As some readers may recall, my nephew Isaac Schwartz graduated today from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Kofi Annan was the commencement speaker. Isaac’s father, attorney Richard Schwartz, was naturally in attendance. He emailed the following to me from his Blackberry as the speech unfolded. Annan has since concluded to a standing ovation.
Sitting here listening to Kofi.
>
>Missed the first minute or so. Doubt it was controversial.
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>Praising FDR, the victory over tyranny in WW2 leading to establishment of the UN.
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>The work of the UN in helping to fight poverty, illness, and supporting the rule of law.
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>Assisting the transition in Iraq, promoting peace in the occupied Palestinian territories, doing the work that no one wants to do.
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>Need US $.
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>UN needs to move with the times and overhaul/reform. Member states will decide.
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>Your grandparents sacrificed for you.
Well, there you have it. Live from Philadelphia.
MEANWHILE: The WaPo has an interesting article on Russian involvement in OFF. (reg required)
Top Kremlin operatives and a flamboyant Russian politician reaped millions of dollars in profits under the U.N. oil-for-food program by selling oil that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein allowed them to buy at a deep discount, a Senate investigation has concluded.
BTW, some anonymous poster on here has been complaining that I do not pay enough attention to sources of corruption in Iraq other than OFF. Naturally, I completely condemn them. (Who wouldn’t?) But OFF is different in quality because this corruption may have affected fascist-enabling votes on the Security Council, a level of perfidy of a higher order to anyone with a moral compass.
Ahhh, Kofi’s mouth was moving.
–the rule of law.–
Who’s law?
European?
American?
Sharia?
–>Need US $.–
22%
You’ve had enough. Let those who “feel” “care” more than we do pony up.
Raise their dues, Japan already announced they’re cutting back.
Whe are you going to enable your RSS feed, or is it just me and I can’t find it?
Agree with the who’s law comment above. I will bet it won’t be the U.S. Constitution.
When is Annan going to own up to the U.N. train wreck he has caused? The list of offenses under his watch is long indeed, the oil for food scam and bribery parade is only the biggest.
I just noticed something about Macalester College in St. Paul, MN
Famous graduates:
Walter F. “Fritz” Mondale, Class of ’50
Kofi Annan, Class of ’61
With those two alone, Macalester has a lot to answer for.
How rude of the prior commenters on this thread!
A hearty Mazel Tov to you, Roger, on your nephew’s achievments.
Apparently it was a double major:
BA (or MBA?) in business and
BS in commencement.
The work of the UN in helping to fight poverty, illness, and supporting the rule of law.
That mustn’t have taken long to cover.
Need US $
I’ll bet he spent a lot of time on that.
I hope that the folks at Penn searched him before he left and counted the spoons afterwards.
All the best to Isaac as he journeys into the real world!
Bill, the RSS feed is linked from the home page, it’s at: http://www.rogerlsimon.com/index.rdf
Roger, you might want to add (or have Charles do it) a tag to your page header to make finding your feed easier for those with browsers which support RSS (like Safari.):
[less than]link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS” href=”/index.rdf”[greater than]
The Kremlin connection implies that Russia’s UNSC vote to keep Saddam in power was, quite literally, bought.
IIRC, the original Iraqi document listed scores of names of individuals in the RUssian government who had received OFF vzyati [baksheesh]. In Putin’s shambles of a government, the only really effective institutions are the security agencies including most prominently the FSB, and these are among the most criminalized elements of the Russian criminal state.
Of all the damage wrought by OFF, certainly among the greatest will be the complete shredding of the notion of legitimacy as it applies to UNSC member states such as Russia that are essentially criminalized regimes directed by leaders trading global influence and political favors for personal enrichment. Chirac’s France may also be in this category.
What kind of legitimacy can possibly derive from the blessing of two nations whose leaders were in fact pursuing a blood [of Saddam's victims] for oil contracts policy?
change above to “vzyatki”
Congrats to yer nephew.
‘The Kremlin connection implies that Russia’s UNSC vote to keep Saddam in power was, quite literally, bought. ‘
Was there ever a question?
No, but the MSM insisted on ignoring this, the crucial aspect of the UN farce.
