Day: November 5, 2004

Anybody notice that CNN is giving Nader sympathy percentage point in their final tally of results?
The exact stats are:

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Bush	59,459,765	51.34%
Kerry	55,949,407	48.31%
Nader	400,706	0.35%

But CNN presents them rounded as:

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Bush	59,459,765	51%
Kerry	55,949,407	48%
Nader	400,706	1%

If Nader’s 0.35% rounds to 1%, why doesn’t Bush’s 51.34% round to 52%? Did somebody make .345 the mathematically accepted cutoff point for rounding-up while I wasn’t paying attention?
PS: Yes, I know this isn’t a big deal. I’m taking it easy this week. But a bear has to stay in practice…

There is a lot of self-examination and venting going on over on the left side of the blogosphere, and many of my right-leaning colleagues are a fine job of keeping an eye on it.
Me, not so much. I’m pretty much writing off anything written or said by lefties for the next few weeks.
Remember Jane’s Law:
Jane’s Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.
To which I think a corrollary is appropriate: “…doubly so in the weeks immediately following an election.”
Leave the poor lefties alone for a while. They’ll sort themselves out in a month or so, and then the serious discussions — and battles — will begin again…

Have you checked out the Daily News yet?
There are enhancements to it coming, but the core functionality seems to be humming along quite nicely. Feedback/comments are welcome…

Captain Ed has of the post-mortem on Election Day exit polls:
In other words, despite the rantings of conspiracy theorists on both sides, what we have here is another episode of incompetence in a process that never should be used for predictions on Election Day anyway. Perhaps the media will learn that lesson for 2006, but incompetence stretches far beyond the pollsters, and I doubt that the decisionmakers at the consortium are immune from its influence.
Update: Eugene Volokh has more.