On November 27:

1703 The first Eddystone Lighthouse was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1703.

 Winstanley’s lighthouse

1849 Te Rauparaha died.

1895 Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he died.

1874 Chaim Weizmann, 1st President of Israel, was born.

1924 the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in New York.

1925 Ernie Wise, British comedian, was born.

1940 The 16,712-ton New Zealand Shipping Company liner MV Rangitane was sunk by two German ‘auxiliary cruisers’ (armed merchant raiders), the Orion and Komet, 300 nautical miles off East Cape.

1942 Manolo Blahnik, Spanish shoe designer, was born.

1940  Bruce Lee, American actor and martial artist, was born.

1942  Jimi Hendrix, American guitarist, was born.

 1999  Helen Clark became Prime Minister.

2005 The first partial human face transplant was completed in Amiens, France.

2006 The Canadian House of Commons endorsed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motion to declare Québécois a nation within a unified Canada.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Chris Stevens at Crave (CNET-UK) wondered…

Using publicly available information, for the first time in the world, we have precisely and scientifically calculated the weight of the Internet. Obviously this information is only really useful to someone attempting to work out the cost of posting the Internet somewhere, perhaps to North Korea. Still, the casual reader — hi there! — may still enjoy learning just how damn heavy the thing is.

Read the entire analysis here.  But (SPOILER ALERT) lest readers agonize in suspense, the total mass of the internet is:

As Chris observes, “very heavy indeed.”

As we contemplate the weight of innovation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1867 that Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. 21 years later (in 1888), a French newspaper ran a premature obituary of Nobel, ran his obituary under the cutting headline “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (the merchant of death is dead); Nobel’s reaction was to sign a will (in 1895) leaving the bulk of his fortune to establish and fund the Nobel Prizes.

Alfred Nobel

On November 25:

1491 The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, began.

1343 A tsunami, caused by the earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea, devastated Naples  and the Maritime Republic of Amalfi, among other places.

1703 The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, reached its peak intensity which it maintained through November 27. Winds gusted up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people died.

1759 An earthquake hit the Mediterranean, Beirut and Damascus were completely destroyed, 30,000-40,000 people died.

1833 A  massive undersea earthquake, estimated magnitude between 8.7-9.2 rocked Sumatra, producing a massive tsunami all along the Indonesian coasts.

1839  A cyclone hit India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa. The storm wave swept inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths resulted.

1835 Andrew Carnegie, British-born industrialist and philanthropist, was born.

1844  Karl Benz, German engineer and inventor, was born.

1867  Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.

1880 John Flynn (minister), Founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, was born.

1880  Elsie J. Oxenham, British children’s author, was born.

1890 Isaac Rosenberg, English war poet and artist, was born.

1903  Timaru boxer Bob Fitzsimmons became the first man ever to be world champion in three different weight divisions.

1909  P.D. Eastman, American children’s author and screenwriter, was born.

1914  Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player, was born.

1915 Augusto Pinochet, Chilean Dictator, was born.

1926 The deadliest November tornado outbreak in U.S. history struck. 27 twisters of great strength were reported in the Midwest, including the strongest November tornado, an estimated F4, that devastated Heber Springs, Arkansas. There were 51 deaths in Arkansas alone, 76 deaths and  400 injuries in all.

1940 First flight of the deHavilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder.

1947  New Zealand ratified the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.

1950  Alexis Wright, Australian author, was born.

1950 The “Storm of the Century“, a violent snowstorm, paralyzed the northeastern United States and the Appalachians, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, recorded 57 inches of snow. 323 people died as a result of the storm.

Surface Analysis showing cyclone near time of maximum intensity on November 26, 1950.

1952 Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opensedat the Ambassadors Theatre in London and eventually became the longest continuously-running play in history.

1975  Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands.

1984  36 top musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio torecord Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

Cover art for the original release (artist Peter Blake)

1986 The King Fahd Causeway was officially opened in the Persian Gulf.

1987 Super Typhoon Nina pummeled the Philippines with category 5 winds of 165 mph and a surge that swallows entire villages. At least 1,036 deaths were attributed to the storm.

1996  An ice storm strikes the central U.S. killing 26 people. A powerful windstorm affects Florida and winds gust over 90 mph, toppling trees and flipping trailers.

2000  2000 Baku earthquake.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

I found this in an old text file, I don’t remember where I got it but it’s pretty cool. Go ahead and check it out.

Peace
Simranjeet Singh
Talk to me ->

Human World

The women of the Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.

When Albert Einstein died, his final words died with him. The nurse at his side didn’t understand German.

St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was not Irish.

The lance ceased to be an official battle weapon in the British Army in 1927.

St. John was the only one of the 12 Apostles to die a natural death.

Many sailors used to wear gold earrings so that they could afford a proper burial when they died.

Some very Orthodox Jew refuse to speak Hebrew, believing it to be a language reserved only for the Prophets.

A South African monkey was once awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal during World War I.

Born 4 January 1838, General Tom Thumb’s growth slowed at the age of 6 months, at 5 years he was signed to the circus by P.T. Barnum, and at adulthood reached a height of only 1 metre.

Because they had no proper rubbish disposal system, the streets of ancient Mesopotamia became literally knee-deep in rubbish.

The Toltecs, Seventh-century native Mexicans, went into battle with wooden swords so as not to kill their enemies.

China banned the pigtail in 1911 as it was seen as a symbol of feudalism.

The Amayra guides of Bolivia are said to be able to keep pace with a trotting horse for a distance of 100 kilometres.

Sliced bread was patented by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder, in 1928. He had been working on it for 16 years, having started in 1912.

Before it was stopped by the British, it was the not uncommon for women in some areas of India to choose to be burnt alive on their husband’s funeral pyre.

Ivan the terrible claimed to have ‘deflowered thousands of virgins and butchered a similar number of resulting offspring’.

Before the Second World War, it was considered a sacrilege to even touch an Emperor of Japan.

An American aircraft in Vietnam shot itself down with one of its own missiles.

The Anglo-Saxons believed Friday to be such an unlucky day that they ritually slaughtered any child unfortunate enough to be born on that day.

During the eighteenth century, laws had to be brought in to curb the seemingly insatiable appetite for gin amongst the poor. Their annual intake was as much as five million gallons.

Ancient drinkers warded off the devil by clinking their cups

The Nobel Prize resulted form a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence – he invented dynamite.

