Uncommon Commentary #188: Why Obsess over a "Process" That's Really an Abscess?

Castigating Israel for not yielding to every foreign demand—including even his!—for the sake of the misnamed "Peace Process" (v.i.) in the Holy Land, President Obombast told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that "The International Community is tired of an endless process …."  So am I.  Why can't the "International Community" stop trying to resuscitate said process, and mercifully allow it to undergo a natural death?
(Even if we Gentiles don't realize that 18 years is quite enough time to see whether the Oslo Accords and their successor the Road Map for Peace would prove effectual, the least that we ought to do is to stop referring to these fantasies collectively as the Peace Process; this designation denotes movement toward peace, but things have actually gotten worse, through the conferring of legitimacy upon terrorists.)

Uncommon Commentary #187: If He Signs the Order, the Only Thing Contracting Will Be the Similarity Between the USA and a Free Country

Emperor Nerobama is getting deserved criticism (even from some fellow Democrats) over a potential executive order, which would compel businesses that contract with the federal government to disclose contributions to candidates and causes made both currently and over the past two years (i.e., retroactive to our transformation into the Obama Nation), and would prohibit such companies from exercising their US-Supreme-Court-affirmed right to be politically active.  Objections to this particular proposal have been made on the grounds that its only possible purpose would be to identify, and thereby intimidate, contractors who are also detractors (that is, who make donations frowned upon by the present presidential administration); this is certainly true, but there's a more general reason to oppose executive orders of this sort (v.i.), which reason I have not heard mentioned by anyone, unless it be the subject of the Professional Services Council's imprecise reference to the order's "dubious legality."

The controversy started me wondering just what an "executive order" is anyway.  Research into the matter revealed that the term applied originally to an order given by the US president in the course of administering the executive branch of the US government, which branch he heads; they were exercises of executive power rather than usurpations of legislative power.  Most executive orders have fit into the former category, and can be likened to instructions that a mistress of a household might give her maid on the frequency of changing bedsheets.  Progressively, though, our chief executives, especially serial abusers of authority such as Franklin Roosevelt, Clinton, and Obama, have deformed something innocuous into a means of unconstitutionally issuing de-facto laws. (In recognition of this, one left-wing organization, the Soros-funded Institute for Policy Studies, put out a report that urged Obama to bypass Congress and henceforward rule exclusively by executive order, viz., by decree.)  What's execrable about Obama's draught fiat (which may not even be the most outrageous example in history) is not just its partisan quality but also the very fact of its intrusion into the legislative sphere.

Even I, cynical though I've long been about the (mal)functioning of the US government, was shocked to learn of the perversion of executive orders, and, even more so, to realize that this deceitful practice has won tacit acceptance.  Our president is called the chief executive because his true rôle is to execute laws enacted by Congress, rather than to enact laws himself.  I'm no Founder-worshipper, but, if we're going to call this country a "democracy" anyway, we might as well try to ensure that its governance according to the US Constitution is the fact as well as the theory.  Conversely, if we're to continue to run the USA in such a way that the Revolutionaries wouldn't recognize it, we ought to perhaps change the spelling of the second syllable in "democracy" to "mock."

Uncommon Commentary #186: Contamination of the "Arab Spring"

Egypt's interim government, which took power as a result of the so-called revolution that ousted Mubarak, has reconciled the "moderate" Fatah faction of the [PLO-transmogrified-into-the-]Palestinian Authority with the unabashedly immoderate Hamas faction; the new leadership also makes little or no effort to prevent Islamic mobs from assaulting Christians and burning their churches.  Isn't Egyptian "democracy" wonderful?

Uncommon Commentary #185: Why Is Hawking Hawking Atheism?

Cerebral but theologically benighted Stephen Hawking has said that there’s no Heaven, which assertion raises a question: If an ecclesiastic is not qualified to pronounce on scientific matters, how can a physicist be an authority on spiritual concerns?

Uncommon Commentary #184: Maybe the Programs So Described Are As Harmful as if They Were Illegal Drugs

I'm tired of hearing some television series or other complimented as "addictive."  Addiction is a serious issue, not to be thus trivialized.

Uncommon Commentary #183: An Idea from a Bubbahead

Failed-President Clinton thinks that there ought to be an "internet agency," instituted and funded by (yet somehow independent of) either the US government or the United Nations, to present the facts in response to untruths that "originate and spread online."  Note the word "online"; apparently he wants an exemption for lies that originate from him. (In fairness, having to handle even his falsehoods as well might overload the system.)

Uncommon Commentary #182: The Latin for "Left" Is "Sinister"

Experience has taught me that, even at the risk of developing paranoia, it is safest not to believe anything said or written by a leftist (unless the leftist's statement can be corroborated by reliable sources).

Uncommon Commentary #181: Come, Mr. Taliban, Tally Me Bananas

That is, come into the government, and count me (Uncle Sam) as being bananas.

Most of my countrymen probably don't realize that we are trying to bring the Taliban into the Afghan regime; the reasoning is that they command the loyalty of a large segment of the populace, and so, if the country is to be ruled with stability, a share of power must be given to the very people that Western armed forces drove from power ten years ago.  What this reveals (if it wasn't already obvious) is the madness of building "democracy" in a place like Afghanistan.

