(OT) Friday Humor: European Union Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Peace? In Europe?

Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's fiercely eurosceptic UKIP party, added: "This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humor." (Reuter's article, below)

The Norwegian committee should have asked citizens in Greece and Spain at least.

The same committee awarded the current US president the same prize for his presidential campaign in 2008. Past recipients for Nobel Peace Prize include Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Dalai Lama, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

To be on the candidate list for a Nobel Prize, someone has to nominate the person or entity to the committee. I wonder who nominated the EU.

As the Reuter article below notes, Norway is not part of the EU, and is doing very well. The article also duly notes an infuriated Greek citizen.

From Reuters (10/12/2012):

(Reuters) - The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for promoting peace, democracy and human rights over six decades in an award seen as a morale boost as the bloc struggles to resolve its economic crisis.

The award served as a reminder that the EU had largely brought peace to a continent which tore itself apart in two world wars in which tens of millions died.

The EU has transformed most of Europe "from a continent of wars to a continent of peace," Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said in announcing the award in Oslo.

"The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest," Jagland said. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights."

Jagland praised the EU for rebuilding Europe from the devastation of World War Two and for its role in spreading stability after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

While welcomed by European leaders, the award will have little practical effect on the debt crisis afflicting the single currency zone, which has brought economic instability and social unrest to several states with rioting in Athens and Madrid.

On the streets of the Greek capital, where demonstrators have burned Nazi flags to protest against German demands for austerity, the award was greeted with disbelief.

"Is this a joke?" asked Chrisoula Panagiotidi, 36, a beautician who lost her job three days ago. "It's the last thing I would expect. It mocks us and what we are going through right now. All it will do is infuriate people here."

The prize, worth $1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10. It was not immediately clear who from the EU would be there to collect the cheque and what it would be spent on.

CONCEIVED IN SECRET

Conceived in secret at a chateau near Brussels, what is now the European Union was created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, signed with great fanfare in the Italian capital's 15th century Palazzo dei Conservatori.

The six-state 'common market' it founded grew into the 27-nation European Union ranging from Ireland's Atlantic shores to the borders of Russia.

At the time the Cold War was in full swing after Soviet tanks put down an anti-communist rebellion in Budapest. Western countries led by the United States had formed NATO and the Kremlin responded with the Warsaw Pact.

But the EU is now mired in crisis with enormous strains between capitals over the euro, the common currency shared by 17 nations and created to further economic and monetary union.

Politicians in Germany, one of the main forces behind the foundation of the EU, were delighted with the award.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader, said it was a "wonderful decision". French President Francois Hollande, whose country has with Germany formed the EU's main axis of power, said it was an "immense honor".

Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who reunified Germany and pushed the country into the euro, said: "The Nobel Peace Prize for the EU is above all a confirmation of the European peace project,"

After centuries of war on the continent the EU has been at peace within its borders, but its effort to stop war in former Yugoslavia -- an initiative hailed by one minister as "the hour of Europe" -- was a failure.

The British government, less committed to the European ideal than other EU members, made no comment on the prize. Ed Balls, a senior member of the opposition Labour Party, remarked sarcastically: "They'll be cheering in Athens tonight, won't they?"

Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's fiercely eurosceptic UKIP party, added: "This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humor."

"I FIND THIS ABSURD"

In Madrid, Francisco Gonzalez expressed bafflement. "I don't see the logic in the EU getting this prize right now. They can't even agree among themselves," the 62-year-old businessman said.

In Berlin, public relations worker Astrid Meinicke, 46, was also skeptical. "I find it curious. I think the EU could have engaged itself a bit better, especially in Syria," she said, near the city's historic Brandenburg Gate.

In the home of the peace prize, many Norwegians are bitterly opposed to the EU, seeing it as a threat to the sovereignty of nation states. "I find this absurd," the leader of Norway's anti-EU membership organization Heming Olaussen told state broadcaster NRK.

Norway has twice voted "no" to joining the EU, in 1972 and 1994. The country has prospered outside the bloc, partly thanks to huge oil and gas resources.

Among those tipped to win was Russia's small Ekho Moskvy radio, a frequent critic of the Kremlin. Editor in chief Alexei Venediktov conceded the prize to a worthy winner.

"We are only 115. They are 500 million. It is an honor (to lose to the EU)," he told Reuters.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle, Terje Solsvik and Reuters European bureaux; Writing by Giles Elgood; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

The award money of $1.2 million is probably enough to hire one or two technocrats at Brussels for a year or so.

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OT: Free Nobel Peace Prize If You Order Shrimp Tacos

I have seen this photo in several places on the net, and I don't know the original source. I grabbed from here.

Shrimp tacos don't quite fit the "most powerful writer since Julius Caesar", but I like shrimp tacos. I like fish tacos, too. Oh I like Caesar's salad, too, now I think about it.

(I think I'd better go to bed now to recuperate from the flu. My brain's not working.)

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Nobel Peace Prize for ... Election Campaign??

