From the inbox. To the Editors: I'm in Oslo (on one of the three days in the year anybody in the world pays attention to Norway-the other days are the day the prize is actually handed out and the day the entertainers at the Nobel Prize Concert are announced) and I can tell you the people who work in the relevant sections of the Foreign Ministry are extremely glad that their Nobel Committee did not award the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident. There would have been diplomatic protests from testy Chinese, lots of troublesome questions, much work for diplomats! (Do not want!)

However, Norwegians are just as embarrassed as The Awl is that their Nobel Committee gave the prize to Obama basically for not being George Bush. Not that not being George Bush is not considered prizeworthy here, but it has occurred to people that candidates from other countries than the US could have been considered, that nobody knows exactly what our Barry is going to do in Iraq & Afghanistan-potential embarrassments there!

Anyway, for what it's worth, Norway not Sweden. The newspapers here have fun printing a little list every year of all the foreign media outlets who made this mistake, so you may be one of the chosen!