5 April 2005 @ 4:00PM >> I have argued for some time that the United Nations is structurally incapable of fulfilling its own charter, which says the organization exists “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person” and “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”

Now it has been revealed that fully one-third of the nations listed by Freedom House as “the world’s most repressive regimes” also happen to hold seats on the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights. (These countries are: China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.)

Perhaps the theory is that the nations least likely to recognize human rights are also the ones that most understand the importance of those rights.

5 April 2005 @ 8:24AM >> If you are using an RSS reader to browse Brain Terminal, please be aware that the URLs for the feeds have changed. For the new URLs, scroll down to the “Syndication Feeds” section in the right-hand sidebar on any content page.

Previously, the content pages of Brain Terminal were built by two separate software packages. I’ve been consolidating the two to better integrate the Journal with the rest of the site. Now that the integration is complete, the Journal is no more. As a result, I’ve been able to merge Brain Terminal’s two RSS feeds into one, which should make things easier for everyone who’s had to subscribe to both feeds in order to keep current with the site.