The phone calls have stopped. The ads have ceased. The rhetoric has calmed. I still don't know for sure who won my congressional seat, but no one seems to care anymore. Everyone knows the Democrats took over the House & Senate, so whoever is sent from District 1 in New Mexico will be just a footnote to the national switch of power. It looks like the Republican Incumbent Heather Wilson will win by less than fifteen hundred votes, but we count pretty slow in the ol' NM.

You can talk about what this means to the country, your state, or your personal self esteem, but what really is going on is a re-appropriation of funds. Billions of dollars went towards the war in Iraq, and billions will continue to go toward Iraq. But were we ever sure where the billions were going in Iraq? It never seemed to be going to the right places. Soldiers couldn't get the proper equipment or body armor, thousands of weapon caches have gone missing (who do you think is really arming the enemy?), and the Halliburton-run war has accomplished very little tangible success.

What does it mean to the regular citizen of the great US of A? Who knows? Gas is up about a dime in my town since the election. Expect this to continue. Oil companies are not stupid. They may not have all of their Republican buddies that they used to have in Congress, but I didn't hear hardly any candidates talk about gas prices. My prediction is gas will be back around three bucks nationwide by Christmas.

The Quality of Life Tax in my town was defeated 58 percent to 42. The slight tax would have raised 30 million dollars for local art, zoo and community projects. One of the local theatre owners called me personally to get me to vote for it, and I did. It failed. I think one of the biggest reasons it didn't succeed is that Americans will never vote for something called a TAX. It's ingrained into their blood to oppose anything with the letters T-A-X in it. I'm not a big syntax guy either. Everyone is for quality of life as long as they don't have to pay for it. Strangely enough, it is possible to have a better quality of life without much money at all, but that's a whole other column.

Bush II will be rather lame & duck-like for his last two years. It's kind of sad to think that we still might have two more year of stagnation, but when you've lived with it for six straight, another two doesn't sound so bad. Quack, quack. Quack, quack.

Was I smiling on Tuesday & Wednesday? Yeah, I have to admit I was pleased. While my district has pretty much one person for each side of the line (I kind of like things 50/50 actually), it's nice that the majority of the country is slanted away from the current regime. You can say it's about health care, or stem cells, or minimum wage, but we all know it's about this freaking war. It's always been about this freaking war. Until it's over, it will always be about this freaking war.

Now, it's back to business for the nation. Time to settle up for the rest of the year, and start the holidays. I won't lie. I'm actually looking forward to them this year. Mainly because I've been busy with personal projects for most of the year, and a few days off and away from it all sounds really nice. What do I have to be thankful for? Lots & lots.

So what did the election accomplish? Who knows? But I'm glad for the change. I'm glad someone else gets to say what's what. Even Republicans have changed their tone to something almost civil. It's pretty funny that when they had power, they were all about saying 'Shut up & sit down,' and now that they are in the minority, they are all about 'Bipartisan & working together.' Just wait until the white man in general is the minority in this country. Oh, how the rhetoric will change. Again, that's another column.

So congrats to the Democrats. As an independent voter from NM, I was strongly on your side this time around. If you pass the money around to someone other than defense contractors & lobbyists, I might even be on your side in another two years. While many have their eyes on that juicy presidency, let me remind everyone, we still have couple years to make this country better in the mean time. Will we? Who knows?

Chris Jungle will cease the political babble for a while.