so i turned on my blackjack this morning and began checking my email. this letter was 
emailed to me from the 'center for individual freedom' - www.cfif.org and it ties in with a previous post of mine. when i published that original post on 17 october 2007, the senate foreign relations committee had not yet voted to present the law of [the] sea treaty - LOST - to the greater senate. now they have.
last week the senate foreign relations committee voted 17-4 to send the all-encompassing international treaty that controls every aspect of maritime law on the high seas - from ocean shipping to deep-sea mining to military maneuvers - to the full senate. it requires a 2/3s affirmation by the senate to ratify the treaty. this means that we need 34 votes to block the ratification.
it is imperative that we block this ratification. call your senators. use this link to join a blastfax campaign to voice your concerns. if this treaty is ratified, it becomes law for us here in the u.s. and at that point our sovereignty is gone forever.
in the wall street journal online, today, they ran this article titled 'arctic thaw defrosts a sea treaty' and it has some interesting information. it appears that the author of the article is for us ratifying this treaty, but for the life of me i cannot understand why. but since i can't understand why anyone, in our country, would want us to hand over such a large chunk of our sovereignty, that's really no surprise, is it?
i love how the msm is spinning this thing to make it sound like it's a no brainer that we should ratify it. for instance, the article says:
Oil and mining companies support the treaty because it could grant the U.S. access to an additional 291,000 square miles of seabed in the Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. Recent estimates suggest more than 400 billion barrels of oil and gas could be
located in the Arctic, along with deep-sea deposits of precious metals.
Taxes are another point of contention. Companies must pay 1% of revenue to an international body on any resources extracted beyond the 200-mile limit after five years of production, with rates rising by 1% annually to a maximum of 7%. Critics object to such payments.
what he isn't telling you is that the u.n. has formed the "international seabed authority (ISA)" which appears to be an organization designed to shake-down united states' mining and maritime companies. the isa requires that companies pay a $500,000 (yes 500k) application fee to gain permission to operate on the ocean. additionally there is an annual fee of $1,000,000 per company - call it a license fee, i guess. and mr. timiraos forgot to mention the companies will be required to share their mining and navigational technology with the ISA and other treaty signatores.
there is so much more in the article and so many more things that he leaves out of his article. we simply MUST stop this treaty from being ratified.
president bush says "Joining will serve the national security interests of the United States. …And it will give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted." big deal. we will have one vote against myriad votes against us. yeah, that will be helpful.
please take the time to act on this today. please cross post this to help spread the word.
if you are of a different opinion on this, i'd love to hear it. if you're in agreement, i'd love to know that too. thanks!
also, take a visit at angel's place and read her latest, http://www.womanhonorthyself.com/?p=4418, there is always something great going on there and this open-trackback of hers always has some wonderful links for a good read!
