turkey/armenia

http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSL9617197

This is kind of shocking. In a good way. After refusing to let anyone talk or write about it (to the point of locking up all kinds of authors and artists, and forcing others into exile), Turkey seems to be right on the edge of fessing up to the WW1 badness, and engaging in some sifting of the history.

It's amazing the kind of pressure that can be brought to bear by the carrot of joining the EU. Soft power in action, for sure.

hey, do not underestimate a bunch of Norwegians

I realize there's a whole lot of wtf going on about the peace prize going to Obama, but come on. The irritating missiles have been canceled. Russia is acting all happy about us. There's cooperative action on reducing the global nuclear threat (which includes us, after all, as the only people who have actually used nuclear weapons to attack others). This isn't worth a peace prize? They've used that prize before as a carrot to reward people for taking important early steps and to encourage them (and others) to continue.

Maybe someone else _really_ should have gotten it instead. But you can _always_ say that.