First my bona fides:
- I started covering global warming in the early 1990s. I have no doubts about it and have read more on the topic than your average bear (especially the polar bears who don’t read that much anymore because they’re having to look for new homes because the polar ice cap is melting, fortunately for them this is happening just as the US real estate market is tanking … but I digress).
- You really, really don’t want to know how much military history I’ve read. It’s a lot. I remember my cell phone number because it’s close to the year of the battle of Hastings. I know when the first battle that we have records from both sides was. (1300 BC. Hittites vs. Egyptians. The home team Hittites, under coach Muwatallis, won the contest at Kadesh but didn’t cover the spread. In case you were wondering, Muwatallis is also known to history as Mutwatallis and Mutwatalli II. His friends all called him Fred because when they tried to call him Mut he had them beheaded.) So yeah, you don’t want to go there with me.
- Ever since he got out of politics I’ve been a big Al Gore fan. Prior to losing the 2000 election I never would have suspected he could be interesting AND funny. Love him on Futurama and Saturday Night Live. No I have never seen “Inconvenient Truth.” As the great Tim McIntyre puts it: I don’t need to study for a test I’ve already passed.
- So…
Al Gore won the Nobel PEACE Prize? Yeah, I know environmental problems are and will cause all sorts of conflicts. So what? They always have. Dear Nobel Committee (and this is as close to it as I will ever get) what part of the phrase “peace prize” don’t you understand?
The Peace Prize goes to great groups like Doctors Without Borders and The Red Cross. It goes to people who actually stopped fighting or helped people deal with the aftermath of war. It also went to Henry Kissinger. That Peace Prize is most notable because Tom Lehrer cited it as proof that irony was indeed dead.
This is a stretch. If you want to give a prize for generally helping the planet than give one of those. Mr. Gore would certainly deserve that one. But lets give the Peace Prize to something having to do with armed conflict. Is that asking too much? So that’s why I am naming the Nobel Committee the Nat’l. Assoc. of Penguins of Irony Employee of the Month. I look forward to their acceptance speech.
Collateral Damage 