Over at Right Wing News they lifted some of the more lively posts from Democratic Underground. Awhile back someone suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about when I said that there are anti-American people out there. They are out there and they are legion.

Here are some samples:

DuaneBidoux: "America to World: F*ck Yourself. Let's get the meme out: Boycott American. Corporations. Pass on the Fords, GMs, Coca Cola. When businesses hurt abroad they will begin telling Bush his policy of being world asshole is bad for busines.

Buy German products, French products, countries that kept their sanity while Bush pushed this war through. Bush has been bringing this economy to it's knees for four years. Let's give it a last little push. With his f*cked up economic policies it's inevitable anyway...let's just make sure it doesn't get pushed into the next administration. WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO MAKE SURE IT IS THIS SOB THAT SLEEPS IN HIS OWN PILE OF SHIT.

If you listened to the right wing this morning you know the score: they want revolution. F*ck this sh*t. This is war."

woody b: "Dear friends from Ohio,

your vote was stolen. I'm not living in Ohio, not even in the US. But apart from the output of the vote machines, nothing points to the possibility that Bush achieved more votes than Kerry. Neither Zogby's predictions, nor the exit polls, nor the huge queues in front of the electoral places.

You're no the only ones whose vote was stolen, but it's the easiest state to prove it. Your own experience, together with a statistical analysis of the data, could make the case for voter fraud.

The world will most grateful you if you start a calm revolution by gathering evidence that a lot more people voted for Kerry than for Bush."

Q3JR4: "A call to action. Or, COME ON PEOPLE!!!!! Your votes didn't count. If you live in Ohio, Colorado, Florida, they didn't count. Bush stole the election....AGAIN. With the level of voter disenfranchisement, intimidation, and Diebold trickery going on, you think that more people here would see that.

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? WHERE IS THE ANGER? ARE WE JUST GOING TO ROLL OVER AND TAKE IT?

They stole the election and probably have a special place in hell reserved for them for that, I'm telling you now, complacent Dems will be joining them! You may as well just hand the government to them on a silver platter again and again, because--baring a change in the way we count our votes--we'll NEVER have another majority in ANY branch of this government again!

I just can't believe that no one else is pissed off about it!

I mean, come on! I'm in IDAHO, a red state, and I'm ready to do something about it.

I can understand if there are a lot of pacifists here, and that's good. They can accomplish a lot. We don't need to get violent to create change (or sway public opinion), but we have to do SOMETHING!

We can't let them get away with it this time, or next time we're effectively screwed.

Come on people! What are we waiting for? Pick the call up and pass it along alread!"

PhuLoi: "Secession may be the last option to save the Constitution. Given the unbridgable chasm that has opened between the Blue states and the Red states, I feel that secession should be seriously considered. Blue states are no longer duly represented, votes are not being counted whereas computer created votes seem to be counted.

The basic tenants of the Constitution are endangered and we of the Blue states seem powerless to defend them. Let us then consider divorcing ourselves from this abusive relationship and reorganize under the Constituion, as it was intended, leaving the Red states to wallow in their own filth."

fdr_hst_fan: "Thanks to the inbred, redneck, Bible-besotted Solid South, we're saddled with the village idiot and his Nazi followers for another four years.

The next time the South wants to cecede, I say "Let 'em!" Who needs 'em? In fact, to facilitate matters, we should help them pack! And once they're finally GONE from the Union, we should construct a wall, not unlike the Berlin Wall, to keep them out! I guarantee, after three to five years, they'll come back on bended knee, BEGGING for re-admission to the Union. Then we'll be able to call the tune from that point on!

That's the error Lincoln and Andrew Johnson made: they wanted to be "conciliatory" to the Confederacy. Horse hockey! They STARTED that war; they didn't DESERVE any consideration! They didn't stop to consider their actions at Fort Sumter, did they?"

Liberal_Andy: "I stopped flying the flag today. I've flown the US flag every sunny day (I'm on my third one)since 9/11. I just can't do it anymore. Maybe on 7/4. We'll see."

