At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: Russia ratifies Kyoto treaty; treaty now takes effect

November 5, 2004

Russia ratifies Kyoto treaty; treaty now takes effect

From UPI:

The completion of Russia's ratification process, which began last month when Moscow's legislature passed an enabling bill, brings the protocol into effect more than seven years after the pact was adopted in December 1997 at a U.N. climate change conference in Kyoto, Japan.

This was an easy call by Russia. They will be able to trade pollution "credits" to higher-polluting countries in exchange for cold, hard cash.

US refusal to ratify the protocol is yet another reason for Bush-haters around the world to hate Bush (a search on the key word "kyoto" in Google News reveals many current examples).

The article gives an explanation for the timing (related to getting assurances of EU support for Russian acceptance into the World Trade Organization), but I think it's significant that this happened just three days after the U.S. election. For all of the disagreements between the two countries, President Putin appears to genuinely like President Bush. I can't help but think he was persuaded (or decided on his own) to wait until now to avoid the ratification becoming an issue against Bush before Nov. 2.

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What Happened to C-Pol?

For over a decade, this blog was called "C-POL: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics". Over time, my deep-thought ponderings have been moving away from the rough-and-tumble of everyday political wrangling and toward the larger philosophical, ideological, and cultural currents of our age.

I've changed the title of the blog to highlight my conviction that the "fundamental transformation" (to adapt President Obama's phrase) of the United States that's currently underway is, in the long run, bad not only for this country but for the world in general.

Scoff if you must; I'm okay with that. I aim to make my case as time goes on. I'm okay with being on the "wrong side of history" if I'm actually right.

Why our country is where it is

As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars -- whatever that means. I am suggesting, however, that if one feels strongly about his or her rights, it does make sense to know generally what the Constitution says about them. It is at least as easy to understand as a cell phone contract -- and vastly more important.

-- Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, October 16, 2008 speech

The U.S. is not a democracy!

Q. If we are not a democracy, why are our officials elected by a majority of the people, and why are our laws passed by a majority of the lawmakers?

A. We are not a democracy because both the people and the lawmakers are limited by the fundamental law of the land, our written Constitution. Election by the people is not a grant of power beyond the constitutional limits of the office. A representative government limited by law is a republic, not a democracy. In a republic a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights, or the rights of others -- unless ... unless they step outside the Constitution.

-- Preserve The Constitution, By Don Fotheringham (October, 1995)

The Cancer of Democracy

Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome.

— Lazarus Long, in Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset

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November 5, 2004

Russia ratifies Kyoto treaty; treaty now takes effect

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