The Kensington Review

3 November 2004

Latest Commentary:

Bush Wins Popular Vote, Court Challenges Can’t Stop Electoral Win -- As predicted in these pages back in December, President Bush has won another four years in the White House. This time, he has a majority of the popular vote, and while there may be a court challenge to the results in Ohio, there is little hope for Senator Kerry’s campaign. The most “important election of our times” was significant in that it looks almost exactly like the 2000 election – nicknamed the “Seinfeld Election” because it was about nothing at all.

Two Party System Shattered . . . in Uruguay -- For the last 170 years, the governance of Uruguay, the buffer state on the Atlantic between Argentina and Brazil, has fallen to either the Colorado or the Blanco parties. Originally born out of a split in the anti-Spanish forces that created the nation, the Blancos largely resemble the American Republicans and the Colorados the American Democrats. So the voting on Sunday that elected Tabare Vazquez of the Broad Front coalition as the country’s president is a watershed. Add to that majorities in both houses of the parliament for the coalition of Socialists, Communists, Social Democrats and a former guerrilla movement, and one gets the sense that two-party systems can be broken.

Analysts Expect Higher Oil Prices with Bush Victory -- The good news is that oil has dropped 10% since last Wednesday, dipping below $50 a barrel. The bad news is that this is another profit-taking slump. Traders are squaring up positions ahead of the announcement of the winner of the American election. With any luck, there will be a winner announced between the closing of the polls and the opening of the oil pits (but there is no guarantee). To hear the oil market experts tell it, four more years of Mr. Bush is worth about around $5 a barrel to them.

Minute Humanoid Skeletons Found on Pacific Island -- Homo Florensis may or may not be an actual hobbit, but the skeletons discovered in Indonesia’s Flores Island are frightfully small humanoids. The questions the discovery of the bones raises are the big ones. What does it mean to be human? Is humanity alone in the universe? The answers are not brought much closer with this discovery. However, the little fellows do prove that archaeology is a branch of philosophy and of religion.

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© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review , J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.