Thanks for mentioning the Research Triangle Park area in NC. Our area, and the Charlotte metro area, are bright shiny blue spots in an otherwise red state. But give us natives some credit--it's not just relocated yankees that make our area blue. Granted, we tend to joke that Duke University is the University of New Jersey at Durham, and many people that come here for college do tend to stay for the great tech jobs and low cost of living (and we're glad to have them!) But most of the hardcore Democrats I know are educated locals, born and raised here.

I think it is probably pretty pointless for the Democrats to try and woo the rural South at this point. I know lots of rural Republicans, and they question my sanity and intelligence when they find out I'm not one of them. Plenty of those folks consider Fox News part of the liberal media, and have Republicanism so wrapped up in their Southern, Christian (and yes, sadly, White) identity they would never consider voting outside of their party. What I heard a lot this year from those folks was that yes, they were disgusted with the current crop of Republicans, but by and large, they were voting for them anyway. They didn't even consider the Democrats a choice. If they just couldn't stand voting for the Republican candidates on the ticket, they stayed home, rather than vote for a Democrat. That's how much they hate the Dems--it's a visceral response that I don't think any amount of God-Guns-n-Gays pandering will get rid of. But no matter. I'm glad the rest of the country seems to be waking up. I just hope the Dems don't run Hillary in '08--I'm afraid the South would rise again, and it'd be with pitchforks and torches! :)

Oh, you will be sorely missed! I've enjoyed your work at Salon for so long, you're a household name. My husband practically expects me to say "Today in Salon, Farhad wrote about X" at least a couple times a week. Reading your columns helped fend off the boredom through two jobs (and believe me, there were days where I hit Refresh on Machinist, over and over, saying "C'mon Farhad, help me out here...") Now that I'm a stay-at-home mom and out of the tech scene, I always stumble over to the laptop with my coffee after the early-morning baby routine to see if you have a new column, so I don't feel so out of the loop. Plus, I just renewed for two years, even though I didn't need to, so I could get your book. Oh well, I will miss reading you here at Salon, but I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much for the past six years!

And the TSA folks that shook me down last weekend only served to make my trip home even worse. After confiscating my one small bottle of purified water that I intended to use to make infant formula, they took me out of line and unpacked my diaper bag and gave me a stern lecture because I had attempted to conceal two jars of baby food. Evidently, Gerber's Chicken Noodle Dinner counts as a liquid, and as Stage 3 jars are more than 4 ounces, it was verboten. They might have allowed it, they said, but because I didn't have the sealed and shrinkwrapped jars in a clear 1-quart (not 1-gallon) plastic baggie, held out at arms length when I walked through the X-ray machine, I was obviously plotting something. Not wanting to "conceal" anything else, I asked if I could keep the emergency can of formula I had in the bottom of the bag. "Oh, a can is fine. That's powder." I pointed out, that actually, the can was ready-to-use formula for emergencies, like, in case I was without a bottle of water (which had already been confiscated before the X-ray machine.) They said, it's 8 ounces, you can't have it. Unbelievable. I was facing a cross-country flight with an already hungry and unhappy baby, and they were telling me I couldn't take any of his food or formula! Luckily, a kind young man who appeared to be in charge took pity on me and let me through with my contraband so that I could feed my son. I don't believe hassling a mom over her diaper bag for 20 minutes helped anyone feel safer, and the experience reduced me to tears. In contrast, my much smaller home airport didn't hassle me about any of the above items, recognizing that I was traveling with a BABY. The TSA regulations have gone too far, and the inconsistency between airports is beyond maddening.