The UN is Useless

This is an opinion I've held for a long time and I don't need any recent events to reinforce this opinion, but it does tend to stir the blood and cause one to react. Over the past few weeks, documents and information have surfaced that members of the United Nations were accepting bribes in the oil for food program. Now, this is not news to me. I think we all are smart enough to know that some greasing of palms always goes on in these types of programs, international or domestic. The interesting thing is how high up the ladder it goes. The head of the oil for food program has been indicted as well as one of the heads of President Jacque Chirac's political party, members of the Russian presidential staff, and God only knows how many little men in Arab and European businesses. For more information, go here.

The central problem with the UN is that its like Congress only 100 times worse because you have patriotism to one's country as opposed to one's state in the mix. Most American politicians are fairly harmless if they know they can get reelected. Of course, nothing gets done, but that's another rant. The UN is so bogged down with bureaucracy that they can't even agree with what to do with themselves. They have no independent power to enforce any of their resolutions and most importantly, they are always brought in to maintain the status quo rather than actually address the source of any problem. The recent outbreak of violence in former Yugoslavia and the tensions associated with that is a good example and the UN has been trying to sort out that conflict for nearly 10 years now.

On a less serious note, I'm happy to admit that I have been wrong. Over the past few weeks I've been saying that it would just be quicker to give the Stanley Cup to Detroit. Well, the Red Wings were eliminated by the Calgary Flames last night. I'm quite happy about that. Now, we just have to have San Jose knock out Colorado and we'll have a playoffs that's independent of all the past few winners. Nice to see a little new blood in the water right before the league goes under for a little while.