President-Elect

President-Elect Obama and his family are spending the holidays in Hawaii taking a very well-earned vacation.  His life has changed forever and he knows that the paps are going to always be closely behind him.  What noone was expecting was to see just how much his body has changed in the last two years.  As you can see from the before pictures, Obama was a bit flabby before.  It seems over the last two years, changing politics isn’t the only thing he’s been working at changing.

The after picture was taken yesterday at the secluded estate and beach that he and his family are residing at for the holidays.  And we must say, he’s got to be one of the sexiest, most fittest presidents to ever reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  We have a feeling he won’t have any problem making the rest of the world fall in-line.

Source:stayinthenews.com

At a hearing Thursday, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said “the threats right now in the inappropriate interest that we are seeing is the same level as it has been for the previous two presidents at this point.”

Sullivan rejected a figure in a recently published book by Ronald Kessler, “In the President’s Secret Service.” Kessler says the threat has increased 400 percent since Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, took office.

In October, Kessler told CNN he stands by the figure even though a law enforcement source had told CNN it’s false.

“There is about 3,000 threats a year under President Bush and now there are about 12,000. Of course, most of them are not credible, but they all have to be checked out,” Kessler told CNN’s “The Situation Room” in an interview with Wolf Blitzer in October.

He said he got the figure “originally from another agency, but I went over it with the Secret Service.”

Sullivan, at a Congressional hearing about how a couple allegedly crashed a state dinner, brought up the 400 percent figure and rejected it, adding that he is “not sure where that number came from.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, in an interview with CNN earlier this week, also said he was told the presidential threat level has not gone up under Obama.

source:  politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Appearing on conservative radio host Rusty Humphries program, Palin said that she supports people inquiring about it.

“I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue,” Palin said in the interview with Humphries. “I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers.”

Humphries, whose radio show airs on about 300 stations across the country, went on to press Palin about whether it is “fair” game to ask such questions.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records – all of that is fair game,” Palin responded.

She also criticized her own presidential campaign for not asking enough questions about Obama.

“The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area,” the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate said. “We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what some of their future plans were and I don’t think that was fair to voters to not have done our job as candidates.

The interview aired at 10:30 p.m. ET, and just a few hours later Palin made it clear in a posting on herFacebook page that she, personally, is not asking to see it.

“Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose,” Palin said. “I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask… which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.”

source: politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com

Washington (CNN) — A conversation last week with South Korea’s president apparently showed President Obama the stark difference between how Asian nations and the United States value education.

Obama said Monday that the U.S. needs to restore the nation’s leadership in educating children in math and science to meet future challenges, and he announced a new Educate to Innovate Campaign.

He told how President Lee Myung-bak explained that demanding parents are South Korea’s biggest education problem.

“Even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education,” Obama recalled the conversation, sounding almost whimsical in describing Lee’s biggest education problem as parents wanting excellent schools for their children.

In the U.S., a major challenge is to revive the interest, opportunities and abilities of students in math and science, Obama said.

American students rank 21st in science and 25th in math compared with students around the world, he said, putting U.S. at a disadvantage on vital issues such as medicine, energy and security.

The Educate to Innovate Campaign seeks to bring together teachers, parents, businesses and even the “Sesame Street” gang to promote math and science learning, Obama said.

So far, the private sector has committed $260 million to the campaign, and corporate giants, including Intel, Xerox, Kodak and Time Warner Cable, have signed on, the president said.

Specific programs include a two-year initiative on “Sesame Street” to teach kids about math and science, an after-school program focusing on robotics and a national “lab” day to provide millions of students with hands-on scientific learning, Obama said.

Students will “have the chance to build and create, and maybe destroy just a little bit” to learn the joy of making things, rather than just consuming things, he said.

In addition, the White House will hold an annual science fair to publicize the top achievements by scientists, Obama said.

Noting that championship sports teams get invited to the White House, he said leading scientists should “stand side by side with athletes and entertainers” to encourage interest in young people.

The goal, Obama said, is “expanding opportunity for all Americans in a world where education is the key to success.”

Referring to his conversation with Lee, Obama noted the “hunger for knowledge, an insistence on excellence, a reverence for science and math and technology and learning” in Asia.

“That used to be what we were about,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to be about again.”

Source:cnn.com

Source:Celebrityodor.com