Mountainman: "I hate America Did you hear that freeps? Several months ago, when ever I saw or heard a wingnut ask a liberal "why do you hate America?" I got pissed. The question didn't deserve an answer.

But today I can freely say that I hate America. I hate Bush's America and after this election I guess all of America will be Bush's America. So until people rise up and throw him and the conservatives out of power (There is no doubt in my mind that someday they will be out of power) I hate America.

I'm also sure I'm going to hear the 60's chant of "love or leave it." My response back in the 60's was "love it and fix it."

Now I guess I would say "hate it and fix it" sort of like when my wife says she hates her hair. To me she is saying that she's tired of the way it is and she's going to do something about it. That's what I mean about "hate it and fix it."

What I'm going to do is to get together with like minded people and make little pieces of America that we can love and hopefully those little pieces will grow and connect until we can love all America again."

In GalCiv 1, planetary management was a bit limited.

Production was essentially the planet class X population X spending % X planetary improvements.

What this meant is that essentially he that conquered good planets early had a huge advantage. Very little thought or strategy was involved. It was this that led some peopel to feel that GalCIv lacked a "soul" in places or lacked depth.

GalCiv II has a totally new way of doing it. A much more sophisticated planet management system that we think is really fun. It's also being coded by one of the lead developers of Simcity 3000 (formerly of Maxis now here at Stardock).

Here is the design document on this:

Galactic Civilizations II: Dreadlords

 

Planet Management Screen

 

Executive Summary

 

In Galactic Civilizations, planets play the same role as cities in other strategy games. It is on planets players build up the infrastructure to their empires.

 

Globally, the player decides how much of their overall budget is spent on construction of new starships, planetary improvements, and planetary research.  The planet then takes the money sent to them and converts it to production in those 3 areas based on what is built on the planet.

 

Basic Concept

When a player enters the planet screen they are greeted with a 6 x 6 grid that represents the number of tiles on the planet. The number of useable tiles is based on the planet class (1 through 36). 

 

Players select a tile which displays in the tile context area information about that tile.  Some tiles have special attributes such as being fertile which provides extra food if a farm is built on it or precursor ruins which provide extra research bonuses if a research center is built on it.

 

Once the tile is selected, players then choose through a list of things they can build on that tile from a list box. As items are selected, they are displayed in the improvement context area which displays what it is they would be building, its effect, how many people it employs, the time to construct, and its maintenance cost.

 

A farm, for instance, might employ 1 citizen and produce 5 food and cost $1 to maintain and take 4 weeks to build.

 

A factory might employ 5 citizens and have a capacity to product 5 industrial units and cost $1 to maintain and take 8 weeks to build.

 

The player can then press the “build” button and the improvement is added to the queue.  Players can optionally queue up as many improvements as they would like to make.

 

They can also press the “Automate” button which takes them to the governor’s screen where they can “zone” the entire planet at once as either “Agriculture”, “Industry”, “Social”, “Construction”, or “Research”. The computer AI will then build the “best” available items it has available at the time it starts to try to build.

 

Players can also assign governors with particular specialties to the planet who will provide a suggested zoning layout for the particular planet so that the player doesn’t need to zone out the land themselves if they choose not to.

 

The screen also displays what is currently being built on the orbiting shipyard (if there is one) as well as what ships are in orbit of the planet.

 

Players must build a star port on the planet in order to build ships. When a star port is built, a shipyard is placed in an adjacent tile around the planet. Players interact with the shipyard to actually choose what ships to build. Shipyards are very difficult to destroy (but can be). The loss of a shipyard also destroys the star port on the planet which then has to be rebuilt.  That is because the reason shipyards are so tough to kill is that they are protected by an energy shield from the star port which becomes overloaded before the shipyard is destroyed.

 

General Goals

 

We want this screen to be very fun to work with but not be a micro-management issue.  That is why there are only 36 potential tiles on a screen.  A typical planet might be a class 13 planet with only 13 useable tiles. Players can use soil enhancement or terraforming to turn an unusable tile into a useable tile. But generally speaking, players will only be dealing with a dozen to dozen and a half tiles.

