Putin Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

[MisterTinkles]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/05...d%3D450854

Russia's Vladimir Putin Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, according to director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute Geir Lundestad. The announcement on Wednesday comes at an awkward time as Russia currently stands accused of invading Ukraine, something most people recognize as one of the most un-peaceful things a leader can do.

Voice of Russia notes that the nomination had likely been submitted back in October, when Putin had just acted as a main figure in the deal to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons. This didn't take into account that Putin was also providing Syria with conventional weapons, but such is the way the Nobel Peace Prize works. It's a system much like the Pulitzer Prize, where it's actually surprisingly easy to get nominated for the award and often doesn't really mean anything.

In order to secure a spot on the list, essentially all that's required is for a group or individual who falls under the broad criteria set by the Nobel Committee to formally submit your name and good deeds. The committee then selects from these nominations, but takes no responsibility for the pool of candidates they choose from. This process has resulted in some truly terrible people being proposed over the years, including but not limited to: Joseph Stalin (twice), Adolf Hitler (as a protest), and Rush Limbaugh. Putin was also nominated last year and faced similar criticism as today.

While the Nobel Committee has made some controversial picks in the past, including Henry Kissinger, it's highly unlikely Putin will get the nod for the prize. Instead, the announcement acts as a sounding off point for all the many reasons Putin shouldn't win, as well as a reminder that despite the many incredible people who have won the award, we might put too much emphasis on the tiny cabal of Norwegians that annually crowns the best person in the world.





Apparently they just give these things away like free toys now.

[partis]

Give it to him… might give him ideas..

[dfiant]

Nobel prizes actually mean something? Well I'll be damned.

I always thought it was candy handed out as a bribe for good behaviour.

[Pix]

I wish I could recall which author and activist it was in the early 20th century who, when nominated for the NPP, told them to remove his name from the candidates as he refused to participate in such a farce. I gained a lot of respect for him when he did that (or when I read of him doing that, and though I can't recall his name now I'd know it if I heard it, and that's more than I could say for most of the winners at the time, I don't even who care won it when he had a shot at it).

And check out who Al Gore beat (and btw, it doesn't mention how much Gore was a big supporter of the military industrial complex, THE biggest polluter on the planet, nor how he continues to show disregard for the environment beyond lip service):

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/sendler.asp

And just for fun (love it if it were true):

http://www.thefinaledition.com/article/n...prize.html

Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, said today that President Obama “really ought to consider” returning his Nobel Peace Prize Medal immediately, including the “really nice” case it came in.

Jagland, flanked by the other four members of the Committee, said they’d never before asked for the return of a Peace Prize, “even from a damnable war-criminal like Kissinger,” but that the 10% drawdown in US troops in Afghanistan the President announced last week capped a period of “non-Peace-Prize-winner-type behavior” in 2011. “Guantanamo’s still open. There's bombing Libya. There's blowing bin Laden away rather than putting him on trial. Now a few US troops go home, but the US will be occupying Afghanistan until 2014 and beyond. Don’t even get me started on Yemen!”

The Committee awarded Obama the coveted prize in 2009 after he made a series of speeches in the first months of his presidency, which convinced the Peace Prize Committee that he was: “creating a new climate of...multilateral diplomacy...an emphasis on the role of the United Nations...of dialogue and negotiations as instruments for resolving international conflicts...and a vision of world free of nuclear arms.”

But, he revealed the committee members were all “legless drunk” the day they voted, as it was the start of Norway’s annual aquavit-tasting festival. The “totally toasted” members listened over and over to replays of Obama’s Cairo speech, tearing up and drinking shots to the glorious future: a black man leading America and the world into a new era of peace, hope and goodwill. “For a few hours we were all 18 year-old students again at the beautiful, occasionally sunny University of Bergen! Oh, how we cried for joy!”

The White House had no comment. It later announced an aggressive new covert CIA initiative to identify and apprehend Al Qaeda operatives in Scandinavia.

[Woollyhats]

Can we just not.

Also.


Because let's be honest, we know how influential this guy is getting in Russia, but the guy in the book is actually real, he's doing this too.

[sillyboy86]

Obama --> Europe --> Putin.
LOL

He's only nominated, I don't think he's going to 'win' the Prize, but even the nomination is pathetic...

[southbiochem]

But, he revealed the committee members were all “legless drunk” the day they voted, as it was the start of Norway’s annual aquavit-tasting festival

I was about to make a snarky comment...

but then I read this bit of info Pix shared..

yeah, that explains quite a bit.

Nobel Prize seems quite pointless to me to begin with, let alone giving it to close-enough-to-be-a-modern-version-of Stalin...I mean..Mr. Putin...

nope...let's not...please.