By Dave Lindorff

Okay, I was going to vote for Ralph Nader this November 4.

It was an easy decision. I live in Pennsylvania, which is now,
according to all the polls, reliably in the Obama column, with the
Democratic candidate holding an insurmountable lead in the polls of 14
percent over Republican John McCain—enough to overcome even the most
devious Republican vote suppression techniques and voting machine
chicanery.

Here's a pretty frightening assessment of McCain's skin cancer from Dr. Daniel Vlock, a former cancer researcher:

"The best case scenario is that he continues to age but effectively is able to perform the duties of the job," said Fratkin. "The worst case scenario is on January 21 2009, he has a seizure at his inauguration and is found to have multiple brain metastases. There is no way to navigate that risk assessment without those records."

2,279 physicians have signed a letter asking McCain for "full, public disclosure of all his medical records". More than 47,000 people have signed the petition. Won't you join them?

By Dave Lindorff

That deafening silence you hear coming from the McCain campaign is
straight-talkin’ John touting his plan for privatizing Social
Security...not.

With Wall Street banks falling like dominoes, a hundred billion dollars vanishing overnight, and the Treasury
Department scampering about trying to prop up failing enterprises
from Bear Stearns to Fannie Mae, and with domestic and global equity
and bond markets swooning, Americans are afraid to open those envelopes
that come every quarter telling them the value of their hard-earned
401(k) retirement plans.

No wonder John McCain isn’t touting privatizaton these days.

By Dave Lindorff

Okay, I have to vent here. We all get a little crazy sitting alone
at our keyboards in this business, and it's finally gotten to me.

I know there are serious signs of a complete mental breakdown in the
US, with polls reporting that millions of people are actually excited
at having a low-rent religious fanatic who consistently mispronounces
pundit as "pundint" (shades of Dubya!), pilfers state funds for her
family's personal use, lies about her alleged opposition to Washington
pork, claims the bloody war in Iraq is "God's will," forces her
17-year-old daughter to make a momentary mistake into a lifetime one by
marrying the kid who got her pregnant, and refers to blacks as "sambo"
and to Alaska's indigenous people as "arctic arabs," running for vice
president on the ticket with a man who is a walking medical disaster
waiting to happen.

As we recently noted, John McCain's age is no joke - no matter how many times he goes on late-night TV to joke about it.

And since McCain's father (70) and grandfather (61) both died suddenly of heart attacks, the idea of a Vice President being "one heartbeat away from the Presidency" isn't just a slogan.

If John McCain and Sarah Palin win in November, the odds of "President Sarah Palin" are very high - 1 in 3, according to actuarial tables. Isn't that a terrifying thought?

Thanks to George Bush and Dick Cheney, America is facing profound problems on every front: two hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and two cold wars with Russia and Iran; mortgage and dollar meltdowns; and an energy/environmental crisis.

It's a cliche that the Vice President is "one heartbeat away" from the most powerful job in the world.

But in John McCain's case, it's more than a cliche: both his father (70) and grandfather (61) died suddenly of heart attacks.

So who did McCain choose to be "one heartbeat away"?

The 44-year-old first-term governor of the second smallest state who is embroiled in a corruption scandal and has no experience in Washington, in military affairs, or in foreign policy. What on earth was McCain thinking?

1. She's not a Mormon. Sorry Mitt, but the GOP's Southern Baptist and evangelical base just wasn't that into you.

Tremayne compiled very interesting data on Presidential age. There have been 4 Presidents younger than Obama, and they were pretty good:

Obama would take office when he is about 47.5 years old which is only about 7 years less than average.  Here are the Presidents that were younger than Obama (alternatively, they had less life experience):

• Theodore Roosevelt, 42
• John Kennedy, 43
• Bill Clinton, 46
• Ulysses S. Grant, 46

Of course McCain would be the oldest first-term President at 72, and the five next oldest Presidents were pretty bad:

Today John McCain is 72 years young.

Who can forget how he celebrated his 69th in Arizona - while New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were drowning?

Mother Nature hasn't forgotten, and she's sending Hurricane Gustav back to the Gulf Coast the day Bush is scheduled to speak in St. Paul to nominate John McCain as his successor.

Ronald Reagan, who was a year younger than McCain would be when sworn in, developed Alzheimer's while in office. McCain has had a few "senior moments," including his recent statement that the "League of Nations" needs to deal with Iran. (The League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 when John McCain was 10.)

And McCain's brain has taken a number of heavy blows, both physical and psychological. According to Dr. Kirk James Murphy, a V.A. physician who has long experience treating veterans with PTSD,

Sen McCain's life history indicates that his brain is at greater than average risk of dysfunction and impairment in the following areas:

- capacity to learn, recall, and reason with complex new information

- judgement and impulse control

- capacity to devote sustained attention.

Many of McCain's contemporaries feel the Presidency is far too demanding a job for someone their age.

Given these facts, isn't McCain's age more than just a joke?