Who believes the United Nations should still be relied on for anything? This corrupt and failed experiment should be abolished at this point. It simply cannot be salvaged at this point. Cuba now sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council along with such luminaries of human rights as Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.
Anyone who seriously believes in the United Nations right now has a rather slim grasp on reality. This organization tolerates slaughters, engages in sexual slavery and reliably supports dictatorships all across the world. Evict the bums and turn that nice chunk of real estate in New York City into a theme park or something.
(BTW, absolutely killer line over at Publius Pundit: "(Cuba) has a human rights record that would blanch an onyx.". Beautiful!)
UPDATE: This New York Times article describes the election process. Which is pretty silly when campaign literature greets the delegates at their desks. Then comes the real kicker: The members have to investigate themselves. This should be rich.
Yet another screaming headline. Bush at an all time low approval rating. One point to consider here:
Total Republicans 344 / 313 (unweighted/weighted)
Total Democrats 433 / 453
Total Independents 464 / 475
The sample data makes no sense whatsoever. The weighting reduced an already heavily undersampled population. The sample is skewed, blatantly. I wouldn't bet the farm on a poll that was this slanted.
Just pointing that out.
UPDATE: And the folks at the Harris Poll have some data that really puts paid to this sample. Their latest electoral breakdown shows 31% Republican, 34% Democrat and 24% Independent. That's completely in line with the trend they have over the years, too. The CBS people are really being dishonest here.
UPDATE: Brainster's got more. So Does Sister Toldjah, Stop The ACLU, Newsbusters, Flopping Aces and probably a bunch more people who can actually do a bit of math. CBS, your slip is showing.
There's an unsigned editorial in the Washington Post today that makes quite a lot of sense. It discusses two nominees for federal judgeships and the relative merits and weaknesses of the two men. It's pretty hard on Judge Terrence W. Boyle but stresses that Brett M. Kavanaugh should be confirmed. Based on what I have read about him, I agree. (Boyle's history is unknown to me, so I'm not sure about him).
One of the things that bug me about the ABA these days is having an unelected group have a virtual veto power over nominations. I think it's particularly bad when what appears to be a politically based downgrade of a candidate's ranking occurs. I cannot ever recall a nominee being re-ranked in the middle of a confirmation process. Yet that is exactly what the ABA did to Kavanaugh. I think it's time to take a look at whether the ABA should have the kind of power it does and whether it is exercising that power wisely.
The Washington Post runs an article on three Republican candidates who happen to be black. J. Kenneth Blackwell for Governor in Ohio, Michael S. Steele for Senator in Maryland and Lynn Swann for Governor in Pennsylvania. The article mostly talks about the first two.
I think it's a good thing for the Republicans to run good candidates, regardless of race. These three all appear to fit the bill. One thing in the article bugs me, though. The reporter mentions that Steele, in a campaign appearance, didn't stress he was a Republican.
Steele is generally cautious with his references to the Republican Party, although he says that is because most people know his political affiliation. When he announced his candidacy before a boisterous crowd in Prince George's County, the nation's most affluent majority-black suburb, he did not once mention his GOP affiliation. Instead, he described himself as a "bridge" between the parties.
This is different how? Candidates almost never put their party affiliation on campaign posters or in their other advertising. That's completely normal in almost all levels except the Presidential campaigns - and it's not even always in evidence there. It's also good politics not to stress party affiliation over the candidate himself. The hardcore party partisans know who their candidate is and don't need to be reminded. The independents tend to vote the person, not the party.
Editor and Publisher reports on a survey of reporters. There are quite a few interesting things in the report, but E&P leads with the statistic that 70% or reporters have been accused of bias in the past year. Pretty stunning? Not really. Being accused of bias is pretty normal these days for anyone writing in any medium. The majority of those surveyed lay a lot of blame on poor editing, not on themselves. There is one issue though, 'waaaay down the page that should have been the lead, I think.
One third of the respondents report that they discovered that they had published false information. They blamed it on sources lying to them.
I think that figure is very high indeed and points to a major problem. I do not for one second believe that information from anonymous sources is always accurate, and this tends to agree with that. 31% report finding a source was lying to them. The poll sampled newspaper reporters, by the way. Do you think the error rate is lower in television news? I don't.
This is a good thing to keep in mind when reading the news, isn't it?
Blogosphere, World news | Gaius Wednesday, 10 May , 2006 | 
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