Dog lovers have been holding their collective breath, waiting to see what kind of pooch President-elect Barack Obama selects for his daughters. But past presidents didn’t limit their pet ownership to dogs or cats.
Calvin Coolidge had two pet lions, a wallaby and a pygmy hippopotamus (among other animals). Both Herbert Hoover and John Quincy Adams kept pet alligators. And Teddy Roosevelt owned a badger named Josiah that was known to bite.
For other weird presidential facts, click here.
- Congrats to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals for their conference championship wins on Sunday. Should be a good Super Bowl on Feb. 1, though I feel confident the Steelers will win. I’ve been a Steelers fan for more than 30 years, and it got pretty noisy around our house on Sunday as I yelled my support at the television. In all the excitement, and despite the fact that I was stone cold sober, I somehow twisted my knee. Am I the only football fan to suffer an injury on the sofa?
- They Fired All the Copy Editors, Part VII: In today’s local paper, there’s a big story on the front of the “Family” section headlined: “How to teach your kids about money.” In the four-column illustration, a teacher is pointing at a poster that says, “Bugeting.” As one observant reader noted, it’s a good thing they’re not teaching the kids about spelling.
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