Just attach a generator to Alfred Nobel’s Body

I know the Nobel Peace Prize has been a political joke for a while now. They gave it to Al Gore for his work in fighting climate change (because, you know, flying around the world in a private jet bloviating about how other people should do something is very important), after all. Now, apparently, they’re handing it out for completely imaginary accomplishments.

In case you haven’t heard, President Barack Obama was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

I’ll put aside, for the moment, the problems I have with awarding effort rather than accomplishment. I’m not even going to argue about how much I disagree with him and feel that his leftist policies are ultimately going to lead to more war, strife, and misery than anything his predecessor could ever have done. Instead, I want to focus on one point: at the time he was nominated, Barack Obama had been in office for less than two weeks.

The fact is, as much as President Obama likes to whine tell us about all the problems he faces as President and how every single one of them was caused solely by George W. Bush and dropped in his lap, it’s very rarely true (and even when it is, how many predecessors did the same thing?). In this case, though, it probably is. This award has absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama and his “efforts,” and everything to do with the fact that the committee simply hated George W. Bush.

This may be the scariest thing I’ve ever read…

Eric Scheie asks, “Who Are The Real Criminals?”

The problem with relying on discretion is that it lends itself to completely arbitrary rule, and with everything being illegal, it’s just a question of whether the government feels like prosecuting you.

I know that’s a very short excerpt, but there are so many blockquotes and links in Eric’s post that it’s difficult to figure out exactly what to cut. Go read the whole thing.