The aging of Obama. "Photos of Barack Obama on Election Night 2008 look like they were taken much longer ago. Now his face has deeper creases and crow’s feet, while his hair has turned white." Maybe damaged
cell tips are to blame.
posted by Xurando
on Jan 17, 2013 -
89 comments
There was a rivalry between the parties, of course, but in Potter's account, it was more like the rivalry between Cal and Stanford than that between today's Republicans and Democrats. The parties had somewhat different constituencies and pledged fealty to a different set of men, but each attempted to encompass as much of the political spectrum as possible rather than merely half of it. The story of the 1850s, by these lights, is about how this changed.
With reference to
David M. Potter's The Impending Crisis, Adam Cadre surveys the four antebellum presidents.
[more inside]
posted by Iridic
on Oct 22, 2009 -
23 comments
"What it feels like to be at the stove creating dishes for some of the most powerful people on earth."
Club
de Chefs des Chefs is the
elite fraternity of
chefs to world leaders - including those who head the private kitchens
of the
United States President,
Prince of Monaco, Queen of England, European Commission,
the Kremlin,
President of France, Chancellor of Germany and Great Hall of Beijing. Barely 30 members strong, the club meets
this week in Italy, for the Club's annual gala dinner and food tour. Lisa Mullins of NPR's The World
interviewed a few of them by phone from Rome today (Mark Flanagan of Buckingham Palace refused to reveal the Queen's favorite dish... a kitchen policy, lest she be served it at every public event ever after). Past gatherings have happened in
France,
Greece, Monaco; and the 2010 meeting takes place in Hong Kong. They wouldn't have you as a member... but don't let that stop your culinary envy.
posted by pineapple
on Jul 21, 2009 -
42 comments
Re Your Brains is the music video to a great song (a memo between two businessmen, detailing the fact that one of them is now a zombie and intends to eat the other one's brains) by
the much mefi'd Jonathan Coulton; apparently inspired by his "
Flickr: the Video", fans are making DIY videos for several of his songs over at the
JoCoPro (Jonathan Coulton Project). Two of my favorite non-zombie related ones are
The Presidents, a mnemonic for memorizing every U.S. President in order & at least one fact about each, and
Code Monkey, detailing the warm secret heart of a Frito loving coder.
posted by jonson
on Sep 11, 2006 -
17 comments
McKinley Assassination Ink: "The goal [...]: to gather the largest possible selection of full-text primary source documents relating to the assassination of William McKinley and the immediate aftermath of that event, including the succession of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency and the incarceration, trial, and execution of [anarchist] assassin Leon Czolgosz."
posted by OmieWise
on Aug 18, 2006 -
9 comments
John Adams is back. In a surprising twist that should amaze pundits, today's
prominent politicians turn out to be reincarnations of guys from the Continental Congress. Meanwhile, in an unrelated development,
36 dead presidents are sending messages from beyond the grave. As Bill Clinton said,
"Thank you for the engraved copy...It looks fascinating!”
posted by inksyndicate
on Apr 20, 2005 -
21 comments
All The President's Hair - Think you might know a thing or three about US Presidents? (Alternately, have five minutes to kill?) Then try identifying some of them by their hair! Be sure to give it a few tries as there are more presidents than hairdos-to-guess per game.
posted by DyRE
on Feb 16, 2005 -
15 comments
"The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment." - James D. St. Clair, arguing before the Supreme Court in 1974.
The court
didn't agree, returning an 8-0 decision and as a result, thirty years ago today Richard Nixon announced his
resignation. The next day at
11:35AM it became official and
Gerald Ford, the first unelected Vice-President in history was sworn in under the provisions of the
25th Amendment to the Constitution as the 38th President of the United States.
But what if Nixon had chosen to respond differently? What if he had
vowed not to resign?
Article II of the Constitution makes the President the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. Could the Supreme Court really have forced Nixon to comply with their order? What if the President had viewed the Court's order as an attempted
coup d'etat?
posted by snarfodox
on Aug 8, 2004 -
17 comments
major ongoing scandals - a list "there have been an amazing number of investigations of Republicans since Bush took office, some of which directly involve the White House." Is this, in fact, an unusually long roster of scandals as compared to the scandal tallies of past presidential administrations?
posted by troutfishing
on Mar 23, 2004 -
25 comments
The President Calling: American Radioworks (MPR) explores the secret phone tapes of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. AFAIK, the content is all previously available, but online, they've
packaged and annotated it for ease of use. It's not exhaustive, but the moments picked out are often illuminating, showing "how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history."
You might want to start here.
posted by soyjoy
on Nov 20, 2003 -
5 comments
Medical histories of American Presidents - Washington "exuded such masculine power as frightens young women just wakening to the opposite sex." Jefferson had all his teeth when he died at 84. Wilson's handshake was described as "a ten-cent pickled mackerel in brown paper." Taft was once laid up for a few days after a bug flew into his eye. Facts & trivia about presidential health.
posted by madamjujujive
on Sep 28, 2003 -
15 comments
