Scotland doesn't have any votes in the Electoral College

For a while, Dubya's loyalists were happy to treat the recurring rumours of a new draft as no more than a pesky Internet theory. But as it gained traction -- due to its plausibility -- the sense of panic is growing, to the point where fake Irish-American Ed Gillespie is threatening to sue people for talking about it.

One of Ed's grounds for suing is that the rumour is so patently without foundation that talking about it must signal a political motivation against the Dear Leader. And what would be the warning sign that the rumour might be true ... say, what if the US seemed to be asking around amongst its thin list of allies for some extra troops, who would only be needed for a short period of time? And so it is that some Christmas plans for British troops in Iraq are looking endangered:

BBC defence correspondent Paul Adams said it was thought an American unit had been earmarked for "combat operations" in insurgency stronghold Falluja and that the UK Government was now considering the US request for British cover.
If British troops were deployed to cover for the US, it would be somewhere to the south of Baghdad in "a reasonably benign environment", similar to the British army's base in Basra, he said.
The deployment, which would involve up to 650 personnel coming under US command, was expected to last "a few weeks".

The specific troops affected are from the Black Watch regiment, which recruits in Scotland -- not a swing state in two weeks time.