Wednesday linkfest

After I do a long photo comic, like the one I posted on Monday (Bill Clinton agrees to campaign for Obama), it's hard to get back to normal posts. Unlike most of the garbage I post here, photo comics take a long time, and the hardest part is working out the text, not doing the voice bubbles, which can be done in an hour or two.

So I'm going to coast a little longer by giving you some links I've been accumulating for the past several weeks.

1. This is actually not a link, but I'm including it, anyway. The son of our friends, a good friend of my son, is in Taiwan, where he applied for a scooter license. Among the questions on the exam were these:

1. When a motorcyclist is not happy, usually he/she: (1) is emotionless (2) is not compassionate (3) is angry.

2. Time for honking, each time is: (1) within 2 seconds (2) within 1 second (3) within half a second.

3. Motorcyclist's clothing: (1) is free (2) slippers are ok (3) must be clean.

Then, there were a bunch of signs with Chinese on them, and he had to guess what they meant.

2. No linkfest would be complete without a link to a post about an incinerating toilet. Be sure to watch the video at the company's website. No butt hair was singed in the preparation of the video. Bonus: Also at InventorSpot: Russian scientist solves problem of smelly feet.

3. We all hate grammar ignoramuses, and some of us are annoyed by typos, but few of us engage in vandalism over them. (via How Appealing)

4. A reader at Instapundit creates a political ad about the meltdown at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

5. We'll have to take Obama's criticism of a McCain ad on comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners with a grain of salt.

6. Is Obama too tight with his teleprompter? (hat tip: fee simple)

7. A follow-up by Steven Plaut related to Soccer Dad's post below on Michelle Obama's "rabbi" relative.

8. A columnist at Haaretz is scared to death of Sarah Palin. But the Republican Jewish Coalition flips Congressman Robert Wexler's idiotic linking of Palin with Pat Buchanan and shows that Buchanan's views on Israel are like Obama's.

9. "Tryst turns into $50K robbery for RNC delegate." Plus, quotation of the day: "'As a single man, I was flattered by the attention of a beautiful woman who introduced herself to me. I used poor judgment. If there is any good that can come from this humiliation, it is to caution others that date rape happens to men, too,' he said."

Click here to read more . . .

Soccer Dad: When you're running for office, the whole world is Jewish

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

It was ironic to see a column from Jonathan Tobin yesterday asserting:

Unlike 2004, when just about everyone running for president except George W. Bush was producing a Jewish relative of some sort, the two nominees, John McCain and Barack Obama, aren't pretending to be members of the tribe.

Actually my cousin, John Kerry, really did descend from a Jewish family. It was his paternal grandfather who converted to Christianity. (Now apparently he isn't my cousin anymore, as his claim that he was descended from the Maharal is doubtful.)

Anyway, it turns out that Michelle Obama has a Jewish first cousin. Not just Jewish, but a Rabbi.

Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, is a first cousin once removed of Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a mostly black synagogue on Chicago’s South Side. Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye, and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were brother and sister.

Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) is the chief rabbi of the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago. He is well known in Jewish circles for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and the much smaller, and largely separate, world of black Jewish congregations, sometimes known as black Hebrews, or Israelites. He has often urged the larger Jewish community to be more accepting of Jews who are not white.

(h/t the Spine)

Thanks to my blogging pals My Right Word, Rubicon3 and Oyvay Blog for posting about this. What can I say, Funnye you don't look Jewish.

Yes it's a pretty universal reaction.

Click here to read more . . .

Barack and Michelle go on a blind date

Date Lab

Can two Ivy-educated members of the power elite hit it off without hitting each other?

7:00 P.M., NEW ORLEANS BISTRO

Michelle: I got to the restaurant 10 minutes early, because that's the way I am, you know? He was seven minutes late.

Barack: Seven minutes? I was a minute or two late. A throng of college kids surrounded me on the street, and I had to sign autographs.

Michelle: When he arrived, I was thinking, "Light-skinned but not bad-looking." I'd heard from Date Lab that his mother was white. I know something about that subject, especially about integration or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure and about how it forces me to remain on the periphery of society, never becoming a full participant. So I was a little wary.

Barack: She's quite attractive, but I don't usually date women who wear pearls and dress like June Cleaver. I was wondering if she was trying to make some kind of statement with that 50s retro style. She had an angry scowl glued onto her face. I decided I was going to try to get her to relax and see what she looked like then.

Michelle: We started by ordering drinks. I had a Black Russian and he ordered one of those, ha, those things with the umbrella? I always knew there was a distinctive black culture very different from white culture.

Barack: It didn't have an umbrella. It was an apple-tini. She got that one wrong.

Michelle: Apple-tini, he said? Well, whatever. I've never heard of a black dude drinking an apple-tini.

Barack: She was easy to talk to. We discussed our families, our Ivy League schools, our churches. But she had a kind of chip on her shoulder.

Michelle: He was pretty defensive about his family but eventually confided that the white side of his family was a whole bunch of racists. Then he started talking about Black Liberation Theology. I figured he was just trying to impress me, but suddenly he pulled out his collection of BLT trading cards -- James Cone, Jeremiah Wright, the whole crew. I was, like, Wow! If this guy is just trying to impress me, at least he's done his homework.

Barack: Actually, I also keep a second set of trading cards with conservative church leaders, just in case.

Michelle: He said that? I am so not surprised. When I told him about a great soul-food restaurant I knew, he said his policy was to reject race-specific cuisines, but then he said he would try it out so he could have more information and possibly refine his policy.

Barack: We are the cuisine we've been waiting for.

Michelle: After we ordered dinner, he let on that he was on the mend after a big fight he'd had with an older white woman in a difficult relationship, but he wouldn't say any more than that.

Barack: It was a problematic relationship. She beat me repeatedly until my friends got together and got her to quit.

Michelle: I asked the waiter to take a photo of us, but Barack refused to be in the picture.

Barack: She asked me to wear a silly hat, and I didn't want that circulating on the internet.

Michelle: Around 10, I decided it was time to leave. He seemed a little awkward about whether he should give me a kiss or a hug or a handshake.

Barack: I offered her my phone number. Then, she gave me a little fist bump.

Michelle: Yeah, I did that. Did he tell you he tried to give me a chest bump?

Barack: What? Come on, she knew that was a joke.

Michelle: I'd give the date a 2.5 [out of five]. He made a good first impression, but the more I think about him, the more I wonder if there's anything there.

Barack: I'd give it a 4. I'll probably ask her out again.

********************************************

Update: We checked in a week later. Barack had called Michelle, but she turned him down. She told us she'd decided he was an empty suit. Barack ruefully remarked, "That was not the woman I thought I knew."

Interviews conducted by Pillage Idiot.


Previous: Bill and Hillary go on a blind date.

Here are some real Date Labs: here, here, and here.

Click here to read more . . .

Lolmichelle, Part 3

Click here to read more . . .

Lolmichelle, Part 2

Click here to read more . . .

Lolmichelle

Click here to read more . . .