Is Putin smarter than Obama?

Maybe not a fair question.   Obviously, he is.  One shouldn't expect much from a "community organizer," much less vote for one.


"Russia's official view appears to have changed little since 2003, when Putin told an international climate conference that warmer temperatures would mean Russians "spend less on fur coats" while "agricultural specialists say our grain production will increase, and thank God for that".

The president believes that "THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING, that this is a FRAUD to restrain the industrial development of several countries including Russia," says Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and critic of Putin. "That is why this subject is not topical for the majority of the Russian mass media and society in general."

Putin's skepticism dates from the early 2000s, when his staff "did very, very extensive work trying to understand all sides of the climate debate", said Andrey Illarionov, Putin's senior economic adviser at the time and now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington.

"We found that, while climate change does exist, it is cyclical, and the anthropocentric role is very limited," he said. "It became clear that the climate is a complicated system and that, SO FAR, THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED FOR THE NEED TO "FIGHT" GLOBAL WARMING WAS RATHER UNFOUNDED."


Repeat:

FACT:

SO FAR, THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED FOR THE NEED TO "FIGHT" GLOBAL WARMING WAS RATHER UNFOUNDED."


http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/10/29/world/europe/29reuters-climatechange-summit-russia-media.html?_r=0

Jeez, y'know, it's Putin. So yer first thought is, yeah, it's the commies. The @#$%&#*# commies. Like the Chinese commies but out of a diff'rent part of commieland. Perish-stroika.

But you're older now. You've been perusing the bowels of the internet long enough to give yourself permission to wonder, if to no one else but at least to the mirror, whether all the evil people in the world could ever be completely evil. Which is obvious, since the church has proven to all of us we're only human no matter what vocations we choose. Given the light shone upon the men in whom the highest honor and trust were to be held as impervious (pun, sorry) vessels.

At the end of an age where politics determine the highest regard of men amongst themselves rather than the obligations to their own ancestries and homelands, stands the solitary alpha. Apart from the nations sold on consignment at the UN building in Manhattan New York, the former KGB director attempts to guide his charge not much differently than each man before him. Mother Russia is a cultural icon. But in no sense a pleasant nor desirable one to us westerners. Still, wisdom needs to be recognized regardless the tongue which utters it.

I think it's a sign of maturity to grasp the weight of the spoken word over the source. Sometimes it creates allies in a moment of need. Brief, but articulate. Accomplishing a single ancillary goal even among adversaries.

I think Putin realizes Weak governments attempt to employ the potentiality of uncontrollable weather patterns to strike fear into the hearts of ordinary people the world over. And it also seems he knows they solicit propagandists to bend the world's will with acquiescence rather than their won volition.

Fear only lasts as long as the unknown remains the unknown. What will a thing do? Will it hurt us? Fear restrains one's actions and will to stand up to the thing feared. It propagandizes media to create boogeymen to do what it cannot. Fear creates short term governments. Short term ideologies. False religions. It tries to ignore the words of the fearless. It understands nothing and wishes to own everything.

Putin is from Russia. The world shivers at the mere mention of his country's name. Why would he fear the weather, much less use it to instill fear?

Harv