The horror was DOCUMENTED.  On paper.  It's all there.  17 miles of file cabinets containing Nazi records on everything from head lice to mail records to executions...

17,000,000 victims: Jews, laborers, homosexuals, and political dissidents.

The documents are being scanned and will be available within the next year to a number of research programs and libraries.

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Ban Ki-moon was sworn in today as the 8th Secretary General of the United Nations, officially ending the decade-long term of his predecessor, Kofi Annan.

Today, Mr Ban pledged to "be mindful of... loyalty, discretion, and conscience" and to "set the highest ethical standards..."

Even if all he does is remind people that taking bribes is a bad thing, he'll already be miles ahead of Mr. Annan's repugnant term at the helm.

The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal reminds us of the words and deeds of the UN under Annan's direction:

...When Mr. Annan was named Secretary General 10 years ago, he did so as the U.S.-backed candidate of reform. Jesse Helms, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Mr. Annan that "if you choose to be an agent of real and deep-seated change, you will find many supporters--and even allies--here in the U.S. Congress."

Senator Helms's expectations were not met. Seven years later--thanks to U.S. military action that Mr. Annan did everything in his power to prevent--we learned that he had presided over the greatest bribery scheme in history, known as Oil for Food. We learned that Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's trusted confidant in charge of administering the program, had himself been a beneficiary of Iraqi kickbacks to the tune of $160,000. We learned that Mr. Annan's chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, had ordered potentially incriminating documents to be destroyed. We learned that Mr. Annan and his deputy, Louise Frechette, were both aware of the kickback scheme but failed to report it to the Security Council, as their fiduciary duties required. However, we haven't yet learned whether the senior Annan illegally helped his son Kojo obtain a discounted Mercedes, an issue on which the Secretary General has stonewalled reporters.

Earlier this year, Mr. Annan was also forced to place eight senior U.N. procurement officials on leave pending investigations on bribery and other charges. Vladimir Kuznetsov, the head of the U.N. budget-oversight committee, was indicted this year on money-laundering charges. Alexander Yakovlev, another procurement official, pled guilty to skimming nearly $1 million off U.N. contracts. The U.N.'s own office of Internal Oversight found that U.N. peacekeeping operations had mismanaged some $300 million in expenditures.

...

Mr. Annan came to office after a stint as head of U.N. peacekeeping operations. The period corresponded with the massacre in Srebenica of 7,000 Bosnians and the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda, both of which were facilitated by the nonfeasance of peacekeepers on the ground. It was later revealed that Mr. Annan's office explicitly forbade peacekeepers from raiding Hutu arms caches in Rwanda just four months before the genocide.

The world's worst man-made humanitarian catastrophes have since taken place in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Congo and Darfur. Mr. Annan has been mostly silent about the first two, perhaps on the time-honored U.N. principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states other than the U.S. In the Congo, U.N. peacekeepers haven't stopped the bloodshed, but they have made themselves notorious as sexual predators.

These are the facts, folks.  Under Annan's "leadership" the UN has failed.  In Darfur, in Congo, in Somalia.  In Kosovo and Rwanda and the middle east.  And these failures can all be traced to one person: Kofi Annan.

In a global community the objective SHOULD be the protection of human rights and promotion of tolerance and communication.  Under Annan, the UN's objective appeared to be "anything that makes the US look bad". 

By default, that attitude prevents the neediest among us (like the Darfuris) from receiving the help that would otherwise be freely offered.

Ask the Kosovars.

Mr Annan has singlehandedly brought the UN from an organization of hope, that had the possibility of effecting real global change to a mockery of its former self.

Opinion Journal says it more eloquently than I can:

Mr. Annan came to power at a moment when it was at least plausible to believe that a properly reformed U.N. could serve the purposes it was originally meant to serve: to be a guarantor of collective security and a moral compass in global affairs. Mr. Annan's legacy is that nobody can entertain those hopes today.

h/t Lex

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Shamelessly stolen from Armed Liberal at Winds of Change:

Over at HuffPo, Alec Baldwin, (of the "Film Actors Guild") speaks out on what's wrong, and what we need to do about it. One of these is real, and one is a line from a puppet movie. Can you tell which is which?

Quote #1: "By following the rules of the Film Actor's Guild, the world can become a better place; that handles dangerous people with talk, and reasoning; that, is the fag way. One day you'll all look at the world us actors created and say, "wow, good going, fag. You really made the world a better place, didntcha, fag?" "

Quote #2: "There is an answer to this problem. There is a way to defeat terrorism while building new and better alliances in the Arab world. It will be an enormously complex and difficult diplomatic puzzle. But the first step might be oddly simple. Get rid of the CIA, which has outlived its usefulness and is an embarrassment to this great country, and rebuild and reform US intelligence capabilities to fight this new type of threat. I think our hopes must begin there."

