"Exit polling isn't the election, but Manjoo fails to counter Kennedy's observation that the Democrats surveyed were more likely to be reticent than the Republicans."

Baron, his observation is false; as I pointed out, he's misreading the data. Here's how I explained it on page 4 of my article -- it is a difficult concept to convey and I may not be doing it well, so I'd honestly like to know if you can tell me what about this explanation doesn't work for you.

...Mitofsky indeed shows that in precincts where Bush got 80 percent or more of the vote, an average of 56 percent of people who were approached volunteered to take part in the poll, while in precincts where Kerry got 80 percent or more of the vote, a lower average of 53 percent of people were willing to be surveyed. But these numbers don't reveal how Bush voters or Kerry voters behaved, they only show how all voters, taken together in average, responded in certain precincts. They are irrelevant to the question of whether fraud occurred.

As Mark Lindeman, a political scientist at Bard College, explained to me, the numbers Kennedy cites fit the theory that Kerry voters were more likely to respond to pollsters than Bush voters. For instance, in the Bush strongholds -- where the average completion rate was 56 percent -- it's possible that only 53 percent of those who voted for Bush were willing to be polled, while people who voted for Kerry participated at a higher 59 percent rate. Meanwhile, in the Kerry strongholds, where Mitofsky found a 53 percent average completion rate, it's possible that Bush voters participated 50 percent of the time, while Kerry voters were willing to be interviewed 56 percent of the time. In this scenario, the averages work out to the same ones Kennedy cited: a 56 percent average response rate in Bush strongholds, and a 53 percent average response rate in Kerry strongholds. But in both Bush strongholds and Kerry strongholds, Kerry voters would have been responding at a higher rate, skewing the poll toward Kerry.

You say, "Freeman's statistic is essential, because it shows whatever happened in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida was DELIBERATE and not due to chance. Your assertion that the deliberate mistake was in the polling does not mean you are right and Freeman's number is irrelevant. It means Freeman's number points to _something_, and other evidence will determine what that something is."

Right, Freeman's statistic points to *something* -- but everyone agrees it was *something*. Nobody is saying it was just chance. The argument is about which something it was: A polling error, or an error in the count? (And the number does not show that what happened was *deliberate* -- it shows that what happened was *systematic,* meaning essentially that it occurred in the same way in those three states.)

The straw man is Freeman's suggestion that the other side in the debate is insisting -- against his odds -- that the error was due to chance. But again, nobody in this debate is saying the error was random.

Right, fuzzynormal and jaster, you can watch shows as they're downloading on your computer on iTunes, but you can't do that on Apple TV. The show has to be downloaded fully to your machine, then it streams to your computer. This is what's unfortunate about Apple TV's not being able to connect to the iTunes store directly.

The face oils problem isn't something I'd thought of before, and I can't imagine how Apple's going to get around that one. I'll respond to the rest of these in the blog next week.

Also, one more thing: to the people who say they want "just a phone" -- that the bells and whistles actually kind of annoy you -- can you send me an e-mail at farhad@salon.com? I'd like to talk to you. Thanks.

AncientAssyrian asked:

So Farhad, I guess you won't mind...when you write your first book, and I borrow big chunks of it, post them to my website, and earn affiliate income if someone then clicks over to buy it?... And you won't mind when Google makes big chunks of your book available for people to read?

What you describe is not what Google is doing. As I pointed out in my post -- and Lessig said in his -- Google is only providing snippets (just a few sentences) of books under copyright to Web searchers. So you're setting up a red herring.

My first book will be released next year. Do I want Google to scan it? Yes. Why? Because I want it to come up in Web searches. Why? Because I want people to buy it!

Do I worry that Google will show people large chunks of my book? No. Why not? Because Google is only displaying snippets (which has been its plan, by the way, all along).

Does it bother me that that Google is selling advertising based on search terms found in my book? No. Why not? Because I don't see why that's my business -- any more than it's my business if the newspapers sold ads next to reviews of my book (which reviews would include far more text from my book than Google's snippets).

So, given this new information -- what would be your reason for not allowing Google to scan your books? Also, another question: Are all your books currently in print?