Good week, Bad week

Good week for:

Chad and Barbie Soper of Rockford, Mich., who had their third child on 10/10/10. Their oldest was born on 8/8/08, and their middle child was born on 9/9/09. When asked about the chances of an 11/11/11 child, Barbie replied, “Definitely no.’’

Family feuds, after a genealogist found that President Obama is distantly related to Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and George W. Bush. Obama and Palin share a common ancestor, Pastor John Smith, who settled in Massachusetts in the 17th century.

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Conversions, after the Vatican’s newspaper proclaimed that Homer Simpson is a closet Catholic, and praised The Simpsons as one of “the few TV programs for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes.’’

Bad week for:

A tweet falling in the forest, after a study by Sysomos, a social-media analytics company, found that 71 percent of the 1.2 billion tweets posted in the past two months generated no reaction whatsoever.

Rich Whitney, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate in Illinois, after his name was misspelled as “Rich Whitey” on electronic voting machines in 23 wards, about half of which are predominantly African-American neighborhoods.

Flaunting it, after a study in Forbes found that the Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Roadster was the most-ticketed car, with drivers four times more likely to receive a ticket than the average motorist. The flashy two-door convertible sells for more than $100,000.