The United States Lacks a Sense of Humor

We just withdrew from the well-known joke the United Nations' Human Rights Council (seen via Boing Boing).

The HRC's idea of human rights is peculiar:

GENEVA: The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it.

………

The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

………

The resolution "urges states to take actions to prohibit the dissemination ... of racist and xenophobic ideas" and material that would incite to religious hatred. It also urges states to adopt laws that would protect against hatred and discrimination stemming from religious defamation.

Saudi Arabia said, "Maybe Islam is one of the most obvious victims of aggressions under the pretext of freedom of expression."

There is similar to a news item in Common Knowledge edited by Robert E. Ornstein (a collection of weird news from the late 1960s and early 1970s), although back then it was Communist countries that wanted to prohibit “false statements about alleged absence of the freedom of the press” and there was the even bigger difference that they didn't bother asking others to prohibit it.