Uncommon Commentary #180

The Obama Administration has argued, evidently correctly, that the SEALs' operation against Usama bin Laden was legal under international laws of war; for over two years, however, this same administration has been denying to the world that we are at war versus Terror, and been treating terrorists as common domestic criminals rather than as enemy combatants.  In practicing what they don't preach, President Yo'Mama (see the list of domanisms) and company have set us up perfectly for the accusation that we have not slain a belligerent but carried out a political assassination.

Uncommon Commentary #179: "Kiss My Assassination!"

The al-Qaedists have acknowledged the demise of top terrorist Usama bin Laden, but why have they done so, when they could have instead availed themselves of the dearth of death-scene photographs to promote theories that he's yet alive?  There may be significance for us in the likely reason: they think that they stand to gain more from Moslem furor over his so-called assassination than from plausible denial that the US mission succeeded.

Uncommon Commentary #178: The Navy SEALs Bin Laden's Doom

You may have noticed that the US Government's attempts at giving the story of the raid that killed bin Laden contained some slight discrepancies [rhetorical understatement], which, ominously, boost the credibility of the accusation that we assassinated the Terror tycoon.  Considering who did the explaining, e.g., Obombast, White House Press Secretary Jay Blarney—I mean, Carney—&c., it's unsurprising that this effort was botched, but much confusion also resulted from the fact that transmission between SEALs and heels was lost for the final "period of almost 20 or 25 minutes."  Why, instead of bungling the narrative by speaking of things that they knew next-to-nothing about, didn't they simply admit that they hadn't adequate information?  It's impossible to know, but it could well be that to make such a concession would've meant acknowledging that President Egobama (a play on "ego" and "Obama") was not fully in control of the situation.

Uncommon Commentary #177: Obama's Victory Crap

Another uncommon commentary is made necessary by the apparent willingness of many non-left-wing sources to endorse the falsehood that Obombast will go down in history as having rid the world of Usama bin Laden.  Approving the operation against the head of al-Qaeda is not to his discredit, but nor is it any particular credit, since, although it was the right decision, it was also the obvious one.  Can you imagine any post-"9/11" US president, least of all one who's running for re-election, not capitalizing a golden opportunity to capture or kill our #1-most-wanted terrorist?  You know that our chief executive has a reputation for error when his opponents, for the sake of a change from criticism of him, praise him simply for not doing the wrong thing.
Had Obama and most of his fellow Democrats had their way, the target of SEAL Team Six (previously reviled by leftists as "Cheney's assassination squad") wouldn't even have been found, for bin Laden was located thanks to interrogative methods employed under the previous administration, but disingenuously banned by this one as constituting "torture."  It is not incorrect to say that this is a success of the President, but the President, in this case, is George W. Bush.

Uncommon Commentary #176: It Was Mayday on May Day for the Maven of Mayhem

(Actually, it was May Day in the USA, but it was already 2 May in Abbotabad.)

It would be hypocritical to affect tears over the demise of someone like Usama bin Laden, but neither, really, should we exult over his death (or that of any other fellow human being).  Ezekiel 33:11 reads in part: "As I live, says the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live." (This doesn't mean that it was wrong to kill UbL, who had plenty of opportunity to choose virtue over vice.  Justice is not the same as murder.)  This verse comes from the Old Testament, and therefore applied to the lost sheep of Israel, but Christianity extends the attitude to all mankind—Yes, even to Moslem terrorists.

To some degree, no doubt, the jubilation is a result of the public's having made UbL into a personification of the attacks on 11 Sept. 2001; this equation is obvious from the infantile pronouncements that have been made since Sunday, e.g., "America [sic] is back," "the curse is broken," "… rejuvenates the American [sic] psyche."  The assumption subconsciously underlying such statements apparently is that the mere fact of being "American" means that we are especially blessed by Providence, and so any catastrophe that happens here (rather than in the true Promised Land, Israel, where an act of terrorism is nearly a routine occurrence) is an aberration; in eliminating UbL we have fulfilled our vengeance for, and thereby effectively erased, a dark chapter of our history.  The mastermind of "9/11," however, was not Usama bin Laden but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been in our custody for years; in addition to being un-Christian, therefore, the celebration is rather misdirected.

Democrats who professed indignance at the "torture" of terrorists, including the just-mentioned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, become hypocrites by expressing joy over the killing of bin Laden (unless, as is more likely, they joined the Democratic Party because they were already hypocrites).

There's another, practical reason not to party too heartily: doing so could bolster the persecution complex that many Moslems around the world evidently have, and scandalize potential terrorists into becoming actual ones.

If what I've written already does nothing to make people sober, they ought to bear in mind that Christ told us (Matthew 24:21) that the Great Tribulation at the end of history will be worse than anything that has happened before; therefore, what took place ten years ago may pale in comparison with occurrences of the future—to judge from the way that things are going, and from prophecies by reliable sources, probably not even the distant future.

(Lastly, enthusiasm should also perhaps be suppressed by bewilderment over one of the oddities of the operation that got bin Laden: since his compound was hundreds of miles from the ocean, why was the assignment given to a Navy SEALs unit?)

Uncommon Commentary #175: Since He's Heir to a Throne and She's Heiress to a Fortune, Perhaps it's Not "Shacking" but "Mansioning" Up

Since I assiduously avoid exposure to popular "culture," I've only now learned that William Windsor and Kate Middleton cohabited before bothering to marry one another.  If the multitude who cheered the royal nuptials were hailing Prince William and Miss Middleton for changing their relationship from one of sin to one of legitimacy, there's hope for the world after all.