Kyoto Treaty/Duke's Tomb

I was quite early for the Rotary lunch Monday at 12:15, so I meandered from the central train station (Gare Cornavin) to the restaurant in the Palais Wilson (Though often belittled in the US for his idealism, Woodrow Wilson was quite the hero in Europe in his day). Along the way, a shop display caught my eye and so I stopped to check it out. It was an obscure men's clothing store that in addition to the regular displays of suits and ties, had this hilarious sign up with a number wine bottles that had the same on their labels. And then I found this mini-manifesto, poking fun at the US for not abiding by the Kyoto treaty.

Here's a non-professional translation for my non-francophone friends:

The United States, which releases 36.1% of the total carbon dioxide pollutants into the atmosphere, has refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty for fear that so doing will weaken their economic competitiveness. This obstinate refusal will soon result in irreversible climatic changes. The lack of snowfall will have the dramatic consequence of preventing Santa Claus from making his rounds in his sleigh. Hundreds of thousands of children are at risk of no longer believing in him, which will have a disastrous effect on the economy.

Au Pere et Fils invites you to toast the 120 signatory countries of the Kyoto protocols who still believe in Father Christmas.

Well folks, there you have it! If the US doesn't ratify the Kyoto protocols we'll soon be without Santa Claus. And then, without all those gifts and new toys, we'll have to content ourselves with merely celebrating Jesus Christ's birth. What a tragedy!

I hope my sarcasm is obvious enough. I've merely imitated and continued the fuddled logic seen in the previous statement to show how it could equally serve completely opposite ends. But I hope both their point and mine are provocative in addition to being amusing.

After chuckling and snapping a few photos, I continued on and then took a moment to enjoy the mausoleum of the Duke of Brunswick (1804-1873). The Duke, Frederik August William (I took this photo over a month earlier, Oct 13th), appointed Geneva as his residuary legatee on the condition that they build him this splendid monument. Here's a closer shot of the monument. You can see that it was raining if you look closely at the blue ceiling with stars.

Here are 2 more from my photo spree on the 13th of October: winged tiger, jet d'eau, lion and a man; the southern reflecting pool.