Is it just me?

Perhaps more people ask more travel questions during the winter as they travel more at that time.

Gee, Janice, looks like you work for Arthur Anderson!! Hehehe

Actually, the whole country in is the doldrums right now. this is usually called the election hangover.

Up until yesterday the senatorial race for Santiago was not defined-shades of "chads" but the Central Electoral Committee had decided that the official candidate won....just like Dubya, with a minority of votes overall..

Tourism is kinda weak right now, but it appears that the English are flying. According to Andy this is the "English Season"

Apparently, we have solved most of the major problems of the DR-on paper for sure-so perhaps you can pose something for us "know-it-alls" to ponder and resolve??

HB

It's normal...

99% of message boards swing up and down. They are just like the weather.

Janice

It is true. Most people in the *Open* forum are interested in the banal subjects or gossipy items. Many of us have tried to inject serious subjects here and there with little and sometimes no responses. The other forums in DR1 have more of this *serious* activity.

For instance, has anybody taken the time to analyze the recent electoral fraud in the Dominican Republic?

Here are a few questions that have not been answered by the electoral board and international watchers>

1/ How is it possible that the PRD party which got less than 50% of the votes got 29 senators out of a possible 31, while the other two parties combined got over 55% of the vote for only two senators?

2/ How is it possible that in most local electoral boards many PRD senatorial candidates got more votes than their mayoralty candidate counterparts when two ballots were handed to every voter and voters were practicly forced to cast both ballots. The differences were large in most cases and ballots voided did not account for the difference.

3/ Why was the voting count in Santiago and Santo Domingo delayed for days when both were the first to report and complete their tallies?

Here are also some interesting findings>

While the PRD party claimed a huge political victory by winning most individual races, the combined votes of the PLD and PRSC party exceed by far the PRD votes. The majority of the people still reject the chopo party and will continue to do so as long as the middle class continues to grow.

45% of the country's vote is in two cities, Santo Domingo and Santiago. The PLD party ran evenly with the PRD party in this area by itself. With a simple coalition with the PRSC party the PRD would not have gotten even 4 senators.

The PRSC party has only three options now. Balaguer has to abdicate and continue to have his party be a franchise of the PRD for the sake of patronage until his party finally dissappears/The Reformist party was all but a rubber stamp for the PRD\ or try to go on its own and risk again coming last/ a sure thing/ during the presidential election and face eventual doom of the party, or do the smart thing and merge with the PLD, negotiate a future long term alliance to return to power.

When and if the PRD absorbs the PRSC, it will be a paper deal. Reformists are mostly middle and upper class people who will not vote for the PRD anyway. If the Reformist party dissappears, its followers will in its majority end up in the PLD.

Only Hipolito Mejia as a candidate again can put together enough strength to fight back Leonel Fernandez candidacy. Once this guy Leonel gets on the road to campaign, hardly anyone else can match him on the campaign trail. The PRD has two years more in government and there are more chances to blow it now than to get more voters. The PRD has no excuses now with control of every facet of the government. Chances are electricity will only worsen, garbage will continue to pile up, prices will inch up higher and higher and corruption will double with more loans being approved.

Hipolito faces no honeymoon from the voters.

TW

Re: Janice

golo said:

1/ How is it possible that the PRD party which got less than 50% of the votes got 29 senators out of a possible 31, while the other two parties combined got over 55% of the vote for only two senators?TW

Click to expand...

Well lets see. If party #1 gets 40 votes out of a hundred and party #2 gets 33 out of a hundred, how many votes are left for party #3?

Yup you got it. 27. So the one with 40% wins.

If you want to unseat the ruling party you have to NOT divide the people that vote against them in order to win. Ross Perot did it for Clinton and Nader did it for Bush.

Just in the Math Golo.

Hillbilly...

Janice, here is a subject of utmost importance at least to me and HB:
Yesterday at a party at my friends house in San Francisco I open my
$11.0 cigar (Romeo y Julietta) made in the DR and some kind of worm
had bored thru and disintegrated the whole thing on the inside.

I'm sure he died of lung cancer but my cigar was ruined.

But another friend saved the day for me, by giving me a real R y J made
in Havanna Cuba !!

HB have you ever seen a thing like that??

If one would peruse the previous threads

and the archives it is obvious that many of us have at times tried to start a serious discussion of opinions in the open thread. However the threads soon become "comedy" clubs or "pi**ing" matches, or "name calling" or a myriad of other devices that degrade the thread into obscurity.
I have thought at times that the "open" thread is nothing more than an arena to "let off steam", or "oneupmanship" or the new Yuk Yuk's forum.
One soon subscribes to the adage "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"
Even threads in the other forums had a tendency to be hi-jacked and dissolve into one of the above.
I think it's a good thing to have the PM and chat rooms added to the board so this type of thing can now be taken to private messages or chat room chatter.
Perhaps this is why the "open" forum is no longer the "circus" that it was....

Janice: Not at all

I just hope you ask more questions and stir up the pot a bit.....The more the merrier....

HB

Janice,
Incisive comments. I was thinking just the same. Here are 2 threads that could cover almost all of what gets print on the Open Forum:

1. Men suck, but women suck too.
2. Let's chop the chopos and throw the carrion out to sea.

Followed closely by:

3. Top 10 reasons Dominicans are lazy and stupid
4. I am Freaking awesome, and I have the bank account to prove it.

mondongo

Right on Mon!!

Exactly what occurred to me!
So why not "stir up the pot" as HB says and see if it is possible to have a meaningful dialogue in the open forum. Heaven knows I tried when I first started posting here and got no where!!!

Chatty know-it-all reporting for duty!

It's nice to know my 2 week absence was felt.

But seriously, I'm having a hard time getting into these topics also. I'm trying, but I'm at a loss for verbiage.

Welcome back Jane J........

now how about a nice report in the "trip" section?

Of course it exists and means just that

Also Verbalism: a lot of words to say little..

HB

To Hillbilly

I would refer to you as a "Cunning Linguist"