The cost of the first pay-toilets installed in England was tuppence.

Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.

In 1647 the English Parliament abolished Christmas.

Mao Rse-Tang, the first chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was born 26 December 1893. Before his rise to power, he occupied the humble position of Assistant Librarian at the University of Peking.

Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce in the world. The largest is petrol.

King George III was declared violently insane in 1811, 9 years before he died.

In Ancient Peru, when a woman found an ‘ugly’ potato, it was the custom for her to push it into the face of the nearest man.

For Roman Catholics, 5 January is St Simeon Stylites’ Day. He was a fifth-century hermit who showed his devotion to God by spending literally years sitting on top of a huge flagpole.

When George I became King of England in 1714, his wife did not become Queen. He placed her under house arrest for 32 years.

The richest 10 per cent of the French people are approximately fifty times better off than the poorest 10 per cent.

Henry VII was the only British King to be crowned on the field of battle

During World War One, the future Pope John XXIII was a sergeant in the Italian Army.

Richard II died aged 33 in 1400. A hole was left in the side of his tomb so people could touch his royal head, but 376 years later some took advantage of this and stole his jawbone.

The magic word “Abracadabra” was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay fever.

The Puritans forbade the singing of Christmas Carols, judging them to be out of keeping with the true spirit of Christmas.

Albert Einstein was once offered the Presidency of Israel. He declined saying he had no head for problems.

Uri Geller, the professional psychic was born on December 20 1946. As to the origin of his alleged powers, Mr Geller maintains that they come from the distant planet of Hoova.

Ralph and Carolyn Cummins had 5 children between 1952 and 1966, all were born on the 20 February.

John D. Rockefeller gave away over US$ 500,000,000 during his lifetime.

Only 1 child in 20 are born on the day predicted by the doctor.

In the 1970’s, the Rhode Island Legislature in the US entertained a proposal that there be a $2 tax on every act of sexual intercourse in the State.

Widows in equatorial Africa actually wear sackcloth and ashes when attending a funeral.

The ‘Hundred Years War’ lasted 116 years.

The British did not release the body of Napoleon Bonaparte to the French until twenty days after his death.

Admiral Lord Nelson was less than 1.6 metres tall.

John Glenn, the American who first orbited the Earth, was showered with 3,529 tonnes of ticker tape when he got back.

Native American Indians used to name their children after the first thing they saw as they left their tepees subsequent to the birth. Hence such strange names as Sitting Bull and Running Water.

Catherine the First of Russia, made a rule that no man was allowed to get drunk at one of her parties before nine o’clock.

Queen Elizabeth I passed a law which forced everyone except for the rich to wear a flat cap on Sundays.

In 1969 the shares of the Australian company ‘Poseidon’ were worth $1, one year later they were worth $280 each.

Julius Caesar wore a laurel wreath to cover the onset of baldness.

Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour during World War II, left school at the age of eleven.

At the age of 12, Martin Luther King became so depressed he tried committing suicide twice, by jumping out of his bedroom window.

It is illegal to be a prostitute in Siena, Italy, if your name is Mary.

The Turk’s consider it considered unlucky to step on a piece of bread.

The authorities do not allow tourists to take pictures of Pygmies in Zambia.

The Dutch in general prefer their french fries with mayonnaise.

Upon the death of F.D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman became the President of America on 12 April 1945. The initial S in the middle of his name doesn’t in fact mean anything. Both his grandfathers had names beginning with ‘S’, and so Truman’s mother didn’t want to disappoint either of them.

Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with the occult and the supernatural.

One of Queen Victoria’s wedding gifts was a 3 metre diameter, half tonne cheese.

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never phoned his wife or his mother, they were both deaf.

It was considered unfashionable for Venetian women, during the Renaissance to have anything but silvery-blonde hair.

Queen Victoria was one of the first women ever to use chloroform to combat pain during childbirth.

Peter the Great had the head of his wife’s lover cut off and put into a jar of preserving alcohol, which he then ordered to be placed by her bed.

The car manufacturer Henry Ford was awarded Hitler’s Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle. Henry Ford was the inventor of the assembly line, and Hitler used this knowledge of the assembly line to speed up production, and to create better and interchangeable products.

Atilla the Hun is thought to have been a dwarf.

The warriors tribes of Ethiopia used to hang the testicles of those they killed in battle on the ends of their spears.

On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage and over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was published by Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book described a ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an iceberg on its maiden voyage on a misty April night. The name of Robertson’s fictional ship was the Titan.

There are over 200 religious denominations in the United States.

Eau de Cologne was originally marketed as a way of protecting yourself against the plague.

Charles the Simple was the grandson of Charles the Bald, both were rulers of France.

Theodor Herzi, the Zionist leader who was born on May 2 1860, once had the astonishing idea of converting Jews to Christianity as a way of combating anti-Semitism.

The women of an African tribe make themselves more attractive by permanently scaring their faces.

Augustus II, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland seemed to have a prodigious sexual appetite, and fathered hundreds of illegitimate children during his lifetime.

Some moral purists in the Middle Ages believed that women’s ears ought to be covered up because the Virgin May had conceived a child through them.

Hindus don’t like dying in bed, they prefer to die beside a river.

While at Havard University, Edward Kennedy was suspended for cheating on a Spanish exam.

It is a criminal offence to drive around in a dirty car in Russia.

The Emperor Caligula once decided to go to war with the Roman God of the sea, Poseidon, and ordered his soldiers to throw their spears into the water at random.

The Ecuadorian poet, José Olmedo, has a statue in his honour in his home country. But, unable to commission a sculptor, due to limited funds, the government brought a second-hand statue .. Of the English poet Lord Byron.

In 1726, at only 7 years old, Charles Sauson inherited the post of official executioner.

Sir Winston Churchill rationed himself to 15 cigars a day.

On 7 January 1904 the distress call ‘CQD’ was introduced. ‘CQ’ stood for ‘Seek You’ and ‘D’ for ‘Danger’. This lasted only until 1906 when it was replaced with ‘SOS’.

Though it is forbidden by the Government, many Indians still adhere to the caste system which says that it is a defilement for even the shadow of a person from a lowly caste to fall on a Brahman ( a member of the highest priestly caste).

In parts of Malaya, the women keep harems of men.

The childrens’ nursery rhyme ‘Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses’ actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million people in the fourteenth-century.

