Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize!

I’m going to break my rule and write about Obama today because he’s made truly international news. He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 and I couldn’t be happier. 

The committee stated that they awarded the prize to him “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

The award must be very meaningful to Obama because it represents vindication for his decisions to close Guantanamo Bay, stop American torture, give a speech in a major muslim city, pull out of or at least draw down the troop levels in Iraq, have America join the UN Human Rights Panel, and praise the International Criminal Court.

He also served as the first American president to chair a meeting of the security council. He could have used this opportunity to reveal evidence that Iran was constructing a new facility to produce nuclear fuel and, consequently, push for additional sanctions against the country. Instead, Obama choose to use this unique opportunity to push for nuclear disarmament. He knew Iran’s time would come soon enough. 

And he’s done all this in less than a year. Amazing. Unbelievable. I only wish I had time to devote as many blogs to this as the Large Dead Lizards. It’s 2 in the afternoon and they already have 5 entries supporting this decision [and 24 Obama references on the front page]. Kudos to them! They truly are the best progressive blog on the continent.

Of course, I could be a little happier. It seems many people don’t think he deserves it. For example, the Toronto Star claims that ‘praise and shock greet Obama’s Nobel win.’ Why is this though? Like Canadian Hip-Hop innovator D.O. tweeted, ‘big up Obama on the Nobel prize! i hate when people say he hasn't accomplished anything... open your eyes!’ Clearly, people are keeping their eyes closed to the partial list of accomplishments above.

We need more leaders like Obama. And we also need more people like the Large Dead Lizards and D.O. out there speaking truth to the masses and letting everyone know that Obama not only deserves this award--he deserves it by a mile! 

So everybody start tweetin’ and facebook updatin’! Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and the future is looking brighter!

Announcing my Pollution Kills tour with Lady Gaga

The other night I was hanging out with my thirteen year old cousin when I remarked that Lady Gaga might not be that supremely great at singing, kinda looks mannish, and wears, let’s say, the most interesting costumes. Basically, my point was that I don’t get Lady Gaga and am perplexed by her popularity. So you can imagine my surprise when my cousin replied with something along the lines of: “omg, I know, everything she does is so kewl. Just everything. I don’t know how she does it.” At that point it became clear to me that the two of us would have a great deal of trouble discussing what is ‘cool’ because the word ‘cool’ has such vastly different meanings to each of us.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I had a very similar experience recently while reading Large Dead Lizards concerning the word science. Or should I type ‘science?’ I cheerfully started reading a recent post by one of the lizards with the title: The Sound of Settled Science which began with the line: The science on Global Warming is now, without a doubt, settled

Obviously, I knew I was in for some thoughtful, coherent and timely reading. But believe it or not, the ‘science’ they referred to supposedly demonstrated that climate change is not happening and, according to some commentators, lots of carbon in the atmosphere isn’t a long-term problem.

Like debating ‘cool’ with my cousin, I know I can’t constructively debate ‘science’ with this particular lizard (in fairness to my cousin, she does know cool better than me). Our definitions of the word are just too different. So I’m not going to try. The truth is, over the long haul, all science is wrong or, at least, still to be improved or refined -- in other words it is a work in progress. Who would have thought Newton could be wrong/incomplete -- but Einstein had something to say about the fundamental properties of the universe. And of course, no one understands quantum physics. 

Instead I’m going to pose a challenge to all those who doubt the climate is changing (and remember, Sarah Palin believes the climate is changing). Let’s agree that pollution harms human beings. So it’s bad to breathe polluted air and it’s bad to drink polluted water and it’s bad to touch polluted things. Therefore, we should have laws that reduce pollution. Surely, you’re still with me right lizard? In the past environmental laws have been very successful at reducing air and water pollution. I believe we even have laws restricting the level of lead in things in our homes. 

Now here is the challenge: Help pass environmental legislation that reduces pollution instead of just yelling “I don’t believe in climate change!” If you disagree with a particular ‘solution’/‘bill’ to this problem then propose another one that meets your standard of actually reducing pollution and improving human health. If you don’t do this you start to sound like all you really want to do is oppose any ‘liberal’ idea and I’ll start to get the impression that you don’t have any ideas of your own.

So... is pollution bad lizard? Can you acknowledge it’s harmful effects and propose some solutions?

p-p-p-p-pokerface! errr dammit! G-Unit!

Lady Gaga I tried, I really did

Hello all, my name is Curtis and I’m one of the g-unit bloggers. You might be wondering what ‘granola unit’ or ‘g-unit’ means... I honestly don’t know. Personally I voted for the title: Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi -- but you can’t win ‘em all.

Now I will freely admit that I was inspired to get involved in the Canadian political scene by an American -- Barack Obama -- but one of my goals is to keep my Obama references to a minimum in this blog. I often find, even for an Obama devotee like myself, that good blogs can really degenerate into an Obama lovefest if they aren’t careful. What he’s done is truly amazing but the world doesn’t need to hear your thoughts on every little thing he does. 

A good example of this is the formerly readable blog Large Dead Lizards. This is a blog that every now and then used to contain some pretty good insights into the Canadian political scene that has really just become an Obama lovefest. Like I said, I love the guy but the mainstream media gives him enough coverage in my opinion. Case in point, on October 4th LDL had 4 posts about Obama and a search for the word Obama on their front page delivered 22 matches. 22! Come on people, there is more to the world than The One!

Honestly, I prefer to read about someone’s UFC picks (especially when I know my picks are better: Go Silva!) rather than how much you love ObamaCare because Americans will finally be getting the good health care us canucks have had for 800 years (actually, I’m not a student of history so that number may be off by a little).

In fact most Canadians don’t seem to realize that Obama doesn’t even necesarily want a public health care system... but that’s too much Obama for now. I’m going to sign off.

puh-puh-puh-puh pokerface! err.... I mean, guh-guh-guh geeee-uuuunit!