Posted by: caltechgirl at 09:39 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The Vice President's daughter is pregnant and due in late spring.

I am overjoyed for what seems to be a close and loving family, by all accounts, to be adding a new member.  I am beyond happy for Mary and her partner Heather that they are about to realize their dream of becoming parents.

Seems a lot of people can't feel that way.  On one side, they're too busy blaming the VP for supporting policies that go against his daughter's (and her partner's) interest.  On the other side, they're panicking because a conservative leader is about to have a grandchild with homosexual parents.

Every article I've seen on this goes out of its way to point out that Gays and Straights are both up in arms over Mary Cheney's bundle of joy.

You'd think it was the second coming, or at least a new Brangelina baby for all of the fuss going on out there today.  Or maybe that you'd picked up an old newspaper.  Didn't we go through this when Melissa Etheridge and her (then) partner Julie Cypher had children a decade ago?

Can't we get past this and just say that a healthy baby is a blessing to a family, no matter how traditional?  Can we admit that two stable parents are always better than one, whether it's two moms, two dads, or one of each?  Can we agree that this child will have some wonderful role models for strength and integrity?

I am disgusted.  These opportunistic political vultures have taken what should be a happy occasion for the entire family and turned it into a political fracas.

For myself, I will say this much:  Congratulations to Mary and Heather and their families.  I wish you a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, and all the joys that come with that.  Anything else that anyone has to say on the subject is bullshite.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 01:59 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 I agree with you 100%.

Posted by: Fausta at December 07, 2006 02:10 PM (ANpp6)

2 You said it. Conservatives need to stop screeching long enough to see what asses they're becoming. And yes, that's coming from a far right wing Christian conservative. I think both parties need to take a timeout and cut the mindless rhetoric. Idiots.

Posted by: Janette at December 07, 2006 02:22 PM (hkz5l)

3 Leave it the polcats on all sides to make an ISSUE out of non issue. Really...and of course the media is eating this one right up. I say- let the baby come in peace and leave the Cheney's alone. We have more important things to be concerned with.

Posted by: Raven at December 07, 2006 02:55 PM (5FCgi)

4 Exactly right. Mary is not in politics (at least as far as I know - maybe I missed something) so she should be left alone, with the possible exception of congratulations. Just as I would never say anything about Chelsea Clinton - unless she went into politics. Her life is her own to live - regardless of what her father does or doesn't do.

Posted by: Teresa at December 07, 2006 03:32 PM (5UR9t)

5 I agree.

Posted by: Sissy at December 07, 2006 03:34 PM (e+8WB)

6 "I am disgusted. These opportunistic political vultures have taken what should be a happy occasion for the entire family and turned it into a political fracas." Well said. VERY well said. And on another note, do you realize how long it took me to figure out who in the hell "ctg" was?? I was like, this person seems to know me really well, but I have no idea what these letters stand for. I'm blaming it on finals. It only took me three days to figure it out. Not bad, for a major dork, eh?

Posted by: Mia at December 07, 2006 07:54 PM (MxZ0R)

7 Well said. You are right on the money on this one (as usual).

Posted by: Greta at December 07, 2006 08:09 PM (yy954)

8 I may not necessarily agree with Mary's and Heather's lifestyle choices, but as you say, there is NO need to turn it into a 'political fracas' by either gays OR straights. And the fact that the Cheney political family neither pushes Mary into an active role nor tries to 'hide' her, shows how much they love her, and respect and support her.

Posted by: Mrs_Who at December 09, 2006 10:03 AM (ororX)

9 I mostly agree ... except I'm still trying to figure out how Heather got Mary pregnant, or how Mary convinced Heather that she got Mary pregnant ...

Posted by: IB Bill at December 11, 2006 12:40 PM (6WcMd)

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PBS gets it right this time with a great story about Project Valour-IT on their MediaShift blog:

...While most of the bloggers who supported Valour-IT have been on the conservative side of the political spectrum, FbL notes that the project cuts across ideology by focusing on helping out wounded veterans.

"Doing a program like this is so beyond politics," FbL said. "You have someone here who is hurt, and you have the ability to make their lives better, why wouldn't you do that? That's part of our success with this. How do you say no to this without looking like a total jerk? [laughs] You can say, "It's all George Bush's fault." Yes, it is, but how are you going to help? It's beyond politics and it's so human. It's a winning concept and I am lucky enough to know brilliant people who have made this project work."

Valour-IT is another result of average folks banding together online to make a difference, getting beyond petty politics and government bureacracy to get something done and do it right. It's one of those classic holiday stories of people giving of their time, their money and even the bully-pulpit space of their blogs to help others in need.

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NY Post gets it right:

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