hello typepad

Spotted in Shanghai: Buddhobama

via shanghaiist.com

Buddhobama - for our list of portmanteaus.

Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize — Yet

President Obama's only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That's important, to be sure, but not nearly enough. The Prize is really more of Booby Prize for Obama's predecessor. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not be receiving the Prize. He's prizeworthy and praiseworthy only by comparison.

-Robert Reich

This is an odd award. You'd expect it to come later in Obama's presidency and tied to some particular event or accomplishment. But the unmistakable message of the award is one of the consequences of a period in which the most powerful country in the world, the 'hyper-power' as the French have it, became the focus of destabilization and in real if limited ways lawlessness. A harsh judgment, yes. But a dark period. And Obama has begun, if fitfully and very imperfectly to many of his supporters, to steer the ship of state in a different direction. If that seems like a meager accomplishment to many of the usual Washington types it's a profound reflection of their own enablement of the Bush era and how compromised they are by it, how much they perpetuated the belief that it was 'normal history' rather than dark aberration.

-Josh Marshall

This is soooo awkward. This is like when someone gives you a $400 vacuum cleaner that you can't return. Actually? Worse. This is a horrible, misguided, not-bright idea by THOSE MEDDLING SWEDES that has just entirely disrupted our political conversations and plans for most of the next month.

-Choire Sicha

One thing is certain - President Obama won't be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.

-Michael Steele (this guy should make Republicans wish Bush & Rove were still around - what an idiot!)

The Nobel Prize fallout will be the tipping point for Obama to start plowing through cigs again. Lock it down.

-Bill Simmons

Well, in that case, let's just give Matt Wieters the 2009 MVP award!

-Keith Law

So, the internet is exploding this morning with the news that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The President says he's "humbled," some pundits say he should turn it down, everyone's got an opinion. What's yours?

How arrogant of anyone to see this from a U.S. perspective, it is just proof of how desperate the Bush/Cheney junta made the rest of the world.

It's not Obama's prize. This prize is for the people of the United States for showing the world how a cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic democracy can work.

I'm a big supporter of the President, but along the prestige continuum, the Nobel just moved away from the Congressional-Medal-of-Honor type award and a lot closer to the Mira-Sorvino-Winning-an-Oscar end of things.

I think the popular media meme is missing the point. Is Obama being awarded for his accomplishments as President? Or is he being awarded for changing the international climate? Obama did not start gathering the world's attention on January 20, 2009. As the first serious African American presidential candidate, the first presidential nominee of a major American political party, and during his campaign, he was a voice of reason, a supporter of peace. Let's not buy into the ridiculous idea that his eligibility for this award started on Jan. 20.

-Andrew Golis first, then Open Thread Contributors. Also follow TPM's live reaction wire.

I’m really excited that the Birfers, Becks, Oxycontin abusers, and pseudo-plumbers in Wingnuttia will now give me enough material to post on Cyn-C for the next few months. Put your ponchos on Cynics, the spittle is about to fly.

-Cynical C

President Obama is gambling that America is now mature enough to understand that machismo is not foreign policy, and that grandstanding on the global stage just won't succeed. In a new world, with other countries more powerful and confident, America's success — its security, its prosperity — depends on working with others. It's a big, bold gambit. The Nobel committee wanted to encourage this sentiment. I hope Americans will see that and encourage the path President Obama is taking

-Fareed Zakaria (This "article" is simply a transcript of Zakaria's talking head appearance - pathetic.)

What's with all these Kanye-Taylor Swift-President Obama jokes?

-Paolo Lim (amen)

The French have got all kinds of wild descriptions for eggs cooked to various degrees of doneness, but in American culinary terms, in the ideal soft-boiled egg, the white should be completely opaque, but not to the point of rubberiness (somewhere in the range of 155 to 180 degrees), and the yolk should be completely liquid (no hotter than 158 degrees). In this way, with each spoonful, you get tender bites of soft, velvety-smooth white, bathed in a sauce of glorious, bright golden, rich, flavorful yolk. These are the type of soft boiled eggs that'll get you laid.

-Serious Eats: How to cook the perfect egg (this is important!)

