The U.N. lowered their flag to half-staff for a brutal dictator, elected Iran to its Commission on Women’s Rights, and wants to spend $76 trillion over the next four decades to “green” the world. With that in mind, why should anybody doubt they have what it takes to eradicate oppression and misery or question their grip on economic reality?

From Deseret News:

The focus of the forum was “universal access to basic social protection and social services.” “No one should live below a certain income level,” stated Milos Koterec, President of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. “Everyone should be able to access at least basic health services, primary education, housing, water, sanitation and other essential services.” These services were presented at the forum as basic human rights equal to the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The money to fund these services may come from a new world tax.

“We will need a modest but long-term way to finance this transformation,” stated Jens Wandel, Deputy Director of the United Nations Development Program. “One idea which we could consider is a minimal financial transaction tax (of .005 percent). This will create $40 billion in revenue.”

“It is absolutely essential to establish controls on capital movements and financial speculation,” said Ambassador Jorge Valero, the current Chairman of the Commission on Social Development. He called for “progressive policies of taxation” that would require “those who earn more to pay more taxes.” Valero’s speech to the forum focused on capitalism as the source of the world financial problems.

When asked where she expected the money to provide all needy people with a basic income, healthcare, education and housing would come from, Fatima Rodrigo, one of the presenters at the forum, mentioned the “very small tax of .005 percent.”

She added, “There is plenty of money, we just need to stop spending it on militaries and wars.”

Here’s an alternate plan: The U.N. should start with something they can immediately control. If they moved out of their super-expensive digs and instead held their meetings in cheaper quarters (perhaps in “Occupy” encampments), billions of dollars would be freed up that they could immediately put toward helping impoverished and oppressed.

Heck, maybe more people could be helped if they simply paid their parking tickets.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Last week the UN General Assembly held a moment of silence for North Korea’s Kim Jong Il (it’s over, you can start talking again, Jimmy). On Wednesday, in spite of the dictator’s abhorrent human rights record, the UN went a step further:

(Reuters) – U.N. offices around the world lowered their flags to half-staff to mark the funeral of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Wednesday in a move the world body said was routine but which prompted objections from some human rights activists.

In New York, where the flag outside U.N. headquarters was lowered, spokesman Eduardo del Buey said the gesture had been requested by Pyongyang’s U.N. mission but was normal for the funeral of any head of state.

“It’s a matter of protocol,” he said.

North Korea is a full member of the 193-nation organization.

But UN Watch, a Geneva-based advocacy group, said the U.N. human rights message was “at serious risk of being blurred today” because of the honoring of Kim, who died on December 17.

“Today should be a time for the U.N. to show solidarity with the victims – the millions of North Koreans brutalized by Kim’s merciless policies of starvation, torture and oppression – and not with the perpetrator,” the group’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, said in a statement.

Maybe one of the things about Kim Jong Il’s tenure that appealed to the appease-o-crats and Goracle-worshipping carbon credit dealers at the UN was his refusal to go overboard on the use of planet-destroying electricity:

As for the funeral procession, the crowd lining the streets of Pyongyang was stricken with mandated grief, not unlike many at the protocol-rich, common sense-deprived United Nations:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

File this story under “Al Gore’s portfolio hardest hit”:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged governments in rich nations to work around troubled economic times and scale up donations to a global climate change fund that is at risk of becoming an “empty shell”.

The world’s poorest nations are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, more extremes of droughts and floods and say rich nations should help them with cash to try to adapt.

Nearly 200 nations agreed at major climate talks last year in Cancun, Mexico, to raise $100 billion annually from 2020 to help poor nations fight climate change. The money would be managed by a Green Climate Fund.
[...]
He said countries should act now to donate to the now empty Green Climate Fund. A U.N. climate conference in Durban, South Africa, from Nov 28 to Dec 9 aims to formally agree the design of the fund and how it will be managed.

“An empty shell is not sufficient and we must fill the shell,” he said. “This is a message I am taking to Durban.”

What part of “there isn’t any money left for your world-wide climate change shams because it was all spent it all on domestic climate change shams” doesn’t he get?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Before you hear the number, it’ll sound even crazier if you remember that we’re actually paying them to tell us these things.

Okay, according to the United Nations, the “greening” of the entire world (including decarbonization, Martinizing and undercoating) can be done for the bargain price of… $76 trillion:

Two years ago, U.N. researchers were claiming that it would cost “as much as $600 billion a year over the next decade” to go green. Now, a new U.N. report has more than tripled that number to $1.9 trillion per year for 40 years.

