@female yeah I’m not much on hunting whales unless there is a sustainability issue (e.g. too many whales) or it’s native peoples keeping alive traditional hunting — e.g. Canada’s Inuit. As someone who loves history and culture, I’m all for the latter.

@female yeah I struggle in NY in terms of accent. My accent is not REMOTELY local, it’s more sort of mid-atlantic, regionless english. I can do a passable southern, passable Canadian and passable BBC accent. I’ve never mastered NY/NJ/RI etc.

-wolfe

PS I asked for a pretzel in NY and the pretzel vendor(!!) who was selling nothing but pretzels(!!!) said he didn’t know where any pet-stores were!!!
Oh yes. Guten-tag. And I never got that pretzel. Was too big anyway.

I’m kind of surprised by the Norwegians immaturity, but then I remember they still hunt whales. You could console yourself with the fact that the prize money is going to charity, but I agree, it’s undeserved at this stage.

There’s an element of irritation (or as you put it, crying) from conservatives in that of the last 8 or so prizes, four have been deliberate pokes in the eye with a sharp stick from the Norwegians, aimed at roughly half of America. (Jimmy Carter, Mohamed ElBaradei, Al Gore, and now Barack Obama).

The prize committee even explicitly stated (back in ’02) that they were doing this (Carter) to criticize America. Now that’s all well and good, and Lord knows, America can stand to be criticized, like every other country in the world. But that’s not the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize, and to turn it into that, in my view, demeans and devalues the prize.

I’m not going to join that aspect of the chorus (they’re childishly using the prize as a weapon!) because of course it’s what leftists do. And in doing so they inevitably destroy the currency of whatever they are using as a weapon.

I will criticize it because I think it adds to the “Emperor has no clothes” meme that’s already omnipresent with this President. And I will criticize it because it continues to degrade and destroy the currency and value of the prize.

FWIW, poke in the eye or not, I think Jimmy Carter did deserve the prize for his work at Camp David, Habitat for Humanity, his support for the Helsinki Accords, and, very arguably, the Carter Center for Democracy.

I think the idea that Messrs. ElBaradei, Gore, and Obama deserved it is risible. I think there are a lot of good and decent people that aren’t politicians who would have merited the prize more than these three.

Incidentally, if Obama’s plans actually work (I don’t believe for a moment they will) then yes, he would deserve the prize down the line as much as George W. Bush.

Something to scare you. [Full] Professors of History qualify as Nobel Peace Prize nominators.

-wolfe