Ethnohistoric accounts indicate that the people of Australia's Channel Country engaged in activities rarely recorded elsewhere on the continent, including food storage, aquaculture and possible cultivation, yet there has been little archaeological fieldwork to verify these accounts. Here, the authors report on a collaborative research project initiated by the Mithaka people addressing this lack of archaeological investigation. The results show that Mithaka Country has a substantial and diverse archaeological record, including numerous large stone quarries, multiple ritual structures and substantial dwellings. Our archaeological research revealed unknown aspects, such as the scale of Mithaka quarrying, which could stimulate re-evaluation of Aboriginal socio-economic systems in parts of ancient Australia.

Given his insistence on the dual temporal and spiritual spheres in which Christians live in the tension of freedom and service to others, Martin Luther's theological ethics prove paradoxical. This conundrum unfolds at the intersection of Luther's doctrine of justification and consequent Christian freedom (1520), and his doctrine of two kingdoms, which elucidates the complex world in which we live (1523). How is one to live in service to the neighbor as an unconditional subject, love enemies, and uphold justice? This article explores the New Finnish School interpretation of Luther's doctrine of justification as theosis in order to elucidate the Reformer's convoluted ethics. We may ultimately understand Luther's tensive position in terms of the believer's soul united to Christ, thereby becoming a Christ to others albeit, simul justus et peccator, imperfectly. This more fully accounts for Luther's appreciation for the ethical contingencies faced by Christians in everyday life.

In November 2000, exit poll interviews with voters in Florida indicated that Al Gore won the state. As a result, many television networks declared Gore the winner of Florida, a pivotal state to winning the presidency in 2000. Only a few hours later, the first vote tallies from the Florida Secretary of State's office revealed that George W. Bush was in fact leading in Florida. After 45 days of recounts and lawsuits, it was clear that the exit polls were wrong; Bush had won the state by the narrowest of margins. As a result of the flawed exit poll the media and pollsters scoured and reanalyzed the methodology used in 2000 to prepare and correct for the 2004 presidential election. The old system, Voter News Service (VNS) was scrapped entirely, and Edison-Mitofsky Research was chosen to implement a new and more accurate national exit poll in 2004 by a consortium of news organizations retained by the Associated Press called the National Election Pool (NEP). What happened? Exit poll results from Edison-Mitofsky showed John Kerry ahead in Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico—all states which he lost to Bush in 2004.Author names are listed alphabetically. The co-authors were also the co-principal investigators of the Loyola Marymount University 2005 Los Angeles Mayoral Exit Poll. Thanks to Salvador Paniagua and Haven Perez for their tremendous research assistance in implementing this project and to the more than 120 student researchers who participated in the exit polling and data entry. Robert Aguinaga and Antonio Gonzalez of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project also provided valuable assistance in implementing the poll. Mark Blumenthal, of mysterypollster.com was instrumental in tracking down exit poll archives.

We inquire whether residence in majority–minority districts raises or lowers turnout among Latinos. We argue that the logic suggesting that majority–minority districts suppress turnout is flawed and hypothesize that the net effect is empowering. Further, we suggest that residing in multiple overlapping majority–minority districts—for state assemblies, senates, and the U.S. House—further enhances turnout. We test our hypotheses using individual-level turnout data for voters in five Southern California counties. Examining three general elections from 1996 to 2000, we demonstrate that residing in a majority-Latino district ultimately has a positive effect on the propensity of Latino voters to turn out, an effect that increases with the number of Latino districts in which the voter resides and is consistent across the individual offices in which a voter might be descriptively represented. In contrast, the probability that non-Hispanic voters turn out decreases as they are subject to increasing layers of majority-Latino districting.

Divided government provides ambiguous and conflicting information about which branch of government to hold accountable for government performance. The implication for presidents, who are easy targets of blame, is that they are less likely to be held accountable for government's failures during periods of divided government because the public has a plausible alternative for affixing responsibility: the U.S. Congress. Because presidents are punished more heavily for negative outcomes than they are rewarded for favorable ones, we argue that a divided government context has the effect of increasing presidential approval relative to periods of unified government. At the individual level, using data from the 1972–1994 National Election Studies we show that divided government increases the probability that respondents approve of a president's job performance. This effect is even stronger among citizens who are knowledgeable about control of government. Examining approval at the aggregate level from 1949 to 1996, we find further evidence that divided government boosts presidential approval ratings.