 

Later in the game when managing fleets of ships and other things becomes a more significant focus, it is expected that players who colonize or conquer planets late in the game will use the governors to build up the planets for them. Governors aren’t as competent as the player (otherwise they’d be the ones running the empire and not the player) but they’re pretty good.

 

The point being that we don’t want the planet screen to be a game unto itself. It is part of the overall game of having each planet be truly unique and putting some strategy in how the planet is handled.

 

The Variables

 

The primary variables on a planet are:

 

• Approval (sometimes called morale, we should always call it approval). It is based on the tax rate, unemployment rate, and modified by entertainment based buildings. Approval rating determines what % of the planet’s influence is exerted and gives bonuses in “free” production on the planet.
• Population. Population on a planet is the based on the food supply and housing capacity. It is the lower number of the two.  As the two numbers grow, so does the population (gradually).
• Food. This is based on the number of tiles that are dedicated to farming. A farm may product 5 units of food which can feed 5 citizens.
• Housing. This is based on the number of housing units available. Most buildings provide some housing automatically. But as food becomes more abundant, specific housing facilities may be needed.
• Unemployment. This is the % of your population that has nothing to do. Unemployment lowers approval ratings.
• Income. This is the amount of money the planet generates.
• Spending. This is the amount of money being sent to this planet by the central government to build ships, research technologies, and improve the planet.
• Maint. This is the cost of paying the salaries of your workers.

 

 

Inputs into planet:

 

The only input into the planet is money. The amount of money sent in is based on the planet’s percentage of the empire’s total population.  However there are ways to increase the priority of a given planet for receiving federal funds (see making a planet a high priority).

 

This money is split up into 3 areas: Military, Social, and Research. Military and Social money is money that goes in to pay for industrial production. Research money goes to pay for research centers.

 

Outputs

Tax Returns

This is based on money per person taxed. Money per person is based on the tax rate (set globally) as well as planetary improvements that increase the money per person generated. Only employed workers are taxed.

 

Surplus

In the event that the planet cannot use the money sent to the planet (for instance, a planet that focuses on banking instead of manufacturing) it is sent back to the treasury.

 

Military Production

Industrial output comes in the form of ships being built. If no ship is being built, that money goes back to the treasury.

 

Factories and other manufacturing improvements built on the planet generate various amounts of base industrial output. $1 in generates 1 IU of production out until their capacity is met.

 

In times of need, where the player increases their military spending, factories can do up to 2X their capacity. However, that requires overtime which is billed at $2 for each 1 IU generated up until 2X its capacity.

 

Example:

 

Let’s say we have a planet with a factory whose capacity is 5 IUs of production. 

 

If we send the planet $4 to produce star ships we will get 4 IUs out of the factory.

 

If we send it $10 to produce star ships we will get 7 IUs out of the factory: 5 IUs at $1 per unit and then another 2 at $2 per IU ($5 + $4) with the remainder being sent back as surplus.

 

If we sent it $100 to produce star ships we would get 10 IUs out of the planet: 5 IUs at $1 per unit and another 5 IUs at $2 per unit (15 spent total) with the other 85 sent back as surplus.

 

There is also “free” production. This comes from the approval rating on the planet. If the player’s approval on the planet is at 50% then production remains at 100% of its output. At 100% approval the player’s production is increased by 50%. And at 0% approval the player’s production is decreased by 50%.

 

This factor should be multiplied at the very end.  It is also important that when someone clicks on the morale graph that it pops up a little dialog explaining morale and its specific effects.

 

Social Production

This is money spent to build buildings, farms, and other non-starship related things. It determines the amount of time it takes to build something on the planet tiles.

 

It works the same as military production except rather than it making use of factories and such it uses construction yards, public works centers, and other buildings to increase the base capacity.

 

Research Production

Much like the social and military production, research production works in the same way except it makes use of research centers, libraries, labs, and other buildings to increase the amount of research units (RUs) that leave the planet that increase the rate in which new technology is discovered.

 

Maintenance

Even if you’re not building things or researching things, people need to be paid or they become unemployed.

