The Volokh Conspiracy

From the Nobel press release:

Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

. . .

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind.

The criterion is greatest promoter of the left wing cause du jour. 2 of the last 3 have not had anything to do with war and peace except for a cobbled-together post hoc rationalization for the recipient. One could easily postulate that global warming will increase crop yields and thereby lower competition for scarce resources.

And then we have the infamous Arafat peace prize. Great pick there.

The criterion [for winning the Nobel Peace Prize] is greatest promoter of the left wing cause du jour.

Well, I guess this explains why Henry Kissinger won.

"Well, I guess this explains why Henry Kissinger won."

It would not be surprising if there were different standards 30 years ago. And, technically, Kissinger did at least help end a war.

These days you have to be a Leftist, America-hating idiot to win the "Peace Prize".

Well, maybe if we had more right-wing Americans like Butler, Kellogg, Dawes, Root, and Roosevelt....

Since Arafat won it, the Peace Prize has been a joke.

Even by the Committee's own words, all Gore has done is increase awareness of something that "may" cause problems. None of these issues have come to fruition yet, or are even close to happening. With all of the conflict that is currently going on, are you telling me that the Committee couldn't find ANYONE who has done something significant to mitigate ACTUAL conflict?

Bullcrap.

The criteria obviously don't include accuracy or truth, or Gore wouldn't have been a co-recipient of the Prize.

An English judge ruled that Gore's book is partisan, biased, and contains many factual errors and distortions, even though he shared Gore's belief that man is causing global warming.

Why should Gore get a Nobel Prize for a book (and film) that even sympathizers can see is filled with factual errors?

Why shouldn't the Nobel be reserved for actual scientists who have some expertise in the area -- and a record of accuracy? Rather than a political hack?

Gore's book and film are so tendentious and inaccurate that they do little to advance his position. The IPCC, by contrast, has made a more persuasive case regarding global warming.

OpenMarket.org
Court Finds Inconvenient Truths
Iain Murray | 10/10/2007 @ 9:17 am

The British government decided that it would be a good idea to send copies of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to all schools, with then Environment Secretary (now Foreign Secretary) David Miliband declaring that “the debate over science is over.” Well, it may be, but not in the way Gore portrays it. A truck driver and school governor, Stuart Dimmock, took the government to court, alleging that the film portrays “partisan political views,” the promotion of which is illegal in schools under the Education Act 1996.

The judge has decided that this is indeed the case and that the Government’s guidance notes that accompanied the film exacerbated the problem. For the film to be shown in schools, therefore, several facts would have to be drawn to students’ attention:

"In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.

* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.

* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.

* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.

* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim."


This is a far better result than refusing to allow the film to be shown at all. It requires that students be told by teachers that Al Gore is factually inaccurate, misleading and - in one case - making things up. These inconvenient truths for the former Vice President have been covered up or obscured by the hype surrounding his film. Students will now realize that there are significant shortcomings and inaccuracies in the way the global warming scare has been presented to them. This is a victory for honest debate, a victory for science and a victory for education.

http://www.openmarket.org/
2007/10/10/
court-finds-inconvenient-truths/

I am sure you looked very hard. Being a lawyer, you might have even looked for the will that established the prize. If you had, you would have found:
"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. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; 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. "

The criteria obviously don't include accuracy or truth...

That is so. There would be nothing inconsistent in the Peace Prize being awarded to someone(s) who successfully promoted peace through lies, inaccuracies, or untruths. It is the Peace Prize, not the Truth Prize.

The best measure of a person's character is what they do in the face of adversity. It was very courageous of the Nobels to award Arafat, as it was of Carter to write about their plight. History will hold them up as heros for doing what is right. God bless them. God punish any genocidal zionist.

Can I nominate the US Marine Corps? It seems to me they've done more to end wars than any winner of the prize to date, even if they haven't called many peace conferences.

This is the most "sour grapes" posting on the Conspiracy I've ever seen. The quality of the opinions expressed in the comments speak for themselves.

