50 Fun Facts About Barack Obama

[Brassmask]

Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know
Fifty things you might not know about Barack Obama

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics  (This was the only reason I posted this!)

• 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 "Bear" 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

[Henny]

He smokes? Never had a clue.

[Amianthus]

He smokes? Never had a clue.

There were a number of pictures published showing him smoking.

[sirs]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

[Xavier_Onassis]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

So what?

How is that important?

Of course, McCain, at age 72 and a former cancer patient with a ditz as VP would not be the same situation, now would it?

If the Republicans wanted McCain to be president, they had their chance in 2000 and blew it, so screw 'em.

[Knutey]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

Another paranoid delusion of the right goes up in smoke:

[sirs]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

So what? 

Thanks for validating my point, Xo

[fatman]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

Not really.  I could care less if the President or anyone else smokes.  We all know it's bad, but so is ice cream and sitting on a couch 8 hours a day.  Smoking seems to be one of those rare things that both conservatives and liberals love to tax to death.  We hear about how smoking impacts the state health care budget, but I already pay a hefty tax on cigarettes, not to mention an added cost to my health insurance.  Those are costs I'm willing to bear to support my habit.  What's funny is watching governments (mostly state govts) justify raising tobacco taxes as a means of making people quit smoking, yet it is more effective to support smoking cessation programs.  What's even funnier is when liberals, who are supposedly advocating for the poor, support these taxes, when the vast majority of smokers are, you guessed it, poor.

A picture of Obama with a cigarette isn't going to make me vote for him, but it's not going to make me vote against him either.  If a picture of a person smoking is your basis for your vote, then you're pretty stupid.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is my core belief that if one is faced to choose between complaining and doing something, the best tack is to see what one can do. In the case of the cost of smoking, there is an easy way to cut your costs.

You can avoid a whole ton of the costs of smoking cigarettes by rolling your own with one of those tube-filling machines.

After years of telling my sister to quit, I gave her one for Christmas. It saves about 80% of the cost. You can find several places online that will send a roller, tobacco (really fresh tobacco-- not stuff that was grown in 2005) and tubes out the same day.

You pick your favorite brand of cancer sticks and they will send you tobacco to imitate the taste and filter or plain tubes in white or phony cork color.

Much of what you pay is tax, but a lot more is advertising and huge profits--none of what has a thing to do with satisfying your habit.

My sister says that she can roll a whole week's supply of cigs in an hour and a half, while watching TV. That's a lot better than the minimum wage.

Maybe that would be a burden on Obama, but perhaps you have more time.

[Brassmask]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

I couldn't care less if he does or doesn't.

[sirs]

Can you imagine the repetative front & 2nd page MSM headlines if it were McCain who was doing the smoking??

Not really.  .... A picture of Obama with a cigarette isn't going to make me vote for him, but it's not going to make me vote against him either.

Nor should it, nor was it my point.  IF this had been McCain, you'd have been seeing pictures, where & whenever possible of him smoking, with the obligatory reference to his prior medical issues.  But this being Obama, and the MSM's fawning all over him, obviously facilitated the need to minimize such implied perceptions.  Again, not so much what's reported but what's so often ommitted

[Brassmask]

Nor should it, nor was it my point.  IF this had been McCain, you'd have been seeing pictures, where & whenever possible of him smoking, with the obligatory reference to his prior medical issues.  

Now, when you put it that way.  It probably WOULD make me even less inclined to consider voting for him.  McCain's age combined with his health problems and the fact that Sarah Palin would have been one heartbeat away from being president should strike fear into any thinking person's heart.

[richpo64]

>> ... any thinking person's heart.<<

Then you'd be safe.