In Bahrain, the government of Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa for a time blocked Google Earth back in 2006 so you couldn’t see how big his and his cronies’ palaces were in a country with a chronic housing shortage. He has now just received a Scroll of Honour award from the UN’s Human Settlements Programme. What does that award recognize?

Its aim is to acknowledge initiatives which have made outstanding contributions in various fields such as shelter provision, highlighting the plight of the homeless, leadership in post conflict reconstruction, and developing and improving the human settlements and the quality of urban life.

You can’t make this stuff up. (Via …Or Does it Explode?)