Dean's World

As expected, Al Gore has won the Nobel Prize for Peace, along with the entire UN Intergivernmental Panel on Climate Change. Reportedly, Gore will donate his half of the $1.5 million prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Of course, as Christopher Hitchens also noted a few weeks ago, this event puts the question of whether Gore will run for President into renewed focus.

and, in case my own preferences aren't obvious, RUN, AL, RUN!

I don't like Al Gore. I didn't like him when I voted for him in 2000, and I didn't like him when he was #2 to Clinton - who I liked and voted for twice.

I also don't buy the Anthropogenic Global Warming faith that he leads.

But for a moment, I'm trying to set these biases aside - no easy task, but I'm trying.

And I can't help but ask the Nobel committee... Is this the best you've got?

When you consider all the people and organizations in the world who "have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses" - does Al Gore really top the list?

Doesn't Aung San Suu Kyi deserve it again considering what she - and her nation - has endured? How about one of the hundreds, thousands, millions who are working to make this world a better place yet aren't as high profile or well known? $1.5 million dollars would have made quite a gift to a small charity fighting female circumcision in Africa, or tending the sick in Sierra Leone or Darfur. It also would have had a greater impact today with those suffering.

Really, biases aside. Is this the best you've got?

Or is it yet another political act by an organization that relishes attention?