Brainwaves.

This is probably a mistake.
I can't sleep, and I have so much I want to do today.  Four or five more hours would be perfect, but my mind is going and going, and I can't shut it off.
I worked last night (Saturday night), and then had to get up after only three and a half hours of sleep to go to a bellman's meeting (which I was late for and missed most of.)  When I came home the coffee was still doing its job, so I didn't go right back to bed.  Sitting in front of the computer, I decided that if I stayed up all day I could get up earlier tomorrow and have a lot more useful hours in my day.  But I was so tired, and while Gaby hung the Christmas lights and put up the tree, I was a slug and did hardly anything at all.  The house looks great, but my contribution was minimal.
My Mom called sometime during the evening and asked me if I was available for dinner tomorrow night, and I said yes.  I haven't had a date with Mom since Mother's day last year, so I'm looking forward to it.
After dinner I went to bed expecting/hoping to sleep eight hours or more, but I woke up after about four hours with a headache.  I got up and took some aspirin, but, while I was laying in bed waiting for it to kick in, my mind started going.  Normally, I use the big book of crossword puzzles next to the bed to make my mind shut off so I can sleep.  It's become my bedtime ritual, and it works really well.  But turning on the light would disturb Gaby, so not now.  So I'm thinking.
...is this because I mentioned that I have several financial obligations coming up at once?...
...the Supreme court is supposed to be deciding which cases they'll hear on the DOMA on the 30th...
...why is he calling himself a conservative when he's obviously a movement consevative...
...but there's no way Erector sets are going to be able to compete with birds and orchids...
...I keep checking, but so far he hasn't posted anything at all...
...I already found his; I just need to buy it, wrap it and stick it under the tree.  Hers I may need to order, but I want to shop around first...
...well, they haven't had a case so far, and every time it's gone to court they've called it unconstitutional...
...once in a while, I think about having a garage sale and just putting everything we own up for sale...
...it's not just the money; it's the time.  This is where being nocturnal sucks...
...truth is I just waste too much time...
...except for the books.  Getting rid of them would be hard...
...the painting is taking way too long.  There's something about the way I'm going about it that's not working...
...it would change everything.  He could get a job...
...I know I'm not out to his relatives, but I'm not sure about his friends, and now that he's on Facebook...
...the couple in this show were so much like us, but their attitudes toward each other were so different from ours.  But still, I could totally identify with the one with the job...
...I really don't see a difference between filtering an understanding of a national policy through a foreign culture is any different from filtering it through FOX...
...don't forget to call Greg...
...it'll be time to start new drawings for the spring shows in a month.  I think I should do a few small to medium sized ones...
...surfing turned out to be a metaphor for orchids...
...Fauxcahontis?  Is that a thing?..
...it's a fear of failure thing.  I've got it too...
...go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep...

Innumeracy

As a person who gets most of his news from writers who specialize in one subject, I can sometimes miss stories about other things that are going on in the world.  Fortunately, I have news junkie Facebook friends who can fill in some of the blanks.  Sometimes the stories seem interesting enough to merit further research, and sometimes the results of that research can be entertaining.  Like this one from one of my Fair and Balanced friends:



I clicked on the article in question and found that Republican candidate, and Tea Party Favorite, Allen West was wanting a recount of votes in St Lucie County, FL because 141% of the registered voters in the county had voted in the election.  In fact, all precincts in the county had extraordinary voter turnout; between 113% and 158.85%.  Massive voter fraud, right?  I decided to check it out.

    I found several articles that explained what was going on, but one from freerepublic.com put it in chart form.  There are 175,554 registered voters in St Lucie County.  Voting was done on a two card ballot.  Both cards were two sided giving voters the opportunity to vote for candidates for public office on card 1 and 11 Constitutional ballot initiatives on card 2.  So the ratio of ballot cards to voters was 2:1.  If every registered voter had come to vote, and had used both cards, the relative number of ballots cast would have been 200% of the number of registerd voters.

    But everybody did not show up to vote.  Out of 175,554 registered voters, only 124,031 voters actually showed up.  That's 70.7%.  At a ratio of 2:1, that leaves the possibility of 248,062 ballot card being cast.  But some voters (249 of them) did not use both cards, which resulted in only 247,713 ballot cards being cast, which was 141.1% of the number of registered voters.  Other little details left the final tally of votes cast at  123,591.

    As you can see, I wrote this all out in short form above, believeing that a clear presentation of facts and data should lead to a logical conclusion.  I was ignored.

    Now, I don't know if Watchdog Wire originated this conspiracy theory, but it's astonishing to me that they didn't check the numbers before publishing it.  It got even worse further down in the article when they wrote, "Does each ballot consist of two cards? If yes, then there would be two times the number of cards as votes cast or in the case of St. Lucie County 175,554 times 2 there would be an expected 351,108 cards (two page ballots) cast.  However, according to the SOE there were 247,713 or 141.10% of cards cast. A valid question is what happened to the other 58.9% of cards cast?"

 

     *facepalm*

Anyway, the news today is that Allen West got his recount, and his opponent, Patrick Murphy, gained 242 votes after the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections completed its re-tabulation, increasing his lead to more than 2,100 votes over West.

Not a word from my Fair and Balanced friends.