So let’s do the math: That works out to a grand total of $76 trillion, over 40 years — or more than five times the entire Gross Domestic Product of the United States ($14.66 trillion a year). It’s all part of a “technological overhaul” “on the scale of the first industrial revolution” called for in the annual report. Except that the U.N. will apparently control this next industrial revolution.

The new 251-page report with the benign sounding name of the “World Economic and Social Survey 2011” is rife with goodies calling for “a radically new economic strategy” and “global governance.”

Throw in possible national energy use caps and a massive redistribution of wealth and the survey is trying to remake the entire globe. The report has the imprimatur of the U.N., with the preface signed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon – all part of the “goal of full decarbonization of the global energy system by 2050.”

Make no mistake, much of this has nothing to do with climate.

“Has nothing to do with the climate” indeed. It’s just a massive wealth transfer plan — or “prosperity spreading opportunity” as they say in the White House.

Much of the plan is long-term from today through 2050, but, according to the UN, there’s no reason we can’t “go green” much faster than that.

From the report:

There are examples of rapid national energy transitions. Portugal, for example, increased the share of renewables (including hydroelectric power) in total energy supply from 17 to 45 per cent in just five years, between 2005 and 2010.

And Portugal’s credit rating is now “junk,” they’ve been bailed out, and the national debt is 83% of its Gross Domestic Product. Yeah, let’s convince the rest of the world to do what they’re doing!

The “greens” are into making everything sustainable with the exception of spending.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

You just knew this was coming:

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the United States Tuesday to give the U.N. details about Osama bin Laden’s killing and said that all counter-terrorism operations must respect international law.
[...]
“This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law,” Pillay said in a statement issued in response to a Reuters request.

These are busy days at the White House, so to save them a little time I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a response that US officials should feel free to send to the United Nations as a reply to their request:

Full size memo here.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Just over two years ago, we were promised by now that the world would be holding hands together and singing songs around a warm, carbon neutral campfire. Instead, even our fake superheroes are giving up Hope:

DC Comics must have opened a store just down the street from UN headquarters in Manhattan. Expect a big run on the frightening “Lex Luthor gets tried at Gitmo” issue.

In case you’re wondering, after Superman leaves the country, if Jay Carney has his way, Clark Kent’s reporter duties at the Daily Planet will be taken over by Frank Rich.

Jim Treacher at the Daily Caller has the spin of the day:

We all know what this is really about. It’d be one thing if Superman renounced his U.S. citizenship under The Evil George Bush. But we put a black man in charge, and all of a sudden the Man of Steel heads for the exits? Nice try, Kracker-El. You might as well trade in that red cape for a white hood and join the Kryptonian Klux Klan.

Bob Schieffer would like a word with you, Superman.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Keep reminding yourself as you read the story that we pump a good deal of money into supporting this cuckoos nest. Sometimes though I think it’s worth it in order to keep them isolated in pockets of New York, Vienna and Geneva instead of being entirely free-range socialist nut cases, and this might be one of those days:

United Nations diplomats on Wednesday will set aside pressing issues of international peace and security to devote an entire day debating the rights of “Mother Earth.”

A bloc of mostly socialist governments lead by Bolivia have put the issue on the General Assembly agenda to discuss the creation of a U.N. treaty that would grant the same rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Mother Nature.

Treaty supporters want the establishment of legal systems to maintain balance between human rights and what they perceive as the inalienable rights of other members of the Earth community — plants, animals, and terrain.

Communities and environmental activists would be given more legal power to monitor and control industries and development to ensure harmony between humans and nature. Though the United States and other Western governments are supportive of sustainable development, some see the upcoming event, “Harmony with Nature,” as political grandstanding — an attempt to blame environmental degradation and climate change on capitalism.

The General Assembly two years ago passed a Bolivia-led resolution proclaiming April 22 as “International Mother Earth Day.” The measure was endorsed by all 192 member states. But Bolivian President Evo Morales envisioned much more, vowing in a speech to U.N. delegates that a global movement had begun to lay “out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.”

Morales has been on an anti-capitalist tear ever since Erik Estrada beat him out for the role of Frank Poncherello on CHiPs.

Unfortunately I think these kooks are having some success, because this morning my backyard filed a class action lawsuit against my lawnmower.

