Barack Obama ‘thoughtful and loving but has chip on shoulder’, says palmist

"Stranger? No, it's definitely a tall dark strangler."

As the world counts down the days until Barack Obama’s inauguration anybody with an opinion on the incoming president seems to be getting a hearing. The Daily Telegraph reports that professional “palmist” Lori Reid has identified Obama as a Water Hand – “a common feature of thinkers, artists and writers”.

Apparently:

The phalanx of his little finger is large, she added, apparently suggesting he has the propensity to put on weight as he gets older.

His index finger is deeply inset in his palm, according to Miss Reid, apparently suggesting he has felt disadvantaged and has a “chip on his shoulder”.

“The little finger is particularly long in comparison to the other fingers and this reveals his exceptional talents as an orator”.

The length of the middle sections of Obama’s fingers suggest that he has an “excellent psychology” – whatever that means.

It isn’t clear from the article whether Reid ever actually got close enough to Obama to inspect his hand or just pored over photographs of the presidential paw but there is a disturbing wistfulness with which she notes that “Mr Obama’s Mount of Venus - the part of the palm underneath the thumb - is particularly padded, suggesting he is a very loving man”. Any more lusty observations and Reid might find herself examining the distinct lack of padding on Michelle Obama’s famous fist.

When not analysing the digits of prominent politicians Reid is also the Daily Mail’s in house astrologer. One imagines she must have got her chakras in a twist when her employer reported last year on a new study debunking horoscopes. Perhaps to reassurance her, the paper made sure to quote a professor saying:

I’m under no illusion that these findings will undermine astrology’s popularity. The enthusiasm for zodiac-based personality profiling seems undiminished by hundreds of previous studies debunking astrology.

Don’t worry, Lori. Counterknowledge.com has been peering through its telescope and divined that the alignment of Saturn with Pluto can only mean one thing: it’s time to get a real job.