Buildings typically cost 1 maint for every 5 units of production that they do. So a factory that produces 5 IUs is likely to have 1 maint. All buildings cost at least $1 for maint. Buildings can be disabled to get rid of this maint. But that can turn those people into the unemployed which will lower your income as well (though not as fast).

 

Issue to consider: Limited Population

 

Where people work is not directly under the player’s control.

 

If a planet has a population of 10 and has buildings that can employ 15 people, the question is, where do those 10 people work then? The answer is that they work based on the ratio of spending.

 

The algorithms will need to deal with that issue.

 

Example:

 

My planet’s population is 10.

 

I have 4 Buildings:

 

1 Factory that employees 5 people.

1 Lab that employees 5 people

1 Construction Yard that employees 5 people

1 Farm that employs 1 person

 

The farm always gets top priority to feed the population. Only if the amount of farm production exceeds the amount of available housing do workers get sent to other places.

 

In our example 50% of spending is on military, 30% on research and 20% on social.

 

Therefore:

 

5 of your people are working in the factory.  The lab has 3 people in it and the construction yard has 2 people in it.

 

Production in those facilities is based on the % of the employment filled (so the construction yard is only operating at 40% -- 2 out of 5 – of its capacity).

 

So if that production facility has a capacity of generating 5 social units then it can now only produce 2 without overtime (where it takes $2 to produce 1 unit of production).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Details Screen

At the bottom right of the main planet screen is the Done button and the Details button.

 

The details button takes the player to the details screen.

 

On this screen the player can see how this planet ranks amongst all planets in the galaxy in all kinds of areas.  It can also get detailed information on population trends, and other “detail” oriented things.

 

It also includes the “Priority” checkbox.  When that checkbox is clicked, this planet becomes a priority world for funding. Its population is treated as twice as important as planets that do not have the priority checkbox.  So planets that are key to the industrial output of the planet can make use of this feature.

 

Here's the money quote:

The Guardian, the fever chart of the British Left, decided to arrange a controlled experiment in the effectiveness of the Bush-hating strategy. They targeted the voters of Clark County, Ohio, one of the swingiest counties in a critical swing state, by getting Guardian readers to send them letters explaining why they shouldn't vote for Bush. Antonia Fraser, John Le Carre and other celebrated Guardianistas put pen to paper and marshalled their arguments.

Richard Dawkins demonstrated the incisive forensic analysis of Bush one expects from one of Oxford's most celebrated professors: "An idiot he may be, but he is also sly, mendacious and vindictive ... thuggish ... pariah state ... brazenly lying ... cynical mendacity." Gloomy film-maker Ken Loach, who makes Moore look like Busby Berkeley, began: "Today, your country is reviled across continents as never before ..."

In return, The Guardian received many responses, saying things like "real Americans aren't interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions", which was one of the more polite replies in that it eschewed observations on the defects of British dentistry. In 2000, Clark County went narrowly for Al Gore. On Tuesday, it went decisively for Bush. The local Republican chairman claimed that Fraser and co had done a grand job of rallying the county's Bush voters and getting them to the poll. Thank you, Guardian lefties! Had they launched Operation Massachusetts, Kerry would have lost his own state.

Like many, I had predicted that Kerry would win the election. But he didn't. And now the question is, why? We may never be able to offer a definitive answer to this but I will offer a theory that I think is pretty plausible.

Backlash

People get fed up. And they respond. In politics, that means they come out and vote.

For the past year, Kerry's supporters had made it pretty clear that anyone who supported Bush must be some kind of "moron", "idiot", "racist", "fascist", "red neck", whatever. They referred to the President as a "chimp" and other vile names. And these people, many who don't normally vote, got mad and they decided to come out to vote this time.

That's because the American people are not stupid. They're a vigorous, hard working, enterprising people who have helped make the world a vastly better place (and anyone who disagrees may want to look at 19th century Europe).  The contempt and hatred from Kerry's supporters made a lot of people who were only nominally Bush supporters into energized Bush supporters.

