by the Morning Joe team's juvenile antics. No matter what the content of the story -- if you can't deliver the news in a dignified manner, then take a pass and let the adults do it. There's light-hearted and then there's immature. Sheesh.

is Kate Beaton, web comic artist.

http://www.katebeaton.com

She just kills me, she does.

She's beautiful!

GWB massaging Angela Merkel's shoulders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dfrHT8o-0A

If I were hosting a 2001: A Space Odyssey party, I'd bust these out, no problem. But that's about the only time I would.

I think it's hard to understand this if you don't grow up as a minority. To see someone who looks like you be accepted and recognized by society is very self-affirming. It's like finally you have registered in the collective consciousness, and people like you are seen as real individuals rather than caricatures or shallow stock characters. I am of Asian descent, born and raised in Toronto -- there's no shortage of Asian people here, but it's still rare that you see Asians in the media or in the public sphere. So when I see somebody like Grace Park in Battlestar Galactica, or John Cho in Harold & Kumar -- characters that aren't the usual kungfu-y laundromat Chinese food delivery clarinet-playing nerdy sidekick -- my heart does a little happy dance. When Adrienne Clarkson (née Poy, born in Hong Kong) became Governor-General of Canada, I felt very proud. The current GG of Canada is Michaëlle Jean, who immigrated to Canada as a child from Haiti -- another absolutely beautiful black woman.

It is not that you can't relate at all to people of other races, but it's almost a relief to finally see yourself represented.

I find the obsession with the First Lady just completely bizarro. I'm Canadian, and there is no such brouhaha over the Prime Minister's family -- I couldn't even tell you what his wife and children look like or even what their names are. I *think* the wife is blond, and the kids are still in elementary school. They are just not at all in the public eye, and nobody really cares to know much about them.

...because of vanity sizing. 18 years ago, I fit into a size 12 jean. Now, some 50 lbs heavier, I still fit into a size 12 jean.

And also, some people just *are* that small. I walked into a Gap store in Tokyo, and their wall of jeans ranged from size 00 to 4. There was MAYBE one or two size 6 or 8.