Oslo > Copenhagen. Wow.

I literally could not believe the news this morning that President Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. I'm still surprised, but it is a happy, proud sort of surprised. Our president really is that awesome, apparently.

I definitely think that the concerns about the award becoming a potential liability are well-founded, but if nothing else, it's an extraordinary statement of faith on behalf of the prize committee, and hopefully, as the president said, it will be a "call to action" for people in the States and around the world, to meet him halfway.

Of course, it's also an extraordinary thumb in the eye to the Bush administration by the prize committee. The 2007 prize, awarded to Al Gore [ETA: and the IPCC] for his their work on climate change, was basically the committee saying to the adminstration, "Die in a fire!" (and the administration's positively tepid response to an American winning the prize was the equivalent of "No you!"). Still, rather than "absit omen," I say "sit omen," and hope that there are even better days to come--not to mention a real (because just and nuclear-free) peace.