I just generally expect better of the professors. Despite not agreeing with Al Gore on substantive matters, the Nobel Prize is nearly universally regarded as the signature intellectual achievement of academia. I think it makes sense to congratulate Gore, even if one does not see eye-to-eye with him.

Despite not agreeing with Al Gore on substantive matters, the Nobel Prize is nearly universally regarded as the signature intellectual achievement of academia.

1) I wasn't aware that the Nobel Prize had opinions on substantive matters.

2) What?

"With few exceptions, the list of winners is a roster of ignoble villains indeed."

Yeah, right. I remember when Lech Walesa was awarded the Peace Prize for his work on freeing Poland from communism, and it was the Soviet Union that said that the Peace Prize had been devalued.

Then when Archbishop Desmond Tutu won it, all the apartheid supporters were mad. And let's not forget about the woman who won for planting trees in Africa. Or the women who helped end the conflict in northern Ireland. I guess they are all just a bunch of leftwing loonies.

Sour grapes, indeed. I'm sure everyone here would have been jumping for joy if Ann Coulter got the award instead.

Random,
I think they just can't believe President Bush didn't win for bringing democracy to all this little Iraqi children.

It's possible to respect Al Gore's activism and still think that it is ridiculous for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

One of the things that the report on the court case got wrong was the claim that the judges found there were errors in Gore's movie, when in fact he found that there were 'errors' in the movie. Note the scare quotes.

More here.

The Nobels are making it up as they go along, although there are a few recurring themes:

- Involvement with peace think tanks (many early winners, League of Nations, United Nations)
- Peace plans untested at the time of the award (Kissinger, Hume/Trimble, Arafat &co.
- Weapons reduction (Jody Williams, IPPNW, Frank Kellogg, Aristide Briand
- Dissidents (Ebadi, Sakharov, Walesa)
- Humanitarians (Mother Teresa, Norman Borlaug)
- The Red Cross, when the Nobel committee can't think of anyone else

I doubt that a majority of Nobel Peace laureates can honestly claim to have advanced peace.

All the other medals wait for actual results, but not the Peace Prize. It's like giving an Oscar to movies that are still in pre-release.

It doesn't surprise me that the Committee has to wander a bit from the concept of peace itself, especially if the ranks of "famous people who have been in jail a long time" run thin.

I agree, and the concept of promoting peace is obviously hard to define. It just seems like giving it to Gore is so politically motivated. Look at it this way: imagine that someone other than Gore - a previously unknown scientist, say - had made the exact same movie, and it had been just as popular, received in exactly the same way.

I don't think there's any way that guy comes close to winning the prize.

Unfortunately, there are very few people who have had any success in advancing the cause of peace, and it's impossible to tell whether something worked with the benefit of only a few years' hindsight. So the prize as currently structured (given every year, with the informal requirement that it be for very recent accomplishments) is pretty much doomed to be a failure at picking out the actual peacemakers, if there are any. I think we're seeing the effects of that today.

For the prize to be awarded for actual, significant accomplishments in advancing peace, it would probably have to be awarded only every four years or so for accomplishments at least twenty years old.

(link)Guest #333 (mail):
Wangari Maathai, the 2004 winner, was cited for her environmental work.

Among her other claims to the prize must have been her AIDS reesearch:

Maathai caused a stir among media commentators when, at a press conference following the announcement of the Nobel award, she allegedly spoke out in favor of the claim that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the product of bio-engineering, and then released in Africa by unidentified Western scientists as a weapon of mass destruction to "punish blacks."

Further to Mr. Lambert's point, it is also true that Mr. Gore was not a party to the High Court judicial review proceedings, which were solely between Mr.Dimmock and the Secretary of State. Thus any "facts" or "errors" found by Burton J. are not binding on Mr. Gore, particularly as the evidence in judicial review proceedings is not normally subject to cross-examination.

Best quote of the day?

The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he'll be like now that the Norwegian Nobel committee has given him the prize?