The word ‘denim’ comes from ‘de Nimes’, Nimes being the town the fabric was originally produced.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, there was a tax put on men’s beards.

Idi Amin, one of the most ruthless tyrants in the world, before coming to power, served in the British Army.

Some Eskimos have been known to use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.

It is illegal to play tennis in the streets of Cambridge.

Custer was the youngest General in US history, he was promoted at the age of 23.

It costs more to send someone to reform school than it does to send them to Eton.

The American pilot Charles Lindbergh received the Service Cross of the German Eagle form Hermann Goering in 1938.

The active ingredient in Chinese Bird’s nest soup is saliva.

Marie Currie, who twice won the Nobel Prize, and discovered radium, was not allowed to become a member of the prestigious French Academy because she was a woman.

It was quite common for the men of Ancient Greece to exercise in public .. naked.

John Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world, had a payphone in his mansion.

Iceland is the world’s oldest functioning democracy.

Adolf Eichmann (responsible for countless Jewish deaths during World war II), was originally a travelling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Co. of Austria.

The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Matami Tribe of West Africa play a version of football, the only difference being that they use a human skull instead of a more normal ball.

John Winthrop introduced the fork to the American dinner table for the first time on 25 June 1630.

Elizabeth Blackwell, born in Bristol, England on 3 February 1821, was the first woman in America to gain an M.D. degree.

Abraham Lincoln was shot with a Derringer.

The great Russian leader, Lenin died 21 January 1924, suffering from a degenerative brain disorder. At the time of his death his brain was a quarter of its normal size.

When shipped to the US, the London bridge ( thought by the new owner to be the more famous Tower Bridge ) was classified by US customs to be a ‘large antique’.

Sir Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ cloakroom after his mother went into labour during a dance at Blenheim Palace.

In 1849, David Atchison became President of the United States for just one day, and he spent most of the day sleeping.

Between the two World War’s, France was controlled by forty different governments.

The ‘Crystal Palace’ at the Great Exhibition of 1851, contained 92 900 square metres of glass.

It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on their testicles when taking an oath. The modern term ‘testimony’ is derived from this tradition.

Sir Winston Churchill’s mother was descended from a Red Indian.

The study of stupidity is called ‘monology’.

Hindu men believe(d) it to be unluckily to marry a third time. They could avoid misfortune by marring a tree first. The tree ( his third wife ) was then burnt, freeing him to marry again.

More money is spent each year on alcohol and cigarettes than on Life insurance.

In 1911 3 men were hung for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry at Greenbury Hill, their last names were Green, Berry , and Hill.

A firm in Britain sold fall-out shelters for pets.

During the seventeen century , the Sultan of Turkey ordered his entire harem of women drowned, and replace with a new one.

Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill ‘if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee’. His reply …’ if you were my wife, I would drink it ! ‘.

There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.

The Great Pyramid of Giza consists of 2,300,000 blocks each weighing 2.5 tons.

On 9 February 1942, soap rationing began in Britain.

Paul Revere was a dentist.

The Budget speech on April 17 1956 saw the introduction of Premium Savings Bonds into Britain. The machine which picks the winning numbers is called “Ernie”, an abbreviation, which stands for’ electronic random number indicator equipment’.

Chop-suey is not a native Chinese dish, it was created in California by Chinese immigrants.

The Russian mystic, Rasputin, was the victim of a series of murder attempts on this day in 1916. The assassins poisoned, shot and stabbed him in quick succession, but they found they were unable to finish him off. Rasputin finally succumbed to the ice-cold waters of a river.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, the leader of the Jacobite rebellion to depose of George II of England, was born 31 December 1720. Considered a great Scottish hero, he spent his final years as a drunkard in Rome.

The Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, was born of the 29th December 1809. Apparently, as a result of his strong Puritan impulses, Gladstone kept a selection of whips in his cellar with which he regularly chastised himself.

A parthenophobic has a fear of virgins.

South American gauchos were known to put raw steak under their saddles before starting a day’s riding, in order to tenderise the meat.

There are 240 white dots in a Pacman arcade game.

In 1939 the US political party ‘The American Nazi Party’ had 200,000 members.

King Solomon of Israel had about 700 wives as well as hundreds of mistresses.

Urine was once used to wash clothes.

North American Indian, Sitting Bull, died on 15 December 1890. His bones were laid to rest in North Dakota, but a business group wanted him moved to a ‘more natural’ site in South Dakota. Their campaign was rejected so they stole the bones, and they now reside in Sitting Bull Park, South Dakota.

St Nicholas, the original Father Christmas, is the patron saint of thieves, virgins and communist Russia.

Dublin is home of the Fairy Investigation Society.

Fourteen million people were killed in World War I, twenty million died in a flu epidemic in the years that followed.

People in Siberia often buy milk frozen on a stick.

Princess Ann was the only competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics that did not have to undergo a sex test.

Ethelred the Unready, King of England in the Tenth-century, spent his wedding night in bed with his wife and his mother-in-law.

Coffins which are due for cremation are usually made with plastic handles.

Blackbird, who was the chief of Omaha Indians, was buried sitting on his favourite horse.

The two highest IQ’s ever recorded (on a standard test) both belong to women.

The Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disreali, was born 21 December 1804. He was noted for his oratory and had a number of memorable exchanges in the House with his great rival William Gladstone. Asked what the difference between a calamity and a misfortune was Disreali replied: ‘If Gladstone fell into the Thames it would be a misfortune, but if someone pulled him out again, it would be a calamity’.

The Imperial Throne of Japan has been occupied by the same family for the last thirteen hundred years.

In the seventeenth-century a Boston man was sentenced to two hours in the stocks for obscene behaviour, his crime, kissing his wife in a public place on a Sunday.

President Kaunda of Zambia once threatened to resign if his fellow countrymen didn’t stop drinking so much alcohol.

Due to staggering inflation in the 1920’s, 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 German marks were worth 1 US dollar.

Gorgias of Epirus was born during preparation of his mothers funeral.

The city of New York contains a district called ‘Hell’s Kitchen’.

The city of Hiroshima left the Industrial Promotion Centre standing as a monument the atomic bombing.

During the Medieval Crusades, transporting bodies off the battlefield for burial was a major problem, this was solved by carrying a huge cauldron into the Holy wars, boiling down the bodies, and taking only the bones with them.

