TimesOnLine - The Nobel Peace Prize is a notoriously difficult award to predict, but yesterday's decision was clearly a political choice, with three of the past six peace awards going to Bush adversaries.

In 2002 the prize went to Jimmy Carter as an explicit rejection of the Bush presidency in the build-up to the Iraq war. In 2005 Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN atomic agency chief who had clashed with Washington over the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was honoured. In 2007 Al Gore received the prize for his warnings on climate change, denounced by President Bush as a liberal myth.

KISIT21 - The initial reaction this morning, across the board was, surprise, too soon, and what has he done? Obama himself said he was "shocked". He was nominated for the award about 12 days into his presidency. This is 6 days after SNL finally and accurately criticized BHO for not accomplishing anything. Note on SNL skit; CNN did a segment on fact checking the accuracy of SNL. I don't remember them doing that to Bush and Palin.

NYT - KABUL, Afghanistan — A car packed with explosives blew up beside the Indian Embassy on Thursday morning, leaving 17 people dead in what India’s foreign secretary said was a direct attack on the embassy compound, the second in two years.

The bombing comes at a delicate moment. President Obama is deciding whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, as the top military commander here, Gen.Stanley A. McChrystal, has advised.

Larry Kudlow - ...year-to-date, while the S&P 500 is up 18 percent—a great showing no doubt—gold is up even more. The precious metal is up 21 percent. In other words, measured in true, gold-backed purchasing power, stocks have really done nothing this year. Zip. It is most disappointing.