Why the European Union Won the Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee for Perpetual War-Profiteering Guilt has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 to the European Union. Officially, the prize was given "because union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe" but we know the real reasons…

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Tags: Europe, Nobel Prize

Tweet Untweet: Preemptive Prizes

Today in 2009, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No, we don't know why, either.

— Disalmanac (@Disalmanac) October 9, 2012

Tags: Barack Obama, Nobel Prize, Tweet Untweet, Twitter

U.S. Government Wins (Ig) Nobel Prize

Thanks to President Obama, the U.S. government already has a Norwegian Munitions-Manufacturing War Guilt Memorial Peace Prize winner, even if the recipient is setting some kind of record for the highest ratio of drone strikes to Peace Prizes.

With the addition of the president's two Grammy awards for the voice recordings of his books and his Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards, the U.S. government is just a Literature Prize short of a GLAP (Grammy, Literature, Advertising, Peace), the lesser known cousin of the EGOT.

Thanks to the efforts of the Government Accountability Office and the graciousness of the Ig Nobel Prize committee, organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research, we are finally GLAPing. The GAO won this year's Literature Ig Nobel thanks to a report it prepared for the Pentagon, titled Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of Reports and Studies…

We are making a recommendation to the Secretary of Defense to take steps to evaluate DOD’s effort to estimate costs to determine whether that effort is having the desired effect of achieving greater transparency, reducing or eliminating reporting requirements, and raising cost awareness.

In other words, this prize was won for "for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."

This should qualify them for the actual Nobel Prize in Physics: forget turtles, when it comes to the fabric of the universe as seen from Washington, it's paperwork all the way down.

Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

Tags: Books, Government Accountability Office, Nobel Prize

Tweet Untweet: Coming to Second Terms About Gay Marriage

There should be a Nobel prize for whoever can fully explain the current Obama/Biden view on marriage equality.

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 6, 2012

Tags: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Marriage Equality, Nobel Prize, Tweet Untweet, Twitter

Quote Unquote: Obama 2012 App

User comment on the Obama 2012 iPad app…

"Obama 2012 just doesn't work! When I click *close gitmo* it starts a war in Libya. When I click *Nobel Peace Prize* it errors out and increases unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan!"

And I'll tell you what else, this app is pretty awful at protecting personal information.

(via Reddit)

Tags: Barack Obama, Guantanamo Bay, Libya, Military, Nobel Prize, Pakistan, Quote Unquote, Science & Technology