Post election rambling

Well we made it through another election.
Of course the dust will take a while to settle.
In more than a few cases, victory comes down to just a few votes.
49 to 51 percent is more often than not the final percentages.
Landslides do happen, especially when a candidate runs unopposed.

The percentages always make me wonder.
I am not a math guy, far from it.
I am at heart a skeptic.
Percentages are often presented as news without context.
So candidate X won with 51 percent of the vote.
The average person sees that bit of information and assumes that 51 percent of the population made that choice.
Not so much.
These days a mid term election may have an average  40-45 percent of  eligible voters casting votes.
As much as 60 percent for a presidential election.
To be fair, some voting districts have very high turnouts and some have much lower.
For purposes of this exercise let's just work with 45 percent.
In that case, the winning candidate receives 51 percent of the 45 percent.
That is approximately 23 percent of the total potential, eligible votes.
In a landslide, potentially  45 - 60 percent of the eligible votes will be cast for the winner.
I guess the point is that even in the most favorable situation, barely 60 percent of eligible votes decide the election, in most perhaps no more than 25 percent decide.

Based on the victory a 'mandate' may be claimed.
I suppose these numbers have sustained the nation for a couple of hundred years, so what's the fuss.
We could do so much better.

These are a couple of references I looked at, after the fact.
I am pretty good ballpark wise for the mid-term years, a bit low for the Presidential years.
This from IDEA  ( International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance )
http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=US
The U.S. Election Administration report for 2010, Table 29  http://www.eac.goc
http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Documents/990-281_EAC_EAVS_508_revised.pdf

Chasing an honest page

It seems like more and more established web sites are relying upon Click bait stories.
Relying on Click Bait for what, you might ask.
I am guessing that many have been bought up by investors looking for established traffic to generate revenue.
Should I feel some sort of loss, when a source of information I have enjoyed/expected more from dries up?
The search for reasonable sources of information of a non-fiction sort is beginning to resemble the futility of a hamster wheel.
I realize that I am never the first to 'discover' a new site.
If I am lucky, I may be an early bookmarker. But I realize that I have been lead to the site by buzz of some kind.
As the buzz gets louder and stronger the it is only a matter of time before it too is absorbed and things change.
The search goes on, but more often than not the promising site is a dead end. A carefully contrived site that is on an accelerated depreciation schedule.
Gaming the system for quick returns and payout, then dump and run.

Keep looking and keep the shields up. There be pirates in these waters.

About time for some more filler.

So, with Amazon throwing their weight around  I find it even more difficult to want to shop there.
It is tough to pass up a loss leader with free shipping.
But they will remain the vendor of last resort.
In many ways Amazon is a lot like Wallmart, cheap and ubiquitous.
I would rather shop or deal with a local maker or merchant directly.