Check Out Renegade Mentat

Via a comment to one of my posts, I was introduced to Alain Dewitt's fine blog Renegade Mentat. If you haven't been reading him, here's a free sample featuring one of my favorite subjects, the UN:

This weekend I had a chance to watch the BBC News program "Talking Point". "Talking Point" is a viewer participation show and this weekend's topic was U.N. reform. The guest was Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan's chief of staff.

A viewer e-mailed with the suggestion that perhaps the U.N. should set representative government as a precondition for membership. Mr. Malloch Brown responded that if that were the case, then China, representing 1/6th of the world's population, would be excluded from membership and its people "disenfranchised".

What on earth makes Mr. Malloch Brown think the Chinese people have any kind of franchise now? He unwittingly made the e-mailer's point. Namely that the U.N. is a body of governments, many of whom do not represent their people's wishes.

Alain has a unique perspective brought on by his wierd techy-in-a-dip-world job:

I have one of the greatest jobs in the world. I am a Technical Specialist on a U.S. Department of State contract. That means that I get paid to travel to far-off, exotic locations and work on the computers in US embassies and consulates worldwide.

Cool. I'll be adding Renegade Mentat to my blogroll as soon as I post this.