Daily Telegraph

I'm a big Al Gore fan and I would have been perfectly happy to see the prize go to someone more peace-y. Al Gore has already been recognized in many, many ways, and it's not like this prize is going to slow the haters down any.

Which is more likely to cause conflict, strife and war in the world in the next generation:
1. Severe government-enforced limitations on energy consumption around the world, virtually ensuring that emerging economies are prevented from emerging, and degrading the living standard of millions more in developed economies.
2. The speculative possibilty of rising seas and changing weather patterns that may have negative or positive impacts depending on where you live.

My money is on 1. This is precisely what Gore advocates. He is much more likely to cause war, not prevent it.

I'm glad Gore won the Nobel. He'll need that prize money to pay the heating bill on that big house of his.

"Though I don't agree with all of his politics, Bono is certainly more worthy than Al Gore."


Yes, because it takes monster balls to harangue world governments into dumping tax revenues into the bottomless pit of African financial aid while assiduously evading personal taxation himself.

Of course the prize has to be political in one sense. From context, though, I assume that people can tell when I use the term to mean something like "motivated by irrelevant political concerns." If we can't assume that an anonymous scientist could have made such a popular movie, imagine if Newt Gingrich had made the exact same movie and engaged in the same sort of activism. If Gore would get the prize, and Newt wouldn't, why not? What if it had been some other prominent politician?

The committees don't seem to have any hang-ups about the time lag in awarding the actual academic (phys, chem, med) prizes, so it shouldn't be a showstopper for them to wait for results in the field of promoting peace.

Gore advocates limitations on greenhouse gas emissions, not on energy consumption or lifestyle. Technological changes at least hold the possibility that emissions limitations are separable from the limitations that you claim Gore advocates.

Unfortunately, pedal-powered airplanes cannot go 500 mph now, nor will they ever. Al knows there are two possible solutions to his crisis: personal change by billions of people, or some nearly miraculous technical advances. His refusal to lift a finger to solve the problem is immature at best.

Immature, hyperbolic misrepresentations aside, Elmer, Al Gore has done far more than lift a finger. In fact, he did far more than that today: "My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection...."

Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. He said that he supported its development through his "service in Congress."

From stopthegenocide: "It was very courageous of the Nobels to award Arafat, as it was of Carter to write about their plight. History will hold them up as heros for doing what is right. God bless them. God punish any genocidal zionist"

Interesting fact: Stopthegenocide is actually a judge on the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

"You're just mad that Bush didn't win for his hard work in killing brown people".

That's insulting, small-minded, and ignorant. Race has NOTHING to do with it!

I support killing people, no matter WHAT color they are.

Hah! Take That!

Anonymouseducator wrote at 10.12.2007 11:47am:

How about those Burmese monks?

The Drill SGT wrote at 10.12.2007 12:11pm:

or Burmese Monks, Or the Ethiopian Army (LOL)

Just a minor factual point here. Aung San Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest by SLORC, whose cause and activities have been congruent with those of the Burmese Monks for decades, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights".

Now there's a Nobel Prize for Globaloney? Who knew??

Where's Reagan's Nobel? His work led to the abolition of the standing armies of East Germany and the Soviet Union, and the reduction of standing armies in France, Canada, and everywhere else in the western world during his term, and reduction in the standing armies of Warsaw Pact nations shortly afterwards.

Reagan kept the "precautionary principle uppermost" in his mind. He knew that extensive Communist expansion would "alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind", "induce large-scale migration" unless the Soviets could build new walls to keep in conquered nations, "and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources."

Unlike Gore's efforts, we know Reagan's worked, too.

"Instead he donates to an organization who describes their staff as: "equipped with decades of top-notch experience in private sector marketing, advertising and communications"


That's rather the point. It's all hype. He needs help hyping it.

Pig Bodine:
Our atmosphere does not care what people say about it. It may well be affected by the amount of CO2 people put into it. Mr. Gore tells others that they should reduce their carbon emissions. Through offsets, he also pays others to do so. He does not do so himself. Most of the people I know who've reduced their carbon output are not Gore fans, and most the fans I know have not reduced their output. Absent better evidence to the contrary, I am skeptical that Mr. Gore's efforts have reduced CO2 emmissions in the aggregate.

