Tech Central Station's James Glassman has an excellent article on this week's international AIDS conference in Bangkok, Thailand.

I attend two or three global health and environmental conferences like this each year, and I have come to conclusion that it's time for the U.S. government and U.S. businesses to just say no. Yankee, stay home. Or go to Africa, where those we help appreciate us.

Yes, we should continue to fight AIDS with all the resources we can muster. It is the most important humanitarian cause in the world. But do it on the ground in poor countries and at serious academic conclaves, not at sicko carnivals like this one.

What Americans are doing to fight AIDS in Africa - an effort I saw firsthand last December -- is inspirational, even breathtaking. But here in Bangkok there is no word of thanks to the United States, or to President Bush, far and away the world's top leader in the battle against the disease.

The "international community" is like a spoiled child. Nothing America does is ever enough and they want more, more, more.

America has been called the "indispensible nation," and that's what galls the rest of the world. We shouldn't seek approval from these whining nations, nor concern ourselves with the petty complaints of the jealous.

We must simply do what is right, and do what we can, to make the world a better place. If we don't concern ourselves with plaudits, then we won't be disappointed. If, on the other hand, we concern ourselves only with the praise of the morally bankrupt, then our efforts to improve the well-being of humanity will fail.