Wednesday, November 30, 2005

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN 2006? DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Good evening. Well, for our friends in Canada who have or haven't bought a 2006 calendar yet, I hope January 23 is marked on them. That's the date when they'll be heading to the polls.

This morning Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, whose Liberal government went down in tatters in a no-confidence vote the previous night, called for a federal election to be held on January 23. The campaigning is already underway, and for the next eight weeks while the temperatures will get colder, things will be heating up well into the new year. And instead of Christmas carolers knocking on Canadian homes' doors this holiday season, it'll be the politicians belting out their own versions of "Jingle Bells."

Talk of an election was triggered by how corrupt the Liberals were because of the sponsorship scandal. Martin originally promised to call for an election in the spring, but the opposition parties threw a curve ball and forced the no-confidence vote.

Now here in the States, we have no such thing as a no confidence vote. But many of us don't have any confidence at all in President Bush's government and how they've been running things. 2006 is also when we'll head to the polls ourselves in the mid-term elections in which many seats on Capitol Hill as well as state races and ballot measures (including ours here in Alaska and whether or not Frank Murkowski will still have a job as Governor) will be decided.

But what if we happen to follow Canada's lead? What if the 2006 mid-terms also happen to be an impromptu recall election to boot Bush out of office and put somebody else in the White House without waiting till 2008? Well, unlike Canada or the recent British election last May when Tony Blair was easily awarded a third term as their Prime Minister...DON'T BET ON IT!

There's no way a quickie election can be called that immediately here, and if it does, it'll be quite a major headache. You've got plenty of names wanting to be put in the hat, the primaries and caucases, the political conventions, the debates, and then Election Day/Night itself with the networks always going all out with the most flashiest sets and eye-popping graphics they spend millions of dollars on. If you try to cram all these in eight weeks like the Canadians are doing with their January 23 election, we're going to be completely burned out before we even head to the polls!!

That's why we have the fixed dates on those U.S. elections, like it or not. Hard to believe that the mid-terms happen on the years when the Winter Olympics are held, while the Presidential ones are also when we have the Summer Olympics.

Just like the Canadians with the corrupt Liberal government now dissolved, we have only two chances to dissolve Bush's already corrupt -- and clueless -- Republican government. Those two chances are on November 7, 2006 and November 4, 2008.

With that said...have a good night.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

TURKEY DAY IN AMERICA!

Well, it's Thanksgiving Day 2005...at least here in the United States; Canada already had theirs sometime last month.

As you know, the reason why I haven't posted in weeks was because I've been trying, TRYING to restore some civility in my Sexiest Woman of 2005 poll as far as Round 3 is concerned. Round 1 with the preliminaries turned out to be clean; Jennifer Garner --whose "Alias" will be ending its five-season run after this one -- ruled Round 2 (with 19 other ladies advancing); and we're still at Round 3 where things were pretty much nasty.

Why? Here's why: Excessive voting for Garner and Lauren Graham had me trimming the vote totals by several hundred while still maintaining their leads. That angered a bunch of their fans but I had to do it.

So here's where we stand as we start to head to the final round: Graham is leading hugely over Garner, followed by Mischa Barton, Kelly Clarkson, and Sarah Michelle Gellar rounding out the top five. The bottom five has Jessica Alba, Rachel Bilson, Kristen Bell, Toni Braxton, and Angelina Jolie.

But that doesn't mean we won't be going to the main poll, at least not year. There's one more week to go before we do so, and anything can still happen; so VOTE NOW if you haven't done so!

Guess I have nothing else to say except...BRING ON THE TURKEY!!! Happy Thanksgiving!