Today Barack Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway for his accomplishments in the area of …..?  Well, nothing actually.  It was called anticipatory, in other words, he got the prize for what they hoped he would accomplish.  There’s that hope thing again.  I hope he stops burying this country in debt.

TR and Woodrow Wilson

In some puzzling way, President Obama’s acolytes like to make comparisons to two other presidents who won the Nobel Peace prize.  But they actually accomplished something or introduced a concept that eventually prevailed.  In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt successfully negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War, and that peace actually stuck.  Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations which, although it failed survive, it was the forerunner of the United Nations.  Gentlemen, take a bow.  As for President Obama, I guess we’ll have to keep holding our breath and hoping.

Damaged Goods

However noble, the Nobel Peace Prize might have been, it has been reduced to a sad joke.  Let’s look at some past recipients:

• 2007 – Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Al Gore won the Peace prize for his deeply flawed documentary, which by the way two members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have called for him to return the Oscars he won  for the same film.  He didn’t win the Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry.  Meanwhile the IPCC is embroiled in the midst of Climategate. Who lost out to these two?  A woman who smuggled approximately 2,500 Jews, mostly small children, out of the Warsaw ghetto before the Nazi’s could exterminate them.
• 2005 – Mohamed El Baradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way” .  While investigating Iran El Baradei “opposed the publication of a secret report generated by his own agency, one which indicated Iran was using its civilian program as a cover to make weapons. And why did he oppose publication?” {more}  Do you feel blissfully peaceful now when you ponder Iran?
• 2002 – Jimmy Carter – “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.  Well he must have gotten tired as he mused about how any opposition to President Obama’s policies being racially motivated for the most part.
• 2001 – The United Nations and Kofi Annan – for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.  It seems they wanted to wait until the UN was nearly irrelevant in world affairs and Kofi Annan’s son was ripping off the UN’s Oil for Food program.  Hmmm, that must have come from the “better organized” part.
• 1994 – Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin – for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East. How’s that working out?

Notably Absent

So where are the Nobel Peace prizes for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, for ending the Cold War without firing a shot?  That wasn’t just peaceful that was miraculous.  But then again, they were conservatives and therefore they don’t qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Democrats Lining Up to Vote for Cap and Trade

The tide is turning against the case for man-made global warming.  An article in today’s Wall Street Journal has the following:

“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.” — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009

So if the case for controlling CO2 emissions is gaining skeptics, what would a reasonable person do?  They would probably pause and listen to see if they should alter their position based on this new information.  What do the statists do?  Double their efforts to jam this gargantuan tax bill through Congress, again without reading it because it’s too big, before the American people find out just how monumentally stupid it is.

Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Ed Markey are the lead lemmings jumping into the sea and expecting all of us to follow.  You see, if they can slam this thing in they will have enormously increased their power and make it very difficult to unwind this monstrosity.  Their disdain for what is right for this country and what is best for the American people is truly astounding.  Their arrogance and sense of empowerment knows no limits.

Scientists Speak Out

Far from Al Gore’s pejorative and dismissive label of “deniers”, some real scientists weigh in:

“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)”  — The Climate Change Climate Change, WSJ, June 26, 2009

Can you feel your liberties slipping away as those in power do what they want rather than representing us.  Sounds like it’s about time for a tea party.