I didn’t notice before, apparently, but upon looking through NetNewsWire’s list of feeds I found out that Dallas has begun updating his weblog again. Nice.

Stick a fork in him, he’s done. Howard Dean is throwing in the towel for the Democratic nomination.

With any luck, we’ll learn a few things from this.

1 - Basing your entire campaign on being the “anti” candidate isn’t going to work. You can be anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-this and anti-that, but unless you spend a significant amount of time being for something you’re just going to alienate people. We all know you have a different position - what are you going to do if you get elected? From the day they’re handed the keys to the White House on, you’re not going to be able to use appeals to your predecessor’s incompetence to explain your in-action.

2 - Webloggers really need to get off their high horse. As great as it is that people can communicate unfiltered ideas to the rest of the world, in the end we’re all still just a bunch of people with various rants and biases. Yes, I’ll accept that the weblogging community had an unusual amount of pull within the Dean campaign, but that ended pretty quick once said candidate had to start appealing to the masses. It would have only gotten worse had Dean actually made it out of the primaries and had to explain himself to the Great Unwashed™ - the adoration of his weblogger cult alone just won’t cut it. In any case, I’m happy to see a significant portion of the weblogging community get a swift kick in the gonads, hopefully bringing them back to Earth.

3 - People are quick to blame the media for their downfall, but slow to credit the media for their undeserved rise. Case in point: The Dean Scream™. Was it unnecessary for the media to re-play that stupid rallying call over and over? Yes. Was it terribly important to the electoral process that we hear it? No. Did the media play a big role in inflating Dean during the months before the primaries? Yes! The candidate’s supporters have been emphasizing all but the last point.

4 - A corollary to #3: People will do anything to pass the buck. This includes Dean’s own campaign staff. I’ve heard various theories from these people about the cause of Dean’s deflation - when, in the end, it all came down to those who voted simply not liking the guy or finding anything of substance in his platform.

5 - Yeaaahhhrrrrggghhh!

Ah, yes, the sweet sound of silence - only 99 cents a track from the iTunes Music Store, courtesy of Apple.

As The Apple Turns, ones of my favorite Apple rumor sites, got the scoop first.

Before I spend my money, can anyone give a comparison of these tracks and let me know which I should spend my hard-earned money on?

One thing that always cracks me up is when I see people write in to our company and claim that if we don’t do <XYZ> to their satisfaction right then and there they will:

A) Close their account.
B) Close the accounts of the multiples of people they supposedly referred to us.

…in some extreme - and particularly laughable - cases, they throw in a threat to:

C) Contact a friend in the media and have them write a horrible article about us.

Let’s look at the logic of this, shall we? I’ll go in order:

A) If they leave us, odds are that it’s probably not a bad thing. After all this is the kind of annoying person who is never satisfied, and after you break your back trying to help them they refuse to acknowledge that you’re doing anything for them. All the while, all the extra time you spend helping them is taking away from the other 99.9% of your customers who are polite and are willing to work with you in a professional manner. No money is worth receiving baseless threats and being insulted, and usually people like that are bad for profits in the long run anyhow.

B) If someone refers you to a business - presumedly by telling you how great they are - and you sign up, are you going to dump your account with that business just because they supposedly had a bad experience? Maybe a few close friends would show that kind of blind loyalty, but in most cases people will either wonder why you even referred them to such a crappy business in the first place (affiliate program, perhaps?) or ask you to explain what is so bad. At that point, you’re either going to have to lie through your teeth and make up something or explain in full detail what happened which - more often than not - makes you look bad, not the company.

Finally, my favorite:

C) Very few of us have connections in the media. Media types travel in circles mostly comprised of similar media types, and odds are you’re not on the party invite. Furthermore - and most importantly - media people by and large are not complete idiots. If someone calls them up and complains that they’re getting their not getting their $9.95/month worth (or whatever), do you really think they’re going to waste precious print/screen real estate with a story about your experiences? Public Relations professionals have established contacts within media and still have trouble (and get paid big bucks for) getting interesting articles published - what makes you think your imaginary media friend/contact is going to give a damn if you come to them with a single complaint of dubious nature?

Don’t get me wrong - the above only applies to obnoxious people who are only venting themselves in a noxious way because that’s how they get their way, and not the average joe who has a legitimate gripe (or any of the truly bad companies out there that give the rest of us a bad name).

In my experience, 9 times out of 10 it’s the obnoxious jackass and not the nice guy with a good point who uses threats like the ones above to get leverage when they don’t get exactly what they want the way they want it. The sad fact is, judging from how to use it it’s clear that it often works for them.