Date: Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 3:11 PM Subject: A "Domestic Draft": a Positive for the United States? Security: Public Location: Piscataway, NJ Mood: blah Music: "Love in a Void" (Siouxsie and the Banshees) Tags: domestic draft, emanuel, obama, tablitsa, test card

It may surprise many, but I am a fairly avid reader of alternative news sites like Guerrilla News Network and Info Wars because they do publish stories that are rarely found in the mainstream media. The stories are usually interesting and portray viewpoints that unfortunately do not make it onto Brian Williams' nightly telecast. For example, the sites seem to agree that Georgia is not this angelic little state in the Caucasus being bullied by big mean Russia.

Well, anyway, a story that has turned up on both of the sites that I mentioned, as well as many others, is that President-elect Obama and his probable chief of staff, Indiana Representative Rahm Emanuel, would like to implement a nationwide "goal" (but formerly a "require[ment]") that high school- and college-age students nationwide perform some kind of community service. Whether it will be compulsory or not remains to be seen, but evidently Emanuel called for a compulsory nationwide program in a book he wrote in the past few years. Some have compared the book's plan to a "domestic draft" in that it would be compulsory and it would involve three months of civil defense training, in addition to community service.

Would it be un-American to introduce this "domestic draft," or even a lesser plan of required community service for young adults? Yes and no. The concept of any sort of draft scares many Americans, myself included, because the government can essentially come and force you to drop everything and serve. Upon being drafted, the person would have to serve for only three months, and not in combat, but it still would come as an inconvenience to most, of not all. In addition, it undermines the idea of community service because, in general, service is voluntary (not counting service as punishment for a crime or as a requirement for a religious program). The quality of the service might go down, or it would make very little difference, especially when compared to that of willing volunteers who would continue to serve whether they had a requirement or not. Forced military training, even if only for civil defense, would probably rub many Americans the wrong way. Too many are pacifists and would not be willing to fire a gun at a member of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Arkansas. Further, the military draft was stopped in 1973, when the Vietnam War was drawing to a close. To resurrect that ghost might be suicidal for the next administration, as well as the government at large.

I would consider myself a Communist, but in a perfect world, I think that Communism should be voluntary. Soviet Communism was an evil because people were essentially enslaved for the good of the "people"--you know, those in the Kremlin. Maybe I'm just going through the pains of a citizen of a capitalist country adjusting to the system, but something does not seem right about it. Hopefully things will work out.

Oh, and remember Test Card F from last fall? Well, I found this the other day:



This was broadcast on Soviet state television in the 1980s. I think their coverage of Chernobyl consisted of this screen with a voice telling the people to go back to work and that nothing was wrong. This, of course, would have taken place only a year after the disaster. Anyway, it doesn't quite compare to Test Card F, but I like it.

Date: Monday, November 3rd, 2008 9:16 PM Subject: I need my own news network for this prediction Security: Public Location: Piscataway, NJ Mood: cheerful Music: "1921" (The Who) Tags: election, fivethirtyeight, map, mccain, nate silver, obama, prediction

I was thinking about posting a map of my electoral prediction anyway.  I have to now since I made this up for a betting pool that my cousin entered me into.  Here's the map:




This map gives a final score of 353 for Solid Like Barack and Joe (but not The Plumber or Sixpack) and 185 to My Friends and Drill, Baby, Drill.  Red is for Republican-carried states, and blue is for the Democratically-inclined states.

There are quite a few tossup states this year that could go either way, and there are states that show a margin for one candidate but that might go for the other.  It all depends on what happens tomorrow.  I don't have any confidence in my prediction for Montana, North Dakota, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri.  One former tossup state that I do think will go for Obama, however, is Virginia, and that in combination New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, and the states that John Kerry won in 2004 should give him the win.

If Obama wins but does not win Missouri, it will be only the second election since 1904 that the Missouri bellwether was not an accurate litmus test of national opinion.

Anything can happen, though.  We just have to wait and see.  I'll have to wait and see if I win anything in this pot, haha, but I imagine I won't.

Note: my thoughts on the map were very highly influenced by the numbers and analysis at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com.  It really is an amazing site for election geeks like me.  Kudos to Nate Silver.

I am curious as to how far off I will be from the actual returns.  I'll analyze them in some way soon.  Until then, twenty-one and a half hours to go until the first returns come in...

Date: Saturday, November 1st, 2008 1:31 AM Subject: twosixtynine Security: Public Location: Piscataway, NJ Music: "Airbag" (Radiohead) Tags: complacent, election, fivethirtyeight, liberals, mccain, obama

Sometime in August or September, I discovered the website fivethirtyeight.com, which compiles national and state polling data into a model that then predicts who will win each state and, ultimately, the presidency. I have checked that site at least five times a day since at latest Labor Day. The blog posts and comments of late have been really interesting.

Still, I feel like something isn't right. I think there might be something of an irrational exuberance on the boards there. The majority of that site's posters are liberal; the only conservatives that I have seen are those who are just angry and try to bait people into shouting matches. I guess that the fact that the site is frequented predominantly by liberals makes me uncomfortable because there's no equality of voices, and sometimes I think that the modeling numbers might be slanted somewhat to the left.

In any election, polling data counts for nothing in the end. Only the results on Election Day matter. In the closest states--Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana--anything can happen, really. Polls just cannot predict the outcome accurately. I think that liberals are in general becoming arrogant because it looks like Obama will win handily at this point; I still think that, but I don't know if the margin will be all that much. Liberals can't take comfort in any numbers yet. Maybe McCain will flip Pennsylvania between now and Tuesday. One can't be sure until it's all over on Tuesday night.