Like many people, I read Nate Silver's 538 blog religiously.  I like to tilt my laptop screen to see whether or not Virginia is pale red or pale blue.  Likewise in Ohio, Nevada, and Colorado.  But quite frankly, why do it?  Why am I a slave to these polls when I know that when it comes right down to it, it doesn't mean a damn thing.  They're all flawed.  It all goes back to a basic principle of science experiments:  the simple act of performing the experiment has an effect on the results.  Similarly, with polls, the simple act of asking a question, no matter how neutral the intentions, has an effect on the person being asked, and thus an effect on the answer. 

Take this simple question:  "Will you vote for Barack Obama, John McCain, or another candidate?"  For a voter who made his or her choice long ago and won't be changing their mind, it's fair to say that their response is valid.  But for an undecided voter or someone with frequently changing allegiance, I believe that even something as innocuous as the order in which the options are presented may have an impact on the answer.

But hey, how would I know?  No one has called my cell phone....the only phone I have other than work, I might add....and asked me anything.  None of my cell-phone-only friends have been polled either.  Funny, isn't it, that in this day where a huge portion of younger voters don't have a land line, that their opinions aren't being taken into account.

And what is this "margin of error" business?  Is that pollster-lingo for "we don't know how else to make up for our obvious shortcomings?"  Maybe a margin of error of 4% suggests that 4% of those polled could be lying.  Or maybe it means that 4% of likely voters such as myself aren't even frickin' polled.

Don't even get me started on polls of polls.  It's like trying to measure how much stink is coming out of a pile of shit.

But alas, I'll wake up again tomorrow morning, and I'll check the latest numbers.  And so will you.  And Nate Silver's little map will continue to blink all shades of red and blue.  That's just the way it is....and I'm not even close to being smart enough to suggest an alternative.