NOBLE PRIZE---ONLY TWO COUNTRIES OUT OF THE WHOLE WORLD AWARD THIS....SO BIG DEAL
. . .What makes Sweden and Norway so special that they play God and hand out these Nobel awards? One of their countrymen decided to hand out these awards , via a committee, after his death. The left wing Noble Foundation nominated B. Obama after only two weeks in office. What does that tell you? They love up and comers who will tilt the U.S. off the left side of the wall? Even though ballots are sent out to various members of these categories, asking them to submit names into nomination, this year hardly seems appropriate at all as the man has accomplished nothing, especially anything relative to Peace.
So who is this guy who was so egotistical that he felt worthy of annoiting a few men every year whether there was a general Global consensus or not?
Alfred Nobel
A pacifist at heart and an inventor by nature, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. However, the invention that he thought would end all wars was seen by many others as an extremely deadly product. In 1888, when Alfred's brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper mistakenly ran an obituary for Alfred which called him the "merchant of death."

Not wanting to go down in history with such a horrible epitaph, Nobel created a will that soon shocked his relatives and established the now famous Nobel Prizes.
Again, who was Alfred Nobel? Why did Nobel's will make establishing the prizes so difficult?
Alfred Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1842, when Alfred was nine years old, his mother (Andrietta Ahlsell) and brothers (Robert and Ludvig) moved to St. Petersburg, Russia to join Alfred's father (Immanuel), who had moved there five years earlier. The following year, Alfred's younger brother, Emil, was born.
Immanuel Nobel, an architect, builder, and inventor, opened a machineshop in St. Petersburg and was soon very successful with contracts from the Russian government to build defense weapons.
Because of his father's success, Alfred was tutored at home until the age of 16. Yet, many consider Alfred Nobel a mostly self-educated man. Besides being a trained chemist, Alfred was an avid reader of literature and was fluent in English, German, French, Swedish, and Russian.
Alfred also spent two years traveling. He spent much of this time working in a laboratory in Paris, but also traveled to the United States. Upon his return, Alfred worked in his father's factory. He worked there until his father went bankrupt in 1859.
Alfred soon began experimenting with nitroglycerine, creating his first explosions in early summer 1862. In only a year (October 1863), Alfred received a Swedish patent for his percussion detonator - the "Nobel lighter."
Having moved back to Sweden to help his father with an invention, Alfred established a small factory at Helenborg near Stockholm to manufacture nitroglycerine. Unfortunately, nitroglycerine is a very difficult and dangerous material to handle. In 1864, Alfred's factory blew up - killing several people, including Alfred's younger brother, Emil.
The explosion did not slow down Alfred, and within only a month, he organized other factories to manufacture nitroglycerine.
In 1867, Alfred invented a new and safer-to-handle explosive - dynamite.
Though Alfred became famous for his invention of dynamite, many people did not intimately know Alfred Nobel. He was a quiet man who did not like a lot of pretense or show. He had very few friends and never married.
And though he recognized the destructive power of dynamite, Alfred believed it was a harbinger of peace. Alfred told Bertha von Suttner, an advocate for world peace,
"My factories may make an end of war sooner than your congresses. The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops.*
Unfortunately, Alfred did not see peace in his time. Alfred Nobel, chemist and inventor, died alone on December 10, 1896 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.
After several funeral services were held and Alfred Nobel's body was cremated, the will was opened. Everyone was shocked.
The Will
Alfred Nobel had written several wills during his lifetime, but the last one was dated November 27, 1895 - a little over a year before he died.
Nobel's last will left approximately 94 percent of his worth to the establishment of five prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace) to "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."
Though Nobel had proposed a very grandiose plan for the prizes in his will, there were a great many problems with the will.
Relatives of Alfred Nobel were so shocked that many wanted the will contested.
The format of the will had formal defects which could have caused the will to be contested in France.
It was unclear which country Alfred had his legal residence. He was a Swedish citizen until age nine, but after that he had lived in Russia, France, and Italy without becoming a citizen. Nobel had been making plans for a final home for himself in Sweden when he died. The location of residency would determine what country's laws would govern the will and the estate. If determined to be France, the will could have been contested and French taxes would have been taken.
Because Nobel had wanted the Norwegian Storting (parliament) to choose the peace prize winner, many charged Nobel with a lack of patriotism.
The "fund" that was to implement the prizes did not yet exist and would have to be created.