Millions of Americans simply don't want to be associated with Michael Moore and MoveOn.org and snobby Hollywood celebrities or uppity European elites. They got sick of having their views jammed down their throats. They got sick of the media flagrantly siding with Kerry. One might even say that the New York Times did a lot to help Bush win. Americans could see the unfairness in that these self-appointed elites got to have their say while they were expected to be quiet and take it. After all, why should some has-been Hollywood comedienne get to be on a panel on Hardball when millions of hard working Americans never go to have their voice heard? So they fought back with the only weapon they have: Their vote.

Kerry supporters increased the Bush vote one dinner party at a time. One little league game at a time. One office lunch room at a time. With their smug contempt for those who weren't as "enlightened" as they were. And their nasty attitudes towards Bush and his views on social, moral, and foreign policy, they effectively turned themselves into a Get out the vote drive -- for Bush.

Last week my son came home and told me that his friend's mom told him that if Bush won that he would be sent off to war. My son is 7 years old. My friend's mom is a middle-school teacher. Kerry himself would imply that Bush was going to reinstate the draft (January surprise nonsense).  Michael Moore spread the word that Bush was in bed with the Saudi Royal family. Foreign pundits claimed that Bush and Cheney were in Iraq for Halliburton's sake. 

And yet, without a trace of irony, Kerry supporters would argue that people who supported Bush had been swayed by all that "right wing" propaganda. As if the millions of public school teachers, who often are alone amongst their neighbors in their support for Democrats, do so strictly because of their free thinking ways and not because of the constant inflow of disinformation from the NEA (teachers unions).

And so every time a Kerry supporter, when confronted with a friend or neighbor who said they liked Bush (or didn't hate him at least) would say "Gosh, you seem like a smart guy, how could you not hate Bush?" they effectively energized someone who might have sat out the election because of Bush's deficit spending or other failings.

If you look at the actual returns state by state (especially county by county when compared to 2000) it becomes pretty clear. Kerry didn't do bad really. He got 5 MILLION more votes than Gore did.  It's just that Bush got 8 million more votes than he did last time. And most of those votes were from "average Americans" in rural or suburban areas.

In short, millions of Americans voted for Bush not because they were "fearful" of terror (the exit polls demonstrate that). No, they voted for Bush because they saw the smug contempt that Kerry's pretentious supporters have for the values and beliefs that they have. And they did something about it - they came out and voted.

I'm not the only one who thinks people like Michael Moore cost the Democrats dearly...

Controlling land is meaningless but it is still telling the way non city voters tend to vote.

Courtesy of USA Today

In early October using tweaked issues that will be further adjusted in v1.1 coming out later, The Political Machine correctly predicted 47 of the 50 states in this year's election. No polling of candidates. All based on its issue model.

So why didn't it get all 50? The Political Machine's turn out model can't predict the actual turn out. It is based on historical norms. In this election, Republican turn-out was significantly higher than in any previously recorded election resulting in Bush victories in Ohio, Iowa, and New Mexico -- by narrow margins but still enough.

The professional polsters, by contrast were wrong by much more significant amounts in general despite having vast tracking polls and daily access to data we do not have. 

The question one may ask is - will politicians in the future start making use of artificial intelligence, found in a primitive form in games like The Political Machine to determine where candidates should go and what issues they should speak on, and how much money to spend on advertising in that state.

When The Political Machine was being developed, political operatives like Hollywood Friend, Smear Merchants, and Intimidators and the like were thought to potentially be "unrealistic".  And yet, as the election has shown, they seemed to be much more in-line with what the world saw. With hollywood celebrities doing special concerts, Swift Boat ads, and cries of voter intimdiation, even these units have their place.

The Political Machine will be updated in v1.1 so that it's not as specific to this election so that we can ensure that it remains fun long after the election is over.  Meanwhile, players on both sides can crank up the difficulty level to the higher levels and see if they could have done a better job than Bush and Kerry at winning the election.

So what we can learn from the exit polls? Well we can learn that there is a big difference between the typical Kerry supporter and the typical Bush supporter. It is the stark difference between the two that makes the nation so polarized.

