Book of the day

Cameron Pierce's Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

In a land where black snow falls in the shape of swastikas, there exists a nightmarish prison camp known as Auschwitz. It is run by a fascist, flatulent race of aliens called the Ass Goblins, who travel in apple-shaped spaceships to abduct children from the neighboring world of Kidland. Prisoners 999 and 1001 are conjoined twin brothers forced to endure the sadistic tortures of these ass-shaped monsters. To survive, they must eat kid skin and work all day constructing bicycles and sex dolls out of dead children.

I believe this was published by Random House and is on the short list for both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. It was optioned as a film for Sony Pictures Classics. If the rumors on Ain't It Cool News are true, the Ass Goblins movie is slated to star Meryl Streep as the head Ass Goblin, Ralph Fiennes as The White Angel, and Danny McBride as Danny McBride. It's slated for a winter 2011 release and a big Oscar push as one of Sony's prestige pictures.

In 2011, America is about to be Shit Slaughtered!!

Nobel speechishness

Today our President got his Nobel Prize for Excellence in the Field of Not Being George W. Bush. He talked about humility, gratitude, and feeling he was not up to the standards of previous winners. But because some wags in the world community refer to this prize by it's alternate name, the Nobel Peace Prize, Barry was forced to discuss the fact that he's accepting an award for peace while escalating a war. Awk-waaaaaard.

“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth,” Mr. Obama said. “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
...
“Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this,” Mr. Obama said. “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”
...
“The goal is not to win a popularity contest or to get an award — even one as esteemed as the Nobel Peace Prize,” Mr. Obama said. “The goal is to advance American interests, make ourselves a continuing force for good in the world — something that we have been for decades now.”

Ah yes, going in front of the Nobel Committee to declare that, sure, war is bad, but you're different because, unlike all those other assholes, you're fighting a "just war." Nicely played, I'm sure only everyone who ever started or escalated a war in the entire recorded history of man would make that argument. At the very least it, this speech must have set the record for most saber rattling during a humanitarian award speech, narrowly beating out Gandhi's declaration that he'd "beat the fuck out of any Englishman who looked at him cockeyed" after his 1937 nomination to the Nobel short-list.

But one must appreciate the balls of the President to go to the Nobel ceremony and call them all naive for not believing enough in the power of war and military action to make peace. And what better example than America? Other than most of the wars in the post-WWII period that were fought for political reasons to the benefit of no one and discounting nearly every action of the CIA, America has certainly been the shining example of peace through military might. The sooner they understand that the sooner they stop snickering when you mention that you're going to throw more billions and thousands of lives down a hole in order for little obvious gain.

So Barry got his award, justified the seeming disconnect between peace and war, and the Nobel committee achieved their goals of being photographed next to the hip black guy. On the bright side, his award acceptance speech probably vaulted him to the front of the list for the George Orwell War-is-Peace Prize. I can't wait for that speech.

Quote of the day

America's favorite legacy warmonger, Liz Cheney, decided to offer the President some suggestions on what he should do during the Nobel ceremony if the logical option of swearing fealty to her father was out of the question:

"The notion that this White House says he will go to Oslo to accept this prize just adds to the farce," Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "But I do think he could send a real signal here. I think what he ought to do frankly is send a mother of a fallen American soldier to accept the prize on behalf of the U.S. military and frankly to send the message to remind the Nobel committee that each one of them sleeps soundly at night because the U.S. military is the greatest peacekeeping force in the world today."

Yes, I'm sure he'll get right on that. But this just speaks to one thing I'd like to address. It's easy to criticize and mock the President and the Nobel committee surrounding this whole "awarding a guy you don't like an award you don't like" thing. It's ridiculously easy. But if you are going to do it, could you at least understand the basic concept of the award? Sure the "I hear Obama is going to get a Best Picture Oscar for his intent to make the best film ever" joke is great, but "he should accept it on behalf of war starter X", or "how come they never gave the award to war starter Z", or "he should accept it on behalf of all wars", or "start a war....now" largely misses the point of a PEACE Prize. Go back and read those last two words and see which one doesn't fit with war. Also, I'm fairly sure that other countries fought to liberate Europe in WWI and WWII, unless you think the Iraqi army posed a real invasion risk to Denmark.

Let me get in one final cheapshot: Liz, how about instead of going on Fox News to criticize the Nobel Peace Prize, you go to the funeral of one of those Iraq War soldiers you revere so much and ask them if they're thankfull for all the lies your father had to tell to get put them in that pine box. Now go away.

Complaints and grievances

After President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his advanced work in the field of not being George Bush, conservatives have been going quite crazy. Which is to say they plugged "Obama win Nobel" into their anger generating matrix and just made slightly more topical attacks against Barry. But some weren't merely content to make racist cracks or opine on how winning Nobel Prizes is a real problem. No, they had to opine on who should have won it or complain about who didn't win it decades ago.

First up was Glenn "Orycteropus afer" Beck

Of all things, the Nobel Peace Prize should be turned down by Barack Obama and given — you ready for this, oh this one’s going to make headlines — should be give to the Tea Party goers and the 9-12 Project.....Because of the Tea Party goers and the 9-12 Project people that stood in his way and stopped him from accomplishing the things that he thought, “please, I’m the Messiah, I’ll be able to accomplish that.”

