In commemorating President Barack Obama’s (undeserved) Nobel Peace Prize, I thought the classic Megadeth song “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?” would be appropriate. Considering some of the other individuals who have won the prize (Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore) Obama’s undeserved recognition shouldn’t be all that surprising.

What do you mean, “I [...]

Over 3,500 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama took office:
Civilian casualties (est.) in two wars being waged by the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize:
Afghanistan, Feb-July: 886
Iraq, Feb-Aug: 2,629
Hope and Change !

From the LA Times:
President Obama, who has pledged to place diplomacy ahead of confrontation and reached out to a skeptical world with offers of mutual understanding, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for what the committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Obama is only the third sitting U.S. [...]

From The LA Times:
More than 100 industry leaders and prominent authors — including directors Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Mike Nichols, Woody Allen and Neil Jordan — have signed a petition asking that [Roman] Polanski be released from Swiss custody. “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world [...]

…why don’t they just make stabbing illegal?
Plans to replace the traditional pint glass with one made of shatter-proof plastic will not be accepted by drinkers, the pub industry has warned.
The Home Office has commissioned a new design, in an attempt to stop glasses being used as weapons.
Official figures show 5,500 people are attacked with glasses [...]

Juan Carlos Hidalgo asks the question of the day in a post at Cato@Liberty:
What Principle is Guiding Obama’s Honduras Policy?
The Obama administration is threatening not to recognize the result of Honduras’ presidential election in late November unless Manuel Zelaya returns to the presidency beforehand.
The presidential poll was already scheduled prior to Zelaya’s (constitutional) removal from [...]

One of my personal bits of curiousity about the world is related to cultural “ways of thinking”. While I don’t believe that Americans are innately different than Europeans, or Chinese, or Russians, there are certainly differences in average thought borne of the different cultural histories of each place. Dale Franks at QandO recently [...]

I’m not normally one to say nice things about former President Bill Clinton but I have to say kudos for his securing the release of the two American journalists turned political prisoners in N. Korea.
Reuters Reports:
SEOUL — North Korea said on Wednesday it had pardoned two jailed American journalists after former U.S. President [...]

We’ve already reported on Venezuelan food shortages, which are going to make the population too weak to fight Chavez. Now it appears they’ll be too tired as well:
Venezuela, a traditional coffee exporter that boasts one of the best cups of java in South America, may have to import coffee for the first time ever [...]

As reported (circumspect) by QandO:

One of the district attorneys that participated in the operation that took place this Friday showed reporters an official voting result from the Technical Institute Luis Bogran, of Tegucigalpa, in which the specific number of people that participated in table 345, where there were 550 ballots, 450 of which were votes [...]

Between Iran’s internal crackdown on journalists and communications, and CNN’s insistence on devoting every hour of the day to Michael Jackson coverage, I’ve been having quite a bit of trouble getting any “real” reports of what’s going on over there. Luckily, I was able to sit down with a coworker who emigrated from Iran [...]

Congress has voted to condemn the actions of the Iranian government, and as Reason points out, Ron Paul in typical contrarian fashion is the sole “no” vote:
I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, [...]

From David Rittgers, Cato@Liberty:
As I have said before, the quickest way to create an insurgent is to burn a man’s livelihood. This may be a competent counternarcotics tactic, but it is an epic failure as a counterinsurgency strategy. We can fight a war against the Taliban or we can fight the war on drugs, but [...]

Friday in the Czech Republic, Czech police detained a foreigner on suspicion of Thoughtcrime. The foreigner in question is former KKK leader David Duke who was arrested and later deported for the Thoughtcrime offense of denying the Holocaust.
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was detained by police in the Czech Republic on Friday on [...]

In the American Conservative, Antiwar.com editor Justin Raitmando (whom I often disagree with) has a piece detailing some more leftist hypocrisy concerning their Messiah and his plans to expand the Afghan War
The antiwar rally at the University of Iowa was sparsely attended. The below 30 degree weather might have had something to do with it, [...]

Somali pirates have been in the news a great deal lately, and there is a great deal of controversy as to how to deal with them.  To date, the proposed solutions seem to be a simplistic calls for a) intervention to build a stable state in Somalia, b) send in various national navies to engage [...]

Some group calling itself the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution yesterday opposing what they see as the leading human rights issue of our time. You’re probably thinking, maybe they’re now addressing the situation in Darfur, or perhaps they’re talking about Communist China’s treatment of Tibetians. Perhaps there maybe a resolution about Cuba’s [...]

The Obama administration, rather than dealing with the root cause of the violence along the Mexican border, has decided to adopt a policy to deal with the symptoms. The problem is that this policy will neither alleviate the symptoms nor come close to treating the problem.
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration promised Tuesday to help [...]

Governments, ready to spend boatloads cruiseliner-loads of money they don’t have, are trying to borrow it — to the extent possible — from the markets. I mentioned yesterday that the US was starting to print our own money to lend to ourselves. Britain is facing a similar problem — they were auctioning off [...]

Just over two years ago, I offered a worst-case prediction of where this economic crisis could lead.
Wait, though, it gets worse. America isn’t an empire in the conventional sense of the word, but we are an economic empire. The dollar is the currency of the world, from middle eastern oil to the reserve [...]