But this time around, Coleman’s hard evidence of transactions and money transfers will be impossible for the MSM to ignore. Especially so if bloggers scoop them by publicizing .pdf files released by Coleman’s committee.
Congratulations to your nephew, Roger! May he prosper and be wise (and not engage in post lunch observations such as this)–
Kofi is trying to pass OFF UN activities under his leadership as a global health bar salad not much affected by a rancid oil-for-food and vinegar dressing. He makes no mention how the greens are dirty and slimy from being locked away in secret Swiss and corrupt Cayman bank accounts.
(I’ll try not to post after dinner.)
Kofi wants more $$ from the US? I don’t understand, has he run out of sanctioned countries to siphon? Before we dig too deep to get him out of his predicament, please let Kofi know (next time you see him), that I’ve got some suggestions to help with his financial problems. I’m just happy to be of service.
Thanks for shining the light,
AbbaGav
The Senate Committee as a whole [Coleman and Levin and staff] is to be commended for quickly releasing this information to the public. Last week, the release of the names and intrigues of Charles Pasqua and George Galloway brought them to the full glare of the public. This week, the public can see the Russian/Putin corruption. What is remarkable is the power of the Internet and its impact on public disclosure as public and private institutions [normally resistent to expeditious and full disclosure] are compelled to respond through the actions of blogs like this one.
Are we at the beginning of the beginning or the end of the beginning? I would like to think that we as a community are just beginning to see greater responsiveness if not yet a greater responsibility by our democratic institutions.
Ah yes, Kofi wants more money. How timely then is Mark Steyn’s latest piece http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn15.html
It appears that a lot of tsunami aid is still sitting on the docks in Indonesia. The stingy West’s stuff is languishing. Wish someone could ask Kofi why the US military is so much better at doing the UN’s job than the UN is. But Kofi will probably be too busy trying to get his story straight about OFF. As for the anonymous poster complaining about OFF coverage here–well, spend some time understanding how the UN can botch tsunami aid. At least it’s a somewhat different subject :>).
OT: via Captain’s Quarters
Seems a new offer has been made on judges.
With a showdown looming, a small group of Senate Democrats floated a compromise Monday on President Bush’s stalled judicial nominees, offering to clear five for confirmation while scuttling three others.
Under the proposal, circulated in writing, Republicans would have to pledge no change through 2006 in the Senate’s rules that allow filibusters against judicial nominees. For their part, Democrats would commit not to block votes on Bush’s Supreme Court or appeals court nominees during the same period, except in extreme circumstances.
Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Democrats involved in the compromise would vote to end any filibuster blocking a final vote on Richard Griffin, David McKeague and Susan Neilson, all named to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Democrats would also clear the way for final votes on William H. Pryor Jr. for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Both are among the nominees most strongly opposed by organized labor as well as civil rights and abortion rights groups and others that provide political support for the Democratic Party.
Three other nominations would continue to be blocked under the offer: those of Henry Saad to the 6th Circuit Court, Priscilla Owen to the 11th Circuit and William G. Myers III to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
—
So they’ve upped the ante and tossed in Janice, eh?
Ah yes, Kofi wants more money.
Somewhat OT:
Just to amplify your point: Of course he wants more money! There is no amount of money that would ever be enough for the UN or for any other not-for-profit organization (this applies to many departments within for-profit enterprises, as well). If you don’t actually have to convince a market that what you do is worth the price that you’re asking, you always want more money.
If Roger, for example, can’t convince a publisher or movie studio to buy a novel or a script, he has to live off his savings. A potential client of mine who doesn’t believe that the software that I develop will improve the efficiency of his operation by an amount sufficient to pay for that software in a reasonable period of time isn’t going to buy it. The UN, however, gets money, for example, from the US government, which, in turn takes it from taxpayers. It is not accountable to a marketplace, which, in practice, means that it is not accountable.
Here’s a thought experiment: Let’s say that inflation runs at 3% each year for the next two-hundred years. Let’s say further that the public school district in which you live is given per-student funding for 2005-2006 that is 206% of its 2004-2005 per-student funding, i.e., it is twice as much in real dollars, and that its per-student funding is increased at 3% each year. How long would you expect it to be until the school district wanted more money? My guess is three years.
Well folks
Thank you, Peter; that’s a very informative link.