As you know, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday.

At first, I thought it was some sort of joke. And then I decided it actually was. “Wow. They’re giving them out to everyone now, aren’t they?”

The sentiment is not mine alone. For example, Ana Marie Cox, National Correspondent for Air America radio, wrote on Twitter, “Apparently Nobel Prizes are now being awarded to anyone who is not George Bush.”

After much debate, I think we’ve finally zeroed in on why Obama received the prize. It’s for his extraordinary effort, as Jerry Salcido reports at the Campaign for Liberty, “at bringing peace to the anti-war movement.” This has allowed him to further implement the peace-keeping missions created by his predecessor and the predecessor before that.

This should not come as a complete surprise. Nobel Peace Prize laureates over the past decade have included the UN, for their extraordinary efforts to promote endless bickering between national governments; the International Panel on Climate Change, for their extraordinary efforts to build up and disseminate greater myths— er, I mean, “knowledge,” about the global climate; and most importantly, Al Gore (for inventing the Internet).

(Yup. That joke still works.)

Your Own Peace Prize

In the spirit of the Nobel, I’m instituting my own peace prize. I haven’t given it a name yet— but I know that I don’t want my name on it. (Feel free to suggest names along with your contest entries below.)