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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 March 8

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March 8

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Presidential order

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This question came out of a conversation with my kid. Suppose the president (I am in the US) comes visiting me at my house. Can he order me to do anything at all? I am a US citizen, but not a member of military (and never was) and not a federal employee. Anything that I have to do by law because of this presence doesn't count (e.g. if secret service tells me to put away a weapon). It has to be something that the president can choose to order or not and I have to do if he orders. If he can order something, what sort of things would they be?

For extra credit, if you don't live in the US, and your head of state and/or government comes to visit, could they order you to do anything? --Ornil (talk) 04:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Ornil (talk) 05:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved
The same applies in most democracies (I almost claimed "all", but there might be the odd small exception). In the UK, even the Queen gives orders only to her own employees (as far as I know -- I haven't asked her family!) and I expect they are all phrased as requests. Dbfirs 09:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure the Queen is very polite. However, does she still legally retain power (not used, obviously) to order people to do certain things? --Ornil (talk) 16:59, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
She's Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces, Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces, and has a stack of honorary military positions. She personally exercises none of these powers. She has to obey far more commands than she ever issues. These commands come from 16 governments and are usually phrased as "(prime) ministerial advice". -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 17:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See reserve powers for the things she can actually do. Most of them are only to be used if it all goes pants-up. Alansplodge (talk) 15:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And see Advice (constitutional) for "(prime) ministerial advice". Queen Elizabeth's great-grandfather decreed something for a top admiral a century ago, but there weren't consequences when the admiral ignored the royal decree. Nyttend (talk) 02:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

St. Mary's Catholic Church, Onoville, NY

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Where (street #,lot#, etc.) Was this church located? It was formed in 1877 and existed into the early 1900's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Green11783 (talkcontribs) 06:20, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you contacted local libraries and/or historical societies? Onoville doesn't appear to exist anymore, but it is near Jamestown, New York along the line between Chautauqua County, New York and Cattaraugus County, New York. Here is the Chautauqua County historical society and here is the same for Cattaraugus County. --Jayron32 20:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You may also want to read Historical Gazetteer and Biographical Memorial of Cattaraugus County, N.Y., published in 1893. I've not checked it, knowing nothing about the church, but you should check it; churches were a favorite topic of county historians writing around this time. Nyttend (talk) 02:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Blue hair ( without redirection)

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Every time I type in the words "blue hair" in the search bar, it always redirects to an article about blue hair. I want to see more articles about blue hair when I type it in the search bar. How can I look for more articles about blue hair, without being redirected to that article?--68.186.238.19 (talk) 18:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's another search box at the top of this page, not the one at the right side you have everywhere on Wikipedia. Try that one. The button underneath it is labelled "Search Wikipedia". StuRat (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
From the search box at the top right of every page, type in Blue hair and don't hit enter. Instead use the arrow keys to scroll down to the third option which reads "containing..." That will search for articles that contain the phrase. Dismas|(talk) 18:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, in general, if you aren't happy with a web site's own search, you can use Google, like so:
  "blue hair" site:en.Wikipedia.org
This will search through Wikipedia's English pages only. StuRat (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what version you guys are using, but I have only one search box, located on the left, and it has two options: "Go" and "Search". To look at all the articles containing a particular phrase, I press the Search option. The search for "blue hair" gives me this result. -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 18:11, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jack, go to Preferences/Appearance, and you will probably find that your "skin" is set to "MonoBook". Change it to "Vector" to see what this is about. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]