The Nobel 'Peace' Prize

What conflict did he end? This is a sign that environmentalism has become the new religion of left leaning intelligentsia. Politics has blinded science.

The other American recipients of the prize that I can recall are:

Teddy Roosevelt mediated between Russia and Japan ending the Russo-Japanese War. The treaty gave decent terms to both parties, despite the fact that Japan was mauling the Russian military. This (an October 1917) ended the chance of a major conflict arising until WWII

Henry Kissinger negotiated the end of the Vietnam War.

Martin Luther King won it for champion civil rights in the US.

Jimmy Carter jump started the middle east peace process. One can debate weather or not it did anything in the long run, but at least, at the time, the Cap David Accord was something quantifiable.

Hell, Yasser Arafat won it for the moves towards middle east peace (while speaking out of both sides of his mouth and running a quasi-terrorist the PLO)

Al gore winning it for A MOVIE cheapens it more any other questionable laureates. He, and the UN committee that is also named, have accomplished nothing while championing a cause that is scientifically suspect as the expense of his parent country. No war has been cause or averted due to climate change. Drought and crop failures have lead to conflicts in the past - The Soviet invasion of the Ukraine in the '20s due, in part, to a famine comes to mind - but it important to note that such crop failures are "...caused by God, but hunger is caused by man". During the dust bowl in the 30's there was no massive loss of life due to hunger and it did no lead to a conflict over arable land. It did lead to regulations designed to prevent over farming.

He is being given the award based academic speculation over what might happen, not what change he has helped to effect. Since climate change is as much a scientific issue as it is a political one, perhaps he should compete with researchers - real men of science - on the subject.

The Czech pres has questions too:

Czech president Vaclav Klaus: "surprised" at Nobel prize for Gore

Prague (dpa) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a rare vocal global- warming sceptic among heads of state, is "somewhat surprised" that former US vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize, the president's spokesman Petr Hajek said in a statement.

"The relationship between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct," the statement said. "It rather seems that Gore's doubting of basic cornerstones of the current civilization does not contribute to peace."

Klaus said in a recent speech that environmentalists' efforts to halt global warming "fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity."

The Czech president publicly expresses doubt on what scientists, including those participating in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, deem very likely - that global warming is caused by humans.

He also said that rising temperatures may not matter enough for governments to throw funds at halting the process.

In a newspaper interview earlier this year, Klaus said that only Al Gore, and not a sane person, would say that mankind is ruining the planet.

The Czech president has also recently participated in Gore-bashing newspaper advertisements ran by The Heartland Institute, a conservative US think tank.

Here is the AP story covering the award.

Other options that would be more reasonable include:

-N. Korea and the other parties involved in the (apparent) de-nuclearization of that country thus promoting stability in the region

and... OK, so it's been a slow year in war and peace, but I'm sure that their are other more deserving than a man with a movie about himself with several factual errors that are so obvious that a British judge has ordered that it can't be shown without a disclaimer!

WTF!?!?!?!?