By Scott Paul

It hasn’t been announced publicly yet, but look for the first Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the Law of the Sea convention to take place on Sept. 27. Government witnesses will come then.

Hm. NOAA is undertaking a mission to map out areas to claim in the American extended continental shelf. Of course, unless the U.S. ratifies the Law of the Sea convention, the mission’s findings are absolutely worthless.

I’m honestly not sure which is more hysterical: Frank Gaffney’s most recent Washington Times column, which argues that the Russians laid claim to the North Pole in a cunning gambit to corner the U.S.

I hinted in a couple of posts last week that I attended an interesting meeting with a White House official last week to discuss the summit planned for this fall on climate change.

It would be no great feat of punditry to suggest that John Edwards is running as an outsider in this year’s campaign. Some thought that Edwards, who has held no office since the 2004 election, would struggle to stay relevant.

I just got a fascinating note in my inbox from Mark Goldberg, who writes regularly for UN Dispatch and the American Prospect. Since he’s not planning on writing this up himself, I’m going to post his note in full. It’s worth a read.

I want to congratulate the governments that worked through the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 1769 on Tuesday.

I’m just getting my feet back on the ground after a long weekend in Maine. When I left DC, we were just starting to feel the shockwaves of the Democratic debate. Five days later, it feels like they’ve only gotten stronger.

When I first tuned into the Democratic debate tonight, I started taking copious notes on who was saying what. Then I stopped. Most Americans will be going more on general impressions than word-by-word analysis, so I should too. On policy, the most important takeaway, for me, anyway, is Gov.

When I worked in Russia in 2003 for the Moscow Helsinki Group the government has already begun limiting press freedoms and buying up independent media outlets, but civil society was becoming broader, more representative, and more active.