What was it that tea baggers stopped Obama from doing? The bailouts and stimulus happened and health care is well on its way to being passed and they'll soon start up on climate legislation. Was there a picnic on the Mall that the Obama's had to cancel because it was overrun by birth certificate experts with poorly spelled placards?

Bill Kristol, not understanding what the word peace means and still harboring that hard-on for that McCain/Palin presidency

We could note that, if the Swedes Norwegians wanted to give the Nobel Peace Prize to an American, it would have been been better to give it to Sen. John McCain for having the guts to push through the surge in Iraq, which has brought relative peace to that country.

Give a peace prize for pushing for the escalation of deeply unpopular catastrophe of an illegal war? I goot say it makes more sense that most of Kristol's logic. But he does mean the same Iraq that is marked by daily suicide blasts, still isn't stable, and is likely to collapse into civil war once we finally wash our hands of the whole mess, right? OK, I thought there might have been a different one he was imagining.

Conservative strategist Craig "Laverne and" Shirley

“Utterly ridiculous. The credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize has been dwindling downward for years and now it has hit rock bottom.. . . Reagan won the Cold War, freed millions, yet was never awarded the Nobel.”

That's a great argument if it weren't for the fact that none of it happened. But that fantasy Reagan that freed fantasy Europe from the fantasy tyranny of the fantasy USSR probably should have won a fantasy Nobel. You know, if it weren't so devalued. One question though: has anyone in the GOP or conservative commentators ever liked anyone who won the Nobel Peace Prize? Isn't this the same line of bullshit that gets trotted out every year some Republican who advocates for a war doesn't win it? Well then, I can hardly wait for next year's round of "this is a travesty", "No-bel credibility", and "REA-GAN!!!" columns when some liberal douche making efforts for peace shockingly wins it again.

Guh?

So, uh, President Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the third sitting President and first in 90 years to win the award. In a surprise to everyone, Barry won the award without having that "peace" requirement that everyone else usually has on their Nobel resume. They're apparently grading on a curve.

The committee praised Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" during his nine months in office and singled out for special recognition Obama's call for a world free of nuclear weapons, which he first made in an April speech in Prague
...
In response to questions from reporters in Oslo, who noted that Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty agenda, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said he hoped the prize would add momentum to Obama's efforts. At the same time, Jagland said, "We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do."

Jagland specifically cited Obama's speech about Islam in Cairo last spring, as well as efforts to address nuclear proliferation and climate change and use established international bodies such as the United Nations to pursue his goals. The committee -- made up of luminaries selected by the Norwegian government -- noted a profound shift in American policy and said Obama had "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."

I say again: Guh? That's strange, I've never seen a Nobel used to try to guilt someone into not escalating an armed conflict. Or someone say they hoped the award helped his future diplomatic endeavors, as if being President of the US isn't enough, he needs to be President of the US with a gold star on his lapel to be extra effective. Still though, Barry has tried very hard at outreach towards the Muslim world what with his speech there and all, made strides and agreements over nuclear non-proliferation, hosted a G20 event, has ratcheted back the inexplicable tensions the Bush Administration had with Russia by scrapping that missile defense, held that important "beer summit", seemed to make some progress with Iran, and has changed America's diplomatic posture from one of "intense pouting" to the arcane custom we refer to as "talking". Still....seems a bit light. Oh, I forgot he's not Bush. He is definitely not Bush. That's a plus. I guess it was just a down year for big diplomacy. It's sort of like when the Spurs won the NBA title during the 1998-99 lockout year.

Of course the same old critics came out to wail and moan at the award: the Taliban and the right wing of the GOP. Actually the fringe right's crazed disdain and sneering wasn't a surprise, but the Taliban kind of was. Who knew they had a lightning fast media office? So now we get to hear a few days worth of shrieking over diplomacy being gay and appeasement instead of interminable shrieking over death panels. At least it's a change from health care crazy to foreign policy crazy with a healthy dose of Euro-bashing.

So congrats, Barry. Excuse me; Nobel Prize winning Barry. Paul Krugman will show you the secret handshake. And hey, just think: if your Nobel acceptance speech is good enough and you take one of the diplomatic tracks you've started to the finish line, they'll give you a second one! Go back to back! Three-peat! Then you can rub that shit in the noses of assholes like Linus Pauling and the Office of the UN High Commission for Refugees.

Hitlerblog

When most scholars pontificate about the causes of World War II and the rise of Hitler some lay the blame at the feet of the Versailles treaty and others at a Europe to willing to appease a dictator. Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has decided to go in another direction: not enough bloggers in the 1930's.

In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman said an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II.

"Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day," he said.

Ah yes, an army of bloggers giving Hitler the "Heh, indeed" treatment, followed by a timely LolHitler surely could have averted the world's biggest war. That said, if you have that "time travel back in time to kill Hitler" book raring to go, how about replacing killing his parents, killing him as a baby, stepping on a butterfly in the Mesozoic, or making Hitler a famous artist with disseminating a devastatingly snarky blog post from Humphrey Bogart on the 1934 Das Huffington Posten.

We all look forward to Le Clezio's next work "What if Genghis Khan had a bomber wing".

Your good morning news

Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday.

Story here.

Anyone else wondering where Prof. Krugman would best fit in an Obama administration?