Not blue or red, but purple.

[AndyMan 7]

It's hard to ignore the idea of blue states and red states, especially after two elections with very little change.

You get a very different picture when you see the county by county.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/images/counties-2004a.gif

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[billvon 2,400]

Shades of gray! Eeeek! Make it stop! How can you accomplish anything unless you have only allies and enemies, with no gray areas? What are you trying to do, make people think? People get resentful when you do that.

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

What are you trying to do, make people think

Nope, he's trying to do the "see, there's more liberals then the USA Today's map showed" argument.

I'd rather see it as a "lets pull the country together" then continue the fight, though. Unfortunately the extremists on both sides are gonna fight hard to prevent that.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[dorbie 0]

Yep, I saw that & almost posted it myself. It's pretty interesting IMHO. Definitely paints a different picture from the county map with red vs blue.

[IanHarrop 37]

***
What are you trying to do, make people think

---

Not to worry, though I've seen a lot of what appears to be well thought out opinions voiced in SC, detailed reading of the posts shows that most of what passes for thinking here is actually just verbal diarrhea

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

Definitely paints a different picture from the county map with red vs blue.

http://www.redvsblue.com

Go there, watch the movies, trust me.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[wmw999 2,123]

Quote

most of what passes for thinking here is actually just verbal diarrhea

I'm very hurt

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[rehmwa 2]

Quote

Quote

most of what passes for thinking here is actually just verbal diarrhea

I'm very hurt

and a bit dehydrated too, apparently

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[meltdown 0]

Shades of gray! Eeeek! Make it stop! How can you accomplish anything unless you have only allies and enemies, with no gray areas? What are you trying to do, make people think? People get resentful when you do that.
__________________________________________________
Or we could think through every possible permutation of every issue, then analyze the results, then hire consultants, do it all again, micromanage every detail ad nauseum, create a task force, think until our little brains are numb, think some more, hire more consultants, do a poll, and wind up spending so much time on the thinking part that we missed our chance to do the doing part. And no, I'm not resentful. I don't mind thinking. At all. What I mind is this idea that endless debate solves problems. What it does is it keeps people from the difficult part, which is making a decision and following through. Debate is fine, then you make your decision based on the information you have, and move forward. I know I'm a conservative, and therefore I'm obviously an idiotic simpleton, but I've dealt with people of both types, and the successful ones are the ones who are willing to make a decision and accept the consequences.

[wmw999 2,123]

The disadvantage of always making a decision as soon as you have what you think is enough information to make one is that prejudices will cause you to select the information that leads to what your gut tells you is the "right" decision.

Which means that you'll ignore data that you don't like.

Note: I"m using "you" in the figurative sense here.

Quick decisiveness is good when it's needed. When it isn't, the decision process itself should be thought about, so that it will be better the next time it's needed in a hurry.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[meltdown 0]

I absolutely agree with you. Particularly the part about ignoring data, which cannot be defended. What I am railing against are people who think that endless discussion is tantamount to making a decision. I used to work at a company where they had endless meetings and did everything by committee, and in the end, practically nothing got done, and when it finally did it was so watered down that it was practically useless. Kind of reminds me of the UN.

[AndyMan 7]

Not only shades of grey, but odd shapes, too!

Here's a website where they take county by county, apply gradients to show a range of opinion, then display in a cartogram. Really very neat... http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

I stopped hoping to make people think a while ago, especially in this forum. Now I just hope somebody might find it interesting.

tangent:
Surprisingly (or not), these images are not coming from traditional political sources. The first image I posted was created by Tannenbaum, a noted author in the Computer Science field. Tannenbaum is recognized for his work in Operating Systems design, and even once wrote one called Minux - a system Linus Torvalds studied before writing Linux.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[billvon 2,400]

>Or we could think through every possible permutation of every issue,
>then analyze the results, then hire consultants . . . .

. . . and then make a decision. The more critical the decision, the more effort you put into making that decision.

> and wind up spending so much time on the thinking part that we missed
> our chance to do the doing part.

That's one extreme. The other is to do the wrong thing without thinking just because it's better to do something than nothing. That's the other extreme. Like I suggested above, you have to take a middle ground. Extremes are easy to rally people around ("you're either with us or against us!" "are you a patriot, or do you oppose the president's policies?") but do not generally contribute to a solution.

>I know I'm a conservative, and therefore I'm obviously an idiotic
> simpleton, but I've dealt with people of both types, and the successful
> ones are the ones who are willing to make a decision and accept the
> consequences.

And maybe it's because I'm a liberal, but I have observed that the people who are the most successful are the ones who make good decisions - not the ones who make bad decisions and then stick to them no matter how bad the decision is shown to be.