Today Sarah Palin became a "follower" on her own Facebook account. Sadly she decided to lock herself in step with the group of opportunists trying to derail needed action on climate change. That's more going steady than going rogue.
One of the most persistent stories about the UN that is circulated by people, who, shall we say, are pre-disposed to believing conspiracy theories, is that the UN is plotting to take Americans' guns away. The latest manifestation of this meme occurred last month on the blog of National Association of Gun Rights, which is circulating an online petition to demand that the Senate vote against the UN "Arms Control Treaty." The petition says, "The UN’s “Small Arms
In a bizarre post at the New Republic, Editor in Chief Marty Peretz denigrates the contribution of Arabs and Arab states to the Haiti relief efforts.
The Arabs don't care a fig, not for their impoverished and backward own, and certainly not for strangers. That's why their presence in Haiti amounted to a couple of bucks from Saudi Arabia and maybe from some other sheikhs.
A hit job on Susan Rice written by John Bolton's former spokesperson is making its rounds on the internet. The author, Richard Grenell, tries to make the case that Rice is forsaking her duties at the United Nations in order to spend more time in Washington, D.C. His evidence?
David Brooks starts out strong in a New York Times editorial asking why Haiti is so poor. He makes the very good point that development economics has remarkably few consistent ideas on how to bring about growth. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse a couple of paragraphs later. He ends the piece blaming voodoo and Haitian culture for the nation’s ongoing poverty and his recommendation for change is “paternalism.”
Joel Kotkin and Robert Cristiano use the opportunity of the renovation of the United Nations building in New York to argue that the UN should be relocated to Dubai. Both gentleman come at this question from an urban planning perspective, but they manage to peddle in silly stereotypes about it's employees ("sloth" and "pretentious.") And the institution itself: ("dominated by antisemitism and anti-Americanism.")
I don't want to seem humorless, and I do agree with Jason that there is a "tendency of nearly everyone to joke about wintertime cold spells" as counter-evidence to global warming.
The Heritage Foundation's Brett Schaefer is seemingly apoplectic that the Obama administration would agree to a 1.2 to 1.7 percent increase in its dues payments to UN Peacekeeping. According to Schaefer this adds and additional $100 million a year to American contributions to UN Peacekeeping and means President Obama is "letting down" the American taxpayer.