Tuesday, June 24, 2008

By Golly... It's True!

There are a group of 57 Islamic States.

From Wikipedia:

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is an international organization with a permanent delegation to the United Nations. It groups 57 Islamic member states, from the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Caucasus, Balkan, Southeast Asia, South Asia and South America. The official languages of the organization are Arabic, English and French.

So, When Obama talked about visiting 57 states, maybe in the back of his mind he was thinking about the OIC.

7 comments:

Christina said...

Very interesting. Something tells me this is not merely a coincidence. Why would he have come up with the number "57"?

See this is one of the many reasons you and your entire staff need to stick around.

Mojo_Risin said...

An easier explanation is given by Snopes.com, the debunking Website. That Obama had, at that point, visited 47 of the 48 contiguous United States, and that 57 is just a misstatement, as Obama claimed.

And the OIC actually has 60 member states.

janice said...

mojo, the OIC has 57 members, not 60. I believe you're wrong on that.

Mojo_Risin said...

The OIC has 60 total members -- 57 full members and 3 observer states. It's a nitpick.

SkyePuppy said...

Mojo,

Another nit-pick. Observers are never counted as "members." Just because people show up to watch (e.g., classes, board meetings, etc.), that doesn't mean they belong. I go with the 57 as the official count of the OIC, with 3 wannabes.

Mojo_Risin said...

Personally, I think he said 57 because he was thinking about a steak at that moment.

Or maybe his favorite-ever car was a '57 Chevy. Or maybe, since he's from Chicago, it's because he likes Olin Kreutz, #57 of the Bears, or Tom Thayer, guard, #57 on the 1985 world-champion Chicago Bears.

And another nitpick -- the 3 ARE counted as members of the OIC, just not full members. They still have a function at the table. But I'm not gonna argue about that. It's irrelevant.

Tsofah said...

Chris:

You been reading my blog again? ;-)

GMTA!