Drastic reduction of carbon emissions will require and/or cause large cultural changes. Mr. Gore could make his lifestyle an example of reducing carbon output without being miserable as a result. Instead, he is a private-jet-setter. The message is that only someone else can solve the problem. I think the charge of immaturity is fair.
The Alliance for Climate Protection has pretty good info on offsets. I'd been meaning to learn about them, but I was too lazy to actually do so. Thanks for the pointer.

...force me and millions of others to live in a cold dark cave...

It doesn't have to be unpleasant. As Bugs Bunny sang, "There ain't no place like a hole in the ground..." Underground houses are more expensive, but very easy to heat, cool in summer, and quiet. With recent advances in LEDs, you could keep it brightly lit without too much energy. Better still, LEDs could imitate that cool flickering torchlight which is so popular with cave decorators, perhaps because it's too dark to care about dusting.

I much prefer that to the US custom (which I think only evolved recently) of addressing the AG or SG as "General."

Amen to that. I would think that some military officers would take umbrage at General Ashcroft's novel take on the honorific.

In the same vein, I have not asked people to address me as "doctor" even though my law school degree is a J.D. from the era after the LL.B. fell out of fashion.

I would be very interested in a listing of Peace winners with a corresponding description of the actual results of their efforts. Not their intentions, and not their states of mind, but actual results. There seems to be a lag of quite a few years between the work of the winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine as others in the fields verify the importance of their achievements. But the Peace Award seems a bit more like a popularity contest and wishful thinking exercise.

Pig Bodine:

I'll admit to being unaware of the whole graph of Gore energy use over time. You may be right about a reduction, but it seems terribly unfair to ask me to back up my assertions with fact, particularly when it would require noticeable effort, i.e. energy. How much would that energy contribute to global warming? Just to be safe, I'll wait, in the hopes that someone else will do it.

Gore has not only exaggerated his influence on the creation of the internet, but has made other exaggerated claims as well: his work on the Nuke Test Ban Treaty, his discovery of Love Canal, writing the Superfund law, that he and Tipper were the models for the couple in Love Story. He didn't say the words "I invented the internet" he said he "took the initiative in creating the internet" but it was nonetheless an exaggeration of what he actually did.

The point is that the man has a reputation for exaggeration for a reason and it's odd that people choose to ignore it.

General dear, Gore said "During my service in the United States CONGRESS, I took the initiative in creating the Internet" and he did. He did not say that he created the INTERNET. Funny thing, the creator of the network protocols, Vincent Cerf agrees as does Marc Andressen, the creator of the Mosaic and Netscape browser and many others. Your little version comes out of the lying Repobfax

And then, of course the Love Canal thing:

The Love Canal controversy began on Nov. 30 when Gore was speaking to a group of high school students in Concord, N.H. He was exhorting the students to reject cynicism and to recognize that individual citizens can effect important changes.

As an example, he cited a high school girl from Toone, Tenn., a town that had experienced problems with toxic waste. She brought the issue to the attention of Gore's congressional office in the late 1970s.

"I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing," Gore told the students. "I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone, Tennessee---that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all."

After the hearings, Gore said, "We passed a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites. And we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around the country. We've still got work to do. But we made a huge difference. And it all happened because one high school student got involved."

The context of Gore's comment was clear. What sparked his interest in the toxic-waste issue was the situation in Toone---"that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all."

After learning about the Toone situation, Gore looked for other examples and "found" a similar case at Love Canal. He was not claiming to have been the first one to discover Love Canal, which already had been evacuated. He simply needed other case studies for the hearings.

