Mystery Pollster analyzes the official report of the Election Night exit-poll debacle; Mickey Kaus summarizes his conclusions thusly:

Mystery Pollster’s analysis of the offical Mitofsky exit poll screw-up report confirms that, as suspected, the problem was not bloggers, and not some esoteric technical bias it takes an advanced degree to figure out. The problem is that Mitofsky [the exit polling organization] had built a cheesy, dime-store organization that relied crucially on poorly-trained young people at the bottom. … [T]here was a lot less going on behind the curtain than Mitofsky’s arrogant professionalism would lead you to expect.

And yes, I’m quoting a summary of the analysis of the report because I’m far too lazy to read the primary or even the secondary source material. :)

UPDATE: Okay, okay, I’m reading Mystery Pollster’s actual post now. This is particularly interesting:

The problem was not in the selection of the sample precincts — it was that the data in the chosen precincts was not representative of the actual voting at those precincts. … The authors…found higher rates of “within precinct error” favoring Kerry in precincts with the following characteristics:

* An interviewer age 35 or lower
* An interviewer with a graduate degree
* A larger number of voters, where a smaller proportion were selected
* An interviewer with less experience
* An interviewer who had been hired a week or less prior to the election
* An interviewer who said they had been trained “somewhat or not very well.”
* In cities and suburbs
* In swing states
* Where Bush ran stronger
* Interviewers had to stand far from the exits
* Interviewers could not approach every voter
* Polling place officials were not cooperative
* Voters were not cooperative
* Poll-watchers or lawyers interfered with interviewing
* Weather affected interviewing

…Unfortunately, none of the characteristics above, by itself, “proves” the Kerry supporters were more likely than Bush supporters to participate in the poll. However, it is not hard to see the underlying attitudes and behaviors at work might create and exacerbate the within-precinct bias.

Consider age, for example. What assumptions might a voter make about a college student approaching with a clipboard? Would it be crazy to assume that student was a Kerry supporter? If you were a Bush voter already suspicious of the media, might the appearance of such an interviewer make you just a bit more likely to say no, or to walk briskly in the other direction? Would it be easier to avoid that interviewer if they were standing farther away? What if the interviewer were forced to stand 100 feet away, among a group of electioneering Democrats - would the Bush voter be more likely to avoid the whole group?

Sounds pretty damn plausible to me.

P.S. More here, including a mention of similar problems in past elections, and a quote that could be applied to many, many things in life:

So many who are considering the exit poll problem yearn for simple, tidy answers that can be easily proved or dismissed: It was fraud! It was incompetence! Someone is lying! Unfortunately, this is one of those problems for which simple answers are elusive.

Congratulations to Alex’s girlfriend, who has been accepted to Harvard Law School!

(Title reference explained.)

The FBI announced today that there never was a Boston dirty-bomb threat; the alleged plot was concocted by a vengeful immigrant smuggler to get back at people who didn’t pay him.

It could just be me, and if it is. I’ll accept that. But do these two sites leave anyone else asking why?

The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences has a web site. No surprise, and it is nothing to write home about; but it is not bad.

Now, there is another official Academy site specifically for the 77th Academy Awards.

Now, is it just me, or is the new site significantly uglier and more annoying than the original site–in its own special way? You know, one of those just because you can does not mean you should sort of things? And this seriously just sort of leaves me shaking my head…

I don’t know, comments?

Ted Turner compares Fox News to Hitler; a Fox spokeperson replies, “Ted is understandably bitter, having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind. We wish him well.” LOL!

The AP reports:

The 1.4 million residents of Phoenix were warned Tuesday to boil their water until further notice, and also to limit what water they did use.

City officials said there was a turbidity problem, with muddy water from recent storms flowing into one of the city’s two operating water treatment plants, reducing the output of that plant. …

Ken Kroski, a spokesman for the Phoenix Water Services Department, said turbidity has no health effects. However, it could interfere with water disinfection, provide a medium for bacterial growth, and indicate a presence of disease-causing organisms, he said.

Besides boiling water for drinking, residents were told to take short showers and shut off landscape watering.