Consider these exit poll results:

VOTE BY INCOME	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Less Than $50,000 (45%)	44%	55%
$50,000 or More (55%)	56%	43%

No surprise there.  Middle class and above people supported Bush overwhelmingly.  Those who pay little or no federal income taxes supported Kerry overwhelmingly.

ARE YOU A UNION MEMBER?	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Yes (14%)	38%	61%
No (86%)	54%	45%

What about union people? Those who didn't belong to a union supported Bush very strongly. Something to bear in mind next time one wants to paint Bush supporters as "Sheep" or "brain washed". Unions are, IMO, just as guilty as religious organizations into feeding propaganda to their members.

VOTE BY EDUCATION	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
No High School (4%)	49%	50%
H.S. Graduate (22%)	52%	47%
Some College (32%)	54%	46%
College Graduate (26%)	52%	46%
Postgrad Study (16%)	44%	55%

This is a stat I tend to like to bring up when I'm in a debate. Bush leads with those who graduate highschool and go to college. But Democrats tend to have their base amongst those who didn't graduate from high school and those who live in Academia.

VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
More Than Weekly (16%)	64%	35%
Weekly (26%)	58%	41%
Monthly (14%)	50%	49%
A Few Times a Year (28%)	45%	54%
Never (15%)	36%	62%

This is where the Democrats can charge, correctly that the more religious you are, the more likely you are to vote for Bush. And it's true. 42% of Americans go to church once or more per week.

HAVE YOU EVER SERVED IN THE MILITARY?	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Yes (18%)	57%	41%
No (82%)	49%	50%

This should settle this issue once and for all. We had some people on our site trying to say that you should vote for Kerry to "support our troops".  People who have ever served in the military very much supported Bush over Kerry and actually lost amongst those who have never served. I think that says a lot.

ARE YOU MARRIED?	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Yes (63%)	57%	42%
No (37%)	40%	58%

Another key difference.  Basically, married people vote for Republicans. Single people vote for Democrats. And if you have children, the gap actually gets bigger. People who have children at all tend to vote Republican and people without children tend to vote for Democrats.

ARE YOU GAY, LESBIAN OR BISEXUAL?	BUSH			KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2000	2004
Yes (4%)	23%	-2	77%
No (96%)	53%	+3	46%

Bush lost support amongst gays not surprisingly. I like this stat because I've seen many gay activists try to claim that one out of 10 people are gay. In reality, it's more like 1 out out of 30.

GUN OWNER IN HOUSEHOLD?	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Yes (41%)	63%	36%
No (59%)	43%	57%

People with guns really liked Bush. People without them really liked Kerry.

MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Taxes (5%)	57%	43%
Education (4%)	26%	73%
Iraq (15%)	26%	73%
Terrorism (19%)	86%	14%
Economy/Jobs (20%)	18%	80%
Moral Values (22%)	80%	18%
Health Care (8%)	23%	77%

Look at the moral values issue. Bush's strategy hinged on getting evangelical Christians out to vote. And it seems it worked. This strategy allowed Bush to win in Ohio and therefore the country.

Terrorism came in 3rd!

MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Cares About People (9%)	24%	75%
Religious Faith (8%)	91%	8%
Honest/Trustworthy (11%)	70%	29%
Strong Leader (17%)	87%	12%
Intelligent (7%)	9%	91%
Will Bring Change (24%)	5%	95%
Clear Stand on Issue (17%)	79%	20%

Those who care about intelligence as a factor in Presidents like Kerry. They were canceled out by those who want a religious man as President. The warm fuzzy people (cares) voted for Kerry. Those who like candid clear stands canceled them out. Those who care about honesty and strength in leadership voted for Bush. They were nearly canceled out by those who want change.

