Odd news from the world's worst man-made catastrophe, the United Nations

Because women always suffer the most in earthquakes, the United Nations has named the grrrl-powered Islamic Republic of Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women. The UN made the move after Iran withdrew its equally comic bid to join the UN Human Rights Council last week.

The UN made the move with little fanfare. Needless to say, liberal commenters in the west are too preoccupied with picking on the pope and making sure Comedy Central employees stay safe to take much interest. Thus it's left to the conservative media to spotlight Iran's record of government rape, stoning and whipping of wayward doxies. Here's Fox News:

The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.

Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.

National Review's Jay Nordlinger says by this point the joke has become pretty mainstream:

That is what the U.N. is for: the Kafkaesque.