A ten-gallon hat holds three-quarters of a gallon.

George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.

Yes, President Barack Obama deserves the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.  Similar to awards in the past, this year’s Nobel Peace prize was awarded for a movement that has just started.

Let’s get something straight: When Alfred Nobel, a Swedish arms manufacturer and inventor of dynamite, bestowed his considerable estate to establish, among other things, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1895, it was established for “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.” According to the rules, the prize is awarded, not for lifelong achievement, but to the one who has done the most to create an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation over the past year.

Like Martin Luther King Jr., you don’t have to wait a lifetime to win. King was the youngest person ever to win the prize in 1964, the year after his “I Have a Dream,” speech. At that time, the peace associated with the civil rights movement was far from being achieved. The committee could have easily argued that King needed more experience. If they had done so, he would likely have won the award posthumously.

Using those standards, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres would not have won in 1994 for attempting to advance peace in the Middle East. Rigoberta Menchú Tum wouldn’t have won for her efforts at justice and reconciliation in post-civil war Guatemala. Aung San Suu Kyi would still be waiting for her prize because despite her devotion and struggle for civil rights in Burma, democracy and human rights still remain illusive in that country.

It’s like Archbishop Desmond Tutu said when he congratulated Obama: “It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama’s message of hope.”

To answer many claim’s that this is more of an indictment rather than an award, this award only serves as a promise that President Obama must live up to.  This award sends a clear message to the American people, and the world, of what the Obama administration hopes to achieve in his term of office:  a nation willing to listen and willing to lead.  So if this current dissent and lack of support for the President’s foreign policy from the right continues, this award could certainly turn into an albatross for President Obama, only because the right holds back his promise of a better future.

What could move a Conservative advocate of Liberty to commend Barack Obama on a policy decision? How about taking perhaps the first significant pro-freedom action by a president since Reagan?

Obama has pretty much failed the “peace” part of his campaign/policy promises…which is really bad, because that’s the only good part of his entire platform…until now.

His Iraq policy is a mirror of what Bush was claiming to plan, anyhow. His Afghanistan policy is one of increasing warfare and expanded support of the terrorism-sponsoring Pakistani government. He isn’t actually closing Guantanamo. He is pushing to maintain the unconstitutional, police-state PATRIOT Act. His government has been more transparent than Bush’s, but that’s like having more water than the Sahara Desert; he’s still been secretive, and deceptive.

But he’s now doing one thing right.

Obama is the first Democratic president I know of to actually act on the Liberal claim of opposition to the insane drug war. At all.

In case you didn’t know, he has actually rescinded the Bush/Clinton orders to target, under unconstitutional Federal law, medical marijuana users in states where that treatment is legal.

Carter didn’t do anything good about the drug prohibition. Clinton…well, he was the first president to attack the medical marijuana users. Johnson is the guy who started the modern drug war. FDR and Truman were the ones who pushed the prohibition of marijuana in the first place.

Reagan privately opposed drug prohibition, but sold out on the “you’ve gotta pick your battles” theory of compromise with the badguys.

The 1994 Republican Revolution involved some rumblings of decriminalizing marijuana, but of course they sold out all Conservative, pro-liberty principles, within a few years. Gingrich adopted the very desirable platform of the Contract with America based on the popularity of liberty in the polls, but never believed in it.

Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand, the last two presidents violated the Constitution, especially the 9th and 10th amendments, by specifically going after medical marijuana users in those states where it had been legalized. I had no reason to expect otherwise of Obama’s Business as Usual administration, but they have announced that this practice will now end.

I commend him, on what is actually the first important pro-liberty action from a president I can recall having encountered in years. Drug prohibition is one of the most harmful and inexcusable of American domestic policies, but is generally overlooked, or made worse, by the Mainstream political sellouts.

If he kept going down that path, he’d actually deserve to have been given a Nobel prize…years from now, when he left office.

För att fira nobelpristagarna i fysik 2009 släpper nu Elsevier de prisvinnande artiklarna som publicerats på det förlaget som open access.

Infra-Red Optical Communication Systems
Infrared Physics, 1968, Vol. 8, pp. 123-129, J. Lytollis, C. K. Kao and G.I. Turner.

Transition to the High Field Limit in the Zeeman Spectra of Germanium Donors
J. Phys. Chem. Solids (1961). Vol. 19, Nos 3/4, pp. 181-188, Pergamon Press, W.S. Boyle and R. E. Howard.

The Invention of the CCD
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A 471 (2001) 1-5. George E. Smith

Note on Negative resistance of silicon p-n junctions at 4′2K
Solid-State Electronics, 1962. Vol. 5, pp. 177-178. Pergamon Press.

Se även Elseviers hemsida

Topics: Alfred Nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, nitroglycerin, death, literature, art, dynamite, peace, legacy

Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area

Habits of Mind: persisting, gathering data through all senses, striving for accuracy and precision, questioning and posing problems, applying past knowledge to new situations

Reading Skills: prediction, synthesis, determining importance, interpretation, empathy

My Thoughts: With the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Barack Obama, you may want to take the opportunity to discuss the history of the prize itself.  It’s a great text for discussing the Habits of Mind.  The illustrations are quite large and are particularly vivid–perfect for classroom read alouds.

Alfred Nobel!

Nobel was a Swedish chemist and engineer who invented dynamite, the smokeless powder Ballistite, and an explosive gelatin more powerful than dynamite.
Nobel a fost un chimist suedez şi inginer care a inventat dinamita, pulbere fără fum Ballistite, precum şi o gelatină explozivă mai puternică decât dinamita.
In his last will, he left his enormous fortune for the endowment of the Nobel Prizes, which recognize outstanding achievements in the fields of science, literature, economics, and the promotion of peace.
În ultimul său testament, el a lăsat averea sa enormă fondând Premii Nobel, care recunoaşte realizările deosebite în domeniul ştiinţei, literaturei, economiei, precum şi în promovarea păcii.

On October 21:

1520 Ferdinand Magellan discoversed what is now known as the Strait of Magellan.

1772 English poet  Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born.

1805  The Battle of Trafalgar took place.A British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve.

The Battle of Trafalgar, as seen from the mizzen
starboard shrouds of the Victory
by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1806 to 1808)

1824 Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement.

1833 Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize was born.

1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1917 US musician Dizzy Gillespie was born.