In a related story, Charles Manson would appear to agree with the UN’s push for human rights for Mother Earth:

The infamous killer, who started championing environmental causes from behind bars, bemoaned the ‘bad things’ being done to environment in a rambling phone interview from his Californian jail cell.

‘Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere.

‘If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem…’ he added, trailing off.

No more conjugal visits from Al Gore for you, Charlie.

Manson is serious about becoming a modern-day environmentalist leader, because lately he’s been flipping through magazines picking out the private jets, limos and mansions he’s going to buy when he gets paroled and can actively start saving the planet.

Let’s join that UN meeting on human rights for trees, bugs and hillsides live and in progress:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

There’s no better way to ensure that visitors from an advanced civilization elsewhere in the universe want to vaporize the Earth immediately than by making them sit through a United Nations meeting as soon as they get here.

To that end, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs will choose a point-bureaucrat as the visitors’ first-contact/sacrificial alien rectal probee:

If aliens ever land on Earth there will no longer be any confusion over who will greet them with the news the United Nations is set to appoint an astrophysicist to be their first human contact.

Mazlan Othman is expected to be tasked with coordinating humanity’s response to an extraterrestrial visit, if ever required.

The 58-year-old Malaysian will tell a conference next week that with the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting around other stars, the detection of alien life is becoming more and more likely.

‘The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day human kind will received signals from extraterrestrials,’ she said.

‘When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject.

‘The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.’

Better choices would have been Ban Ki-moon and Jimmy Carter. And why wait for aliens to come here? Just strap on their blue safety helmets and blast ‘em off for a Milky Way outreach tour.

Chances are that beings with the technology to travel millions of light years will be the ones choosing who they talk to first, not the U.N.

(h/t Brenda Elliott)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

As the world leaders were back in the City scheming to divvy up money that doesn’t belong to them, the spouses hung around with FLOTUS and received a basket that I’m predicting will come to be known as “the re-gifting heard ’round the world”:

First lady Michelle Obama underscored her healthy eating project today by giving U.N. spouses a tour of a working farm near New York City, and giving them nature-themed gifts.
[...]
The first lady also gave the spouses gifts tied to the kitchen garden she set up at the White House. The descriptions are provided by the White House:

A special recipe of pickled, hand-picked ingredients from the White House Kitchen Garden, including sun gold tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, chocolate bell peppers, carrots, lemon verbena, and fresh herbs are presented in jars with the First Lady’s signature. The jars are topped with original artwork done by California artists, Michael Cronan and Karin Hibma, who were inspired by a photo of Mrs. Obama tending to the garden with children and a wheelbarrow.
[...]
Each gift is presented inside a one-of-a-kind, hand woven basket made of Maplewood harvested in the Midwest by The Longaberger Company, which is a family-owned and operated American company that has been in business for over 100 years. Each basket is lined with a khaki canvas insert. A nickel tag is affixed to the outside of each bag and engraved with the words, “Made Exclusively for Michelle Obama.”

Well of course — who else is going to eat this stuff?

The secret is to use only extra-virgin formaldehyde. For some reason I just had a flashback to high school science lab.

That gift was for the spouses — the visiting men who spent the week hanging out with Barack were sent home with baskets containing much better gifts: An iPod (pre-loaded with all the president’s speeches), autographed photo of Jay-Z, a divot repair tool, Hope & Change limited-edition signature gold-plated putter, carton of Marlboros, autographed copy of “I, TOTUS” and gift certificate for a bacon triple cheeseburger at Ray’s Hell.

Bonus Trivia: The First Lady of Cameroon was the only visiting dignitary to have hair bigger than the country she represents.

(h/t Todd Starnes and WZ)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged “immodest.”

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is “dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women,” according to its website.

They left out that women’s cleavage causes earthquakes, and women are arrested and who knows what else for the crime of being suntanned.

Iranian activists circulated and submitted a petition asking that member states oppose Iran’s appointment, but that piece of paper was apparently tossed on the UN’s pile of unpaid parking tickets and quickly forgotten.

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Soon to be the new mascot of the Democrats’ cap-and-tax push, Disney’s Tinker Bell was tapped by the United Nations this week to serve as an “Honorary Ambassador of Green.”

This is not an Onion parody:

The United Nations Monday named Disney character Tinker Bell an “Honorary Ambassador of Green” to help raise children’s environmental awareness.

The announcement came just before a screening at U.N. headquarters in New York of the world premiere of the Walt Disney animated film, “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” the organization said in a release.

