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Obama Oval Office Gets a Makeover

Congressional opponents, stubborn diplomats or wary heads of state, beware: The new Oval Office sofas look so comfy, you just might be lulled into a few reckless compromises.

Every president eventually puts his own mark on the Oval Office, decoratively speaking, and the White House unveiled the Obama makeover on Tuesday, just hours before a major presidential speech on Iraq from his famous Resolute Desk.

In the center is the presidential seal, and the quotes on its border include some of the most famous words ever spoken by Americans:

• “GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE” — Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

• “NO PROBLEM OF HUMAN DESTINY IS BEYOND HUMAN BEINGS” — John F. Kennedy.

• “THE WELFARE OF EACH OF US IS DEPENDENT FUNDAMENTALLY ON THE WELFARE OF ALL OF US” — Teddy Roosevelt.

• “THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF” — FDR’s inaugural speech.

• “THE ARC OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE IS LONG, BUT IT BENDS TOWARD JUSTICE” — Obama’s favorite Martin Luther King quotation.

Things You Didn’t Know About… Digestion

1 The gastrointestinal tract is a 30-foot tube running from your mouth to your anus. Topologically, your gut has the same shape as those doughnuts you regularly pass through it.

2 The small intestine contains so many folds—down to the microscopic level—that its total surface area is about 2,700 square feet, enough to cover a tennis court.

3 The Roman physician Galen regarded the stomach as a quasi-autonomous being within us, able to “feel a lack which rouses the animal and stimulates it to seek food.”