John Nichols at The Nation thinks so.

Obama's Campaign Merits a Peace Prize (John Nichols, 10/10/09 The Nation)

Mr. Nichols starts the article by saying how he is not satisfied with President Obama's policies and actions since he took office. But then,

"So why not join the chorus of critics on the right and the left who object to the Nobel committee's decision to award a freshman president what remains the most important international recognition of individual accomplishment?

"Because, much as I might like to pen a piece with a snappy headline like Guardian writer Michael White's "I Hope Nobel Members Feel Pleased With Themselves, The Smug Idiots," I can't."

Why not? The answer is given in the second half of the article:

"I may have plenty of complaints about the man and his presidency. But I believe that Barack Obama did something that merits his selection as the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

"I am not talking here about an official act taken since he replaced the lamentable George Bush – although an argument can be made that replacing Bush's reign of error is sufficient accomplishment. What I'm talking about is actually something Obama did before his election – in fact, before his nomination as the Democratic Party's 2008 standard-bearer."

Specifically,

"In the July, 2007, "YouTube Debate," the Democratic candidates were asked if they would be willing to meet "with leaders of Syria, Iran, Venezuela" during their first term. Obama responded that, yes, he would be willing to do so. He explained that "the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this (Bush) administration -- is ridiculous.""

His concluding paragraph:

"Obama is being honored for what he did as a contender for the presidency -- a contender whose winning run charged the political debate in a party and a country that desperately needed to take a new direction. As such, he is not merely worthy. Barack Obama, the candidate, is the right recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace."

This takes the cake so far.

So, for this writer, putting the diplomacy in front of escalating armed conflicts during the party nomination campaign and successive presidential campaign was enough to win Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. Never mind that he started bombing an ally (Pakistan), is about to further increase manpower poured into Afghanistan, continues to arm and train Georgians and a host of other nations in volatile central Asia. As long as he meant well during the campaign, it was good enough.

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More on Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

The most magnanimous gesture President Obama could have given that would have won many fans (instead of derision) was to decline the Nobel Prize, saying his job, to put America on the right track (even though what is "right" is highly debatable), first and foremost, has barely started, appreciate your gesture, but no thank you, there are more worthy candidates than me.

(Unless of course the Nobel Committee was awarding the prize for his community organizing days.)

Or as some say, he hasn't killed enough yet. Here's one from Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo:

Bizarro Peace Prize Awarded to Obama
(Justin Raimondo, 10/9/09 Antiwar.com)

"Let’s say you’re the President of the United States — okay? And you’re on the brink of escalating what promises to be a wider, more intense war than that which George W. Bush launched in Iraq. You’ve already sent in reinforcements, but you’re undecided about just how many more troops you’re going to send to Afghanistan – could be 20,000, could be 40,000, or even 60,000. But, in any case, you’ve ruled out withdrawal and diplomacy: the only option you have left is more war.

"In addition, you’re moving – slowly but surely – toward full-scale involvement in Pakistan, where your drones are daily wreaking death and destruction on innocent civilians, and destabilizing a government that is increasingly hostile to your machinations – even though you’re bribing them with billions that never reach their ostensible beneficiaries and only serve to fatten the purses of your Pakistani sock-puppets.

"On top of that, you’ve just told the Palestinians that they must live with Israeli “settlements” and forced the UN to ignore an official report detailing the killing of thousands of innocent men, women, and children by IDF forces armed by the US.

"On top of that, you’re pushing through Congress a record military spending bill that keeps the US spending more than the top 45 nations on earth combined on weapons and methods of war.
So, naturally, as a reward for all your strenuous efforts on behalf of keeping the world a place that is less safe, less stable, and less worth living in than at any time since the outbreak of World War II, you are bestowed with – yes, that’s right, the Nobel Peace Prize. This, however, isn’t just any Nobel Peace Prize – oh no It’s a Bizarro Peace Prize – the natural result of us having slipped through a crack in the space-time continuum, and landed in a world where up is down, right is left, and war is peace – Bizarro World!"

The article continues. You can read the rest by following the link to the article above.

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Obama Gets Nobel Peace Prize

Deeply humbled, says the president.

Uh-hum.

His nomination came on the 12th day of his office, on February 1, which is the deadline set by the 1-man, 4-women Nobel Committee.

Who nominated the president before his work hardly started? (Or did someone nominate him for his work as a community organizer in Chicago?)

According to the Committee's website, you can nominate a person for consideration if you fall into any of these categories:

1. Members of national assemblies and governments, and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
2. Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague and of the International Court of Justice at the Hague
3. Members of Institut de Droit International
4. University professors of history, political science, philosophy, law and theology, and university presidents and directors of peace research institutes and institutes of international affairs
5. Former Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and board members of institutions that have previously been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
6. Present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
7. Former permanent advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Institute

I know from several past Nobel Prize winners' remarks that winning the Prize involves intense lobbying, sometimes over several years if not longer.

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