America turns off the snooze alarm

Good morning, America. This is a new day. The long, dark night of the Bush misadministration ended last yesterday, and today the sun rose on something that promises to be very different. It is my fervent hope that the tone set by President Obama in his speech yesterday indeed heralds a positive change in this nation: not only in how we treat our citizens here at home, but in how we relate to the rest of the world. And you will note that I have personalized that. The United States is not an it; the United States is a we. From the White House to the State house, to your house and my house, we're all in this together. And so we have to work together if we want to rebuild the American Dream, if we want to ensure that every man, woman and child in this nation has not only hope for the future, but also has what we need today. Because this is the future we looked forward to, and it is time to roll up our sleeves, forget about who is red or blue, black or white, and focus on the fact that we are all Americans, and we stand or fall together.

Here's a somewhat humorous take on this change, author unfortunately unknown, that's making the rounds today:

Dear World:

We, the United States of America , your top quality
supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy,
would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption
in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-
year service outage has been located, and the software
responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of
the newly installed program indicate that we are now
operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully
functional on January 20. We apologize for any
inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward
to resuming full service and hope to improve in
years to come. We thank you for your patience and
understanding.

Sincerely,
The United States of America

We're all on the tech support team, though, so look sharp and let's keep this thing running properly.