One of our least transparent tools at www.rapidcityjournal.com is one of our most interactive: the daily poll.

Monday through Friday, we post anew a poll of the day, usually on a topic that has been prominent in the news or that we believe is about to be. In that way, we are not unlike any other newspaper around the country.

Our problem lies in that once a poll has expired, there is no easy way to call up the results of that poll. Well, actually there is, but only I and a few others know it. So, I'll share that with you now.

Results for today's poll, which is about how much people are giving at church, can be found at http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/?poll=463. The previous days poll can be found at http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/?poll=462. Tomorrow's poll will be found at http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/?poll=464. I believe you get the idea.

Now, as far as the accuracy of our polls, I say if your looking for entertainment purposes, rock on my brothers and sisters. But if you are looking for an accurate means of measuring public sentiment on any given issue, don't bother.

A good analogy is the Daily Show with John Stewart. It certainly addresses the issues of the day, and it might give the appearance of a fair account of what's going on there, but you best be careful.

Although the Journal poll may not give the complete picture on how people are angling, it certainly has shown at least what they're interested. I went back through our archives and pulled out the top five polls from the past year, and topically, it gives us a glimpse of what issues moved www.rapidcityjournal.com readers enough to vote.

5.Bird poop

Yeah, that's right, I said it. Our fifth most popular poll was from just the other day in which we asked readers that hard hitting question, "How should the city reduce the amount of bird droppings at Canyon Lake Park?"

The results were remarkable in a couple of ways. One, in that so many people responded, and two, that despite the big turnout, the top three answers were all within a percentage point of one another.

My choice, scare the birds away, received a whopping 4 percent.

4.It's the economy, stupid! And, er, maybe the war in Iraq

Our fourth most popular poll is one that politicians, economists, academics and a countles other very smart people have been asking themselves over the past couple of months: "What's the best way to get out of a recession."

The poll was spurred by the decision by Congress to offer rebates in the coming months to almost all Americans, but the answer may have said more about a completely different subject as "Get out of Iraq" was the runaway winner.

3.Which of these is not a sport?

One of the great moments about sports that isn't in an actual sports movie is the scene in "Big" where protagonist Josh Baskin (played by Tom Hanks) gets into a discussion with his arch-rival, the conniving Paul Davenport.

Paul, who has been getting beat by Josh in just about everything at work, takes him to an outdoor court to play handball. Josh accepts, but the discussion between the two is great.

Josh: "I'm not very good at sports, but I'll give it a try. My best sport is video hockey."

Paul: "That's not a sport."

Josh: "It takes hand-eye coordination."

Paul: "It's not a sport if you don't sweat."

Josh: "What about golf? You don't sweat. That's a sport."

Paul: "Yeah, You're not sitting there letting some machine do all the work."

Josh: "What about car racing?"

Paul: "Shut up, Baskin!"

We had a similar discussion one day during story conference in trying to determine where some stories, such as the annual Westminster dog show, should end up in the paper - in sports or national news.

Needless to say, don't be looking for any terriers on the sports agate page anytime soon.

2.Getting the goods on groceries

Apparently, people have very strong opinions on where they shop to get their groceries. We kind of already knew that simply by discussions among ourselves in the newsroom and by reader numbers to past stories about groceries in town, but this poll showed that people have strong opinions on whether your favorite grocery has an olive bar or not.

Or maybe it didn't. Like I said, it's hard to tell with these things.

1.The proper reaction to the moment you see a mountain lion is …

When we created this poll, we thought we might be at the apex of mountain lion stories for the year. Not only had rancher Martha Smith recently felled one of the big cats in her front yard, but there had been a sighting by a Rapid City Police officer of one of the cougars running through town.

We've learned since that everyday is a potential big day for news when it comes to big cats.

One thing to note about the winner of this poll, though, is that it shows that what people say they will do and what they will actually do are two completely different things.

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