Al Gore got the Nobel Peace Prize. I didn't cheer as loudly as I did when I heard that Carter got it, but I would still never the less describe my mood as "jubilant" In other news, arch-conservative, award winning hate-monger, and rumored bride of Satan Ann Coulter, the woman who elevated partisan bickering to the level of a Jerry Springer television show, shot her mouth off again, this time about the Jews. Gosh, a republican racist? who'd have thunk it. The political situation in Iraq is so clearly obvious now that alien anthropologists in the Om-Qutar Galactic Hegemony will deem George W. Bush to be the greatest terrorist danger to ever threaten the united states - if not the whole world. At around the same time, political scientists with the rebelious Thorac Combine of Free Stars will deem George W. Bush to be the smash hit sitcom of the season, and a religious pilgrimage will be launched to visit the charred, dead cinders of planet Earth that they might visit the old sets and sound stages where the show was filmed. And, as if this wasn't all enough to put a smile on your face, you can now find three and four minute long remix versions of the Doctor Who theme on youtube, and recent studies suggest that performing a google image search on the word 'thrianta' puts a smile on even Ba's face (though probably not for healthy reasons)
I just wanted to post that! Well, not all of that, but the bit about Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Do you think G.W. Bush is going to ask for a detailed votecounting? I'll have to refrain from other comments until I have googled that word... "thrianta". Whatever it is. BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Gore and UN panel win Nobel prize Edit to add: Aha.
Um... a breed of rabbits, according to google! I feel so left out of the joke. ... Waaaaaaaaah! (There go the good vibes I got from reading that Ann Coulter has mouthed off against the Jews. Yes, good vibes - because I'd feel dirty in the past, whenever she mouthed off against the Muslims, and cite "their" treatment of Jews as one more reason to forcibly convert them to Christianity, etc. Now that Ann is not being nice to me anymore, I feel much safer :smile
just googling the word thiranta isn't enough. you have to do an image search to SEE the joy and magic.
On Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize, good for him. His campaign does raise awareness, which is good, though personally I wish he wasn't so... sensationally apocalyptic? Yes, that sounds about right. About Iraq, I wholeheartedy reccomend reading Michael J. Totten's articles. What scares me right now is a possible Turkish military operation in Iraqi Kurdistan, the one truly safe and prosperous region in Iraq. If Kurdistan falls to chaos, then matters will become much worse. And frankly, I have a soft spot for the Kurds, and enough attention to notice the increasingly nationalist language used by the Turkish media... As for Ann Coulter, she didn't say anything racist. Narrow-minded, stupid, but not racist. She merely believes in an exclusivist religion, in which the Believers go to Heaven and everyone else goes to Hell. In her somewhat twisted manner, she was trying to help. But then again, with Jewish history taken into consideration, I have as much a reason (if not more) to detest this kind of thinking far more than mere racism.
Eh, I'm absolutely in favor of the separation of church and politics. I realize that religion provides much if not most of a culture's morality and ethics, and a culture wants a government that abides by its ethics, but I believe in freedom of religion and freedom from religion. No man should be tried by a priest, nor by a judge who puts a higher authority in the church than in the law. The two must be separate, regardless of their influences upon each other. Thus, I fear any politician who seeks to do the lords work before their own as a representative of the people. God doesn't need to worry about school funding. Mind you, the problem with democracy is that the majority can vote stupid things in. If they want a theocratic system, then thats what they get. Political commentators who try to push their own dogmatic religion onto the political stage should be jailed for preaching without a license. I'm sure Ms Coulter would agree with the harshness of the sentiment. After all, she's suggested that liberals be tried for treason before.
To be fair, in this particular case Coulter was asked what her view on the matter was. She didn't bring it up as part of a political platform.
yes, but to be fair, she hasn't done the world a favor and taken a vow of silence, either, so i see her as directly responsible for her own actions.
President Carter certainly deserved his Nobel Peace prize, but he was awarded it as a snub to President Bush, not for his own actions. Al Gore and company also received the prize because of political considerations... I suppose the committee has been doing that for a while.
*nod* I can't quite work out how Gore fits the Peace Prize criteria. Sure, he did work to raise awareness on an important matter, but does this relate to World Peace? That's what Alfred Nobel had in mind, after all, to recognize the achievements of those who strove to avert war, promote coexistence, and make armies unneccesary.
I'm afraid at the moment there's just not much in the way of significant strides to avoid war that aren't being made by people who've already got the prize. Also, as for political considerations influencing the committee's decisions, it does work both ways. They gave Kissinger the peace prize, too. I viewed the award to carter as an effort to untarnish the thing.
The committee could have simply said that there is no worthy candidate at the moment. They did it before, so they could have done it again.
They didn't give it the year Ghandi was killed, probably because the missed the chance to give it to him when he was alive and they don't give it postumously.
I looked through the Wiki, and excluding the World Wars, we also have 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, and 1972 as years without a Nobel Peace Prize.