The next day, The Washington Post stripped Gore's comments of their context and gave them a negative twist. "Gore boasted about his efforts in Congress 20 years ago to publicize the dangers of toxic waste," the Post reported. "ŒI found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal,' he said, referring to the Niagara homes evacuated in August 1978 because of chemical contamination. ŒI had the first hearing on this issue.'... Gore said his efforts made a lasting impact. ŒI was the one that started it all,' he said." [WP, Dec. 1, 1999]

Oh yes, Love Story, eat your heart of Al Gore WAS one of the two inspirations for the male lead. Tipper, was not Jenny tho, as the author, Eric Siegel explained.

Obviously just another round in the War On Gore. It might be useful if the GDS folks here stopped abusing the truth.

I'll start believing global warming is a crisis when those who are telling me it is start acting like it themselves, rather than preaching about what only the little people should do.

eddie notes Gore's "...efforts to bring a message to the world about an impending crisis."

That 'impending crisis' fearmongering was launched by Gore nine years ago, when he first stated - as a matter of fact - that the Earth faced "...a planetary catastrophe within ten years."

However, over the past six years the UN/IPCC has greatly reduced its earlier prediction of an imminent sea-level rise, from twenty meters to less than one-half meter [17 inches] over the next century - which is right in line with the average sea-level rise since the last Ice Age. Not much of a 'planetary catastrophe' there. Problem is, despite the IPCC's reducing its predicted sea-level rise to one-fortieth its previous estimate, Al Gore is still singing the same 'planetary catastrophe' tune. After all, it brings in the bucks. Big bucks.

And global warming? Since 1998 - nine years ago - global temperatures have been flat or trending downward. The warmest days on record were in the 1930's, when there was much less industrialization, and when CO2 levels were well below today's level. And hurricanes? They seem to be trending lower in both numbers and in strength [Katrina was only noteworthy because it directly impacted a city built several feet below sea level].

In fact, just about every global warming conjecture made by Gore is either flat wrong, or falls well within Earth's natural climate variablility. If Gore actually believed what he claims, he would be a traitor to the human race for not setting an example by reducing his energy use below the national average. After all, it's a planetary catatstrophe he's supposedly trying to avert. But I suspect that Al knows the truth, and he's not about to start using one square of toilet paper per dump.

Gore is, in fact, acting in his own financial best interest by shilling global warming; his net worth has increased from ~$1 million in 2000 to around $100 million today. Fine and goody for him. But it is the Nobel committee that has perverted old Alfred's trust into a Leftist propaganda organ. By handing out a Nobel to a shill, they have made a mockery of the award. That is the real problem.

The Peace Award can be won without actually achieving it's goals.

See:
Kellog-Brand which "outlawed" war.

Arafat and the Oslo Accords which brought "peace to the Mid-east"

1973 Kissinger/Tho which "ended hostilities in Indochina"

or awarded to frauds like Rigoberta Menchu

Last year the Volokh Conspiracy was in an uproar because Stanley "Tookie" Williams, since deceased, had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and his supporters were using that as a ground for clemency precluding his execution. It was claimed repeatedly that a Peace Prize nomination means nothing because of the way in which nominations are made and, furthermore, that winning the Peace Prize means nothing because so many unworthies have won it in the past.

This year the VC is all in a tizzy once again, this time because Al Gore actually won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's rather peculiar that all those VC'ers are spending time and energy wailing about an award they claim is meaningless. Why bother to be upset if the award means nothing?

Gore will, of course, come under "Lear jet liberal" criticism once again for all the emissions he causes when he flies to Oslo to accept the award in December. The only way to avoid that criticism is to leave for Oslo tomorrow by canoe and catch a favorable current. Or perhaps he should just refuse to attend.

Congratulations, Al Gore, on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. And thanks because it's fun to watch most of the VC'ers squealing like stuck pigs. They're pulling out all the stops. They're even using the old "invented the Internet" thing. All because you won a meaningless award for your work on something that doesn't exist or, if it does exist, is not caused or preventable by human beings.

Gore, his household, and his political/business endeavors have all greatly reduced their greenhouse gas emissions. They are valid examples of reducing emissions without being miserable as a result.

Yes. Start out with vastly more than everyone else, then reduce to merely lots more.

