Am I being “age-ist”? Maybe. But maybe not. The world is a pretty complicated place right now and I’m thinking that it’s not such a great time to elect our oldest President ever. So sue me.
Bobby Jindal is younger than John McCain.
Rumor has it that old man McCain will be naming his running mate this week and much of the smart money is on Bobby Jindal, the 37 year old first-term governor of Louisiana… which pretty blows McCain’s arguments about Obama and his youthful inexperience right out the window.
I’ve yet to do an exhaustive search on Mr. Jindal but here are three interesting things I’ve turned up so far:
1. His real first name is Piyush. While that makes absolutely no difference to me, I’m wondering if all the whackjobs on the right (yes, I’m talking to you Ann Coulter - you freaking lunatic) are going to be as eager to refer to him by his given first name as they are to refer to Barack Obama by his middle name.
2. He chose the name “Bobby” after watching episodes of “The Brady Bunch”. OK, maybe that was cute then… but you’re a grown-ass man now.
3. He recently signed into law a bill that authorizes the castration of convicted sex offenders - despite the fact that it’s unconstitutional.
More to come…
UPDATE: Just read on cnn.com that Jindal told Fox “News” that “I’m not going to be the vice presidential nominee or vice president.”
This nine and a half minute video, taken from jedreport.com, is truly staggering. It shows McCain’s long record of passionate support for both President Bush and the Iraq war - despite his recent claims of being its “greatest critic” - and it shows how deeply committed he is to maintaining the status quo regardless of the will of America or Iraq.
Playboy Magazine is younger than John McCain.
Playboy Magazine debuted in 1953. John McCain was born in 1936. So, by my math, that puts him at 17 years old when the first issue hit the stands… damn near the perfect age. I’m guessing he - along with his contemporaries Vaclav Havel,Silvio Berlusconi, James Dobson (the conservative wingnut), and Roger Miller (the king of the road) - pretty much exploded. (Al Goldstein, on the other hand, saw his future.)
I really don’t understand Playboy - I mean, it’s 2008… is anyone actually buying this magazine? There are hotter photos in the Newport News catalog, my eight year old second cousin tells funnier jokes, and I could give a crap what Don Rickles and William H. Macy are each up to these days. Much like McCain, the magazine is a dinosaur - headed for extinction thanks in large part to the Internet.
And don’t even get me started about “Hef”. Put some clothes on, stop pretending that the Viagra still works, and stop kidding yourself that these girls actually like you.
I can’t imagine that there are a lot of unregistered voters visiting this site but, at Rock The Vote’s request, I put up their link anyway. It’ll be pretty cool to be able to report back and say that the site was able to sign up a whole bunch of new voters… so register away.
Think about the field day Fox “News” would have if Obama made this mistake… it would feed right into the misinformation campaign they’ve got going and they would run this clip constantly.
Frozen Waffles are younger than John McCain.
I came across the above image when doing a search for “frozen waffles” (which were first introduced in grocery stores in 1953) and, even though the ad shown isn’t for waffles - and “Aunt Jemima” is sadly older than John McCain - I’m posting it because I think it’s inspiring that the same country that can produce something as offensive (by modern day standards) as this is actually a hare’s breath away from electing an African-American president.
Anyway, where was I? Oh right, waffles. Waffling. Changing one’s position.
Take it away, YouTube…. (By the way, did you know that it’s Barack Obama’s fault that gas is $4.50 a gallon? Neither did I.)
Now…
and then…
We have got to keep holding this guy’s feet to the fire. Spread the word. And pass the syrup.
The Minimum Wage is younger than John McCain.
I posted this one a while back but, in honor of the fact that the Federal Minimum Wage is exploding all the way up to $6.55 this week, I thought I’d re-post it with some additions:
There were various bits of legislation setting a minimum wage prior to McCain’s birth but they were all overturned (I guess 25¢ an hour for back-breaking work in a factory was crazy-talk back then)… but it was re-established in 1938 by the Fair Labor Standards Act. And this time it stuck.
Now, some people might say that $262.00 a week for unskilled labor is fair (and I might say that those people are insane) but when you factor in the cost of gas, childcare, and the fact that - to use an everyday example as a point of comparison - ATM fees could soon be higher than the Minimum Wage (Bank of America charges $3.00… in addition to the whatever fees are charged by the account holder’s bank), $6.55 an hour is laughable.
So here’s the story - and, while it has nothing to do with McCain’s age (except perhaps that it shows how childish he is), I think it’s important to post it wherever possible before the conservative media goes to town and distorts the facts.
Barack Obama wrote an op-ed piece for The NY Times called “My Plan for Iraq”. Note that the key words in that sentence are “op” (as in an “opinion”) and “My Plan” (as in “here’s what I think we should do”).
Not to be outdone, Senator McDepends wrote his own op-ed that basically said that the war is going swimmingly now and that everything Obama wants to do is wrong… and then he subsequently got his military-issue panties in a bunch because the Times wouldn’t act as his mouthpiece and print his idea-less rebuttal.
The soundbite for the next 48 hours is going to be “liberal media” this and “unfair coverage” that. It will continue longer if people remain uninformed about the content of the individual pieces.
According to CNN.com, Rudy Giuliani said that Barack Obama’s “overseas visit is only serving to highlight the candidate’s inexperience in world affairs.”
I’m sorry - Giuliani is citing someone for lack of experience? This guy’s claim to fame prior to 9/11 was that a) he got rid of the squeegee guys by the Holland Tunnel so that precious commuters from New Jersey wouldn’t have to deal with “confrontation” by people who were down on their luck and b) he shut down most of the city’s strip clubs.
As a downtown resident, however, I will give credit where it’s due and say that he did do a phenomenal job in the days and weeks after the attack. The city was in a tenuous state and surely wouldn’t have come out of the experience as well (or as quickly) if Rudy’s predecessor was still at the helm. That being said, if there was ever a one-issue candidate, Giuliani was it. He ran his entire campaign on being “America’s mayor” (whatever the hell that means) and he is the absolute last person who should be talking about foreign policy (or economic or social or legislative….) experience.
Getting a pizza delivered is younger than John McCain.
Thank god for WWII. Had it not been for the war, many thousands of young men and women would never have gotten the chance to visit Italy. They never would’ve encountered pizza. They never would’ve opened “pizzerias” on their return to the States. There would never have been “delivery boys”. And scores of bad porn movies in the 1980s would’ve gone plotless.
For what it’s worth, the war also spawned the United Nations and NATO, got the U.S. out of the Depression, brought about incredible advances in technology, and established the U.S. and Russia as the world’s two superpowers… setting up decades of rivalry, tension and competition.