1921 English composer Sir Malcolm Arnold was born.

1929 US author  Ursula K. Le Guin was born.

1931 English actress Vivian Pickles was born.

1940 English cricketer Geoff Boycott was born.

1940 English musician Manfred Mann was born.

1942 Judy Sheindlin, American judge (“Judge Judy“) was born.

1945 Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married  actress Evita (María Eva Duarte de Perón).

1952 Trevor Chappell, Australian cricketer, was born.

1953 British politician Peter Mandelson was born.

1956 US author and actress Carrie Fisher was born.

1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York opened to the public.

1964 Peter Snell won his second gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

1966 A coal tip fellon the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.

 1983 The metre was defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

By: Barbara

 The will of Alfred Nobel reads as follows:

“The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, DURING THE PRECEDING YEAR, SHALL HAVE conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

Please note carefully the precise words Alfred used in his will “annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the Preceding year conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for……2008?

Alrighty then, what did Barack Obama do in 2008? What was it Barack Obama did in 2008 that “conferred the greatest benefit to mankind”?

Think Think Think

Will continues…

“The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts” -snip-… “and one part 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.”

Pretty clear here… “SHALL HAVE DONE” Past tense as in has done, has Achieved. The person receiving the Prize for Peace SHALL HAVE DONE IN THE PRECEDING YEAR(2008). Nowhere in Alfred Nobel’s will does it state it is awarded as Barack Obama Has stated his reason for accepting his prize as “A Call to Action.”

Nor does the will state as Barack Obama stated “The Peace Prize is awarded to “build momentum for a cause” Sad, that in the year 2008 the person that “did the most and the best work for fraternity of nations” was one of the candidates who spent:

 Jan-Aug 2008 campaigning for their party’s nominee for President.
Aug 2008 Securing that nomination with yet another speech about what he hoped to do IF the people of the US elected him in Nov 2008 and gave him the power in Jan of 2009 to actually do more than Hope.
Aug-Nov 2008 campaign speeches.
Nov 2008 elected POTUS, with another speech about his hopes in 2009.
Nov -Dec 2008…President elect.

How sad that in 2008….the most, the best anyone did for world peace was to speak about it. That can’t be right? No one achieved a thing, just talk, talk, talk about what they hoped to achieve.

Poor Greg Mortensen spent 2008 building schools in Afghanistan with the belief that “Books not Bombs” is the way to Peace. He even wrote a book “Three cups of Tea” one man’s mission to promote PEACE one school at a time.When Greg was nominated for the Prize he was called the ultimate Peace maker who fights terrorism and builds nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Mortenson

Greg, sorry you wasted so much time and energy actually doing. This ought to teach you and everyone else to Put down your tools, come on home to the US, where it is safe, and this year TALK about what you Hope to do. Yep, you don’t have to live and risk your life in Afghanistan. You can do it from a big fancy stage with some international symbol, like Greek Columns and get yourself a speech writer and a few teleprompters and you are good to go. You do not have to leave the US and put yourself in harm’s way and live in the bowels of the earth. Get yourself a nice comfortable hotel room with climate control, room service and a personal chef and a whole staff catering to your every whim in a big safe American City, you can step out every once in a while and speak about what you hoped to do to change the world.

The Nobel Prize will be yours in no time at all. How many years have you been working in Afghanistan? You may want to pass this advice on to Sima Simar she like you spent her time working to achieve equal rights for women and girls in Afghanistan and with the UN on human rights in Sudan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Samar

The two of you could work, aaagh, talk together. The worst that could happen is you both will share the Nobel Peace Prize but the 1.5 million prize money will surly achieve both your goals of PEACE. So to all those who argue Did Barack Obama earn the Nobel Peace Prize? According to the will of Alfred Nobel the answer is NO.

I will end with the words of Alfred Nobel “and that for champions of Peace Prize It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the MOST WORTHY shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.” The Will of Alfred Nobel http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/index.html

Obama Nobel Peace Prize

Irony – a figure of speech in which the literal meaning is the opposite of the intended meaning; used in ridicule, contempt or humor. Liter – technique often used in writing satire; a method of expression in which the author veils his real meaning behind plot or character development which portrays the opposite. An outcome opposed to that which one has been lead to expect. (The New Websteras Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language)

The gym where I work out has several television screens tuned to a variety of stations. I went to the gym early on Friday because I had a full day of activities: a memorial service later that morning, I had to get back home to finish packing and head to Cheyney University for Homecoming Weekend. I was amused when I saw on the television monitor tuned to CNN that Barack Obama had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize! I have always wondered what the criteria was for one to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the case of Martin Luther King Jr or Desmond Tutu I could see because they challenged extremely vicious systems of European oppression and genocide using non-violent tactics; so of course white folks would give them a prize. But over the years there have been some truly questionable picks for the Noble Peace Prize; like Henry Kissinger whose actions resulted in massive loss of life all around the world on behalf of Western imperialist geo-political and economic interests.

In literature there is a style of writing called irony whereby the writer’s words disguise: the true goings on, the motives of the characters, the outcome of their plotting or the resulting circumstances. In the real world, the Noble Prize is itself a form of irony. Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm Sweden in 1833. He was the son of an engineer. He too became an engineer, an inventor and entrepreneur. When I think of Alfred Noble, I think of destruction and devastation because he invented dynamite.

Nobel’s father was an engineer who had developed naval mines, and explosives. Alfred Noble was sent to school to study chemical engineering. Upon graduation he worked for his fathers company which had contracts for both civil and military work. His father went bankrupt for a second time and Alfred Nobel went to work on a process to create a way to stabilize nitroglycerin which was an extremely volatile liquid. Noble eventually developed a way to turn it into a paste and make it practical by using a blasting or detonating cap. He kept at it and developed a totally new compound he called dynamite. Noble also invented smokeless gun powder.

Dynamite was first used as an excavating tool to blast heavy rock but it didn’t take long for a people who love war to use it as the most potent weapon of mass destruction of its day and well into the future. Noble traveled throughout Europe and America obtaining patents and setting up companies. He and his investment partners set up sixteen dynamite companies in fourteen countries. Noble flourished and became extremely wealthy. Mining, excavating and war were and are very lucrative businesses.

Due to the extensive travel required to maintain his business empire during that time, Noble’s health began to deteriorate. He developed a heart condition and was forced to use nitroglycerine as a treatment (another irony). Noble, according to most accounts, never married and had no heirs. He died on December 10, 1896 in Sanremo Italy. In his will he ordered a committee be established to award monetary prizes for developments and accomplishments in the fields of: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and world peace.

