The U.N. has an unfortunately accurate reputation for being bureaucratic and sometimes corrupt. But now it has added "silly" to its list of bad qualities.
News has come that the U.N. is appointing an astrophysicist from Malaysia as Earth's official greeter if our planet should ever be visited by aliens from space.
Mazlan Othman "is set to be tasked with co-ordinating humanity's response if and when extraterrestrials make contact," London's Telegraph newspaper reported.
"Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a 'take me to your leader' person," a professor at a British space agency told the Telegraph.
In fact, she is already the head of an agency known as UNOOSA - which stands for United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.
You read that correctly. There really is such an office. It's no joke.
The "joke" - and it's not a very funny one - is that the United States is the biggest financial contributor to the U.N. That means your taxes are paying for the obscure Malaysian scientist to be hired as a greeter for space aliens, and your taxes are underwriting the "U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs."
A bigger - and even less amusing - "joke" is that an organization as wasteful and counterproductive as the U.N. is also the organization that is supposed to be making sure Iran does not build nuclear weapons.
Is there any reason at all why the nations of the world should put any serious faith in the U.N.'s ability to solve real-world problems - much less those from outer space?