President O'Bama Nobel Laureate...

[Beskar]

Pathway to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.

[HoreTore]

Pathway to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.

Fortunately, we're all atheist social democrats, so religious mumbo-jumbo doesn't concern us

[Beskar]

That is actually being ignorant and not understanding the meaning behind the saying. It is more philosphorical than religious.

[Subotan]

One point Four million Bucks ($425K, after taxes). Any bets on what Mr. O will do with the prize money?

Maybe try and get across a cliff?

Fortunately, we're all atheist social democrats, so religious mumbo-jumbo doesn't concern us

Well, at least two of us are

[Banquo's Ghost]

Robert Fisk delivers a crushing analysis of why awarding President Obama the Peace Prize is an act completely out of touch with international reality - even if one is arguing that it's all about the hope.

His Middle East policy is collapsing. The Israelis have taunted him by ignoring his demand for an end to settlement-building and by continuing to build their colonies on Arab land. His special envoy is bluntly told by the Israelis that an Arab-Israel peace will take "many years". Now he wants the Palestinians to talk peace to Israel without conditions. He put pressure on the Palestinian leader to throw away the opportunity of international scrutiny of UN Judge Goldstone's damning indictment of Israeli war crimes in Gaza while his Assistant Secretary of State said that the Goldstone report was "seriously flawed". After breaking his pre-election promise to call the 1915 Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turkey a genocide, he has urged the Armenians to sign a treaty with Turkey, again "without pre-conditions". His army is still facing an insurgency in Iraq. He cannot decide how to win "his" war in Afghanistan. I shall not mention Iran.

...

Oh, go on then, it's good:

Then, after stroking the Iranian pussycat at the Geneva nuclear talks, the US president discovered that the feline was showing its claws again at the end of last week. A Revolutionary Guard commander, an adviser to Supreme Leader Khamenei, warned that Iran would "blow up the heart" of Israel if Israel or the US attacked the Islamic Republic. I doubt it. Blow up Israel and you blow up "Palestine". Iranians – who understand the West much better than we understand them – have another policy in the case of the apocalypse. If the Israelis attack, they may leave Israel alone. They have a plan, I'm told, to target instead only US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their bases in the Gulf and their warships cruising through Hormuz. They would leave Israel alone. Americans would then learn the price of kneeling before their Israeli masters.

For the Iranians know that the US has no stomach for a third war in the Middle East. Which is why Mr Obama has been sending his generals thick and fast to the defence ministry in Tel Aviv to tell the Israelis not to strike at Iran. And why Israel's leaders – including Mr Netanyahu – were blowing the peace pipe all week about the need for international negotiations with Iran. But it raises an interesting question. Is Mr Obama more frightened of Iran's retaliation? Or of its nuclear capabilities? Or more terrified of Israel's possible aggression against Iran?

But, please, no attacks on 10 December. That's when Barack Obama turns up in Oslo to pocket his peace prize – for achievements he has not yet achieved and for dreams that will turn into nightmares.