The supreme irony is that Alfred Noble the man who helped make it easier for Europeans to terrorize and subjugate the world (keep in mind his father developed naval mines), became rich beyond measure and in his will decreed an award be given for those who work for world peace. There is no definitive evidence that I could find proving Alfred Noble was ever a pacifist. Certainly if Alfred Nobel a white man had been one during the late nineteenth century, he would have been an anomaly.

Is it possible that the establishment of the Noble prize was a public relations ploy to clean up the legacy of the man who invented true weapons of mass destruction and human devastation?

Keep in mind the Chinese invented gun powder and used it to make flame, as an esoteric elixir for immortality and for public celebrations hundreds of years before the Mongols and subsequently the Arabs developed and used it for weaponry. Europeans saw it and took it to a whole new level in terms of warfare and destruction.This brings me back to Barack Obama. Here is a man who campaigned and won the US presidency in 2008 on the slogan of change, who as President continues his predecessor’s global imperialist wars.

Its diabolically ironic that Obama was awarded the Noble Peace Prize despite: using drones to bomb and kill innocent people in Afghanistan and expand the war into Pakistan, is maintaining Iraq as a colony, is continuing a proxy war in Somalia, is threatening to use force against Iran for their pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy; meanwhile he never says anything about Israel’s nuclear arsenal or its mischief throughout the world! Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize (an item of irony itself) is the epitome of Orwellian doublespeak; where war is peace, oppression is freedom and death is life.

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

Obama contemplates his remarkable award. Photo by Pete Souza.

Is President Obama America’s Lester B. Pearson? That seems to be what Doug Saunders is saying  in this recent piece.  Though I don’t agree with everything Saunders says in this article, in drawing a brief comparison between Obama and the former Canadian Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he does make a worthwhile point about how the Nobel has been awarded in the past, a point that seems forgotten by most in their eagreness to join the media “pile up” to lament Obama’s allegedly undeserved award. That being: the Nobel is not a lifetime achievement award;  it honours actions that ”change the way the world functions”, or how “countries engage or publics think about conflicts”.

That might be said of Pearson, but what about Obama?  Is this comparison between Obama and Pearson helpful? 

Pearson was Canada’s Secretary of State for External Affairs when he helped organize and conceive the UN  “peace force”  to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956, but as of 1957, when he won the Nobel Peace Prize, there were still questions as to whether any of it would be successful.

Hindsight bias is 20-20, so the cliche goes.  Who would have thought that peacekeeping would become so iconic of United Nations work, and so entrenched within international politics in subsequent decades? Certainly nobody in 1957, though the Nobel committee had hopes. Certainly not Pearson himself, who in his Nobel acceptance speech remarked he did very little to deserve the award; and, what’s more, warned of exaggerating the importance or even effectiveness of his solution:

I do not exaggerate the significance of what has been done. There is no peace in the area. There is no unanimity at the United Nations about the functions and future of this force. It would be futile in a quarrel between, or in opposition to, big powers. But it may have prevented a brush fire becoming an all-consuming blaze at the Suez last year, and it could do so again in similar circumstances in the future.

We made at least a beginning then. If, on that foundation, we do not build something more permanent and stronger, we will once again have ignored realities, rejected opportunities, and betrayed our trust. Will we never learn?

Note the language– a “beginning” to later build upon, a “foundation” upon which to forge something “permanent and stronger”. Yes, the role of peacekeeping in the world may have already reached its apex years ago, but it is a much stronger institution today than 1956, when it was nothing more than an ingenious idea to broker a cease fire between warring factions powered mainly by idealism and hope.  But that is how great things are accomplished.  And it was for this hopeful but thin and uncertain beginning that Pearson was awarded the Nobel Prize.

If Obama’s presidency stands for anything, it might be hope and idealism, though the knock on it nowadays is that it doesn’t stand for much more than that, either.   Even so, Obama has fundamentally altered the direction of U.S. foreign policy, prioritizing nuclear arms reductions, defusing tensions in Russia and Europe by canceling the missile defense system, and engaging with Iran, Russia, China and other countries in strategic new ways.   America being what it is– a super power, hyper-power, or whatever trendy term you want to use– these important changes in policy have  also re-orientated the priorities and direction of international politics.

Alfred Nobel believed the Peace Prize ought to be awarded for “the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the promotion of peace congresses”.  Though Obama may not have defused a specific crisis– yet, who can say that these shifts in U.S. foreign policy have not done more to advance “fraternity among nations” than any other international work in the last year?

Obama’s work, like Pearson’s, was a beginning. A foundation, upon which he, and the world, might build upon in the years ahead. Obama may not, ultimately, be successful in achieving his lofty visions or goals, but that does not mean his work so far is undeserved, or that in working towards those ideals, the world won’t be a better place. Because it will be. And that, friends, was Alfred Nobel’s own lofty vision and hope.

Barack Obama is notably absent from the home page of The Nobel Foundation. Norwegians are silly cowards. Alfred Nobel would be ashamed of all of you! As many of you by now know, President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Their reasons are blunt and stunted, plainly, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. If you choose to peruse the Nobel site you will not find the plethora of substance you may expect to “qualify” this award. Forget imagery as well, there are three Obama related pictures, one of Michelle and Barack looking typically good, another of the President on the phone in the oval office, and one of him greeting the Mexican President. It really does appear to be the biggest ad hoc accord of any significant global accomplishment in the history of my short tenure on this planet. Mr President? Your thoughts?

A ‘call to action’ is exactly what the Nobel team had in mind when announcing Obama’s award. Unfortunately, the United States of America isn’t in the business of taking orders from Norwegian cronies sitting on agendas. We also have some major internal issues, the Glen Beck infused tea party gang is a hop, skip and a jump away from disrupting peace within our own borders. And by the way, this Nobel junk has effectively armed Beck and his army of idiots with another piece of ‘evidence’ demonstrating the illogical endorsements of Obama. It will become the quintessential punchline for right wingers when hypothesizing Obama’s plans for action. Let alone the fact that Obama will get 1.4 million dollars as a result of the award, it’s the equivalent of throwing a massive rock at a hornets nest. The question really is, why?

