What did we learn in 2006?

Damn near nothing, the Chimes at Midnight still prides itself on a certain degree of continuity with respect to it's "sarcastic rant driven chatter".
In the meantime, Gerald Ford, James Brown, John Kenneth Galbraith, Peter Viereck, Lloyd Bentsen and Mickey Spillane all left us. Even that axiom of regional chaos, Saddam Hussein caught the last train to Tartarus.
Movement Conservatism after a backlash that commenced in November of 1968, finally peaked and dare I say it, even receded just a bit.
And for sheer schadenfreude you couldn't beat watching Rick Santorum and George Allen and Ken Blackwell all being swept away into the footnotes of US History in one single night.
Indeed it was an uncommonly bad year for the rightical chic ideologues, the men-MUST-fit-the-mold types and the praetorians.
Hell, We may even be able to speak of a "Post Conservative Civilization"...who knows?

Locally, Deval Patrick overthrew destiny with all the ease and inevitability of Bill Goldberg spearing a last minute mid-carder.
We lost local Progressive Talk Radio...for now.
This is a pity because I really enjoyed Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz and even Randy Rhodes when she was laying off the aggro.
Otherwise, Jeff Jacoby kept trying to ease his cheeks onto a seat at the Praetorians table...didn't success but it was fun to watch.
Scott Lehigh pontificated and made entirely inaccurate predictions, Joanie Vennochi shrieked spun around so fast she drilled a foot deep hole in the floor and Brian McGrory made soft puzzled naive-type sounds.

In all, it was another year in the Commonwealth, we finally got some change lets see if we can hold on to it.