The organizations that Nobel named in his will to award the prizes had not been asked to take on these duties prior to Nobel's death. Also, there was no plan to compensate these organizations for their work on the prizes.
The will did not state what should be done if no prize winners for a year were found.
Because of the incompleteness and other obstacles presented by Alfred's will, it took five years of hurdles before the Nobel Foundation could be established and the first prizes awarded.
The First Nobel Prizes
On the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, December 10, 1901, the first set of Nobel Prizes were awarded.
Chemistry: Jacobus H. van't Hoff
Physics: Wilhelm C. Röntgen
Physiology or Medicine: Emil A. von Behring
Literature: Rene F. A. Sully Prudhomme
Peace: Jean H. Dunant and Frédéric Passy
* As quoted in W. Odelberg (ed.), Nobel: The Man & His Prizes (New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1972) 12.
From Alfred's will: History of the Nobel Prize
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 | 4:34 PM ET
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter receives his Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10, 2002, from Gunar Berge, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Carter was recognized for his humanitarian work in the Middle East and Haiti, among other global trouble spots. (Reuters)
The Nobel Prize is one of the world's most coveted awards, carrying international prestige, a hefty cash award and, at times in its history, considerable controversy.
Named after Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, the prizes have been awarded nearly every year since 1901. (There were breaks during each of the two world wars.)
The Nobel Foundation administers the honours, which were first established in Nobel's will. Prizes are handed out in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.
Nobel laureates have spanned worlds of expertise and points of view, from Mother Teresa to Yasser Arafat to Marie Curie. Leading lights such as Frederick Banting, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and George Bernard Shaw have also been honoured throughout the years.
Over the years, several Canadians have been joined this elite company, including 11 who have earned Nobel prizes in the sciences.
The selection process
When Nobel died in 1896, leaving his fortune to be used to create the Nobel prizes, his will stated he wanted to reward those "who during the preceding year shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."
The will also named the groups that would award the prizes: the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (medicine), the Swedish Academy of Sciences (chemistry and physics), the Swedish Academy (literature) and a committee of five people to be selected by the Norwegian parliament (peace).
Economics, which would be added as a separate prize in 1968, would be awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.
As outlined in the will, the prizes would be awarded without regard to nationality. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma and a cash award. The amount of money available for each prize varies from year to year. For 2009, the Nobel Prize amount is worth about 10 million Swedish kronor or about $1.5 million Cdn.
There are rules for who can nominate, varying slightly depending on the award. Each year, the Nobel committees send invitations to thousands of members of academies, scientists from numerous countries, previous laureates and others, asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes in that year's competition.
Winners are announced in October, followed by the awards ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The peace prize is presented in Oslo and the others in Stockholm.
Criticism of the award
The Nobel Prize has had its controversial moments: the 1994 peace award to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that he shared with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin garnered widespread criticism.
The decision sparked demonstrations in Israel, and one Nobel judge resigned in protest, arguing that Arafat's violent past disqualified him.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "one of the low points of the Nobel Prize" in a 2002 interview.
The Nobel committee's secretary, Geir Lundestad, told the Boston Globe: "The Nobel Prize isn't the granting of sainthood. There have been many winners with dark things about their past, but they have managed to raise themselves above them."
Six Nobel laureates have declined the prize, including three German scientists who were ordered not to accept the award at the beginning of the Second World War.
Jean Paul Sartre, the existentialist French philosopher and writer, became the first person to voluntarily refuse the prize in 1964. According to a public statement, Sartre said he had a policy of not accepting public honours and he did not mean to slight the Nobel Foundation.
Quick facts
In 1901, the award was worth 150,782 Swedish kronor ($22,994 Cdn). The 2009 prizes are worth 10 million kronor ($1.5 million Cdn).
The Nobel Prize medal. (Reuters)
No posthumous prizes are allowed. Before 1974, someone who had been nominated but later died could get a prize. The rules were changed so a prize can only go to a deceased person who had won the prize, but died before receiving it, as in the case of William Vickrey, who won the economics prize in 1996.
The youngest winner is Lawrence Bragg, who was 25 years old when he received the physics prize with his father in 1915.
The oldest winner is Raymond Davis Jr., who was nearly 88 years old when he received the physics award in 2002.
Linus Pauling is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes (chemistry in 1954 and peace prize in 1962).
George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have won both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar (Nobel for literature in 1925 and the Academy Award for best screenplay for the film adaptation of Pygmalion in 1938).
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