Miscellaneous Musing #31

Various Christian sources have told us that suffering is something to be accepted or even welcomed rather than avoided and resented.  A way to understand this may be to think of God as a smith who must use hammer blows and exposure to fire to perfect us, his creations.

Uncommon Commentary #168: Revive la Difference

There's much less sexual discrimination now than formerly; not because we've become more "enlightened," but because men and women so often look and act alike that it's difficult to discriminate (= distinguish) between the sexes.

Uncommon Commentary #167

Obama's policies have had reverses, and increasingly they have had reversals.  The ascendant Clintonian character of his rule evidently goes beyond flip-flops; on 27 January, psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow wrote of our current chief executive's "appropriating Bill Clinton’s facial expressions" and attempting to "channel" his Democratic predecessor.  I therefore give Obombast this advice: Don't try to turn yourself into Clinton.  Transforming yourself from the worst president ever into the second-worst is too small an improvement to bother with.

Uncommon Commentary #166; or, Posting #200!

Tommy Vietor, spokesman of President Obombast's "National" Security Council, said over the weekend that Gaddafi has "lost" his legitimacy to rule; Obombast himself said the same in late February.  I'd like to know just how these two think that Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup, acquired legitimacy to rule.

Uncommon Commentary #165

I've just learned that in late February, in the Tajoura district of Libya's capital, there took place the funeral for a man killed in clashes with government loyalists.  Graffiti in the area read "Tajoura is free," "Down to [presumably an error for "with"] the dog," and, most notably: "Gaddafi, you Jew."  The third of those inscriptions doesn't prove that opponents of the regime generally share the author's opinion of Jews, but it does hint that (at least many of) the rebels may be more-objectionable characters than what we in the USA, with our overly simplistic world view, tend to assume they must be; see here.  Sometimes there are no "good guys."

Uncommon Commentary #164

Why the deuce did President Yo’ Mama include a slum in his Brazilian itinerary?  Did he want to reminisce about his membership in a law firm that specialized in helping the likes of Tony Rezko to develop “low-income” (viz., squalid) housing?

Uncommon Commentary #163

The US Supreme Court recently ruled 8-1 that the US Constitution gives Westboro Baptist Church members the right to protest at funerals of servicemen (as they evidently did also at the collective funeral for victims of the shooting by Jared Loughner), carrying signs that bear messages like "God hates you" and "Thank God for dead soldiers."  The decision is legally correct (because the Court's rôle in this case was not to say whether the behavior of these false prophets is good or evil but merely whether it is protected by the Constitution) but morally wrong, which ought to teach us the lesson that the Constitution has considerable limitations.  The law of the land must never supersede that of God.

Uncommon Commentary #162: Lift up Your Head, O Ye Gates

Defense Secretary Gates, whose inclusion in the "Cabinet" was one of Emperor Nerobama's least-unsatisfactory personnel choices, said that [the establishment of] “a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses” and that an operation of that sort “also requires more airplanes than you can find on a single aircraft carrier, [and] so it is a big operation in a big country.”  If his purpose in saying this was only to caution against thinking that this kind of intervention would be a simple matter, then his words are welcome; if his purpose was to argue that the creation of such a zone could entangle the USA in another serious conflict, then they may be just an excuse for inaction.  Gaddafi, whose energy is devoted entirely to quashing the rebellion in his own country, won't wage war versus the USA (unless perhaps he perceives the Obama Nation as being too effete to resist adequately), and it's unlikely that Western action this late in the rising against Gaddafi will result in the strongman's ouster, leading to another episode of quixotic "nation-building."

Uncommon Commentary #161

Anonymous aides to Emperor Nerobama—And who'd want to be named, working for that administration?—say that he has told them that it would be "so much easier" for him to be president of (presumably mainland) China instead of the USA.  I suggest that we and the Chinese trade chief executives; Hu Jintao couldn't be worse as our supreme leader than Obama, and Obama's mismanagement would end the economic dynamism of the People's Republic of China, making that country a less-dangerous enemy to ours.  If only the Chinese would agree to such an exchange!

