REPLY: Why (Score 1)

I TOO live in Oklahoma. Yeah, Oklahoma is trying like mad to become a progressive state, but in a sloppy, ill-conceived way. Teaming up with a convicted monopolist like Microsoft proves your point exactly about Oklahoma "being unimportant, stuck in the past, backwoods, you name it." Hell, as you should know, Oklahoma is a state that revers "Larry The Cable Guy" as a cultural ICON and had a higher percentage of voters voting for George Bush as President in 2004 than any OTHER state, INCLUDING his home state of TEXAS! I'm a transplanted Oklahoma, from a truly progressive state; I'm only here because my company moved me here with the carrot of a big fat promotion as CIO, and I will be retiring in a few years with a nice pension and moving back to my truly progressive home state of Oregon (state that is), which, thankfully for my sanity, I kept my old residence to which I visit on frequent working and non-working "vacations." As far as luring high tech in the form of DELL, that was a complete joke. Dell opened a low-tech call center with low-paying, primarily Tier-1 help desk-type jobs, paying little more than minimum wage with poor benefits for most employees. Their turn-over is astronomical according to some of my contacts. This call center was essentially moved from India when US-based customers complained about poor service, etc. Dell's call center was FINANCED in large part by overly generous tax incentives; the tax payer got screwed with higher taxes and jobs paying little more than flipping hamburgers at McDonalds. AOL also has a similar setup here in Oklahoma with another "sweatshop-type" helpdesk paying slightly better than Dell. We get numerous resumes from the poor folks at both these organizations and have come to discover the piss-poor conditions at both the AOL and Dell operations here in Oklahoma. As far as Oklahoma regulating medicines, this is a really SAD situation. Now that Oklahoma has been so progressive as to "regulate medicines that were being use to make methamphetamines", it is VERY DIFFICULT to purchase normal over the-counter medicines, like decogestants, like Claratin-D 24, etc., for allergy use, cold relief, etc, for the average, honest, law-abiding consumer. Case in POINT: my wife and I returned to Oklahoma late one night from a business trip to California. We went to a 24-hour Walmart to buy some over-the-counter allergy relief medicine, but could NOT do so: The pharmacy had closed at 9:00PM and the medicine had to be purchased from them after they checked your ID and their database, etc.!!!! Same case at EVERY OTHER 24-hour store that used to sell these medicines over-the-counter, pharmacy! She just suffered until we went to the store the next morning! Thanks, Oklahoma Legislature!! ALL that Oklahoma accomplished with this drug legislation is that law-abiding citizens like my wife GET SCREWED when they need medicine late at night!!! Metlabs are still rampanent, and there's no sign of them slowing down! I for one will be EXTREMELY happy when I leave this backwater, redneck state for good in a couple of years when I retire. Cappy