When you get people into a group under the umbrella of an organization, some pretty strange collective decisions can result. I say that in light of some recent happenings at the United Nations and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Let’s start with the UN. You would think an organization that so badly mishandled the run-up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq would be more careful to avoid negative PR, but you would be wrong.

Proving once again that it is a body dedicated to shooting itself in the foot, the 54-nation Economic and Social Council recently re-elected Cuba to the UN’s Human Rights Commission. As always, the UN’s timing was impeccable. Last month, Cuban tribunals sentenced 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years on charges they were mercenaries working with the American government to harm the island’s socialist system, which is Cubanspeak for they disagreed with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and were thrown in the clink.

Effectively, the UN is rewarding Cuba for violating human rights by giving them a seat on its Human Rights Commission.

Also working hard to marginalize itself is PETA. Far from being an organization that just wants animals treated in a humane manner – I’m for that – PETA doesn’t want anybody to do the following: wear leather or fur, eat meat and dairy products, trap animals or hunt and probably much more.

Taking moral equivalency to a whole new level, who could forget PETA’s “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign earlier this year, where the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II was compared to the killing of chickens for food?

PETA seems strangely unaware of three things: 1) People aren’t naturally vegetarians, they’re omnivores. In other words, humans like to eat plants and meat. 2) Animals eat other animals in nature all the time, and they’re not at all nice about it. (Those nature documentaries where the crocodiles leap out of the water to snatch and consume wildebeest are brutal!) Humans are simply much smarter animals, so we process and eat other animals on a grander scale. 3) Most people will not become vegetarians, because no matter how you prepare fruits and vegetables, they will never taste as good as a hamburger or a steak or porkchops. There’s simply no getting around the fact that meat is delicious.

I believe PETA’s overall agenda is nuts – apparently a food the organization approves of, by the way.

“My Two Cents” is a weekly column where the author – who belongs to another PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) – gets in his two cents worth in spite of the old saying that you only get a penny for your thoughts.