Election Results - Happy Birthday Osama!

Just kidding.

On a more serious note, every Democratic victory speech contained at least one sentence like "The American people have voted for a change" or "a new direction" or "something different". Soon-to-be the first female majority House speaker Nancy Pelosi mentioned in her own victor's cackle last night that there would be a change of direction in Iraq.

In light of this, let's return to the question posed earlier as to whether or not a Democrat-majority house is going cause any significant changes in Iraq. And keep in mind that this includes changes brought about by other nations/groups, who might react to news of a Democratic victory linked to the idea that the American public are dissatisfied with Bush and the Republican party.

To be perfectly honest, I'm more interested in the latter right now. I honestly don't think there's going to be a lot of Democratic initiative to radically transform the current policy in Iraq. We're not going to withdraw, but now it'll be harder to increase the troop number. Heck, the only two exerpts from Pelosi played on the radio mention "changes in Iraq" right after a promise to increase minimum wage.

Latin America's reaction will be very interesting to watch. Keep in mind that Daniel Ortega was confirmed as President of Nicaragua. If you've heard that name a lot recently and wondered who he is - look him up. If we had Chavez pleading with Americans to impeach Bush and read Chomsky before, now we'll probably have him demanding Cheney's balls on a plate and reading Shatner's Tekwar.

Someone is going to announce that terrorists have promised renewed attacks. UBL himself may release another late-night Jihadi infomercial - hell now that the Democrats are in power he might even show up on the Daily Show.

Now, what about China or North Korea? Iran?

And here's one final question. If Democratic countrol of the House, and possibly senate, leads to decisions even more unpopular with the American public than the (until January) current Republican incumbents, what sort of effects will a conservative backlash have?