Uncommon Commentary #160: What We Ought to Tap Is His Head, to See if There's Anything in It

Emperor Nerobama has said that he is "prepared" to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to give us relief from the rising price of rock oil—the word "rock" should really be included, to distinguish this kind of oil from whale oil, olive oil, &c.—also known as petroleum.  There is, however, a reason why this source of fuel is called "Strategic": the Federal Government created it during the 1973 embargo by petroleum-producing Arab states, to make certain that there would be a way to power the USA temporarily—for about one month, at current levels of consumption—if our country should ever be denied access to foreign sources by an emergency, such as the outbreak of war versus our major suppliers of this strategic liquid.  It was not intended as a hapless chief executive's stopgap alternative to offshore drilling.

Uncommon Commentary #159: Stingers versus Stinkers

It has occurred to me that nearly all my postings here on the Doman Domain are negative, in that they decry something that's wrong with the world. (I don't apologize for this, because it's not my fault that there are so many more things wrong than right; it may be better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, but sometimes people's perception is so dim that they can't even discern light from darkness until someone such as I enlightens [pun intended] them on the subject.)  As an alternative, therefore, I devote this one to a new breed of hero, the independent filmmaker who exposes the devious practices of the likes of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now! (ACORN), "National" Public Radio (NPR), and Planned Parenthood (which is not known by an acronym, although "PP" would satisfy the requirement).  I'm impressed especially by Lila Rose, the nemesis of the last of those three, which is the USA's largest abortion provider.  She began anti-foeticide efforts at age 9; while still a journalism student in one of the darkest places in the USA (the University of California at Los Angeles), she was already conducting "sting" operations in abortion pseudo-clinics by pretending to have been impregnated through statutory rape; now that she's graduated, she continues as the president of her own pro-life not-for-profit corporation, Live Action—founded when she was 15!—the latest work of which may result in de-funding one third of the budget of Planned (Non-)Parenthood.  NPR also may be taken off the federal dole, and the cutting-off of government money to the ACORN has resulted in its official ceasing to exist, although its local components evidently continue under new names.   So that I don't disappoint Doman Domain devotees—How's that for alliteration?—I must note that there is bad news associated with this good news.  That the ACORN, NPR, and "PP" have ever been supported by taxpayers, rather than having had to rely upon voluntary contributions (as do groups that actually serve a legitimate purpose) ought to be a scandal.  Furthermore, our lawmakers had ample reason to raise eyebrows at the behavior of those infamous institutions before the above-mentioned muckrakers launched their exposés.  The ACORN, for instance, was already under investigation in at least a dozen States for vote fraud related to the catastrophic 2008 elections, and videos made available years ago on YouTube established that Planned Parenthood staff routinely break the law and incite minors to do the same.  Were it not for the initiative of the crusading couple (James O'Keefe and an assistant) who posed as a pimp and prostitute at ACORN offices in five cities, the US House of Reprehensives indubitably would not have voted to sever that organization's lifeline to our dollars. (Worse yet, when they did vote, the tally was only 345-75, or 5 nays for every 23 ayes; the 75 doesn't even include Barney Frank, who was not then present but who later demanded an investigation of O'Keefe and company.)
The achievements of Miss Rose and her ilk won't change the course of future history but will enable them to know that they have fought "the good fight"; they may be small ones in the context of this world, but they loom larger in the life to come, which is the only one that ultimately matters.

Uncommon Commentary #158

There is perhaps no better evidence for the self-debasement of modern society than the fact that actor Charlie Sheen's (probably psychopathic) depravity has actually augmented his status as a celebrity of popular culture.

Miscellaneous Musing #30

A question for any college-basketball team endeavoring to win the championship of its minor conference so as to earn an automatic but low-seed berth in the NCAA Tournament: Why is it better to lose badly in the first round of that tourney than to be competitive in the NIT?

Uncommon Commentary #157

Gaddafi (or however he spells his name using the Latin alphabet; "Swine" would be an apt transliteration) certainly deserves to lose his hold on power, but the mere fact of opposition to him on the part of many Libyans doesn't prove that they think the way we do.  There is no justification for calling the rebels "pro-democracy" (which, to the US mind, equates to being in favor of peace, love, justice, freedom, sunshine, cuddly bunnies, &c.).

Miscellaneous Musing #29

Such horrible things can happen to us in this life that we need God's grace not just to avoid them (and to cope with them if they do happen) but also to avoid becoming neurotic or worse from worrying about them.