Fifty things you might not know about Barack Obama

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3401168/Barack-Obama-The-50-facts-you-might-not-know.html

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball

• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili

• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini

• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father

• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed

• He has read every Harry Potter book

• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream

• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia

• He can speak Spanish

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead

• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea

• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn't

• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia

• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs

• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name

• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived

• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy

• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books

• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck

• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.

• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees

• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date

• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker

• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol

• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)

• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside

• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal

• His house in Chicago has four fire places

• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita

• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry

• He uses an Apple Mac laptop

• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300

• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits

• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes

• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)

• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire

• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers

• He was nicknamed "Bar" by his late grandmother

• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds

• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso

• His speciality as a cook is chilli

• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"

• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life

• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government

Obama in High Fashion

http://photos.essence.com/galleries/obama_in_high_fashion

Happiness

From: http://www.aprilwinchell.com/2008/11/05/tuesday/

Tuesday

November 5th, 2008 · 22 Comments

UPDATE: These amazing photos have been linked hundreds of times since I posted them. They’ve been featured on some really high-profile sites, which is gratifying, but I’ve been frustrated by not being able to credit the photographer.

Today I got an email from Nida Vidutis. She was there that night, and took these pictures.

NIDA IS 17 YEARS OLD.

I asked her to tell me about her experience at the rally, and this is what she said:

“We went to Obama’s very last rally, at the Prince William Fairgrounds in Virginia. We were part of 90,000 people who came to show their support. We stood for five hours waiting for him, after having stood and walked all day. But it didn’t matter. And I know it’s cliche to say, but the crowd was so diverse. We made friends with the people around us, and when we took a picture, we managed to cover pretty much the entire skin color spectrum. And this fact cannot be undervalued. Obama is not black, he is not white–he is Indonesian, Hawaiian, Kenyan, Caucasian, and about a million more.

Obama is, in part, an idea man, but in his being, in his person, he takes these ideas and gives them a reality, and this is what you understand when you see him. He gives lofty thoughts and progressive dreams substance and tangibility. Yet, he is a pragmatic progressive. His ability to address problems gains its strength from his ability to recognize nuances, to turn a problem up and down and mold it into something that can be changed, that must be changed and that will be changed.

And there was this kid at the rally, I think he was about six years old. He was black, and sitting up on his dad’s shoulders. He had an Obama-Biden sign, and for what I swear was about 3 hours straight, he held the sign straight up, with the most determined look I had ever seen on a six-year-old’s face. And then this other kid appeared, a white kid, on his dad’s shoulders. And all of a sudden they were sharing the sign back and forth. And then, then they held it together. And…it was so simple, SO simple. Yet, at the same time, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and the great part was that they had no idea what they were doing. Everyone looked at them, people took pictures, but they were just holding a sign. “Little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls…” It was so simple.

And then Obama came out. We listened to him talk, we wondered about the emotional roller coaster he was experiencing–his grandmother had just died hours before, and here he was at one of his biggest rallies ever, after 21 months of campaigning, only 21 hours away from winning the presidency. It. was. amazing. And I was so proud to be just one of those 90,000 people, to blend into the crowd, just to be there to listen to this man. It was incredible.”

LOL @ McCain

http://lolatmccain.com/

CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT ELECT OBAMA
THE EIGHT YEAR NIGHTMARE IS OVER!

http://www.sarahpalinisdangerous.com/

http://twofacemccain.com