The Oscar nominations came out this morning, and Fahrenheit 9/11 got exactly the amount of recognition it deserves: none.

I guess I can stop worrying about whether or not we’re downwind of the Fermi nuclear plant:

Detroit Edison officials confirmed this evening that a water leak which shut down the Fermi 2 nuclear plant Monday afternoon came from a non-radioactive cooling system, and said there was no release of radioactive water at the plant. The leak was stopped at 8:54 p.m. Monday.

Plant operators shut down the Fermi 2 reactor about 4:20 p.m. Monday after discovering that cooling water was leaking into the containment structure — a steel and concrete structure that surrounds the steel reactor vessel. Plant personnel were able to pinpoint the source of the leak to non-radioactive water in a support cooling water system.

While there was never any indication of a radioactive release, the plant was shut down as a precautionary measure. Reactor coolant water was maintained at normal levels and plant safety systems functioned normally at all times.

Phew.

I’m not sure which is more disturbing: the awful, horrible, utterly distasteful tsunami song… or the fact that an elected official believes the FCC should fine people for things like this.

Alas, freedom of speech includes — it must include — freedom to be horribly offensive.

I’m watching Jay Leno’s tribute to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.

You know what would be great? If Letterman appeared on Leno’s show — check that, appeared on Carson’s old show — to pay tribute to his idol. Dave doesn’t have a show tonight, so why not?

Drudge reports: “Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Michigan is shut down… ‘We have a leak of reactor coolant into the containment structure… leak rate was about 75 gallons a minute but is reducing,’ John Austerberry, spokesman… ‘there is no indication of a radioactive release’…”

UPDATE: WXYZ Detroit reports:

State and county safety officials were called to the Fermi II nuclear plant in Monroe early Monday evening to investigate a coolant leak situation.

Michigan, Wayne and Monroe County authorities responded to what they called a “situation” within the plant around 6:00 p.m.

Minutes later, DTE officials confirmed that there were indications that there had been a leak of reactor coolant into the containment area. There were no evacuations at the plant, and there were no signs of any release of radiation.

UPDATE 2: The plant is located on Lake Erie in Newport, MI, 28 miles south-southwest of downtown Detroit as the crow flies, and 139 miles east-northeast of South Bend:

Currently in Newport, the wind is blowing out of the west at 4 mph.

UPDATE 3: The AP reports:

Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DTE Energy, which operates the plant, said the Monroe County plant was not evacuated and the leak posed no danger to the health or safety of plant workers or the public.

Viktoria Mitlyng, public affairs officer for the NRC in Chicago, said the plant was shut down without complications and nonessential workers were allowed to leave for the day.

WTOL Toledo adds:

The leak happened around 5:00 Monday afternoon in the containment building that houses the nuclear reactor. …

The NRC says the coolant was leaking at a rate of 50 to 75 gallons per minute. Exactly how much coolant was lost is not known.

The NRC has issued an “Alert” for the plant. All nuclear plants use four emergency classifications to describe problems, and “alert” is the second level of severity, meaning there could be some damage, but little or no radioactivity would be released.

Latest news here.

As you may have noticed, performance on BrendanLoy.com has been spotty today, and there was a complete website outage between approximately 3:15 and 4:00 PM. Turns out, it wasn’t just us — our host, TotalChoiceHosting, is under attack form a “new variant of the sanity worm…causing havoc on our servers.”

I have no idea if the problem is solved for good, or if the site will continue to have issues.

UPDATE: TCH now says, “We have implemented a block using mod_security to block the sanity worm. So far, the block has worked and servers are now back to normal.”

Inspired by the Public Interest Law Forum (PILF), which raises money to sponsor students with unpaid summer jobs in public-interest fields, I’ve decided to start a new student group that will sponsor students who work specifically in the “Michiana” region. It will be known as the Michigan & Indiana Law Forum… MILF.

:)

I think I’ve already found our first speaker…

Anti-abortion activists are protesting Roe v. Wade — whose 32nd anniversary was Saturday — with a “March for Life” in Washington, D.C. today. Patrick is participating.

From the Boston Globe and the Hartford Courant, respectively: