Neda's Nobel

The WaPo argues that Obama's Nobel Not-Bush prize should have been delivered as a posthumous Peace Prize to Neda Agha-Soltan, who was killed during the protests in Iran.  [There are at least two problems with that, as noted below]

That settles it - I won't be watching Obama's Nobel acceptance speech unless I am assured that Kanye West is in the audience.

THEY ARE READY TO TELL US THEIR SECRET - THEY NOMINATE DEAD PEOPLE:  The WaPo went awry here.  Apparently Nobel rules proscribe posthumous awards.  I also bet they don't make a provision for psychic awards - Neda came to fame after the June 2009 Iranian elections but Nobel nominations closed on February 1.

Well - I endorse their larger point and am counting on Kanye to put in a plug for Beyonce or whomever.

Comments

[Donald]

I don't think I could stomach watching a blowjob on TV Tom.

[The performance of the century.]

Where's the appropriate place of application on the teleprompter, Donald?
=======================

[Peter Metcalfe]

They can't award Nobels to dead people. One would have expected the learned editors at the WaPo to know this.

[Gregory Koster]

Why not, Peter? The terms of Nobel's will explicitly state that the Peace award must be made to a person. This hasn't stopped Prizes from being awarded to organizations. All that's needed for a posthumous award is clever lawyering i.e. lies dressed up and sent to affidavit school, in the manner of Harold Koh on why Honduras has suffered a coup d'etat.

[narciso]

See that comparison, much like the Times piece, turns it from the merely fulsome to the obscene. They couldn't find anyone on the entire planet who couldn't deserve it.

[Extraneus]

Peter is correct. Amazingly, the WaPo fact-checkers aren't at the top of their game.

There is one posthumous Nobel Peace Prize, to Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961. From 1974, the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that a Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the announcement of the Nobel Prize.

Since 1974:

Work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented.

[clarice]

Does google charge newsrooms some exhorbitant price which would explain why they never use it to check out stuff like this? Maybe we should contract our JOM to fact check for a lot of money. (Mr Puk could handle the contract negotiations and Mr Rick the accounts.)

[Mike G in Corvallis]

That settles it - I won't be watching Obama's Nobel acceptance speech unless I am assured that Kanye West is in the audience.

That wouldn't be appropriate. Kanye West was a Person of Color who interrupted the acceptance speech of a white female. To maintain symmetry, the person doing the interrupting of Our Beloved President should be a white female.

I nominate our Secretary of State for the role.

[narciso]

No, they charge an exorbitant amount to archive inconvenient material in inacessible
places, much like the final scene in
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" Youtube is a master at this.

[narciso]

Not disrupting necessarily, but I think someone could apprise the world of some of
the other candidates, through some other
digital platform, if such a think existed.

[Tom Maguire]

They are ready to tell us their secret - they nominate dead people. Psychically, since nominations closed on Feb 1 but Neda only became famous after the elections in June.

OK, other than any utterly bum specific example it is a good editorial.

[Ann Coulter screaming that Bush should have got it.]

Mike G, she'd have to be up there yelling that Bill gave the performance of a century, but in her heart she'd know it was for the Piece Prize. No belle, she.

Tom we're not enforcing the Styx River Ordinance in these here parts.
===================================

[PD]

I girded my loins and went to the Nobel site to read what the committee actually gave as their reasoning for the award. The central point:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.

Um.

I'm confused by that. Who has shown the slightest willingness to negotiate toward the goal of disarmament? ... with the exception of Obama, of course, who seems poised to do so without getting anything in return.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

I linked you as an update to my post on this, Tom. http://themoderatevoice.com/49183/both-sides-now/

[JM Hanes]

He's going to lead by example on disarmament, PD, and inspire others to negotiate by stimulating himself.

[JM Hanes]

Kathy K's link to the Moderate Voice.

[Extraneus]

Speaking of loins and stimulating, Iowahawk isn't letting up on Andrew Sullivan.

...something in the way he minced throbbed with danger.

[hit and run]

PD:
Obama has as President...

So if the nominations were closed Feb 1, *and* the committee actually references Obama's work as President (I held out hope they would cite his efforts at Altgeld), then let's review the record, shall we?

http://thevimh.blogspot.com/2009/10/earning-nobel-peace-prize-nomination.html>Earning a Nobel Peace Prize Nomination

No, really -- it's a review of whitehouse.gov to see what they mentioned during the first 12 days of Obama.

[JM Hanes]

hit:

Have I told you you're my favorite lately?

[hit and run]

Thanks, JMH, the feeling's mutual.

Although I have to come clean. I did just find a violation of the TheVIMH style-guide.

I forgot the exclamation point in Dr! Jill Biden.

The slight was unintentional.

[narciso]

So I'm chopped liver apparently

[bgates]

Who has shown the slightest willingness to negotiate toward the goal of disarmament? ... with the exception of Obama, of course

1) Obama dismantles our nuclear arsenal
2) The peaceloving nations of the world detonate theirs on and above our soil
3) A world without nuclear weapons

[bgates]

I think the Nobel committee is getting too much flak for accepting an Obamanomination by early February. They didn't decide then, did they? I should think we'd have had complete unanimity from TM to cleo if we'd posed the question on February 1, "Is Obama likely to spend the year engaged in the kind of sanctimonious anti-American bullshit that's typically rewarded with a Nobel Peace prize these days?" So why pick on the Nobel people for reaching the same conclusion?

[JM Hanes]

I think there's a collective dibs on you, narciso.

[clarice]

bgates..whatever you're drinking...puh-lease

[clarice]

You weren't supposed to tell him, jmh..drat!

[Ann]

narciso,

Are you fishing cause I will bite. This place wouldn't be the same without ya! xxxooo

Your protection of dear Sara Palin makes you a Knight in my book.

[narciso]

I guess I was, a bit.

[narciso]

Thanks Ann,