Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize? Give me a break!

First off, I can say this because

• I voted for him
• I have a right to free expression
• I have to laugh

So lets get this straight.  Nominations were due on Jan 30, 10 days after the inauguration…so singlehandedly without most of his transition done, in 10 days Barack Obama changed the world peace situation.   What did he do wave his wand?

The Nobel Peace prize has been won by significant people AFTER they did something significant to change world peace…like Begin and Sadat, like Mandela, Martin Luther King, et cetera et cetera…Heck Mahatma Gandhi DIDN’T GET ONE!…it makes no sense to award one to a newly elected leader just for showing up and warming the chair!

What’s next?

• Obama wins an Oscar for his inaugural address?
• Obama gets the Baldridge award for running and efficient Campaign?
• Obama wins the congressional Medal of Honor because a some congressman noticed we had 1 extra in the drawer for 2009?
• Obama wins the Charlie’s Angels award for best imitiation of John Forsythe saying “Bosley”
• Obama awards himself the Presidential Medal of Freedom, because, well, he can?
• Obama wins the Silvio Berlousconi award for best swooning attitude?
• Obama wins on the Price is Right (except he had to play from the Oval Office)?
• Pope to issue an encyclical that called “Barack Obama est valde , es vos?”
• Barack Obama is awarded Stigmata by God for his service to humanity.

I like the guy.  I don’t agree with everything he’s doing, but he’s ok.  But that doesn’t mean I give him a medal for just showing up!

Obama’s Need for a Blackberry…Mil Spec…

So a friend of mine is interviewed on this Bloomberg clip about the new super secret NSA style phone that they are going to allow President Obama to have.

I thought I’d cross-post this from youtube in Michael’s honor. He now joins the Armenian speaking Chinese guy on my blog hall of fame…:-)

The full text of Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address…we have finally lived up to it…

Fellow-Countrymen: AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Politics…

I tend to take a philosophical view of a Presidential election. I try to go through history and see if there’s a pattern emerging.  Well this year there are a few interesting things going on:

• All three major remaining candidates are Senators, and have no executive experience (although Sen. Clinton gets the sniff vote)
• 2 of the candidates are what I term as Vietnam era youth.  (aka they were in battle or college during the Vietnam War).
• The last couple of Presidents were avoiders of tough service during the Vietnam era.  (WJC,GWB)
• The 6 of the 7 presidents prior to that were youth during WWII, the exception was Carter, who was stationed on a nuclear sub during the 50′s.  (inventory, JFK, LBH, RMN, GRF, RR, GHWB)
• The 3 president’s before that came into adulthood during WWI (FDR, HST, DDE)
• This is the first election since 1952 where an incumbent President or VP is not running.
• One candidate is the first candidate to reach this far who was not a Vietnam era candidate.  
• The last side by side generational election was Dukakis (Korea) and Bush41 (WWII).  (Dole and Clinton were separated by Korea, Bush41 and Clinton were separated by Korea, Kerry/Gore and Bush reach adult age during the Viet Nam era)
• I supported Carter in 80 (I was 16 and couldn’t vote), I voted for Walter Mondale in 1984 and Republican for president since.

So I can’t tell you how I’m going to vote.  It’s going to come down to the events of the next 6 months.  If I’m scared internationally, I’ll lean right.  If things are calm, I’m more inclined to lean left if the candidate is from my generation and not the one that was in college when I was 5 years old.  I do have a problem with the find-a-thing-to-hug-activist vs chicken-hawk elections we have had for the last 3 elections.  They all drank too much or didn’t inhale, they are all TOOO sanctimonious about their side and they don’t inspire me at all.

So that’s where it comes down.  If I’m nervous I’m going to lean right.  If I’m calm and inspired and see my generation have an opportunity to run things, I’ll lean left in the booth.   The music of the 60s resonates with me artistically, it doesn’t inspire me to vote.   The next 6 months are going to be interesting.