local maxima

eugene volokh over at the volokh conspiracy tries to address an assertion that blogs tend to be right-of-center by looking at the data from truth laid bear traffic rankings. others have pointed out the fundamental flaw of that data (it only tracks blogs that uses sitemeter blogs). i think the question ignores the fact that an overwhelming number of blogs don’t discuss politics at all. just like an overwhelming number of people.

of the top 10 blogs in the technorati top 100, only a few regularly discuss politics. of the most watched at blo.gs, none of the top 10 regularly discuss politics.

something i notice more and more is how much people tend to overgeneralize their own day-to-day experiences and activities. geeks all assume that everyone reads /. (except the übergeeks, who assume that everyone else stopped reading it two years ago like they did). the warbloggers assume that everyone reads instapundit. people seem to forget that the vast majority of the world is not like them, does not speak the same language, and does not experience the same culture. whether that means they watch survivor while you’re watching friends or they’ve never seen a television set.