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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elsewhere who wrote (81635)	3/12/2003 10:10:29 PM
From: Sig	Respond to of 281500

Re Nobel Laureates nobelprizes.com There are 39 living Peace prize winners With a bit of addition - there were 8 awards of Peace prizes in last 5 years out of @65 total Nobel winners Assuming chemists, economists, etc live as long as the peace prize winners there would be roughly 325 living nobel winners, of which 42 signed the document , and 283 who did not sign IE about 13% of living Nobel winners signed the document opposing unilateral war Sig .

To: Elsewhere who wrote (81635)	3/12/2003 11:54:53 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

article re Blair : Weary fundamentalist refuses to shift from his spooky certainty Simon Hoggart Thursday March 13, 2003 The Guardian There you are, if you're Tony Blair, up that well-known creek without a paddle. Then you hear a roaring noise behind you, and it's a speedboat, a Rumsfeld Mk 1, which races past you at 40 knots, creating a 10ft wake, slopping brown fluid all over you. What do you do? Well, you pick yourself up, have some menial brush you off, and start all over again. At least that's what the prime minister did yesterday, at what must have been his scariest question time ever. Bizarrely, it wasn't too difficult. Even Labour MPs deeply opposed to the war are coming to terms with Mr Blair's certainty, his hard, fundamentalist conviction. Wouldn't you be spooked if he turned up at your door, just as you were sitting down to tea, all smart in his suit and tie, briefcase full of leaflets? "Hello, I'm here to tell you the good news about going to war with Saddam Hussein." "Sorry, we're all Jehovah's Witnesses in this house." He isn't going to back down. They know that now. And if he was forced to resign, who would replace him? Robin Cook? Charles Clarke? John Reid? MPs shudder. Or Gordon Brown? Puh-leeze. The very notion brings them out in goose pimples. Nor Clare Short. Ms Short's conscience resembles her washing, including knickers, out on the line in a posh neighbourhood. They know it's there, but they don't want to see it, and they certainly don't want it billowing over their gardens. Ms Short has done her boss a lot of good. Mr Blair arrived looking chipper and cheery, as he always does when the going is tough. It was the rest of the cabinet who looked grim, staring down at the floor, gazing into the middle distance; or, in the case of John Prescott, letting his legs do an endless nervous jig, like Michael Jackson dandling a baby on his quivering knees. Then he began to speak. We've heard it all before, but this time he sounded tired and hoarse. His throat is going - for goodness sake, let someone send Fisherman's Friends to Downing Street - and at one point there seemed to be a coughing competition between him and Iain Duncan Smith, as if their gobs would meet alarmingly across the dispatch box. IDS was unhappy about having to take the prime minister's side. So he asked about Clare Short instead and her use of the word "reckless". "Your big tent cannot be big enough to include Ms Short and Donald Rumsfeld. It's time for you to choose. Which is it?" Mr Blair affected a mental weariness to go with his physical tiredness. "I do honestly say that the most important thing for us to do is to come together, as a house, never mind as a government or a country." The gist seemed to be "how can you point out that we are disunited when we should be united. Eh?" Labour's Tony Wright pointed out, with chapter and verse, that American rightwingers, including Donald Rumsfeld, had been looking to overturn Saddam without UN support since Clinton days. Mr Blair said ruefully that he couldn't answer for every individual in every administration around the world - "including my own". It was the first sign of humour. Not exactly Eddie Izzard, but a sign that he wasn't quite finished. Vincent Cable, a Lib Dem, pointed out that all the contracts for rebuilding Iraq were going to American firms, one of which was associated with vice-president Cheney. "President Bush regards war as an opportunity to dish out contracts to his cronies!" He got the biggest cheer of the day. The prime minister merely said he disagreed. He was too tired to argue. He seems too tired for anything. Let's hope it's all over quickly. We have schools and hospitals which need some attention. guardian.co.uk