We had better start on the first step.

It's rather peculiar that all those VC'ers are spending time and energy wailing about an award they claim is meaningless. Why bother to be upset if the award means nothing?

Do you often have this much trouble understanding the concept of the distinction between "is" and "ought"?

The best spin on this is that this makes the Bush presedency one with the most Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans! (Tied with Hoover, Nixon and Reagan.) See here via Instapundit.

P.S. Wangari Maathai apparently has rather different views on HIV/AIDS than The Drill Sgt suggested:

I have warned people against false beliefs and misinformation such as attributing this disease to a curse from God or believing that sleeping with a virgin cures the infection. These prevalent beliefs in my region have led to an upsurge in rape and violence against children. It is within this context, also complicated by the cultural and religious perspective that I often speak. I have therefore been shocked by the ongoing debate, generated by what I am purported to have said. It is therefore critical for me to state that I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive.

http://greenbeltmovement.org/a.php?id=30

Random:
... the Nobel Prize is nearly universally regarded as the signature intellectual achievement of academia.

Given the state of Academia today I'd have to agree.

Solar Scientists are predicting the coming of a Little Ice Age. With Global temperatures falling for the last few years such an outcome can't be ruled out.

If it comes to pass it should raise the value of the Award to new heights. Or would that be new lows?

I won't be as optimistic as abw about the fate of Iraq - its democracy is quite fragile, and lots of things can happen. But even if Iraq exceeded the rosiest of expectations, there is no way in Hades that Bush will ever get a Nobel. The Nobels always look to present goings-on, never past achievements. When and if Iraq becomes a solid rule-of-law representative republic, the history that got it there will be forgotten. Wars that win peace never get the Nobel Peace prize, anyway.

On that note, I recall Volokh conspirator Eric Jaffe's suggestion for a Nobel War Prize. I'm all for it, except I'd rather it not be named for a committee with a long history of jumping sharks. Naming it after Douglas A. MacArthur War Prize is one suggestion - he performed one of the greatest political transformations of the 20th century, and couldn't have done it without tons of ordnance.

I am not aware that Gore has declared that they have met that threshold, only that they are working toward it and are purchasing more than enough carbon credits to offset the remainder.

The problem with carbon offsets in this context is that you need to be a rich person like Gore to buy them. He's proposing a standard that is easy for him to meet, but hard for the people he demands sacrifices from.

Imagine if some politician were to say that everyone should pay a "blogging credit" of a thousand dollars or else stop blogging. He keeps a blog, but of course, he's perfectly willing to pay the thousand dollars, so he isn't hypocritical. Right?

The Nobel peace prize is a fraud due to the fact that it was awarded to a huckster like Al Gore who is doing nothing more than promoting junk science about man-made global warming while driving around in his SUVs, flying around in his fuel inefficient lear jets, and living in a house that puts more CO2 into the atmosphere in a single day than my house does in a month.

I mentioned Pauling, and I confess I was honoring his prize in chemistry, having forgotten about the peace award.

Oh yes, Love Story, eat your heart of Al Gore WAS one of the two inspirations for the male lead. Tipper, was not Jenny tho, as the author, Eric Siegel explained.

Is this the parallel universe Love Story? Because in my world it was written by Erich Segal. And how can the son of a border state politician be the inspiration for the son of a New England WASP patrician? Further, how could Tipper have possibly been the inspiration for a daughter of a working-class Italian Catholic?

Regarding Arafat -- Israel didn't realize he was the moderate they should have negotiated with, so they wouldn't have had to deal with the hardcore Hamas. Instead they merrily demonized Arafat and hoped he would be replaced by someone more pliable.

One thing hinted at here that I agree with: Truman should have won the Peace Prize for expeditiously ending the war with Japan.

Randy R.: I know what you were trying to say, but Ann Coulter is a bad example. She is not beloved here. See, e.g.:

http://volokh.com/posts/1172905112.shtml
http://volokh.com/posts/1172913660.shtml

Try hanging out here more often!