Triple H

Paul Michael Levesque (born July 27, 1969) is an American professional wrestler and actor, better known by his ring name Triple H, an abbreviation of his former ring name, Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He currently wrestles for the SmackDown brand of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), where he is the reigning WWE Champion.

Before joining WWE, Levesque began his wrestling career with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1993, wrestling under the ring name Terra Ryzing. He changed his ring name to Jean-Paul Lévesque before joining the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1995. His initial on-screen persona was that of wealthy sophisticate Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He later changed his name to Triple H and adopted an alternative image in the group D-Generation X (DX), a stable. After the dissolution of DX, Triple H was pushed as a main-event wrestler, winning several singles championships. As part of a storyline, the scripted events in wrestling, Triple H married Stephanie McMahon, who later became his real-life spouse. In 2003, Triple H formed another stable known as Evolution, and in 2006, briefly reformed DX with Shawn Michaels.

Overall, Triple H is a twelve-time world champion: a seven-time and current WWE Champion, and a five-time World Heavyweight Champion. In addition, he won the 1997 King of the Ring, the 2002 Royal Rumble, and was the second Grand Slam Champion.

Outside wrestling, Levesque has made numerous guest appearances in film and on television. He is starring in the WWE Film, Journey of Death, which is due to release in 2009.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954), often referred to simply as Oprah, is an American television host, media mogul, and philanthropist. Her internationally-syndicated talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and the world's only black billionaire for three straight years. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Born in rural Mississippi to a poor teenaged single mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Concert was hosted by Oprah and Tom Cruise. There were musical performances by Cyndi Lauper, Andrea Bocelli, Joss Stone, Chris Botti, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett and others. The concert was broadcasted in the United States on December 23, 2004, by E!.

As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards).

In 2005, Harpo Productions released another film adaptation of a famous American novel, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The made-for-television film Their Eyes Were Watching God was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks, and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role.

She has voiced for Charlotte's Web, the 2006 film as Gussie the goose. She is also the voice of Judge Bumbleden in Bee Movie (2007) co-starring the voices of Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger.

Oprah.com is a website created by Winfrey's company to provide resources and interactive content relating to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity.

Oprah.com averages more than 70 million page views and more than six million users per month, and receives approximately 20,000 e-mails each week.

Winfrey initiated “Oprah’s Child Predator Watch List,” through her show and website, to help track down accused child molesters. Within the first 48 hours, two of the featured men were captured.

On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN will debut at an unspecified time in 2009. It will be available in more than 70 million homes because of the present position of Discovery Health Channel. This was a non-cash deal with Winfrey turning control of her website Oprah.com to Discovery Communications.

Joe Biden

Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. (pronounced /'dʒoʊsɛf rɒbɪ'nɛt 'bаɪdɛn/; born November 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Delaware. He is both the Democratic vice presidential nominee for the November 2008 election and a candidate for re-election in the U.S. Senate.

Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania for ten years prior to moving to Delaware, Biden trained as a lawyer and became a senator in 1973 at the Constitutional minimum age of 30, making him the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history. He is a long-time member and current chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and has worked on resolutions concerning the Yugoslav wars and Iraq War. He has served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, and led creation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and Violence Against Women Act.

Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. In his sixth consecutive term in the Senate, Biden has served for the sixth-longest period among current senators.

On August 23, 2008, Barack Obama's presidential campaign announced that Biden would be Obama's running mate for the 2008 US Presidential election. Biden officially accepted the nomination on August 27, 2008 at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

In a June 22, 2008, interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Biden confirmed that, although he was not actively seeking a spot on the ticket, he would accept the vice presidential nomination if offered. On August 22, 2008, Barack Obama announced that Biden would be his running mate. The New York Times reported that the strategy behind the choice reflected a desire to fill out the ticket with someone who has foreign policy and national security experience—and not to help the ticket win a swing state or to emphasize Obama's "change" message. Other observers pointed out Biden's appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters, as well as his willingness to aggressively challenge McCain in a way that Obama seemed uncomfortable doing at times.

Polling in the days leading up to the announcement indicated Biden's presence on the ticket was unlikely to affect whether voters would support Obama.

After his selection as a Vice Presidential candidate, he was criticized by his own diocesan Bishop over his stance on abortion, which goes against pro-life Church teaching. In 2008 September The New York Times reported that Biden "departed from party doctrine on abortion rights, declaring that as a Catholic, he believes life begins at conception."

Sarah Palin

Sarah Louise Heath Palin (pronounced /ˈpeɪlɪn/; born February 11, 1964) is the governor of Alaska and the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Sarah Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska city council from 1992 to 1996, then won two terms as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as Ethics Supervisor of the commission.

In November 2006, Sarah Palin was elected the governor of Alaska, becoming the first woman and youngest person to hold the office. She defeated incumbent Republican governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary and former Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election, garnering 48.3% of the vote to 40.9% for Knowles.

On August 29, 2008, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain announced that he had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate. She was nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Palin is the second woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket and the first Republican woman to do so.

On August 29, 2008, in Dayton, Ohio, Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate. Palin's selection surprised many people because speculation centered on others, such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, United States Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.

McCain was reportedly concerned about reclaiming his image as a "maverick Republican" and wanted someone to shake up the ticket. With this in mind, he called Sarah Palin on August 24 to discuss the possibility of having her join him on the ticket. Sarah Palin had been under consideration since a private meeting with McCain in a February National Governors Association meeting. Although this was the first time the two had met, Palin made a favorable impression on McCain. On August 27, Palin visited McCain's vacation home near Sedona, Arizona, where she was offered the position of vice-presidential candidate. Palin was the only prospective running mate who had a face-to-face interview with McCain to discuss joining the ticket.

Palin is the second woman to run on a major U.S. party ticket. The first was Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1984, who ran with former vice-president Walter Mondale. On September 3, 2008, Palin delivered a 40 minute acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that was well-received by the crowd and by media analysts.