“We’re delighted Tinker Bell has agreed to be our Honorary Ambassador of Green,” said Kiyo Akasaka, undersecretary-general for communications and public information. “This beloved animated character can help us inspire kids and their parents to nurture nature and do what they can to take care of the environment.”

Monday’s event was part of the run-up to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, Demark, in December, where countries will try to secure a new global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Tinker Bell edged out Wendy and Captain Hook for the position. Can’t beat a microscopic carbon footprint.

President Obama just finished up his I Am The Change You Seek speech at the United Nations. Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton noted Obama’s extraordinary self-referentialism mixed with Wilsonian naivete and anti-Bush subtext, and joked that the president “did everything but break out and ask ‘Can’t we all just get along?’”

There was a momentary delay before blood-stained, jihadi-enabling thug Moammar Gadhafi took the podium. He’s babbling about “climate change” and waving around the U.N. charter. Praises “our son” from Africa, Barack Obama.

The latest on Gadhafi’s tent flap:

A New York City suburb says it wants Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to remove his trademark Bedouin tent, set up as part of his visit to the United Nations.

The attorney for the town of Bedford, N.Y., in Westchester County, says he has determined that Gadhafi’s tent, erected on rental property owned by the Trump Organization, is not in compliance with zoning codes, CNN reported Wednesday.

“I discussed this matter with town officials, and the town building inspector believes that this would constitute a violation of several town zoning and land use laws,” Bedford town attorney Joel Sachs told the U.S. broadcaster. “I directed the town building inspector to immediately go to the property and issue a stop work order, which would order the individuals to cease erecting the tent.”

Gadhafi spewing about “aggression” and inveighing against France.

Gadhafi on a conspiracy tear: “Perhaps this swine virus may be one of theose viruses that was created in the laboratory and it got out of control because it was meant to be a military weapon.”

9:20am Eastern update. The U.N. translator can barely keep up with Gadhafi’s crazy ranting.

9:30am Eastern update. This jihadi financier is ranting about Western “terrorism.” “The Security Council is not the security council. It should be called the Terror Council.”

Gadhafi is getting applause.

“The U.N. is terrorizing the Third World.”

9:47am Eastern update. Gadhafi is praising Obama as a “glimpse in the darkness.” He says he would be happy if Obama would be president forever.

He’s babbling about “rolling thunder” — he’ll send it like it was sent over Vietnam and Iraq.

9:56am Eastern update: Gadhafi now musing openly about America being attacked again.

He proposes that U.N. be moved out of the U.S. (finally, a coherent point of agreement.) “American may be targeted again, perhaps by a rocket, and tens of heads of state may die.” Moving the UN wouldn’t be an insult to America. This is a service to America.”

Moans about the “suffering of flying for hours to come to this place.”

10:02am Eastern update: “This is not a normal gathering.”

He can say that again.

10:22am Eastern update: Now, Gadhafi is ranting about JFK’s “Israeli killer” and “Israeli demons.” He wants investigations opened into JFK assassination and MLK assassination.

How come no one has walked out yet?!

10:37am Eastern update: A second translator took over for the first one. He finally is done after two hours of Jew-bashing, Third World whining, and jihadi sympathizing.

It is Monty Python’s world, and we are all just living in it. Fetch the comfy chair!

We all know the answer, but William A. Jacobson has an excellent post asking the inconvenient question:

Will the Left apologize to John Bolton?

***

Update: In the wee hours of the morning comes another set of test launches. Wow. Those new resolutions really showed Kim Jong Il! Via Marketwatch:

North Korea fired two short-range missiles along its east coast Tuesday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The reported launch came a day after similar launches and the apparently successful test of a nuclear weapon. Yonhap had reported earlier in the day that North Korea had declared parts of its coast off-limit to ships, signaling that a new launch was imminent.

UN bigwig arrested on kiddie porn charges.

***

Previous U.N. sex scandal blogging.

“The gunmen shot Ahmed as he was leaving evening prayers in the mosque in Bulohube,” he said.

Mr Ahmed’s son and another man were also wounded in the incident, the Associated Press news agency reports.

The shooting came a day after an explosion in the capital reportedly killed a Somali official, his wife and four others.

It’s a good reminder that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their kith slaughter Muslims with unholy glee. They’re truly the enemies of humanity.

A surprising number of them, it turns out, are also crooks with criminal records in the U.S.

___________

{Post by See-Dubya. H/T for the fascinating MSNBC link to Hot Air Headlines.}