory party. Oh, and this president now has been given a blank check to detain U.S. citizens forever and to subject millions of non-citizens to an, at best, second-class, at worst, non-existent criminal justice system. Oh, and we get to torture interrogate now just to the point before the interrogated sustains “serious mental and physical trauma.”

Two days later, October 19th, on the anniversary of Black Monday, the Dow breaks 12,000 for the first time.

And between the two, I celebrated my 36th birthday.

God bless capitalism.

Democracy — eh, not so much…