Maybe they should give Nobel Peace Prizes the way you properly tip folks you depend on -- beforehand, to encourage better service

"Ms. Valle said she hoped that Mr. Obama's victory would be seen not only as a victory for him, but 'as a tribute to the healing power of beer.'"

-- from yesterday's Borowitz Report

by Ken

Personally, I think Andy Borowitz nailed this Nobel Peace Prize business:

Nobel Insiders: Beer Summit Sealed it for Obama
Rose Garden Bash Gets High Marks in Oslo

OSLO, NORWAY (The Borowitz Report) -- As the world responded with a mixture of surprise and amazement to the announcement of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel insiders revealed that the President's "beer summit" at the White House put him over the top.

"The committee was definitely split down the middle right up until the end," said Agot Valle, a Norwegian politician and member of the five-person Nobel committee. "Some of them were still quite upset about that nasty business with the Somali pirates."

But, according to Ms. Valle, "someone brought up the beer summit, and we all agreed that that was awesome."

Ms. Valle said she hoped that Mr. Obama's victory would be seen not only as a victory for him, but "as a tribute to the healing power of beer."

Ms. Valle acknowledged that the President's win was widely considered an upset, with most pundits having expected the prize to go to Mad Men or 30 Rock.

Elsewhere, NASA bombed the moon, saying it was the one spot President Bush missed.

Makes perfect sense to me. The Olympics people were just too greedy, too focused on having their outstretched hands filled, to register appreciation for this sort of nuance. Honestly, why isn't Andy Borowitz invited onto the Sunday political gabfests and the cable-news nets to teach all those yawning heads working their jaws endlessly to no point?

Viewed more conventionally, of course the award of the Nobel to President Obama at this point is premature -- particularly when you consider the point at which the nomination would have to have been made. At the same time, it serves as a reminder of just what a suckhole the neocon loons have turned this country into in the eyes of the world. Bear in mind that any pretense anyone connected to the Bush regime may have made about desiring peace was a crock of doody, belied by every action they took.

Those demented devils wanted war in every diseased cell of their putrid carcasses. They lusted after it, the way sane people might crave a luscious meal or good sex. To the rest of the world we became the ravaging Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan. We shouldn't underestimate the importance of turning that perception around as quickly as the new president seems to have.

Now if only he'll live up to that early promise.

But it occurs to me that giving him the Nobel now may simply be an application of my friend Richard's approach to tipping. He tips early and often, and the results are so striking, it's hard to understand why everyone doesn't do the same.

Most people think of tipping as a reward for services rendered. If they get good service, it's their privilege to tip well; if they get bad service, they express their righteous displeasure by cutting back, or even stiffing the miscreant. That'll show him or her!

Except it doesn't. Mostly it tells the recipient that you're a cheap SOB and probably shouldn't have gotten as much service as you did. And the generous tip works for you only if you're going to be getting service from that server on a regular basis, and in that case you're really tipping, not on past performance, but on future expectations and hopes.

Richard applies that principle all the time. When he has people he's going to be dealing with on an ongoing basis -- hotel staff at the start of a stay, attendants at a parking lot or garage or gas station he uses regularly, tradespeople and delivery persons of all persuasions -- he makes his appreciation conspicuous at the outset. Some people regard this as foolish or even inappropriate, a violation of what they consider the "tipping covenant": reward good service, punish bad service. Well, they're entitled to their opinion. And it'll give them something to think about while Richard's needs are being attended to ahead of theirs.

So why not apply the same principle to the Nobel Peace Prize? Just think of it as a really sweet tip. You don't give it indiscriminately; there wouldn't have been any point, for example, in giving Chimpy the Ex-Prez a preemptive Nobel. The six or seven working cells in his primitive reptilian brain appear to have lit up at the mere thought of being a "war president." Or maybe it was being a "peace president" -- he always had trouble keeping them straight. Which the one with the bombin' and killin' and maimin' and devastatin' and all that other cool stuff? That's the best fun a sociopath can have when he can't be executin' convicts.

Not to mention how yumptious war, like every disaster, was for all those sleazy corporate predators who put Chimpy in the White House. These are businesspeople, after all. They expect a return on their investment.

This Obama fellow, though, seems to have a basic grasp of war (bad, to be resorted to only when inescapable) and peace (good). So maybe it's worth a Nobel gamble.

Now, Mr. President, all you have to do is earn it.

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