John Proffitt wrote: “The columns of content in the footer do not line up with the columns of content in the body of the page, indicating that the site is not built on a traditional graphic designer’s grid.”

The footer is universal, intended to live entirely outside the grid of the remainder of the site; it was built to work on both two- and three-column pages, of which the site has both. It’s rendered in reverse type precisely to denote its “otherness,” while the color scheme, typeface, link style, etc., are the same so it still fits in visually. But you’re right, the intent was to break the grid so we could fill the space with links. In my experience page footers often stand alone: e.g., see the footers on sites such as MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/), Yahoo! Food (http://food.yahoo.com/), etc.