No bones about it, I am disappointed in todays election results, even maybe a little surprised. I'm surprised certain candidates were not able to hang on, but then its their own fault, from failing in Washington on several pieces of key legislative agenda and failing on the campaign trail.

I refuse to buy the media's interpretation that the elections were a referendum on Iraq. For one, the Democrats' base is so divided up among different constituencies (social security seniors, organized lazy labor, welfare dependents) that it doesn't seem likely that 52% of Americans with a negative view of Iraq voted because they demand a "new direction" (as an aside, there is only one direction in war, and that is towards victory). More than likely they voted under the perceived threat that somehow George Bush threatened their check or their job.

I am more than a little disturbed by the lack of backbone displayed by more and more Americans. This same lack of backbone is what permits eminent domain abuse to exist today. A strong-willed, industrious and ruggedly independent populace is incompatible with socialism, and the Democrats know this. But the people so loudly protesting the war in Iraq are not the ones who are sacrificing the most - a disproportionate amount of the sacrifice comes from the side of the aisle that supports what we are trying to do around the world. The majority of Iraq war opponents have made no military sacrifice, nor have they been asked to, neither have they been asked to make any economic sacrifices.

Not to be bitter about the situation (for being bitter tends to be a waste of time), we should look at the positives gained for true conservatives. Even John McCain began paying lip service to "conservatism" last night, so evidently, he's getting scared. We've rid ourselves of some truly abhorrent Republicans (Chafee, etc.) and some other questionably conservative Republicans got their come-uppins' (Allen - remember Trent Lott?). We can start with a clean slate and bring in new, true conservatives (and there are a good many in the party and outside the party).

George Allen's latest bit of race pandering doesn't prove that he is not a racist, it only goes to show what a weak-kneed, finger-in-the-air politician he has become. His latest shenanigan involves sponsoring a bill that would extend the deadline for black farmers to file for damages as part of a class-action discrimination suit against the Department of Agriculture.

Not knowing anything about the lawsuit, I can't judge the merits of it nor can I judge the merits of the actual award. Maybe black farmers were discriminated against, maybe they weren't. That information is beside the point.

What is the point is that everytime Allen is accused of being a racist, he goes out of his way to justify the charges by appearing guilty and remorseful, such as his little taxpayer-funded jaunt to Birmingham or this latest episode. His behavior lends credence to the charges levied against him if anything at all. If he really wants to dispute the charges, he shouldn't allow it to change his priorities, but instead, I have a feeling we'll see him pretending to be a member of the choir at some random black church in the near future (one nearby his Congressional office of course), all in the vain hope of picking up the votes of a handful of black soybean farmers in Southside.

Unfortunately, the alternative to Allen this election go-round sounds like an even bigger macaca.

The media is trumpeting the "bursting" of the housing bubble as though it were some sort of climactic collapse of the economy. That was the gist of the news blurb I caught this morning on one of CNN's fine morning newscasts - which makes me think that if indeed there ever was a "housing bubble", and if it burst at all, then it must have taken place many months ago, since CNN is by far one of the more timely purveyors of news/muck.

Housing, like any markets, has its prices adjusted by the dynamics of supply and demand. Real estate agents cannot arbitrarily set the prices of the houses they sell, nor can homeowners ask for an "inflated" price because they want to get rich quick. High prices are only a matter of perception - if one person finds the asking price of a bungalow too high, the next person might come along and find the asking price reasonable, and thus his transaction sets the real price for the property.

What looks like a bubble is the activity of investment in one's own home, which in general is a bad idea. Its foolish to believe that you can sell your house for a premium at the height of demand, and move into a more lavish abode across town for the same money, at the same time in the same market.

What the news missed was the good news about a receding housing market, and there is plenty of good news for nearly everyone, except maybe for the real estate agents and developers (but indirectly, its good news for them). Reduced sales lead to cost-cutting price reductions. A decline in property values leads to (bugle call) a buyer's market. With houses causing less, those in lower income brackets can buy new and larger, and more comfortable homes. Lower home values also equal lower property taxes, yet another boon for an already intolerably overtaxed population. Lower home values and lower taxes lead to a higher standard of living for people who purchase those homes.

But the buyer's market is at most a temporary condition of the market. Once home values recede, homes begin to come off the market and the interplay of a diminishing supply and unsatiated demand will raise prices and values again.

The media, of course, looking to hang all the economic bad news of the past 30 years on the current Presidential administration, ignored the positive ramifications of the decline in home values and the slowing market.

The miserable state of American public education was illuminated by John Stossel on a recent television news magazine, a program and report that raised the ire of countless numbers of teachers brainwashed by their unions into defending a failing system. Too often ignored is the failing state of American public collegiate education, all the more apparent after watching the interviews with these supposedly college-educated but radicalized numbskull educators, many of whom were literally foaming at the mouth and spewing vitriol against private education and charter schools.

The reality is that our colleges are failing American youth as much, if not more so, than the primary schools. Costs continue to spiral upward, while the quality of education, and the quantity of actual knowledge passed on, plummets downward. More and more students are apparently attending college (on the government dole) than in the past, but this means little if the first two years of college equate to little more than a junior and senior years' worth of high school education 15 years ago. Now students can invest +$40,000 worth of their future earnings in order to get a job they easily could have learned to do out of high school just a few decades ago.

What college students are actually learning (when they go to class) is not necessarily what they can use or need to know, but instead what they want to know, a discriminating tendency particularly lethal to curricular and academic integrity. Curriculum in the liberal arts especially is coopted to indulge nearly any whim or fancy or petty ideology, from pottery of ancient civilizations to oft-criticized studies in "feminist" thought. Of course, its one thing if your daughter is studying to be an anthropologist, or your son (God help him) the next Gloria Steinem, but you will find only a tiny fraction of students who enroll in such classes develop a career path that made a particular class-load worth its while. Too often a class that sounds fun is enrolled in at the expense of a class that imparts in-demand computer and business skills.

One argument frequently heard from businesses that hire large numbers of new college grads is that so few of their new hires know anything useful to their newfound trade, to business, or to reality in general. This inability of the universities to provide useful skills, when coupled with the government (taxpayer) subsidized and controversial course work of many college students, burdens the economy with niche-educated and indebted grads that are hard-pressed to find jobs pouring coffee at Starbucks or renting out cars for a living. No disrespect intended - if you have little or no college education, and you do something like this for a living, good for you, you'll move up in life. If you graduated with a Bachelor's in Art and you do this for a living, well, you could've done alot better.

Those who can't make it in the private sector turn to the government sector, where their less developed skills and inadequate initiative won't be challenged. They teach in the public schools, where they pass on only small portions of their swiss-cheese education, completing an expanding cycle of ignorance and miseducation.

All of which makes me wonder why there are almost no aggressive, profit-driven private colleges. The evidence from the lower levels is encouraging: charter schools frequently report lower expenses and per student costs, greater profits, higher teacher salaries, and more well-educated students. Currently private colleges tend to follow the public college model of finance, living off endowments and begging always for more. Concievably, a college motivated by the bottom line could crank out real-world ready grads for minimal investment and strain on their parents' wallets, by cutting down on the often absurd overhead of public and private schools, such as dormitories, dining halls, student entertainment and facilities, upkeep, security, etc. A stripped down college would be less fun for students, but you don't get a job based on how nice your campus recreational facilities were or how roudy and wild the parties were. Instead, money could be invested in non-tenured professors who are now responsible for their academic productivity.