Major Redux Redux

There's quite a kerfuffle brewing around the Apple's "inspiration" for the iPhone commercial.

We've covered this ground before, repeatedly. I'm looking forward to surveying blogistan when all is said and done to compare results and opinions.

Meanwhile - do kerfuffles brew? If not, what do they do?

Sopranos vs. Sleeper Cell II

Anil beat me to the post [1] regarding the amazing "Mobsters vs. Arabs" CNN Poll. After reading his post this afternoon, I reconsidered the article.

56,000 votes in and more than thirty five thousand people trust the Mafia, whereas only around twenty thousand people trust an "Arab-based" company. This is "why they hate us" (tm) - because we hate them. Given the choice between an "Arab" company and the Mafia, who are infamous for murder, graft and anti-social behavior, we choose the Mafia. We assume that an anonymous "Arab-based" group is probably going to be worse than the Gambinos, Lucheesis or Gottis. That's absolutely astounding, even moreso when you consider that cnn.com readers probably lean left.

[1] In the past week, Anil scooped Ray Ozzie on cut & paste and he beat me to a CNN critique. That's pretty good!

Holidays

Kenyatta says:

"Television is one of the bad things that happens when Sunday isn't a school night. After watching about 15 minutes of Access Hollywood, I come up with the idea that we should all add 'Jolie-Pitt' to our last names so we could all be part of the extended family."

I feel more beautiful already. Why not just give them their own holiday? We could immerse ourselves in Jolie-Pittness for 24 hours straight and reclaim the rest of our free time from those beautiful mind thieves.

And speaking of thieving, my time as guest reblogger is almost at an end. I stole all my MLK links from Jason Kottke of kottke.org. I'm surprised that in the 200+ feeds that make up the reblog reading list, only Jason and one other blogger mentioned Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at all. I guess Bloggers know no days off.

Mr. T

Mr. T
Originally uploaded by david.

BREAKING NEWS

The story of a judge ruling mentions of Intelligent Design to be unconstituational is notable enough on it's own. But all this talk of "intelligent" "design" seems to have lit a fire under the butt of CNN's "designers." Witness The evolving bubble people and this DNA helix that appears to dwarf the earth in size. It's almost... threatening. And what's the light up near the North Pole? Is God in the DNA?

Bing!

Rogers Cadenhead: Like Rappers and Actors, Popes get to choose their own names.

Why Hot, WASPy Chicks Love Jews

Why Hot, WASPy Chicks Love Jews, by Joel Stein:

The stereotype in Jewsploitation isn't the neurotic, nervous Jews of Woody Allen films, which you guys never seemed to like much. The Jews in "The Fockers" are loud, inappropriate, obsessed with sex and bodily functions, overly affectionate, liberal, earthy and smothering.

These traits seem to amuse people who don't get two helpings of it a day from parents who can't seem to understand that this is precisely why we moved 3,000 miles away to Los Angeles.

When I first read this I thought Andrea had written it herself, and I was really impressed. I didn't know Andrea could write like that! But at least she posted it, that's almost as good.

Iraqi Government "bans" Al-Jazeerah

Al-Jazeerah does give a platform to Iraqi dissidents, but they also do ask tough questions of, e.g. Sadr's representatives. Anyway, there are no grounds under the interim constitution (which guarantees freedom of speech) for the government to close the offices of a news organization. It is not an auspicious start for the new Iraq, and these kinds of measures, once taken, become foundational.

Juan Cole notes that the new "democratic" Iraqi government is attempting to ban (jam?) Al-Jazeerah's satellite signals. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

Speaking of banned, both Sprint and T-mobile (see full entry) customers claim to have been shut out of the txtmob sms service during the RNC. Of course, I don't know if I missed any txtmob messages, but I felt like I was getting a lot of them. I never did hear from the Seahorse Liberation Army (I was anonymously asked to join) but maybe I was supposed to, and I didn't get the message. I'll keep you updated if I find anything out.

Txtmob.com is licensed under the Creative Commons GPL, but I can't find a link to download the code. Please comment if you find it, I'd love to see what makes it tick.