Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017) Dies at 61

Here is a writeup and an overview. China needs more like him. I'll leave you with the indelible image of his empty chair at the 2010 Nobel ceremony that China's leadership did not permit him to attend, for it had imprisoned him the year before. Oh, and do take a look at his lecture.

LOL: Nobel Peace Laureates and the World Cup

Hey, we're all for peace and harmony and the brotherhood of man ... except when it's World Cup time, because we must crush the other team into dust and dance on the grave of its championship hopes.

Say what you will, but Nobel laureates hilariously talking trash is a LOT better than the disgusting spectacle of Uruguay's reprehensible Luis Suarez biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini yesterday.  The Onion was right about him.

Latest Nobel Nonsense

So this year's Peace Prize went to a gaggle of chemical weapons inspectors.  Whatever, man.  On the up side, at least it didn't go to Pooty-Poot.  I'll just leave you with this from the immortal Ron Swanson:

Inevitable: Nominating Putin For The Nobel Peace Prize

So, yeah.  Of course, the Nobel Peace Prize had beclowned itself long before this.

Does Bob Dylan Deserve a Nobel Prize for Literature?

This op-ed in today's New York Times thinks so.  Do lyrics count as literature?

Publishing the New Nobel Literature Prize Winner

This year's Nobel for lit goes to Chinese writer Mo Yan, and the English translation of his novel Sandalwood Death will be published by .... *drum roll* ... the University of Oklahoma Press!  That's quite a coup for the academic publishing house.

Nobel Peace Prize Ever Bigger Joke Than Previously Thought

This year it goes to ... *drum roll* the EU.  Really. Insert your own jokes here.  The other prizes and winners are more substantive, especially the prize in medicine.

Remembering Pakistan's Outcast Scientist Abdus Salam

You'd think he'd be a national hero, being Pakistan's only Nobel Prize winner and the scientist whose work contributed to the Higgs boson research.  But nope!  The physicist has been purged from the textbooks and his gravestone ordered defaced by a magistrate(!) because ... This is too depressing.  Just read the news story.  UPDATE: More here.

Here's Some Nobel Peace Prize Winner-on-Nobel Peace Prize Winner Verbal Violence

I'm probably evil for being this amused, but there you are.  Here's the sordid tale.

Nerd News: Thoughts from the New Nobel Laureate in Economics

Worth a look.

Geek News: Daniel Shechtman, Quasicrystals, and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Sweet, sweet vindication!

Nobel Peace Laureates Rally for Liu Xiaobo

Here's a story worth sharing ... though I must say there are some notably absent names from the list of signatories.  Hmmm.  The letter is here in PDF. You will recall, of course, that imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Peace Prize.

Congratulations to Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, New Nobel Laureate for Literature

Vargas Llosa absolutely sounds like my kind of guy:

Mr. Vargas Llosa was deeply involved in politics from a young age. He was an early backer of socialist causes especially the Cuban Revolution. He parted ways with Havana in 1971 after protesting the government's persecution of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla who was forced to make a Stalinist-like recantation of his critical poetry.

The Peruvian author later became known for his defense of free market and pro-democratic policies. In particular, he became the ying to the yang of Mr. [Gabriel] García Márquez [the 1982 Colombian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature]. Mr. Vargas Llosa has acidly referred to Mr. García Márquez, who is still a good friend of Fidel Castro, as a "Castro courtesan."

Their friendship came to a spectacular end in 1976 when at a Mexico City movie premiere, Mr. Vargas Llosa greeted Mr. García Márquez with a right hook that knocked the Colombian author on the red carpet and left him with a bloody nose and a black-eye. 

... The author [Vargas Llosa] led the fight against an eventually unsuccessful attempt by Mr. García to nationalize banks in Peru in the late 1980s.

The thought does occur to me: apparently this year, the Nobel Committee has regained a hint of common sense. It awarded the Peace Prize to someone who actually works (and suffers) for freedom and human rights in China, and it awarded the Prize for Literature to a writer who criticizes authoritarian regimes, slams Castro and Chavez, and champions free markets and democracy.  (Here is his official website.  Read this fascinating interview with him.)

Kudos, sir, and felicidades indeed!  I give you something even better than congratulations: 

"He is a reference point for all those who defend freedom in Latin America," said Carlos Alberto Montaner, an exiled Cuban writer. "And now with the Nobel, his voice will have much more weight."

OH YES.

UPDATE: An amusingly snarky observation by Kyle Smith on Vargas Llosa punching García Márquez:

Is Vargas Llosa, the freedom-and free-market-loving Nobel prize winner for literature, the first Nobelist to have the honor of having punched out another Nobel prize winner? Too bad he didn’t punch out Arafat, but he did manage to floor a chum of Fidel Castro...

Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo Wins 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

And the Nobel Peace Prize recovers a tiny shred of dignity.  Oh, it'll never really be a true honor, not after the shenanigans of the past, but at least this year wasn't the execrable circus of last year's laughable idiocy.
Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo wins the prize this year, and Beijing is furious.  Good.  It's now denounced Liu as a "criminal" -- thereby legitimizing him more than ever.  

Satire Alert: Iowahawk on Obama's Nobel Prize

Iowahawk strikes again -- and quickly, too. The target is just too tempting.

Nobel Peace Prize 2009: Is This Some Kind of Joke?

Then again, after the debacles of Yassir Arafat and Al Gore getting this increasingly-meaningless award, maybe this isn't a joke after all. You've got to be kidding me! The man whom even "Saturday Night Live" lampooned as having accomplished "nada" gets the Nobel Peace Prize? Now if there were a Nobel Prize for Narcissistic Yet Naive But Impressive Oratory, maybe.

So, kids, if you want a prize of your own, you now have yet another strategy for getting it, aside from such tactics as "killing people and then stopping for a while, making speeches, and then going back to killing people" (Arafat) or "making a lot of hypocritical noise about the earth and showing a boring PowerPoint presentation full of polar bears and scary charts" (Gore). Now you can "do nothing real but yap a lot about yourself while sounding and looking good doing so" (Obama). Talk about declining standards! By this measure, poor Mother Teresa got her prize the hard way by "working tirelessly in miserable conditions for most of her life in the attempt to improve the lives of the most destitute, sick, and unwanted of India's poor." What a sap!

No, wait, wait . . . Well, actually, maybe this latest round of awards is an actual improvement. The Nobel Peace Prize has gone to a whole cartload of self-aggrandizing attention hounds like unrepentant terrorists (Arafat), fearmongering propagandists (Gore), and flat-out idiots and dismal failures (Jimmy Carter). Why the heck NOT give it to a smooth-talking, telegenic politician who hasn't a clue about actual statecraft? At least this one's pretty as he goes about chasing the spotlight. But we'll see, won't we, how much "peace" is actually in the offing if Iran gets the bomb on Obama's watch.

Pffffffft.

UPDATE 1: Heh! Oh, and lots of links at Insta-Prof. This whole thing sounds like a silly fake news piece by the Onion, does it? "Man Wins Prize For Not Doing Anything." I like this curtly contemptuous British opinion: "absurd."

UPDATE 2: Law prof Ann Althouse wonders sarcastically why Obama didn't win the Nobel Prize for Literature too.

UPDATE 3: A thought -- The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to a president who in this year alone has de-prioritized human rights and the plight of dissidents in unfree regimes, and I am thinking specifically of dissidents in China and Iran. Then a few days ago, Obama cold-shouldered the Dalai Lama in what looked like an effort to please Beijing. Then there was that talk about making some kind of separate peace with the Taliban. (Yes, this Taliban.) I'm just sayin'.

UPDATE 4: Wait! Am I a raaaaaaaaaaaacist for thinking this is all absurd? Probably.

UPDATE 5: Reactions are pouring in. Take a look at this from an Obama supporter at the Huffington Post, even: "The time has not yet arrived and circumstances have not yet evolved where Barack Obama is anywhere near the point where he has earned this prize." Or here.

UPDATE 6: Pursuit of Serenity sends this news link: "Taliban condemn Obama as Nobel Prize winner." In the article, a Taliban spokesman whines that Obama's taken no steps toward peace in Afghanistan. Is this real life, or is this the Onion? I can't make this stuff up if I tried! We are living in a world of total madness, and preposterous Nobel farce is beneath the contempt of decent people. I'll also use one of my favorite Britishisms: it's "nonsense on stilts."

UPDATE 7: Let the jokes begin! And let 'em go on. And on.

UPDATE 8: DNC hits bottom, gets out shovel and digs. As I said, beneath contempt.

UPDATE 9: Satirist-parodist-humorist extraordinaire Iowahawk takes aim at this Moral Vanity-a-Palooza with predictably hilarious results.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-russnow/barack-obama-nobel-peace_b_314899.html

Requiescat in Pace: Norman Borlaug, 1914-2009

By his work in agriculture, he saved the lives of hundreds of millions (particularly in poor nations) from hunger and starvation -- effectively saving the lives of more people than any other individual in history. And you've probably never even heard of him.

Take a look at the remarkable life and legacy of Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner (who, unlike so many recipients, actually deserved it) and the "forgotten benefactor of humanity." Here is his obit in the New York Times.

Bonus: Read Reason magazine's interview with Borlaug from 2000. Read the whole thing. Here's a piece of it: