Recent strong anti-Israel statements by President Ahmadinejad are not constructive and have increased the opposition in some quarters of the United States to negotiating with Iran.
That’s according to a statement from the American Friends Service Committee. According to the AFSC Web site, said statement was supposed to “address the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and President Ahmadinejad’s recent comments.” The sentence above is the only reference to Ahmadinejad’s ravings, which as recently as last month included this gem:
The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim.
Yeah, I’d say that was “not constructive.”
In a sign that some people just can’t get over the fact that they don’t have George Bush to kick around any more, the Nobel Committee awarded the Pretty Words Peace Prize today to a man who has yet to accomplish anything other than not being George Bush:
President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.
The Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
So in the last three years, the Nobel Committee has given a Peace Prize to Al Gore for making a dishonest movie and to Barack Obama for making a handful of speeches that have yet to bear any fruit. Go back ten years and its laureates have included the International Atomic Energy Agency (for ineffective actions encouraging North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons), Jimmy Carter (for ignorant and borderline anti-Semitic meddling in the Middle East), and to the United Nations and Kofi Annan (for setting new records for corruption, incompetence, and damage done to innocents by an international organization). I think it’s safe to say that an award that once honored Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Andrei Sakharov, Norman Borlaug, Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, and Albert Schweitzer can officially be laid to rest.
UPDATE: As a couple of commenters have already noted, heads all over the “far right” and at Fox News are just exploding:
The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
Oops, what a minute–that the Times of London. How about this:
So what do you think of President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize? I’m nonplussed — I admire his efforts toward Middle East peace, but the prize still seems very premature. What has he done?
Obama’s work on the Middle East, mostly through Senator Mitchell’s efforts, are sensible but haven’t produced any results yet. They certainly don’t match the intensive efforts that Bill Clinton made with his Middle East peace negotiations in the fall of 2000. Likewise, Obama’s efforts on nuclear disarmament/non-proliferation are important, but they are purely an aspiration. All the hard work is yet to come — and trying to renegotiate the NPT will be very hard indeed.
In other areas, Obama has done little.
Dang, that’s Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. OK, here’s one:
“I am a genuine admirer of Obama. And I am very pleased that George W. Bush is no longer president. But I doubt that I am alone in wondering whether this award is slightly premature. It is hard to point to a single place where Obama’s efforts have actually brought about peace – Gaza, Iran, Sri Lanka?
“While it is OK to give school children prizes for ‘effort’ — my kids get them all the time — I think international statesmen should probably be held to a higher standard,” he wrote.
Shoot, that’s Gideon Rachman, a foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times. Wait, these two guys get it about right:
MATT LAUER: There are no major foreign policy achievements to date … In some ways he wins this for not being George W. Bush.
DAVID GREGORY: That’s an inescapable conclusion.
Of course, those two are on NBC, not Fox. But I’m sure the right is surprised and dismayed as well.
I’ve now seen in several different places (most recently from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air), so I think it’s time to declare that beyond a reasonable doubt this is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever seen, if it is not positively blasphemous. It seems that for some people, like those who run the Wikipedia-alternative Conservapedia, the Bible isn’t conservative enough:
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:
Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.
Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”; using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census
Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”
There’s no question that some modern translations have done atrocious things to the text of Scripture, by imposing various politically correct notions where they have no business being. What the people at Conservapedia don’t seem to realize is that altering the text for the sake of ideology is always wrong, no matter what ideology it is meant to uphold. Trying to tweak the parables of Jesus so that they uphold free market economics that were unknown in the first century, for instance, is just as bad as refusing to use “Father” where Jesus uses it because it offends modern feminism. All I can say is that these folks would do well to ponder the implications of Deuteronomy 32:35–”Vengeance is mine, and recompense.”
UPDATE: In the comments, Dave points to this blog post by the Anchoress at First Things, in which she says, among other things:
The “Conservative” Bible is an attempt by some who are clearly “enthralled” with their ideology to wrestle Eternity to the ground and conform it an Age. But the Age is fleeting; it is already a passing illusion. An attempt to re-translate the Bible to suit one’s worldview is to belong too much to the world, itself, and to worldly solutions. Translate the Bible to gain a wholistic world view, and you may very well forfeit yourself.
These busy bees might best serve themselves, their cause and their Lord by withdrawing a little bit from the world and taking some “time in the desert” away from the television, the radio, the gathering crowds. They need to break away from “enthrallment” to “detachment” or they will become all they despise.
Right on. Read it all.
For at least one judge in California, it is no longer enough that a ballot initiative fulfill the legal requirements for such measures. The backers of an initiative had also better have motives that are pure as the driven snow, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports:
A federal judge has ordered sponsors of California’s Proposition 8 to release campaign strategy documents that opponents believe could show that backers of the same-sex marriage ban were motivated by prejudice against gays.
Plaintiffs in a federal suit seeking to overturn Prop. 8 – two same-sex couples, a gay-rights organization and the city of San Francisco – contend that the measure’s real purpose was to strip a historically persecuted minority group of rights held by the majority.
If the courts find that the ballot measure was motivated by discrimination, they could strike it down without having to decide whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.
“The intent or purpose of Prop. 8 is central to this litigation,” Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker declared Thursday in requiring backers of the November 2008 measure to give the opposing side their internal campaign communications.
The question before the court should not be, “what was in the hearts of the people who wrote and campaigned for this proposition?” It should be, “is the text as the voters passed it legal?” The latter question has already been decided. Any further attempts to delve into the mindsets of the supporters (or opponents, for that matter) needs to consider the injunction, “Let those who are without sin cast the first stone.”
(Via Stand Firm.)
Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion.
–Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, explaining why his industry is almost unanimously against the extradition and sentencing of director Roman Polanski for the child rape to which he pled guilty 32 years ago
My personal thoughts are let the guy go. It’s bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It’s crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things.
–Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation, indicating that at least one feminist believes there should be a statute of limitations on the rape of children
I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape… When we’re talking about what someone did, and what they were charged with, we have to say what it actually was, not what we think it was.
–Actress Whoopi Goldberg, explaining why raping a child isn’t really rape, exactly
By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.
–Woody Allen, Monica Bellucci, Jonathan Demme, Costa Gavras, Terry Gilliam, Buck Henry, John Landis, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Martin Scorcese, Tilda Swinton, Wim Wenders, and a bunch of other people you’ve never heard of trying to explain their novel theory that film festivals are now embassy-like zones, and filmmakers are ambassador-like persons with “diplomatic immunity” against whom nations are not allowed to enforce their laws (read the whole petition; its writers and signers refer to the rape and sodomization of a 13-year-old girl as “a case of morals”)
