Sanctions against Israel?

From CBS:
U.N. panel provides legal basis for sanctions against Israel over settlement expansion in Palestinian territory

Even assuming that Israel has actually done something deserving of action, what exactly, does the UN expect to accomplish here? Given their track records of sanctions with Iran and North Korea, you'd expect them to have given up on sanctions by now. I think that they like sanctions, because it makes it look like they're doing something, without actually doing something.

Union movement suffering?

From Fox News:

Unions suffer steep decline in membership

Lost jobs, right to work laws, a weak economy, all are reasons why. The Unions however fail to recognize that perhaps they're part of the reason why the jobs are being lost:

But unions also saw losses in the private sector, even as the economy expanded modestly. That rate fell of membership fell from 6.9 percent to 6.6 percent, a troubling sign for the future of organized labor, as job growth has generally taken place at nonunion firms. 

.....

"Our still-struggling economy, weak laws and political as well as ideological assaults have taken a toll on union membership, and in the process have also imperiled economic security and good, middle class jobs," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Hostess closed down because of the unions, resulting in a multitude of lost jobs, and, as the article notes, most job growth has taken place in nonunion firms.
This might not be the death knell of unions, but its obvious that the union movement isn't completely healthy either.

Sanctions in Stupidity

From Fox:

U.S. gift of F-16 fighters headed to Egypt, despite Morsi's harsh rhetoric

And from BBC:

N Korea 'to boost nuclear programme' after UN sanctions

It appears that the UK armed forces have introduced Emperor Mong to US and UN politicians.

"Go on, it'll be alright to give a government that is hostile to your country 16 modern jet fighters and 200 modern tanks."

 "One more useless sanction against North Korea, a country already isolated from everyone else, can't hurt."

I must note that the Fox News article didn't mention which variants of the F-16 Fighting Falcon and M1 Abrams were getting sent to Egypt. Which variants of these systems get sent there makes a significant difference - although even the original models of both systems are formidable weapons.

Giving weapons to a hostile nation definitely counts as stupidity, no matter how advanced (or not) the weapons are, unless the weapons are a Trojan Horse gambit of some sort.

The UN and useless sanctions is almost as stupid. I will however give them points for going in the "STOP! Or I'll yell stop again" direction despite its uselessness - at least they aren't actively giving North Korea nukes.

The UN: About as useful as...

t*ts on a boar hog.
Another example of the UN's remarkable incompetence from Fox News. As if I needed another reason to hold them in contempt. And yet we continue to throw good money after bad supporting them.

Check it out:

UN’s $5.7B anti-poverty agency doesn’t do much to reduce poverty, according to its own assessment

People Eating Tasty Animals (Specifically Horses)

PETA is unhappy. Their attempts to stop the horse slaughtering industry in the US have met with failure. This is in part because when the slaughter was put to a stop, the horses were simply transported across the border, and then slaughtered. So now, the slaughter of horses for food is back.Congress is currently working on legislation to stop the slaughter, and prevent the simple expedient of transporting the horses across the border for slaughter.
All this raises a question: Do PETA and Congress want the smuggling of illegal horse meat to become a problem?

I wonder what horse meat tastes like...


Source: Fox News: Horse Slaughtering Resumes In US as Legislation Languishes in Congress