Nobel Peace Prize - Global Farce

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:48:14 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off> wrote:

But if you
have there's a Nobel waiting for you.


Friday, October 12, 2007
Nobel Peace Prize - Global Farce
http://principalchair.blogspot.com/2007/10/nobel-peace-prize-global-farce.html

 
Powerline does a nice job of reminding us of all the great past winners of
the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/10/018734.php

Changing the climate, one winner at a time 

When did the Nobel Peace Prize go off the tracks? Today's award to Al Gore
and the IPCC "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater
knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the
measures that are needed to counteract such change" fits in with a subset of
cosmopolitan frauds, fakers, murderers, thieves, and no-accounts going back
about twenty years: 

2005
MOHAMED ELBARADEI (joint winner). He's done such a nice job with Iran. 
2004
WANGARI MAATHAI. The Kenyan ecologist peacefully teaches that the AIDS virus
is a biological agent deliberately created by the Man.

2002
JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America. A true
cosmopolitan, he has undermined the foreign policy of his own country and
vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world.

2001
UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA. 
KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General. Among other things, they have
respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the
biggest scams in history.

1994
YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the
PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. He was a cold-blooded
murderer both before and after receiving the award.

1992
RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. She is the notorious Guatemalan faker and
author, sort of, of I, Rigoberta Menchu.

1988
THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES New York, NY, U.S.A. Notwithstanding
rapes and sex abuse committed by the team in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Guinea and the Congo, still doing fine work all over the world. 

How about some recognition for the scientists of Laputa discovered by
Gulliver in the course of his travels? Is it too late to recognize them for
their fine efforts to extract sunlight from cucumbers? (Thanks to reader
Anthony Ragan for his contribution.) 
UPDATE: Reader Michael Slade thinks we need to extend the list a bit further
back in time to include Betty Williams �76, whom he deems "deserving of a
place for her remarks about killing President Bush."

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes to add: 

Don't forget Le Duc Tho (with Henry Kissinger) for the 1973 peace with honor
bequeathed to the fortunate people of Vietnam. 
In all seriousness, it is worth nothing an important difference between the
peace prize and the other Nobel prizes. The Swedish scholars and scientists
who make up the committees that award the science, literature, and economics
prizes routinely choose honorees whose greatest work was done years, even
decades, earlier.

For instance, Max Planck's revolutionary paper on quantum theory was
published in 1900; he received the Nobel Prize for it in 1918. Albert
Einstein's discovery of the photoelectric effect -- a 1905 achievement --
earned him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. James Watson and Francis
Crick figured out the structure of DNA in 1953; they didn't receive the
Nobel Prize in medicine (with Maurice Williams) until 1962. The 1924 Nobel
in medicine went to Willem Einthoven for discovering the mechanism of the
electrocardiogram. He had done the work between 1895 and 1905.

This is why recipients of the Swedish Nobels are so often very old. Doris
Lessing, this year's literature laureate, is 88. Two years ago, Thomas
Schelling -- then 84 -- was a co-recipient of the economics prize for work
he had done in 1960. As a rule, a scientist, author, or economist receives a
Nobel Prize only after his work has been sifted and weighed and put to the
test of time. Its importance has been established, often through years of
peer review. As a result, the science, literature, and economics Nobels
rarely end up looking foolish or naive.

By contrast, the Norwegian committee entrusted with awarding the peace prize
comprises politicians, not scholars. Like politicians everywhere, the peace
prize committee tends to be more interested in what the headlines will say
today than in what historians will believe 20 -- or 100 -- years from now.
And unlike their Swedish counterparts, the Norwegians often intend their
choice to have a political impact. When they gave the prize to Jimmy Carter
in 2002, the committee chairman emphasized that it was intended to be "a
kick in the leg" of the Bush administration. This year's prize to Al Gore
speaks for itself. 

In short, the five Swedish Nobels are almost always rewards for true
achievement. The one Norwegian Nobel too often smacks of an agenda. Maybe
the peace laureates would be less risible if they were chosen in Stockholm
too. 

And Bill Katz adds: 
Alfred Nobel's will specifies that the peace prize would go "to the person
who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between
nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the
holding and promotion of peace congresses." That's Al Gore? Al, we hardly
knew ye. 
By the way, to fully appreciate the farcical nature of the peace prize, you
need only go back to the painful years before World War II: 

In 1931 the prize was shared by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of
Columbia University, whose later enthusiasm for keeping good relations with
Nazi universities has been a source of embarrassment to Columbia.

In 1933, 1934 and 1936, the peace prize went to executives of the League of
Nations, already a colossal failure.

From 1939 through 1943 there was no peace prize. You know, World War II was
such an inconvenience, and Oslo, where the peace prize is given, was under
occupation. Ah, the success of those past prize winners! 

Someone should rewrite "It Was a Very Good Year" to memorialize the great
Nobel Peace Prize Winners of years gone by. Is Mark Steyn doing anything
today? (I've deleted Michael Costello's tribute to Fritz Haber, who won the
Nobel Prize for Chemistry rather than Peace. Thanks to our readers who noted
the error.) Finally, do not miss the indispensable Steven Hayward on
"Environmental Gore." 
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjQzNDFhZTFkMmM4YWE5Nzk4ZjUxZGVkOGRiM2UzZjg=

All truth passes through three stages. 
First, it is ridiculed. 
Second, it is violently opposed. 
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. 

Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher (1788 - 1860) 

http://www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer