House Votes to Extend $31B in Tax Breaks
Set to Expire at Year's End, Tax Breaks Will be Funded by Taxes on Investment Managers and International Tax Cheats
Peace: Pursuit of the persistently elusive

by Mark Silva

On his way to Oslo tonight to collect the Nobel Prize for Peace, President Barack Obama certainly has considered these words as he prepares to deliver his own:

"We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary.''

-- Theodore Roosevelt, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1906

"If there were but one such prize, or if this were to be the last, I could not of course accept it. For mankind has not yet been rid of the unspeakable horror of war. I am convinced that our generation has, despite its wounds, made notable progress. But it is the better part of wisdom to consider our work as one1 begun. It will be a continuing labor. In the indefinite course of [the] years before us there will be abundant opportunity for others to distinguish themselves in the crusade against hate and fear and war.''

-- Woodrow Wilson, telegram accepting Nobel Peace Prize, 1919

"Let us dare to face the situation. Man has become superman. He is a superman because he not only has at his disposal innate physical forces, but also commands, thanks to scientific and technological advances, the latent forces of nature which he can now put to his own use.....

"However, the superman suffers from a fatal flaw. He has failed to rise to the level of superhuman reason which should match that of his superhuman strength. He requires such reason to put this vast power to solely reasonable and useful ends and not to destructive and murderous ones. Because he lacks it, the conquests of science and technology become a mortal danger to him rather than a blessing.''

-- Albert Schweitzer , Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1954

"The word that symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it seem appropriate to award a peace prize to one identified with struggle. Broadly speaking, nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has meant not relying on arms and weapons of struggle. It has meant noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional aspects of a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant direct participation of masses in protest, rather than reliance on indirect methods which frequently do not involve masses in action at all...

"Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed.''

-- Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1964

" If someone had told us in 1945 that in our lifetime religious wars would rage on virtually every continent, that thousands of children would once again be dying of starvation, we would not have believed it. Or that racism and fanaticism would flourish once again, we would not have believed it. Nor would we have believed that there would be governments that would deprive a man like Lech Walesa of his freedom to travel merely because he dares to dissent. And he is not alone. Governments of the Right and of the Left go much further, subjecting those who dissent, writers, scientists, intellectuals, to torture and persecution. How to explain this defeat of memory?''

-- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1986

"Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations. Peace is movement towards globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now. Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences. And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.''

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1990

Senate Democrats Near Deal On Health Care

Senate Democrats may have reached a compromise among some of its liberal and conservative members that could pave the way for passage of a sweeping health care overhaul before Christmas. The package reportedly contemplates redefining the public option to allow nonprofit insurers to sell policies regulated by the government, and may include allowing baby boomers to buy into Medicare early.