So, basically he gets an award for not being George Bush?
If they are going to continue this pattern, they should probably make a new medal under that title.
Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
131–140 of 218 posts
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
MLK gets imprisoned, shot at, fire bombed and beaten. Encourages millions to stand with him at non violent civil disobedience actions. Millions do so DESPITE the fact that they will be imprisoned and beaten. Nelson Mandela . . . yeah . . . ditto. Oh, did I mention 27 years in a notorious prison for 'enemies of the state'. Gorbachev. OK, when was the last time American school children practiced what to do in case of n…
> Did the Palestinians stop slaughtering Israelis and vice-versa? AFAIK, yes - Israel completely obliterated Palestine during Christmas bombing.
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Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
"By tainting the Nobel Peace Prize the others get devalued as well, it is one institution." That's just a part/whole fallacy. The badness of what some priests did to boys doesn't devalue what Mother Theresa did by virtue of them both being Catholic.
Actually I think it does. When chatting with my new barber he mentioned that his brother is a priest - and then quickly had to add the disclaimer that "but he is ok." It is a shame that being a priest in the Boston area is now linked with being a pedophile
That other people also think shoddily / fallaciously doesn't make it any more valid. Plus, that's not responsive to my point. If 50% of cops are corrupt, when meeting any given cop, there may be a 50% chance that they're corrupt. But if it turns out upon meeting this cop you find out she saved thousands of lives and is the model of virtue, the badness of other cops in no way diminishes her accomplishments. If anything, it highlights them because of their rarity for that population. Similarly, the Pope could be the Antichrist or whatever: it still doesn't diminish the achievements of one particular nun.
Einstein's Nobel has no tarnish on it because the Committee gave Obama one.
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or the democrats did it, so Obama can hold a long rejection-speech, highlighing all the people more worthy of it than him for an instant PR success.
Nobel prize recipients are called beforehand and asked if they'll accept before being announced publicly. Actually, most major awards are these days, as it removes the, "Thanks but no thanks, your cause is bankrupt" responses which tend to be embarrassing.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Amazing then that nobody told him about how accepting that prize might constitute a pretty big case of hubris.
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#135Gandhi died before he was awarded the Peace Prize, even though he was nominated five times. Obama gets it less than a year into his Presidency? I like Obama, but that's just wrong.
I don't know why people hold the Nobel Prizes in such esteem. It's like people complaining that Radiohead doesn't win enough at the Grammies, or that people let Slumdog Millionaire win the Best Picture Oscar. Prizes aren't some objective reflection of how good a person is. The Nobel Prize has long been controversial. Why do people still treat it like a prize where its failures are worth criticizing? In this case, I u…
I think it just might be for the opposite reasons. Everyone in my circle likes Obama and voted for Obama but this is that moment in which everyone is "WTF".
This might be to make him lose credibility. Just my conspiracy theory.
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
"By tainting the Nobel Peace Prize the others get devalued as well, it is one institution." That's just a part/whole fallacy. The badness of what some priests did to boys doesn't devalue what Mother Theresa did by virtue of them both being Catholic.
But it does devalue the institution of the Catholic Church as a whole. Just as this prize may devalue the Nobel Prize idea, but doesn't touch one bit what other individuals who received the prize did.
Sure, the institution may be devalued, but that's not the claim being made. The claim is, "the others get devalued as well." Feynman's work in QED is no less amazing today than it was the day before yesterday, and the Nobel no more or less an appropriate prize.
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kissinger, Begin, and Sadat all won it in the 70s. It's had zero credibility since then. Which is a pity, because the clear purpose is to encourage rather than necessarily always to reward, and Obama's intentions definitely seem to be good.
Not to mention Al Gore; that one will look really stupid RSN, given how people are starting to understand what a hoax "global warming" is.
I am not certain if you are being sarcastic here.
I very much doubt global warming is a hoax. A majority of scientists in climatology and related fields seem to believe in global warming (though there is disagreement over many of the details, most significantly the degree and that one can vary widely.) Even if they have gotten it wrong, which is a real possibility, I very much doubt that anyone did it with intention to deceive or create a hoax.
Note that I am not making any statements one way or another about "An Inconvenient Truth" or Al Gore or his receipt of the nobel prize. What I am saying is that from my layman's perspective it seems that there is at least some truth to global warming and that even if it is indeed not true then that would be a scientific error, not a hoax.
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding the point 6), he actually did achieve that - missile shields in Czech Rep. and Poland were cancelled. I am not Obama fan, but there were much worse choices in the past.
It's not like he had a whole lot of choice there, the missile shield was one of the biggest and stupidest mistakes of GWB (outside of invading Iraq and squandering the world wide ocean of goodwill the US could tap from after 9/11). Recipe for getting a nobel prize: Undo your predecessors stupidity. We should be getting to parity first, then we should improve beyond where we were roughly 9 years ago, then some time ne…
Could you enlighten me as to why the missile shields were a bad idea?
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spot on. I wish we lived in a world where he could openly acknowledge this: "I want to thank first and foremost my predecessor, George W. Bush, without whose service as a stark contrast, I could not have won this prize (nor, perhaps, the presidency)"
Worth noting that ol' Dubya was the only POTUS willing to appear publicly with the Dalai Lama, at the risk of offending China. Clinton didn't, tho' he did meet him, and Obama has refused to even meet him (see link on my other comment).
Dalai Lama, the slave driver ..
Google Tibetan history and see what sorts of "religious order" he wants to implement in Tibet. Chinese are an occupying force there, sure, but the Dalai Lama, if he was no the leader of Tibet, would absolutely deserve a coup and summary hanging.
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24 As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
Re: Barack Obama gets Nobel's Peace Prize
#140I'm hopeful that this prize provides a needed boost to his efforts. Obama has made great progress in restoring America's role in the world. He has the opportunity to make great progress on world peace and this prize is a strong vote of confidence in those efforts. Well done! I'll be curious to see where he donates the money, though he's not a wealthy man financially, he might want to keep some of it.
though he's not a wealthy man financially
Both his books have sold millions of copies. The Clintons are now worth well over $100 million, just from giving speeches.
Al Gore left office worth about $2 million and is now worth over $100 million from a combination of his global warming book, movie, and speeches and various board directorships, including at Apple and at Kosla's VC fund. Obama will scrape by somehow.