In telecommunication, a hotline (also called an automatic signaling service, ringdown, or off-hook service) is a point-to-point communications link in which a call is automatically directed to the preselected destination without any additional action by the user when the end instrument goes off-hook. An example would be a phone that automatically connects to emergency services on picking up the receiver.

True hotlines cannot be used to originate calls other than to preselected destinations. However, in common or colloquial usage, a "hotline" often refers to a call center reachable by dialing a standard telephone number, or sometimes the phone numbers themselves. This is especially the case with 24-hour, noncommercial numbers, such as police tip hotlines or suicide crisis hotlines, which are manned around the clock and thereby give the appearance of real hotlines. Increasingly, however, the term is found being applied to any customer service telephone number.

Bling (or bling-bling) is a slang term popularized in hip hop culture, referring to flashy, ostentatious or elaborate jewelry and ornamented accessories that are carried, worn or installed, such as cell phones or tooth caps.

In linguistics terms, bling is an ideophone intended to evoke the "sound" of light hitting silver, platinum, or diamonds. It is not an onomatopoeia, because the act of jewelry shining does not make a sound. The form bling-bling is a case of reduplication.

It is widely believed that Rapper Lil Wayne invented the word Bling-bling one night in the studio. However, this particular ideophone was already in use in different forms, as the word [ping] some 35 years earlier, in rap songs such as Slick Rick's 1988 single "Mona Lisa." During the mid- to late 1960s, toothpaste maker Ultra Brite ran a series of commercials stating, "Ultrabrite gives your mouth...[ping]...sex appeal!" Before the words "sex appeal", a bell sound was heard as a young man or woman smiled. Comedians such as Martin Lawrence parodied the "Ultrabrite smile" by vocalizing the sound effect as both "bling-bling," and "bling-blauw."

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.