I think the prize went to deserving recipients. For Ahtisaari to have it would have been a great honor for Finland, he’ll just have to keep mediating if he wants it. Anyway, I bet people signing an accord (and hopefully living under its terms) is a bigger reward for the mediator than ensuing prizes. I don’t think Ahtisaari resembles Jimmy Carter in any other way that he’s a former president who is continually asked for international missions.

I don’t think Ahtisaari resembles Jimmy Carter in any other way…

True. No peanut farms in Finland, AFAIK.

Jimmy Carter got this prize. Shows how political the panel is. No real subsistence, no lasting accomplishment required, just throw a dart at a wall of names (All on the left
) and get a winner (loser).

Carter wasn’t the first US president to be awarded. Ok, so he’s a former president but it says something of the importance of US politicians that Carter, Theodore Roosevelt, secretaries of state and other US notables have been awarded over the years.

I think Ahtisaari and Carter enjoyed also equal disrespect by their citizens while in office.

…responsible for #5

responsible for partying with 30 drunks last night

Hay. I at least take credit for my bad side.

Hmmm, have to wait few weeks for the workplace christmas party, until I can take credit for my bad side…

Grumping, groping and crawling on third beer, that is

Next year it’s going to be Cindy Sheehan, so the fatso has to wait till 2008.

Compared to what we have now in the US , Carter was a good prez

Jimmy Carter got this prize. Shows how political the panel is. No real subsistence, no lasting accomplishment required, just throw a dart at a wall of names (All on the left) and get a winner (loser).

Perhaps Heinrich Himmler should be awarded the prize posthumously for his great work in perfecting torture techniques?

Freeridin’ Frankiln:

Or Henry Kissinger, for his great work on making on makin’ sure surgical strikes are going to be surgical in the future.

Well, Kissinger already got the prize. Maybe Bush can get it too when the last helicopter leaves Baghdad.

Have you heard the latest on Kissinger. He is back apparently. Bob Woodward has told that Bush talks to Kissinger all the time. Kissinger has told Dubya that victory is the only exit strategy. This totally insain. Kissinger is fighting Vietnam all over again!

“Maybe Bush can get it too when the last helicopter leaves Baghdad.”

That will never happen, Erik. The US will pull out of Iraq, but it will be a pull out in name only. The bases US has build in Iraq are permanent. Some day most of the US forces will leave, but couple of tens of thousands will remain – relatively safe and dug in. al-Maliki is such a joke, a mere puppet. He is just the prime minister of the green zone, but plays the prime minister of Iraq on TV. But as long as the troops stay bunkered and out of harms way, the american public wont care that there’s an occupation going on.

If Iraq wishes to be a sovereign state, it has to kick the occupiers out. It’s the only way.

“Well, Kissinger already got the prize.”

Yeah. Would you consider the prize worth ANYTHING given that record .

“Maybe Bush can get it too when the last helicopter leaves Baghdad.”

I’m sure he will . But seriously, I believe he has tramped on too many toes for that (even the ever-U.S. loving Olli Kivinen of Helsingin Sanomat is against him). Had he done his killing in a more “liberal” way I’m sure he could expect the pay-off.

Stalin was a candidate two times. I suppose Hitler was not?

Yunus and Grameen Bank deserve a humanitarian prize, but not a peace prize. Few Nobel Peace laureates actually did something that made the world more peaceful. Some made the world less peaceful, as Kissinger did when he surrendered South Vietnam to the North.