Population: One

It occurs to me that one of the large obstacles in the way of invading Iraq is the Security Council veto. It further occurs to me that the rationale behind the veto, that being the great power status of the Allied nations after World War II, is somewhat antiquated.

I don’t think any pro-war pundit can deny that the veto is tremendously frustrating. As so many have pointed out, it seems ridiculous that France can effectively stand in the way of UN action. That ability — the ability of one nation to unfairly stop debate in its tracks — prevents the UN from being effective. Again, many argue that the UN’s inability to press the issue of Iraq is ruining the UN as we watch.

OK. Let’s get rid of the veto. I won’t go so far as to recommend that the permanent members of the Security Council lose that status, but let’s get rid of the vetos and enable the UN to respond in a timely fashion without fear of being blackmailed by any single nation.

Nota bene: Russia has vetoed over 60% more resolutions than the next most frequent vetoer. Someone on NPR tonight was claiming that the US held the record. Incorrect; the link above has the real numbers.

Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld.

“And the idea that inspectors can go in there and discover things, and find things, if they were be that, they would have been named ‘finders’ or ‘discoverers’ instead of ‘inspectors.’”

Damn! Do my local health inspectors know about this? Do home inspectors know about this? Does Inspector Clouseau — well, OK, that last is a bad example. But geeze, guy, inspector does include the concept of finding out when someone’s lying. Hm; I think the word he’s looking for as an alternative is “investigator,” which definitely has more connotations of someone uncovering hidden truths. Still, inspector carries some of that weight as well.

Mind you, as — someone, damn it, I can’t find the link. Anyhow, as someone pointed out, the UN inspectors have in fact discovered and found things, so it seems pretty churlish to claim that they’re incapable of said actions at this stage in the game.

The Libertarian Party has broken new ground; they’ve successfully petitioned the FEC for the right to sell their mailing lists. By “sell their mailing lists,” I mean “sell them to any random bulk mailer who wants to send me more junk mail.” This allows the LP to work around some of the unfortunate side effects of the BCRA, which prohibits political parties from accepting money from corporations.

I pretty much approve of the Libertarian Party being permitted to enter into business transactions, but I gotta quibble at the particular one they chose to defend. They should recognize that as a political party, they are an organization with closer ties to the government than other types of organization, and as a result certain activities should come under greater scrutiny. Selling personal information is one of them.