No stranger to controversial choices, the Nobel Committee has awarded its 2010 Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Robert Edwards of Cambridge University, who, along with the late Australian Dr. Patrick Steptoe, developed in vitro fertilization. In terms of impact, the award is fitting. In vitro fertilization techniques isolated the earliest stages of embryonic human life from the female body and, since 1978, allowed for the conception and birth of more than 4 million children to infertile couples. The Nobel Committee chose to focus, understandably, on these results. But other …
President Obama has lavished time and attention on Europe in spades. He made Europe his first foreign port of call after his inauguration and since then has visited at least eight European countries (plus Russia). His popularity ratings in most of Europe, especially in Western Europe, would make the average Hollywood A-lister blush. He has even been referred to in some quarters as “the first European President of America.” And some in Europe – the utopian European elites and chattering intellectual classes of Brussels – are pretty pleased. President Obama …
Does Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance violate the Constitution? Interesting question. Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution says that: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. An emolument is a prize arising from office or employment, usually in the form of compensation or perquisites. By everyone’s …
In an interview last year, Dr. Elinor Ostrom the recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the first woman to receive prize in economics, offers some tremendous insight. She stresses adaptation over a one-size-fits-all approach and says she doesn’t “think it’s possible just to have a nice little neat optimal plan.” With the climate change conference in Copenhagen coming in December, Elinor Ostrom’s point about international agreements is especially relevant: Recognizing that this is something that must be done at multiple levels, so what I am concerned about …
