I'd disagree there - they do a good enough job to achieve lock-in. Look at Outlook/Exchange Server - you need to use the Outlook client to really leverage Exchange; to get a good deal on the Outlook client, you get it bundled with the rest of Office; to make good use of your Office investment, use Windows Server...
It mostly works good enough to make it difficult to break out of it - which is where the problem with moving to Linux lies.
Like I said, Des Moines is the only place I heard about. I'd be interested to see where else they polled at. They claimed 48% from eastern Iowa (our population center). If you look at this map http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vot e2004/countymap.htm you'll see that they got 76% of the states polls from the "blue" counties and 24% from the "red" counties.
So now the middle class (where most of us are) are left without real apparent representation. The Democratic party didn't represent us when they supported NAFTA. They don't apparently oppose the movement of manufacturing and other blue collar jobs out of the U.S.
I think that the Republican party does more for the middle class than the Democrats do at this point. The tax cuts (targeted at "rich people") did a lot of good for middle class people trying to get ahead. The child tax credit is very nice for the parents of young kids, and the tuition credits are helpful for those in college. The new HSA's give middle class people a way to sneak around the 7.5% floor on the deductiblity of medical expenses and take away the risk of losing everything not used in a flexplan. All of these things phase out at "higher" incomes, and all of them can help out a typical middle class family - but the Democrats fought them tooth and nail.
I'm not sure that the Democratic party can come back to the middle class. They've sold out to the coasts and to the celebrities (as you said) and I don't think that they could reconnect with middle america. The Republicans have at least said that they'd like to get government off of most peoples back (whether or not they do that is another matter entirely!) - but that's what most people want and that's 180 out of phase for the Democrats.
I'm not a Democrat, but I'm not sure what they could do to start being competitive in the rural areas again. In Iowa, Democratic candidates won both the state senate and house seats in my rural district, so it can happen - but they were not the kind of Democrats that could win at any higher level - and that's probably the problem that the Democrats face.
But it's still a guess. I'd really be interested in where and who they were polling - to see if the really were trying to remove bias from the sampling.
Like I said, the only place in Iowa that I heard that they were doing was Des Moines - and Des Moines is not representative of the whole state.
Where do they take the exit polls at? In Iowa, I think that they did the exit polling in Des Moines - the states "urban" Democratic area, but not in the rural areas. If this was done across the country, would it have been enough to show one candidate winning the exit polling while another candidate wins the vote?
Obama (in the Illinois race) won easily; he was always going to win easily. I'm a Illinoisian Democrat (don't mod me down), born and bred, and even I thought the coverage of him was a bit too much. Obama was polling something like 70-30 against Keyes, he was enormously popular.
Wasn't that a 1-man race since the Republican dropped out in June? They couldn't even find a home-grown candidate to take his place and had to import Keyes. 70-30 is closer than I would have thought it would be given those circumstances!
The Dem party needs to get rid of their leadership and revamp and start to get back their base, which should be middle class and working Americans. This is a massive loss for them. It is the biggest shift I have seen in a long time.
Their base has shifted from middle class and working Americans to urban Americans and the "elite" high income earners and entertainers - and that's their problem.
Since you live in Iowa, it probably won't matter if you had voted Libertarian. Much like our neighbors to the east where the Democrats use the zombie vote, the Iowa Democrats have been wrapping up the "near dead" vote from the states numerous care centers.
Well, the Democrats have done well with the dead vote in Illinois for years. This year, they've been pushing hard for the "near-dead" vote from the states many, many care centers.
So were the workstations that were problematic the Optiplex, Precisions, or the Dimensions. I've been buying the 8xxx series of Dimensions (mainly, with a couple of 4xxx) for the past couple of years and have had no problems with them. I typically upgrade only about 10 workstations per year at work and maybe help people out with 5 or 10 more, so I don't have a huge population of machines to say anything more than I've had no real bad luck with their machines.
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I was just trying to point out that control of a nations cities != control of the nation.
If they vote 88% against the Republicans, why?
Focus on the Hispanics who gave the Republicans more support this election - they've at least got a chance there.
Iowa hasn't called it yet - will the "average IQ" change if it gets called for Kerry?
Kind of reminds you of pre-Communist China. Mao Tse Tung controlled the countryside and what's-his-name controlled the cities.
Given the exit polling - that may be what they did.
It mostly works good enough to make it difficult to break out of it - which is where the problem with moving to Linux lies.
Kind of like spam and junk faxes - have someone else foot the bandwidth (or paper) bill.
You misspelled "while bankrupting everyone"
Like I said, Des Moines is the only place I heard about. I'd be interested to see where else they polled at. They claimed 48% from eastern Iowa (our population center). If you look at this map http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vot e2004/countymap.htm you'll see that they got 76% of the states polls from the "blue" counties and 24% from the "red" counties.
I think that the Republican party does more for the middle class than the Democrats do at this point. The tax cuts (targeted at "rich people") did a lot of good for middle class people trying to get ahead. The child tax credit is very nice for the parents of young kids, and the tuition credits are helpful for those in college. The new HSA's give middle class people a way to sneak around the 7.5% floor on the deductiblity of medical expenses and take away the risk of losing everything not used in a flexplan. All of these things phase out at "higher" incomes, and all of them can help out a typical middle class family - but the Democrats fought them tooth and nail.
I'm not sure that the Democratic party can come back to the middle class. They've sold out to the coasts and to the celebrities (as you said) and I don't think that they could reconnect with middle america. The Republicans have at least said that they'd like to get government off of most peoples back (whether or not they do that is another matter entirely!) - but that's what most people want and that's 180 out of phase for the Democrats.
I'm not a Democrat, but I'm not sure what they could do to start being competitive in the rural areas again. In Iowa, Democratic candidates won both the state senate and house seats in my rural district, so it can happen - but they were not the kind of Democrats that could win at any higher level - and that's probably the problem that the Democrats face.
Like I said, the only place in Iowa that I heard that they were doing was Des Moines - and Des Moines is not representative of the whole state.
Where do they take the exit polls at? In Iowa, I think that they did the exit polling in Des Moines - the states "urban" Democratic area, but not in the rural areas. If this was done across the country, would it have been enough to show one candidate winning the exit polling while another candidate wins the vote?
Publicity and donations.
Wasn't that a 1-man race since the Republican dropped out in June? They couldn't even find a home-grown candidate to take his place and had to import Keyes. 70-30 is closer than I would have thought it would be given those circumstances!
Their base has shifted from middle class and working Americans to urban Americans and the "elite" high income earners and entertainers - and that's their problem.
Iowa, surprisingly, has all but been won by Bush. The 13,000 vote difference is too large in this state to be overcome.
But that was trumped when Kerry covered his ears with his hands and said "la la la la"
Their foray into antivirus software went so "well" that I expect those 3rd parties to have no problems at all.
Since you live in Iowa, it probably won't matter if you had voted Libertarian. Much like our neighbors to the east where the Democrats use the zombie vote, the Iowa Democrats have been wrapping up the "near dead" vote from the states numerous care centers.
If so, I would think that it would be much harder to jam a GPS-like system than a spy or communications satellite.
Well, the Democrats have done well with the dead vote in Illinois for years. This year, they've been pushing hard for the "near-dead" vote from the states many, many care centers.
Nah - I was smart enough never to speak first :)
Anyone who has kids knows that the first person that says "Not me" is guilty :)
Hope that you have better luck with IBM!
Aren't libertarian (or even anarchist) and control freaks mutually exclusive?