wafflesatnoon.com

OK so I’ve been quite critical of the far right of the political spectrum, particularly the religious right. Just to be fair, I’m equally offended by the far left, and particularly many of the “elders” of the left, who have roots in the 1960’s young cultural movement… Hippies, flower children, beatniks, et al, were responsible for the explosion of teen sex and drug use in our country. But why don’t they own up to it? Here’s a rant I wrote back in 1999 that I still stand by today…

Many of the problems in America today can be traced back to the so-called peace movement of the 1960’s. The hippies of the 1960’s were a bunch of stoned whacked-out youth who happened to have some great music. And like to complain about “the establishment.”

The Woodstock concert is remembered as an event of historical significance. It was significant for the talent that played, not for the people who attended. There were half a million stoned hippies rolling around in the mud for a “greater cause.” But that cause for most people wasn’t the war - it was drugs and sex. If they were so peaceful, then why did they tear down the fence and barge in, forcing the promoters to lose so much money? I guess freedom at someone else’s expense was OK for them.

Look at the problems in our country. So many of them have roots in drug use, which goes back to the hippies who in many cases introduced or popularized them.

Then the hippies grew up and became parents. But instead of growing up, many became permissive and wanted to be “cool” parents. Their children grew up to mock authority, to take drug abuse lightly, and to devalue morals. And now these hippies are becoming grandparents, they see the problems their grandkids are facing, and now they say “it wasn’t like this when I was a kid.” It probably wasn’t, but they planted the seeds themselves.

But these hippies will insist that they came from a great era where peace and love ruled. They will find a way to blame Republicans or minorities or the schools - or anyone but themselves.

Vietnam was their cause, and a good one. It was a war that should have never been fought. But that war has nothing to do with drugs, permissiveness, and defiance.

Bottom line…
The hippies of the 1960’s have forever stained this country, and they don’t have the courage to admit it. Hippies were the first to ever use drugs or even bring them into this country, but they were on the front lines of the explosion in popularity which did not exist before that era.

What do you get when you cross a political science college minor with someone who has spent over a decade crunching numbers for sports handicappers… and apply that to this year’s electoral college in the general election for President?

5 McCain Victories
5 with no winner but a McCain edge
1 with no winner but an Obama/Clinton edge
1 Tie

These are not predictions, but instead numbers generated based on historical analysis of each state. Let’s break down each of the 12 scenarios. Click on each link to see the data used for each scenario.

Scenario 1a – 269-269 Electoral Tie
This merely takes each state’s voting history for the past 5 elections and awards the party with the most victories the electoral votes this year. For example, Alaska has voted Republican in the past 5 elections, so McCain is awarded Alaska’s 3 electoral votes in 2008. This scenario does include borderline states, such as Arkansas, which voted Republican 3 times and Democrat 2 times.

Scenario 1b – 199 McCain – 255 Obama/Clinton
This uses the same data as Scenario 1a, but removes borderline states.

Scenario 2a – 278 McCain – 260 Obama/Clinton
Again, we’re using the same data as Scenario 1a, but this time we’re going back the past 7 elections, which includes the Reagan 1980 and 1984 victories in the averages. Borderline states are included.

Scenario 2b – 269 McCain – 102 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 2a, but excluding borderline states.

Scenario 3a – 414 McCain – 124 Obama/Clinton
Scenario #3 takes a look at how likely a state is to vote for the incumbent party versus the non-incumbent party, going back to 1988. In this situation, we are calling Republicans the incumbent party and Democrats the non-incumbent party. Most states are borderline in this category.

Scenario 3b – 42 McCain – 0 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 3a, but removing borderline states. As you can see, most electoral votes are not counted with this method.

Scenario 4a – 438 McCain – 100 Obama/Clinton
This is the same data as Scenario 3a, but going back to 1980. McCain is given a bigger boost with this method.

Scenario 4b – 56 McCain – 0 Obama/Clinton
Scenario 4a data is used, but omitting borderline states.

Scenario 5a – 274 McCain – 264 Obama/Clinton
Scenarios 5 and 6 are perhaps the most interesting, as they combine states voting history by party with their likelihood to vote for the incumbent or non-incumbent party. The race tightens up here, but the edge goes to McCain. Again borderline states are included and this data goes back to 1988.

Scenario 5b – 172 McCain – 88 Obama/Clinton
The same data as Scenario 5a, but with borderline states omitted.

Scenario 6a – 274 McCain – 88 Obama/Clinton
Again, the same as Scenario 5a, but using a data pool going back to 1980, and includes borderline states.

Scenario 6b – 172 McCain – 13 Obama/Clinton
Scenario 6a data but with borderline states omitted.

As obvious as the information below is, I couldn’t seem to find some of it easily online. So if you’re looking for the ages of presidents when they left office, here is a good chart for you. For a discussion about how recent presidents have aged, take a look at this recent blog post.

You can find the chart presidents here.

From late 2004 to early March 2005, I was curious the first time certain words or phrases appeared online. I turned to the old Usenet archives and did my searches there, sorting my results chronologically and finding the earliest reference to each item. There is no logic to the terms I chose, but just whatever peaked my curiosity. Toward the end of the list you see “Year xxxx” in which I chose to search for that phrase instead of just the number of the year itself, which would have yielded random numbers.

I also went back recently and spot double-checked this list to see if anything had changed. The only change I found was that “September 11, 2001″ had been mentioned in a prediction in 2000, and that post has since completely disappeared. I don’t buy into conspiracy theories, but that sure would fuel the fire for those who do!

You can find this list here.