First off, I like the Daily Illini.

I read it almost everyday, mostly because it's being handed out on every street corner and I can't avoid it, but partly because it's actually kinda good.

But on Friday they ran an editorial that I wasn't crazy about.

Since I'm computer retarded and don't really know how to post links, just copy and paste:

http://www.dailyillini.com/media/paper736/news/2005/10/28/Opinions/Column.Broken.Promise-1037813.shtml

Okay. Like any large, government-associated organization, they've got their pitfalls. Maybe a lot of them. But this dude said a few things that just plain don't make sense.

E.G.

"If the United States invaded another Arab country (meaning Sudan), anti-war protesters would take time out from whining about the "international Zionist conspiracy" to rail against the Christian crusade against the Arab world."

WTF? International Zionist Conspiracy? Now I hang out with a lot of pretty hardcore liberals - way harder core than myself, as I am sort of undecided about whether I'm pro- or anti-War In Iraq - and I have never once heard anybody use the phrase "international zionist conspiracy." Is he trying to imply that liberals are anti-semetic? Because that's just retarded. However, one of the many things that I often hear anti-war people say is, "If we are so interested in freeing other countries from tyrannical rule, why don't we do something about the situation in Sudan?" Now, by "do something," they probably don't mean invade, but I would just take a wild guess and say that, in general, liberals are hardly against taking action against the genocide in Sudan. Pretty much the opposite.

"Many attack conservative criticism of the United Nations calling it ridiculous, because the United States created the United Nations. This is not true when you take a look at the facts. The head of the San Francisco Conference and drafter of the U.N. Charter was Alger Hiss of the U.S. State Department. Alger Hiss, some will remember, was found guilty in law of perjury, but in fact of being a communist spy and traitor on behalf of the Soviet Union. This shows that Richard Nixon, and for that matter, Joseph McCarthy, were right in their anti-communist concerns."

What?!?!?! Of course there were spies from communist countries. This is a fact. But McCarthy, in particular, wasn't just trying to protect the country from foreign spies. He was trying to erradicate non-mainstream ideologies.

"During the investigation of Alger Hiss, he said that if he was a communist spy many of the advances made by his help (the New Deal, the United Nations, etc.) would have to be reexamined. Unfortunately, this reexamination never happened. Maybe the reason the United Nations is indifferent, if not implicated in the face of so many genocides, is because it was formed under the influence of an agent of a genocidal power who killed about 25 million people."

That's just terrible logic. There is a lot of evidence to say that the UN is fairly incompetent, which the columnist mentioned earlier in the article. That's true. But to say that they are murderers because sixty years ago someone of questionable morals had a hand in the organization is ridiculous.

On a lighter note.

I lost a nut from the front wheel of my bicycle. It's been gone for about a week, and I've been late for a few classes because my poor bike is an invalid. So today I went searching all over Champaign for a 5/16" hex nut. I found three different types, but ALL of them had threads that were too large for the bolt.

So if anybody finds a 5/16" hex nut with very small threads, could you mail it to me or something? My bike is getting lonely and bored with no one riding it.

posted at 8:26 PM by Alison

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