{"id":183121,"date":"2015-03-05T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/03\/05\/normally-this-level-of-incompetence-at-this-level-of-status-results-in-a-promotion-not-a-demotion\/"},"modified":"2015-03-05T19:30:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T00:30:00","slug":"normally-this-level-of-incompetence-at-this-level-of-status-results-in-a-promotion-not-a-demotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/03\/05\/normally-this-level-of-incompetence-at-this-level-of-status-results-in-a-promotion-not-a-demotion\/","title":{"rendered":"Normally, this Level of Incompetence at this Level of Status Results in a Promotion, not a Demotion"},"content":{"rendered":"

But it appears that the Norwegian culture is different form ours, as former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland has been demoted from his position as head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s Nobel peace prize committee has demoted its chairman, Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland, in a move unprecedented in the long history of the award.<\/span>

<\/span>The committee, which said the former Norwegian prime minister would remain as a committee member, gave no reason for its decision.<\/span>

<\/span>However, the renowned diplomat drew criticism shortly after becoming committee chairman in 2009 for awarding the prestigious Nobel to newly elected US president Barack Obama.<\/span>

<\/span>The move stunned the world and the recipient alike, as Obama had been in office less than nine months and the US was waging simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/span>

<\/span>After six years at the helm of the committee, Jagland, 64, will be replaced by deputy chair, Kaci Kullmann Five, the organisation said on Tuesday.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cThere was broad agreement within the committee that Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland was a good chair for six years,\u201d Kullmann Five told reporters, but declined to comment on the discussion.<\/span>

<\/span>Commentators and former Nobel laureates had criticised the committee\u2019s decisions under Jagland\u2019s stewardship.<\/span>

<\/span>Hitting back at critics after Obama\u2019s prize, Jagland said the organisation wanted to praise the US leader\u2019s early vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and capture \u201cthe spirit of the times, the needs of the era\u201d.<\/span>

<\/span>Last year, a federal study estimated that the US will spend $1tn (\u00a3649bn) upgrading its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ohhh \u2026\u2026\u2026 Bummer of a birthmnark, Thorbj\u00f8rn. <\/p>\n

Your award recipient is responsible for more spending on nukes than the rest of the world combined.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>And in 2012 Jagland became the face of a body that handed the award to the European Union for its commitment to \u201cpeace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights\u201d.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cThe EU is clearly not the \u2018champion of peace\u2019 that Alfred Nobel had in mind when he wrote his will,\u201d Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in an open letter with two other former laureates.<\/span>

<\/span>Jagland, a former leader of Norway\u2019s Labour party who has served as prime minister, foreign minister and speaker of parliament, spent much of his career trying to bolster support for Norway to join the EU.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the that<\/b> award appears to be an attempt to political agenda that he has personally held for years.  (And then there is the whole thing that the EU seems like the most forceful attempt at German hegemony in Europe since that bloke with the funny mustache)<\/p>\n

It is rather unsurprising, that Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu roundly condemned the selection of the EU as, “Clearly not the \u2018champion of peace\u2019 that Alfred Nobel had in mind when he wrote his will.”<\/p>\n

Oh Snap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But it appears that the Norwegian culture is different form ours, as former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland has been demoted from his position as head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee: Norway\u2019s Nobel peace prize committee has demoted its chairman, Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland, in a move unprecedented in the long history of the award.The committee, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1056,975,984,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charity","category-employment","category-europe","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}