DECISION TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ	BUSH			KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2000	2004
Strongly Approve (29%)	94%	n/a	6%
Somewhat Approve (23%)	75%	n/a	24%
Somewhat Disapprove (15%)	25%	n/a	73%
Strongly Disapprove (31%)	5%	n/a	94%

And to fairly definitively answer this question, 52% of Americans support going into Iraq compared to only 46% who disapprove of going into Iraq. That's well outside the margin of error (in an exit poll that was already tilted a bit incorrectly in Kerry's favor based on the actual results). So yes, most Americans are glad we went into Iraq even though most people think things are going poorly.

VOTE IF ONLY BUSH AND KERRY WERE RUNNING	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Kerry (47%)	1%	98%
Bush (51%)	98%	2%
Would Not Have Voted (1%)	29%	38%

BTW, this is the line that should have told people that something was wrong with the exit polls. At the start of the exit polls, if you multiply the % of women times the % of support and the same for men, you came out with a 52% 48% advantage for Kerry.  And yet here you have a fairly good prediction of the actual vote here.

ABORTION SHOULD BE...	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Always Legal (21%)	25%	73%
Mostly Legal (34%)	38%	61%
Mostly Illegal (26%)	73%	26%
Always Illegal (16%)	77%	22%

Here's another key survey.  55% of Americans think abortion should either be mostly legal or mostly illegal. For those who think abortion should always be legal no matter what, Kerry has a huge margin. On mostly legal it tightens up a bit.  But look at the pro-lifer side. Very solid for Bush.

POLICY TOWARD SAME-SEX COUPLES	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Legally Marry (25%)	22%	77%
Civil Unions (35%)	52%	47%
No Legal Recognition (37%)	70%	29%

On those who believe that gays should be allowed to have civil unions, Bush won.  But those who think they should get to marry overwhelmingly support Kerry.

This is an interesting thing since the bulk of Kerry's base aren't married themselves. This is one of those "value" issues that get Republicans steamed. People who actually are married tend to be Republicans and they tend to want to keep marriage between men and women.  Kerry's most vocal base believe gays should get to be married but hey, they're not married themselves.

It falls into line with many other things that make Bush supporters suspicious of Kerry supporters. Kerry supporters, as we've seen, tend to pay a lot less in taxes, but hey, they want all kinds of government programs. Why should they care? They don't have to foot the bill.

And so we see the same pattern here. Kerry voters overwhelmingly support same sex marriage, why should they care? They're not married themselves so what's the big deal about marriage in the first place?

I fall in the civil union camp myself.  And those who believe gays should be able to have civil unions tended to support Bush. But look at the no legal recognition -- 37%. That's the biggest chunk and it was overwhelmingly for Bush just as the other side was for Kerry.

OSAMA BIN LADEN VIDEOTAPE	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Important (56%)	50%	50%
Not Important (44%)	56%	43%

The Osama tape turned out to not help Bush after all.

GOVERNMENT DO MORE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS?	BUSH		KERRY
TOTAL	2004	2004
Yes (46%)	33%	66%
No (49%)	70%	29%

Another suspicion of conservatives conformed. Those who think the government can solve the world's problems tend to overwhelmingly support Kerry while those who don't think that vote for Bush.

This goes back to a discussion we had last week. Some people tried to argue that the south is full of racists and they support Bush and therefore Republicans are racist. But that's really a fairly lame analysis. 

Basically the south and west of the United States is a rural or at most suburban culture. They go for Republicans. The North East and the West coast tend to be more urban and so they tend to go for Democrats. Racism is not the issue. It's a cultural values issue that isn't related to race.

Okay, for those people who want to talk about the latest US Presidential returns, please don't do it here. This is a customization website, not a politics site.

To talk about politics on a fairly neutral site (relative to any site you're going to find on the net that's reasonably popular) go to JoeUser.com.

Famed icon designer, Paul Boyer, who created the Orion icons suite 2 years ago has been hard at work at creating follow-up to it that would live up the to high expectations his work always generates.

We think he's succeeded with the Utopia icons suite. When applied, it changes over ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY of your Windows icons. And it comes in 4 different colors as well.

It's only $9.95 (just a bit over a penny per icon). It's well worth it and looks fantastic on your desktop. We'll be highlighting screenshots that make use of these icons in the coming days.