US President Barack Obama, center, back to camera, greets King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, center, before the official G20 leaders group photo with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at London's Buckingham Palace, Wednesday, April 1, 2009.
American Thinker adds this:
See Miss Manners on the protocol. Americans do not bow to foreign monarchs because that act signified the monarch’s power over his subjects.
Here’s the video. Obama’s bow is at :53 seconds in:
President Barack Obama’s Auto Task Force released a statement today announcing that it has sold the naming rights to the Lincoln Memorial to the Ford Motor Company. It will now be known as “The Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.”
Avril Blague, a spokesperson for the President’s Auto Task Force, says the objective is “to bolster the morale of the fledgling auto industry while raising the profile of American-built automobiles.” She went on to say,
Some will no doubt question the appropriateness of selling the naming rights of this American icon. But the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated only 87 years ago, therefore it isn’t as historic as some of America’s other monuments and memorials. We think this sends a positive message to the citizens of the United States about President Obama’s commitment to the automobile industry.
Jesse Kiddon is Communications Director for Ford Motor Company’s North American Operations:
What we have done today is not unprecedented. In 1996 Taco Bell leased the naming rights to the Liberty Bell for the entire year, renaming it “The Liberty Taco Bell.” Ford Motor Company is an American automobile manufacturer, and as such we are proud to have our name associated with the Lincoln Memorial.
Ford plans to rotate a display of its 2010 models on the floor of the Lincoln Memorial, one on either side of the famed Daniel Chester French sculpture of Abraham Lincoln.
Neither the government nor Ford Motor Company will disclose the amount the government will receive for the naming rights, but sources say it could be as much as $164 million dollars, coincidently the same amount that AIG paid in bonuses to their executives after receiving TARP funds earlier this year.
“So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.
…[M]en are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”
From Institutes of the Christian Religion, Hendrickson: 2008, p.5 (Book One, Chapter 1, Heading 2)
It was about three years ago. I had taken my son to a game at Comerica Park in Downtown Detroit, not knowing that anything special was scheduled for that nights’ game. About 30 minutes before game time the Tigers honored several former players by loading them into Ford Mustangs (I think) and driving them around the warning track. I can’t even remember why.
The car carrying a fragile George Kell pulled up and stopped between third base and the outfield, right where I was standing with my son. I’m certain the expression on my face conveyed the joy in my heart at for the first time being within touching distance of a man I grew up hearing giving the television play by play for Tiger’s games.
Our eyes locked briefly. Kell smiled widely at me and waved with a sort of boyish shyness. I was shocked when he leaned far out of the car and extended his hand toward me and said, “Hello, I’m George Kell. What’s your name?”
To this day I haven’t forgotten how I felt as I walked out of the ballpark that night. It was a dandy.
Baseball play-by-play was diminished when Kell retired in 1996. Today it has suffered an irreparable loss with the silencing of the voice of George Kell.
The University of Notre Dame announced in a press release dated March 20, 2009:
President Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dame’s 164th University Commencement Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 17 (Sunday) in the Joyce Center on campus.
Notre Dame is a Catholic institution of higher learning and as such is committed to the worldview of the Catholic Church which includes the protection of life at every stage from conception to natural death.
President Barack Obama is the most radically pro-abortion president in the history of the United States. Through legislation he has either sponsored or supported he has advanced the radical agenda of Planned Parenthood and other so-called “pro-choice” organizations to end the lives of unborn children.
A website has been set up, www.notredamescandal.com, to gather signatures on a petition to Father Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, asking him to rescind his invitation to Obama. To date more than 51,000 individuals have added their names. The website has a detailed account of Obama’s radical actions on abortion, including his decision to rescind the Mexico City Policy, working to overturn the “conscience clause” which would require medical professionals to assist in or perform abortions against their wills, and lifting the ban on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research while expanding the program to include the creation of embryos for the specific purpose of killing them for research purposes.
UPDATE: Catholic theologian George Weigel has weighed in on the Notre Dame scandal