President

August 4

70 — The Romans destroy the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

1789 — In France members of the National Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.

1792 — The revolutionaries order all houses of worship to close in France.

1824 — Battle of Kos is fought between Turks and Greeks.

1914 — Germany invades Belgium. The United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declares itself neutral.

1944 — The Gestapo finds Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse.

1961 — Barack Obama is born and, despite the where being dubious in the minds of millions, eventually becomes the 44th President of the United States. Wish him well on his birthday. You may contact him here or via email.

1964 — American civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21. Also US destroyers USS Maddox and USS C. Turner Joy report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, resulting in an engagement known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

1977 — US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.

1984 — The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.

1987 — The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues “fairly”.

2009 — National Night Out is today!

Promises

I was acquainting myself with some of what’s new at the White House. Virtually, that is. On their Web site. And I came across this gem:

Well, that seemed kinda tacky and tactless and hardly in keeping with any kind of reconciliation and civility and statesmanship and bipartisanship and postpartisanship and blah, blah, blah. 🙄

So I got curious about what other promises (current or broken) I might turn up there using their search feature. Well, a search for the term promises turned up this:

What’s with that?! That’s not a very helpful search feature. Well, I decided to see if Google could do better:

Maybe the techno gurus who run whitehouse.gov need to use the powered by Google option, if nothing else. 😀

Then I remembered seeing a headline that might explain the faulty search feature on the White House site:

Oh, “it’s all Bush’s fault.”

Well, that’s just how the game is played I guess. Nothing seems to have changed in that regard. 🙂

I know, I know. There are weightier things going on there. But a little low-key levity seems in order. 😆

And if the BDS2-afflicted conspiracy cooks want to use my discovery as proof of less-than-the-promised-transparency…too bad I helped. :mrgreen:

Seriously, though, an appeal to President Obama: More magnanimity, please. Sow it, reap it — sounds like a good deal to me, sir.

Transition

Another orderly and peaceful and smooth transition of power

OK, some of my scattered thoughts while listening to inauguration coverage on the radio for a while earlier this morning.

President Obama is no great orator, but then neither is President Bush. It’s OK.

President Obama’s inaugural speech included plenty of statements that sounded as though President Bush hadn’t been doing a bunch of things President Obama mentioned were now going to happen.

I wonder what will be President Obama’s first Executive Order.

And what about his birth certificate?

Kudos to Rick Warren for mentioning the God of Israel and excluding Allah of the Muslims. And for praying in Jesus’ Name. I must confess to being surprised by both. Seems like there was something else, but I don’t recall.

Who messed up the administering of the Presidential oath of office: Chief Justice Roberts or President Obama?

That was quite the “poem” that gal had!

And the prayer after it had more rhyming in it. (Yep, I still say real poetry rhymes!) And that prayer! Well, never mind. I’m white…and I’ll let it rest at that. 😀

So what was with letting some music trump the United States Constitution? Or perhaps the Constitution doesn’t require that the Presidential oath of office be administered by noon. Because if it does, and since the oath was a few minutes after noon, is George W. Bush still President? 😯

And speaking of that music — I thought it sounded like funeral music! Which struck me as somewhat ominous given it was “forcing” the oath to wait til after noon.

Oh, and did I hear a news commentator actually refer to one of the Obama girls as, “Cute as a bug”?! 😯 I hope that doesn’t get branded as racist.

Well, let me close with some positives and some good news:

  • President Bush didn’t hold on to power.
  • By all appearances, it was another orderly and peaceful and smooth transition of power. Thank you, God! (And thank you, too, President Bush.)
  • Like President Reagan before him, President Bush survived the “death-in-office curse” on US Presidents elected in years divisible by 20 (beginning with 1840). Thank you, God!
  • Terrorists didn’t succeed in striking such a juicy target as the inauguration. Thank you, God! (And thanks also to all individuals and agencies working on preventing such a strike.)
  • President Obama is younger than I am!

President Bush, bless God.

President Obama, bless God.

America, bless God.

And may it please God to bless America and President Obama and President Bush.

Amen.

Guessing Bush’s Note

So President Bush left a note for President-elect Obama:

Continuing a White House ritual, President George W. Bush left a note in the Oval Office for President-elect Barack Obama, wishing him well as he takes the reins of the executive branch.

The White House on Tuesday declined to provide intimate details of the message the two-term Republican left for the incoming Democrat, saying only that Bush wrote it on Monday and left it in the top drawer of his desk.

What does it say?

  • To help you improve your Convincing Lies Score (for fooling the American people about WMDs in Syria and about your role in tragedy in New York, for instance), I left you my personal lie detector in the broom closet.
  • Don’t let Barack Derangement Syndrome derange you.
  • I lost my nerve to implement martial law at the last minute and stay on as President. So the job is yours after all. Enjoy!
  • Don’t forget to keep The Masters in mind. Rush might even be your caddy.
  • It’s OK for Presidents to go to church. Surely that’s the least we can do to acknowledge the Almighty who saw fit to put us in this place.
  • Way to go on the birth certificate deal! (But you really didn’t have to go to that extreme — see previous point.)

I had another one, but I can’t remember it, so that’s enough of that. 🙄

How to Pray for Them

Secret Service agents guard President-Elect Obama

Here are some ways to pray for President Bush, Vice President Cheney, President-Elect Obama, Vice President-Elect Biden, and those who guard them.

  1. Pray for their protection.
  2. Cover wives and children in prayer.
  3. Pray that they will govern with God’s wisdom.
  4. Ask God to keep them humble.
  5. Pray for wise and righteous advisers to surround them.
  6. Ask for the spirit of reconciliation.
  7. Pray that they will adopt pro-life convictions.
  8. Bind all evil forces assigned to manipulate our leaders.
  9. Pray that their door will remain open to the church.
  10. Pray that our nation will enjoy God’s peace and blessing during their administration.
  11. Pray that God’s people would honor them as the Master commands.

I modified these from Presidential Prayer. And I added #11.

What would you add to the list?

Presidential Perspective

"We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression."

Who said that?

And more importantly, was he right about all that?

Franklin D Roosevelt on anti-Christian aggression

Original source: World Magazine

FDR at Madison Square Garden, 1940

Above all, love God!