More than irritating.

Awarding the Nobel peace prize to Al Gore was an act of political hostility, ironically. Personally I hate such backslapping affairs and would rather recognition were spontaneous- in which case the moronically inclined could whoop it up for Al all by their ownsome. It's the astonishing lack of attention given to their detractors which makes the Nobel committee's decisions so much like a kind of open suicide note to history. Recognise Carter, Annan, Gore, and you're pinning your colours to the mast and inviting a reprisal through public opinion. But so what?

Guess which British broadcaster was busy doing some loud whooping? Yup, that one. Another group whose demise would have me saying, "so what?".

Al Gore seems to think, by the way, that Hillary is unstoppable for 08.














It's true she's been a well-oiled machine of late. However, her almost preternaturally attractive image (seen above) is a bit of a Dorian Gray- someone's bound to find the real picture over time. She's clearly got image consultants that "silky" Edwards would die for- she's just not that attractive and powerful-looking, never has been, and truthfully the falseness there is indicative of her wider flaws: a skin-deep philosophy hiding a neurotic desperation for power.

People will prefer Fred, who is my tip for '08.

And that's the real danger for our Norwegian friends and the Rev. Al Gore as well- vanity will out in the end. Can't wait.

A couple of interesting snippets, one from Mark Steyn's letters page:

The published total GDP of the entire 22 nations the Arab League in 2005 went to 1.05 trillion dollars and it only got to that point as a result of 60 plus dollar a barrel oil prices. Iran is not a member of the Arab League and their GDP was 352 Billion dollars so for all of these 23 nations, the total is well under 1 1/ 2 trillion dollars! Interestingly, to put that into perspective, Italy's total GDP for the same period was 1.765 trillion dollars. Now they have a nice agricultural background and a little bit of manufacturing and they are still way ahead of the entire Arab League.

And then there's this: Soros buys Halliburton. Surely a bit early for April Fool's? (via Samizdata)

Still, hypocrisy is in the air at the moment. One of the world's leading politicians with a reputation for not giving a damn about the environment has in fact taken great care to contradict that image- privately. I suppose the inverse of hypocrisy must be something quite opposite- such as modesty. I actually knew about Bush's enviro-friendly house three or four years ago, but I think it's indicative of the way "good news" about Bush has been communicated (by his administration) and received (by the media) that it is news only now.

Whereas one of the great nearly-men with a reputation for being very green-fingered has in fact been turning a carbon friendly red before the gaze of the world's media; that which can be bothered, anyway. (Thanks to Peter Glover for his great new site).