I was about to suggest that we settle Obama vs McCain with an arm wrestling championship.

Then I remembered that arm wrestling is one of the things that McCain can really point to having lost as a result of his POW days. And so I felt like a declasse punk. So, yes, even liberals can feel shame.

do you think he can fly?

above comment
posted by lois.

I won't be impressed until he leg presses a ton like Pat Robertson.

16, then 32? So not only are the weights in kilos, but they increment by powers of 2? God, the Germans are such geeks.

Whats your favorite way to write 32? Mine is:

2*(2^2)^2

Winning an arm wrestling match with a Bear might even be enough to get Stephen on Obama's side.

Don't you see, though? Trying to fight within Republican frames ("if there is a bear...") is exactly what Barack Obama (along with the 2006 elections in general) has shown isn't necessary (or beneficial) to Democratic foreign policy politics. Wrestling a bear is the kind of idea that Hillary Clinton -- or, more so, John Kerry -- would have had about how to beat John McCain.

Is it just me, or does the slash just write itself here? "Very slowly..." indeed. And did the sweat glisten on his manly brow and bulging biceps also?

Methinks someone has a man-crush. Not that's there's anything wrong with that....

It's no surprise that MattY has also discussed this, and most commenters call BS on the weight mentioned.

And, instead of wrestling a bear, here's what BHO is going to do.

I'm pretty skeptical about this -- I use 35 lb. dumb bells on a good day (when the blog induced carpal tunnel isn't acting up).

The only guys I have ever seen who could curl 70 lb. dumb bells weighed about twice what Obama weighs and looked to be chemically enhanced.

The reporter also said Obama was making her hot. And that his T-shirt smelled nice. According to MoDo, anyway.

Bild's credibility is a bit above the National Enquirer, but not by much.

You know, there's a really interesting piece of journalism waiting to be written in tracking down conservative online trolls. Are these people serious? Old or young? Misinformed, crazy, or just intellectually dishonest? Is it really just one person posting over and over again from different computers? Are they not even people anymore and SkyNet is online?

It is entirely possible that Sen. Obama performed curls with 70lb dumbells if he was practicing the SuperSlow technique, in which you use extremely high weights and v-e-r-y slow movements--both to lift and release--with low reps, that is, until complete muscle failure. Serious practitioners do this twice a week, maximum--one reason why the method is popular with busy, always-traveling people--but it can be just part of a general fitness program, too.

Doesn't it seem likely the weights were marked 16 & 32, and the German reporter wrongly assumed these were kg rather than pounds?

Even in pounds a creditable performance.

That's nothing. I knew a guy in high school who could do curls with a bear. And leave the room without checking behind him to see if the bear was attacking. Now that's cool!

OHB will have to wrassle Chuck Norris to get any media play

Ahhhh, you know things aren't going well when the left feels the need to censor its critics.

Kind of like the Soviets editing people out of their history.

Poor little Obamaman can't stand a little criticism. Poor little John Edwards, the news has to be censored so as not to hurt his feelings, or be forced to address his disgusting acts.

Its pretty sad, since Obama supporters can't argue facts, they simply censor and silence the critics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonperson

still sucks at bowling though, and that's the important thing

Ezra, a gentle reminder--weren't you going to delete all off-topic, thread-derailing "look at me!" comments henceforth?

Re: 16 and 32 kilo weights

Okay, time to get uber-geeky and tell y'all way more than you wanted to know.

16 and 32 kilos: random numbers? Hardly. They correspond exactly to one and two poods in the obsolete Russian Imperial system of weights and measures.

Kettlebells are still measured in poods worldwide. And perahps German dumbbells are, too.

Many more things used to be measured in poods -- like grain harvests. But the harvests weren't so great in the years immediately following the Russian Revolution. Since improving the harvest was beyond Communist capacity, the government opted instead to convert to the metric system>>> to try to hide from the peasants just how bad things were.

And years later -- Obama works out with poods! Scandalous! Obama is using Commie propaganda tactics yet again to mislead the public. Alert the right wing blogosphere.

Maybe they can re-hash Bill Ayres (yet again) into a post about Obama's troubling readiness to embrace of terrorists and tyrants.

As per tomtom, if those were really 16 and 32 pounds, that would still be a very good performance for 30 reps (that's 7-odd and 14.5 kg respectively).

Why would a German hotel have weights in pounds? Nothing else in Germany is in pounds. They use kilos.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say the weights WERE in pounds -- perhaps for the benefit of visiting Americans. Would they weights come in the very odd numbers of 16 and 32 pounds? Perhaps the hotel had them custom made? Ummm....I don't think so.

But 16 and 32 kilos makes sense. It corresponds to one and two poods. And the Wikipedia article on poods says kettlebells "and other weights" are measured in poods.

sissy

Clinton does 75lb hammer curls all the time

Daniel, I don't think that 16 and 32 are that odd at all - they are powers of 2. It makes perfect sense that people who are doubling-up would be using powers of two as their chosen weights (with odd numbers being achieved by adding a 1-unit weight). Certainly how it works with the machines in my gym (which have all multiples of 2).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)#Metric_pounds

Not sure I believe this...

Yeah, but you publish it anyway. And *that* is what makes you a hack.

that last comment was for Mr. Farley.

Ezra did give sources. That being said, he shouldn't have published it either.

There's a bear in the woods... Don't you want a President who can wrestle it with his bare hands?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHO4M_Tar7A

Everyone knows that the only way to win over a classy electorate is to buy them two tickets to the gun show.

Obama: [after jumping into the grizzly bear pit at the San Diego Zoo] "I immediately regret this decision!"