As IF Times

link BBC News – Profile: Ban Ki-moon.

This all sounds warm and fuzzy, but what is it exactly that the head of the U.N. does?  Not to just to pick on Mr. Ban, but let’s include  the professional tsk tskers before him, Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, etc. etc., all the way back to  U Thant.  Viewed outside of the circle of the political jet set, what accomplishments do these people actually achieve?  More importantly, how do they get appointed to these cushy jobs? 

We would have to assume that the number one priority of this person and in fact the  founding reason for the U.N.’s existence lies with the standard answer given by beauty contestants for decades; that is world peace.  By this measure, the results are spotty and certainly debatable.  Founded in 1945 after World War 2, the U.N. was ostensibly set up to prevent the outbreak of another world scale military conflict through diplomatic means.  On the surface, this kind of worked, but perhaps only because after World War 2, the only nation that wasn’t obliterated was the United States.  In fact, through the rebuilding process of its wartime enemies Germany and Japan, the Americans helped move the world into a period of 60 years of general prosperity accompanied by a somewhat  uneven peace.  Conflicts such as the Vietnam War, the Korean War, Kosovo etc., were arguably policing conflicts rather than world scale hostilities.  It was the U.N. that helped with the creation of Israel in 1948, ironically, the source of much of world conflict today. 

It’s certainly debatable whether or not the U.N. has had any real efficacy if not for their main asset of American financing, resources and of course military arsenal.  Paradoxically, the U.S. is consistently at odds with the rest of the members of the U.N. on many world issues.  Given a chance, all and sundry banana republic nations condemn the U.S. for one thing or another.   Just as the Democrats in the U.S. like to pin all that ails the nation on George Bush, so does the rest of the world assign blame to the Americans for all of the world’s woes.   This, despite the collection of shady and comic book caricatures of tin pot dictators that populate the U.N.’s committees.   Most recently, Mohmar Khadaffi, he of bombing his own people fame, was the Chair of the U.N.’s human rights council and in fact created the eponymous Khadaffi prize for excellence in that field.   You can’t make that one up.

So, getting back to Mr. Ban. What unique qualifications does this guy have that he is unopposed and unanimously acclaimed for another term in office?  If you read the article, he is exalted for his efforts on Global Warming during his first term.   Hmm.  So world peace is not among his accomplishments, but ‘awareness’ of global warming is.  Call me cynical, but I suspect there’s more money in the global warming racket than there is in quelling dictators.  If only he didn’t have to share a stage with that media hog Al Gore.

In addition, it’s not as if he even has to learn anything new for his job.  It’s likely that there exists a manual of epithets and catchphrases that he can choose from in which to create rousing speeches, all applicable to any circumstance:

“We must act now to avert an imminent crisis”

“Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis”

“The world must come together to avert this crisis”

“The world cannot stand idly by while this crisis unfolds”

Crisis of course is the key word, without which there would be no implied urgency.   On the other hand, saving the world is a tough job.  Hope he’s up to it.

link Death penalty: Exhaustive study finds death penalty costs California $184 million a year – latimes.com.

Really?  It costs an estimated $308 million dollars to carry out a single death penalty in the state of California?  In essence, the cost of dying is thousands of times more than  the cost of living there.  This is certainly a business that can be performed more cheaply by off shore labor.  In fact, an offshore company can charge half of what it ‘costs’ in that state, and still make a pretty good profit.  They would only need about one contract every few years or so to stay in business.  Heck, just across the border in Mexico, there are those practising the craft all the time for free.  Come to think of it, why bother to execute them when for only the cost of a bus ticket, we can send them to Mexico wearing cartel gang colors.

Unable to convince the public on any given policy that they don’t agree with, the progressive left defaults to appealing to economic arguments to support their positions.   In this particular case, that strategy backfires on them.   As they break down the costs involved, it highlights the ridiculous maze of bureaucracy that must be navigated in order to carry out the state laws.  The logic thread then goes, ‘why not abolish it altogether’ since it is so cost inefficient.  If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same argument for abandoning the war on drugs.  Which is the same argument for not enforcing illegal immigration laws.  Using the same logic, it must be an astronomical number for police to enforce any kind of laws.  Then why have police?  In fact, why have laws?

I wonder if that same argument could be used on the cost of medical care?  Recently, a friend of mine had a small accident in the US where he was visiting.  This required a trip to the hospital.  The cost for fixing up a dented finger was over $4000.  No rational person would then conclude that the cost of  this procedure means that medical care should therefore be abandoned because of cost.  It only makes sense to fix the root causes of why the system is the way it is.   I wonder if lawyers are involved.

Clearly the cancer of bureacracy has infected  all areas of public life.  This cancer is hiding as a “cost of implementation” when progressives want to rationalize their agenda and when other arguments fail the sniff test of logic and morality.   Soon, it will be too expensive to feed the kids…..