The Pendragon's Hall

In spite of the obvious futility of the move, I was excited to read that the House of Representatives passed a bill demanding reform by the UN in forty-six separate ways (fairly important ways, like rigorous ethics exams for oil-for-food people, no nepotism, no tyrannical genocidal maniacs on the human rights commission, etc.) and saying that if these demands are not met, US funding to the UN will be slashed by fifty percent. For once, I will actually support congressional Republicans over the President, who's still trying to be a diplomat, and certainly over House Democrats who wanted a bill that basically said, "Reform," didn't list any specific ways to reform, and left the cutting of funding up to the secretary of state. Yeah, right. I remember the last time a secretary of state was allowed to use her discretion and what Democrats wanted to make of that. They probably would then demand that Condi submit her reasons for cutting the funding back to the Congress, especially the Senate, for endless debate. I don't give the bill much chance of passing the Senate but if it does, and Bush breaks his bad habit and vetoes it, I will never forgive him. It's about time the US, without whom the UN would never have existed, start pulling some strings over there. Another thing that would have been nice is if countries got to take turns hosting the useless layabouts.