Chaos theory (or rather, "unstable problems" as my ODE and PDE textbooks put it) basically boils down to "small things can have an unexpectedly large effect". However large things will still generally have much larger effects on the system. So, minor human activities can, practically speaking, be ignored most of the time. It still makes it impossible to solve weather (it's an ill-posed problem), but for the purposes of AH, it can be more fun to imagine things turning out basically as OTL. That's pretty plausible, too (well, depending. If your POD is a giant asteroid hitting the Earth in 1620, all bets are off).
EDIT: Back to McCain, I was only 11 when that was going on so I don't have much of substance to add. I didn't like 2008 McCain much, though (OTOH, I didn't actually listen or watch him much, either).
EDIT: Back to McCain, I was only 11 when that was going on so I don't have much of substance to add. I didn't like 2008 McCain much, though (OTOH, I didn't actually listen or watch him much, either).