Just too much gloss and rhetoric is behind the Norwegian explanation. The Nobel Peace Prize has always been awarded on the basis of action already taken, accomplishments already in hand. Former recipients have had little difficulty citing their actionable accomplishments, they include: Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, The 14th Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel, Mother Theresa, Mikhail Gorbachev and so many more it’s depressing. (Google those names if unfamiliar, seriously).

There used to be much debate and intellectual discourse about the merit of Peace Prize recipients, often utilized as a teaching mechanism. For example, Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize is a great teaching tool when illustrating the key part Egypt plays in the Israeli conflict, specifically Egypt’s proactive co-operation on regional political matters. What would Obama’s prize be used to teach in classrooms? It’s not hard to envision a 7-year-old stumping a college educated teacher with the simple question: Why? Why Obama?

Argh, the answer is nauseating. They chose Obama because Europeans have a disgusting sense of humor, and take pleasure in putting the U.S. in precarious positions. Effectively this nomination is a win-win situation for the Nobellites. If any substantial action is taken by Obama during his tenure, the Nobel committee will most certainly feel redeemed, perhaps responsible even.  If Obama tries but fails to demonstratively take action, the Nobel fogies can make their favorite claim, that Obama was clearly ready, unfortunately America was not. Bad America, bad.

This has been one bad week for the Obama administration and our country. Leave it to the Europeans to take a good prize and defecate all over it. Yes, the Peace Prize is inherently utopian, but so was standing up to the Soviet Union. And that certainly didn’t stop Polish union leader Lech Walsea from catalyzing the end of the Cold War in Poland, and later becoming Prime Minister. Forget the Peace Prize, somebody get Lech a prime rib.

Payce Out.

]]> http://changingwinds.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-nobel-peace-prize-a-complete-farce/ Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:15:06 +0000 Jim Taggart http://changingwinds.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-nobel-peace-prize-a-complete-farce/

President Barack Obama’s recent receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize is another gift to the media – the list of controversies dogging the new president continues to grow. The Peace Prize award has set certain people’s hair on fire: Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, to name two. Take a Prosac, fellas. And the award’s clearly helped widen the growing polarization between the Left and the Right in America.

North of the border, the Toronto Globe and Mail on Saturday provided yea and nay arguments on Obama’s award by two of the paper’s main columnists. Meanwhile Rome burns – people continue killing one another in the Middle East, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan…and the very long list goes on.

So is there any substance – validity – to the Nobel Peace Prize?

Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) was born in Stockholm, and one of his interests after graduating with a degree in chemistry was explosives. One area of focus for him was how to produce nitroglycerine safely, which had been discovered in 1847. Years later in 1895, one year before his death, Nobel wrote his will which contained the basis for the subsequent Nobel Prize. While the scientific elements of the Prize were clear, the reasoning behind the Peace Prize was never articulated in detail by Nobel.

Nobel stated in his will that the Peace Prize should be awarded “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.” Moreover, the Peace Prize was to be awarded by a five person committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament.

Between 1901 and 2008, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded 96 times to people and 23 times to organizations. Here’s a sample of recipients:

• Red Cross (three times)
• Henry Dunant, Frederic Passy (1901)
• Theodore Roosevelt (1906)
• Woodrow Wilson (1919)
• Frank B. Kellog (1929)
• Nansen International Office for Refugees (1938)
• Lester B. Pearson (1957)
• Linus Pauling (1962)
• Martin Luther King (1964)
• Henry Kissinger (1973)
• Mother Teresa (1979)
• Desmond Tutu (1984)
• Elie Wiesel (1986)
• The 14th Dalai Lama (1989)
• Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk (1993)
• Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin (1994)
• Jimmy Carter (2002)
• Al Gore (2007)

Granted, some of the Peace Prize recipients have been seen as questionable in terms of the weak or non-existent results they produced, one example being Henry Kissenger. And now Barack Obama is the recipient for 2009.

To say that the world was caught off guard by Obama’s award is an understatement. Reaction has ranged from jubilation to apoplexy by the Conservative Right. It’s been stated by many, quite appropriately, that Obama’s greatest achievement in his nine months as President is being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But I would add that we shouldn’t forget his infamous Beer Summit, an exemplary display of mediation skills…well, sort of.

It’s been said that the Nobel Peace Prize has evolved from actual achievement to the espousing of vision about solving world problems. Well, President Obama scores big time on that type of scale. Just recall his statements and promises during his long pre-election campaign and in the early days of his presidency. If that’s what the Nobel Peace Prize is now about, then I have the solutions for world hunger, conflict in the Middle East, AIDS and bad breath. Someone, please nominate me – quick!

Bishop Desmond Tutu perhaps said it best last Friday: that anticipation of an even greater contribution will be expected from President Obama. Indeed, the bar has just been raised. And the problem this may pose to Obama is that it will prove to be an anchor to his presidency.

Finally, what is also rather odd – perhaps suspicious – is that Barack Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize only 11 days after taking office as President of the United States. This has prompted a number of commentators to claim that awarding the Peace Prize to Barack Obama was a defacto poke in the eye to George W. Bush’s presidency. Sure, G.W. proved to be a disaster for America, but naïve jubilation over a new charismatic president and a loss of judgement in selecting a recipient for a once-esteemed award reflects a society that is losing its way.

I think Saturday Night Live summed this Nobel Peace Prize business up best when Seth Meyers said that Obama won the prize for not being George Bush.  At this point, it is all he has done other than promise a whole heck of a lot and have a lot of meetings and discussions about what he would like to have done.

That being said, I understand, as do most rational clear headed people, that there is a lot involved when shutting down Guantanamo Bay, bringing about health care reform and ending the war in Iraq.  He’s got a lot on his plate and has a lot he wants to get done while in office.  He brought many ambitious plans with him when he assumed office and while I appreciate the world and some powerful decision makers in Norway for recognizing his idealistic views and non-Bush-esque-ness, I also think awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize less than a year into his presidency and with none of his goals accomplished is a little … rash.  No offense to Obama, but if I were one of the others being considered, I would be offended.

That being said, I find it interesting that none of the people involved in the decision making process for the Nobel Peace Prize are actually informed about peace matters.  A man interviewed on NPR, I did catch his name, but I was driving, wasn’t able to write it down and at this point, have long forgotten it, was commenting that he found it odd that the people involved in this decision are incredibly uninformed about what people are doing in the world to bring about peace.  My argument would be a heck of a lot more solid if I were to remember his name, but I’m going to believe that he’s right on this one since their decision seems to support that hypothesis.

