US election Americans have clung proudly and stubbornly to the USA measurement system, resisting a switch to the metric system, despite the occasional catastrophe that might be avoided by getting onboard with the rest of the world. Now, the metric system has become an issue in the US presidential election. Bringing the issue to the forefront was an article in the German tabloid Bild titled “I worked out with Obama!” In the article, Bild reporter Judith Bonesky writes of observing the candidate working out in the gym of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Berlin: “He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.”

Now the report is definitely over-the-top. (If the exclamation marks don’t clue you in, the all-caps conclusion—“WHAT A MAN!"—surely would.) But nothing about Obama's behavior as described by Bonesky struck me as particularly controversial. Fortunately, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto was more observant. In “Take Me to Your Litre,” he points out that the above quoted paragraph embodies the “…single most disturbing thing we have heard about Barack Obama.” Taranto continues, “This shows just how far to the left the Democratic Party has lurched since 2004. Back then, the party decisively rejected Howard Dean, an advocate of the metric system, in favor of the ‘electable’ John Kerry, who kept any pro-metric sympathies to himself. Now the Dems have nominated someone who actually uses the metric system.”

So I guess politically-correct* American citizens must take their own 35- and 70-lb dumbbells and 16-oz water bottles along with them if they plan to work out when overseas. (The extra jet fuel required to transport the weights will be a small price to pay to demonstrate true patriotism.)

Update: Bloggers have questioned whether Obama would be likely to be able to curl 32 kg. The reference to curling may have been introduced in the translation from the German; the original uses “stemmt er” and “hebt er” to describe what Obama was doing with the 16- and 32-kg weights. Perhaps he was performing a dumbbell bent-over row

source: http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2008/07/24/Bild-was...

source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121700331721584879.html?mod=Best+of+the+...