Rush Limbaugh for a Nobel Prize

We had heard months ago that Rush Limbaugh was "nominated" for a Nobel Peace Prize along with Vice President Al Gore. We did not realize that people were still taking this seriously until it was brought to our attention again today by Brian Beutler.

First of all, Nobel Prize nominees are kept quite secret, and the leak of Al Gore's name from two members of the Norwegian Parliment was very unusual. Thing is though, they did have the right and ability to actually nominate someone, so we can safely assume that Al Gore is in fact being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. Then some idiots from "the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation nominated another American political figure for the prize: syndicated radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh." Thing is, they aren't on the Nobel committee as far as we can tell, so they have no more authority to nominate Limbaugh, than if we wrote a letter nominating our pet lizard Millhouse for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

I seem to remember that there was some other right wing-wanker, who was "nominated" for a Nobel Prize last year, but maybe this is just the second year in a row that Rush thinks he is on the super secret ballot. If you remember hit us up in the comments.

And now for why the think tank, and now others piling on believe Rush should receive the Nobel Prize for Peace ...

Get ready for it ...

This issue I’m speaking of is the epidemic of malaria in third-world countries. As you know (or should know), malaria kills more than one million people a year and infects hundreds of millions every year. There is a scientific consensus that the best -- and in many cases the only -- effective way to control the mosquitoes that spread this deadly disease is with the insecticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, otherwise known as DDT. But DDT unfortunately has been vilified by advocacy groups and the popular press based on junk science.

Over the past decade and a half, Mr. Limbaugh has been at times almost a lone media voice correcting misinformation about DDT and also pointing out its life-saving benefits against diseases like malaria. Mr. Gore, by contrast, has continued to spread DDT myths as well as misleading information about the causes of the malaria epidemic.

Before I go further, let me add this caveat. It would be perfectly understandable to me if neither Mr. Gore nor Mr. Limbaugh became the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. There are many worthy of this honor in America and around the world. But if Mr. Gore is under serious consideration as a Nobel candidate, Mr. Limbaugh should also be considered under the same criteria.

Wow. So they think Rush deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for fighting a war against a straw man! DDT was outlawed for agricultural use because of its enourmously harmful affects on animals high in the foodchain, especially fish eaters, like bald eagles and toher birds of prey. It has also been shown to cause cancer in humans. Thing is, DDT was banned in the US in 1972 and by most countries by the 198o's as an agricultural insecticide, but could still be used for mosquito abatement.

The Stockholm Convention, ratified in 2001 and effective as of May 17, 2004, outlawed several persistent organic pollutants, and restricted the use of DDT to vector control. The Convention was signed by 98 countries and is endorsed by most environmental groups. Recognizing that a total elimination of DDT use in many malaria-prone countries is currently unfeasible because there are few affordable or effective alternatives for controlling malaria, the public health use of DDT was exempted from the ban until such alternatives are developed.

See Rush, "vector control" includes using DDT to fight mosquitos (the vector of malaria)! So much in fact that the Malaria Foundation International had this to say about the agreement: "The outcome of the treaty is arguably better than the status quo going into the negotiations over two years ago. For the first time, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before"

Plus DDT is already tied to a Nobel Prize when "The Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller of Geigy Pharmaceutical in Switzerland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1948 'for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods.'" We know the Nobel committee does not like to double dip.

The real questio is why is Rush Limbaugh, so concerned with increasing the use of DDT. Is it because he genuinly has a huge heart and wants to help Africans and Indonesians and his is ill-informed? Or is he being paid to shill for the pesticide lobby? Or does he just want to piss off "envronmentalists." My guess would be with one of the latter two.

Now is Al Gore deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize ... probably, but I am sure there are others that are even more deserving. Heck, Bill Richardson is probably more deserving. But Rush Limbaugh ... what a joke.

Please people, the Stupid it Burns!