And, at this point, I think my friend Liz, who worked selflessly for 2 years in the Peace Corp. has done more than Obama to deserve this award.  And I’m sure there are many other people who has toiled for ten times as long and are completely unrecognized for their work.

I love Obama.  I’m a huge fan.  If he and Jon Stewart and Marc Savard had a child, I would have eyes for no other.  But I am not blindly smitten.  Hopefully in the years to come he will bring about much change, much of the change he has talked about.  And maybe after all that, he would be deserving of this prize.  But at this point, I feel like it belittles and discredits Alfred Nobel and his foundation more than celebrates Obama.  And I think all should be celebrated.

Late night TV comedians have turned their jabs on President Obama for getting Nobel Peace Prize. The comedians ought to fire their script writers for coming up with such poor stuff. Had they lambasted the Prize committee, that would have yielded something. Didn’t they award Henry Kissinger and few other warmongers for Peace Prize?

benny

By now, the whole world knows that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.  This dubious (and I use that word in its truest sense) honor was based upon only the first 12 days of Obama’s presidency.   Let’s see just what Obama accomplished in his first few days of office:

Day One (half day really):  He was sworn in as president, then went to a parade, and later attended a huge “party”.
Day Two:  He asked bureaucrats to re-write guidelines for requesting information and held an “open house” party at the White House (for certain “invited” guests only??)
Day Three:  He signed a few Executive Orders, among which was one requiring Executive Branch workers to take ethics pledge (Oh, yeah?  That’s not working so well, is it?), another was for re-affirming Army Field Manual techniques for interrogations (and later added the requirement of Miranda rights to be given in the field of battle!), and yet another was to close Gitmo Detention Center within one year (but no one wants to take the prisoners – so, now what?).
Day Four:  He ordered the release of federal funds to pay for abortions — in foreign countries (WHY?), and then had lunch with Joe Biden before meeting with Tim Geithner later in the day.
Day Five: He held a budget meeting with his economic team.  (Here comes the “fundamental transformation” of our monetary system!)
Day Six:  Whew!  He was so tired from all that activity, he skipped church.
Day Seven:   He gave a speech about jobs and energy, then had a quickie meeting with Hillary Clinton before attended Geithner’s  swearing in ceremony.
Day Eight:  He took time to meet with some Republicans and later hopped on Air Force One to go speak at a clock tower in Ohio.
Day Nine:  He sat through economic meetings in the morning and then met with the Defense secretary in the afternoon.
Day Ten:  He signed the Ledbetter Bill which overturned a Supreme Court decision on lawsuits over wages. Then it was party time in the State Room.  And, he met with his buddy Joe (Biden – not the plumber!) before the end of his workday.
Day Eleven:  He met with his economic advisers, gave speech on the Middle Class Working Families Task Force, then met with a few senior enlisted military officials.
Day Twelve:  He took the day off, (Even Presidents are actually due one, you know!)  And stayed pretty much hidden from public view.|
Day Thirteen: Being off yesterday wasn’t enough rest, so Obama skipped church again, but he threw one heck of a Super Bowl party from all reports.

So, with the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize being bestowed upon Obama based upon those “accomplishments”, one can’t help but be in a quandary about why he was selected when there are many others who have the “credentials” usually associated with a Nobel Peace Prize winner.   The Nobel Prize, according to the Nobelprize.com site, has been awarded for “humanitarian efforts and peace movements… for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.”  (Somebody please give me some concrete examples of just how Obama has fulfilled these things?)

Let’s face it.  It actually speaks volumes on the Nobel Committee’s politics rather than their humanitarianism, and thus in my opinion, it is not at all flattering to the Nobel organization and even cheapens their integrity.  (If you’re one of those who think perhaps they were including his accomplishments up to and including his first 12 days in office.  Just as a reminder, he was one of the best “present” voters in the Senate prior to campaigning for President!)

Awarding Obama this once prestigious award (specifically based on those first twelve days) just says that words count more than actions.  (But let’s face it, Obama can read a speech that someone else has written better than just about anybody out there.  We know he doesn’t use original material, he even had to borrow parts of his campaign speeches from his friends to make some of his points – even if he didn’t remember to mention it to the friend beforehand.)

Because the Nobel Committee gave this award to an “as yet tested or proven” nominee simply because of the implication of politics involved, it casts a shadow upon the award for those previous award winners who certainly proved their qualifications.  (So, it’s politics, not actual effort?)  That is not to say that any of those individuals didn’t deserve to earn their awards (except perhaps Al Gore, but granted, he has worked hard on his global warming shtick that is now being called climate change!).  It is to say, however, that previous winners had done some really meaningful things to earn the respect of the world.  Those winners truly deserved the kind of recognition the  Nobel Prize once stood for, and therefore, the award should remain reserved only for those who have spent considerable time impacting the world.

So, again in my opinion, this award granted to Obama was based upon literally no accomplishments of that caliber, and further — and worse — has lessened the true value of the prize that has been enjoyed by the special few since 1901.  Indeed, it has served to undermine the prestige of both the committee and the prize.

L' helicoptère de Barack Obama, le 6 juin 2009 à Caen

Le prix nobel de la paix 2009 est attribué à …

 Barack Obama !!

Rappelons rapidement  que ce prix pour le moins prestigieux récompense “la personnalité ayant le plus ou le mieux contribué au rapprochement des peuples, à la suppression ou à la réduction des armées permanentes, à la réunion et à la propagation des progrès pour la paix” selon les volontés d’Alfred Nobel. Alors pouvons-nous être surpris comme l’a été Barack Obama à la remise de ce prix ou pouvions-nous nous y attendre. Telle est la question ? En effet, l’attribution de cette récompense a suscité des réactions mitigées dans le monde. Certains pensent surement que c’est une récompense prématurée et que le président des Etats Unis d’Amérique a beaucoup parlé sans réellement agir. Mais il ne faut pas oublier que Barack Obama est arrivé en période de crise et qu’il a seulement quatre ans pour ”changer le monde”. Soyons réalistes et félicitons le président des Etats Unis pour “ses efforts extraordinaires afin de renforcer la diplomatie internationale et la coopération entre les peuples”.

Et vous qu’en pensez-vous ?