This is the sort of facoid that used to make computers in old sci-fi shows go into recursive loops and explode.

Bush, Blair Nominated for Nobel Prize for Iraq War

Dumbfounded? See also the Reuters version.

I feel my brain overheating already.

UPDATE: Not this year:

Geir Lundestad, the director of the Nobel Institute where the five-member committee meets, said Simonsen's proposal would have to wait for the 2004 award because the deadline for nominations for 2003 passed on February 1.

MEANWHILE, CBS MarketWatch reports that Fidelity executives went to Washington to tell President Bush that the firm's investors are behind his stimulus plan.

Fidelity's shameful partisan politics
Commentary: Firm wrongly claims to speak for its investors

Has Fidelity crossed the line? Yes, and here's why. Fidelity manages $1.4 trillion of assets for a total of 18 million investors. Only after its management announced their support for the president's stimulus plan did they decide to survey 559 of their 7 million retail customers.

A "livid" investor encouraged me via e-mail to check out Fidelity's Web site. What I found there amounts to a political advertisement that might cost a registered lobbyist more than $100,000 if it were a full-page ad in a national publication reaching an audience of 18 million people. Here's the message:

"You can help eliminate the taxes you pay on dividends and boost the economy... The cornerstone of President Bush's economic stimulus plan seeks to eliminate the double tax by excluding dividends from your individual income tax. Fidelity believes President Bush's proposal is good for individual investors and the U.S. economy, and encourages you to voice your support to Congress." . . . Look, I don't care if you love President Bush's stimulus program or you hate it. I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. None of that matters.

This is not a political issue. Your politics are irrelevant. Yes, mutual funds are political animals, but fund managers should not become partisan lobbyists. Spending investor money to promote the political agenda of one party is a breach of fiduciary duty.

. . . and the plot thickens:

The New York Times reports that:

When the Republican leaders of the House defied President Bush last week and dropped his plan to eliminate the tax on dividends, liberals were not the ones high-fiving each other victoriously in the hallways.

It was, in fact, the most conservative members of the House who enjoyed a moment of triumph, thrilled that one of their most cherished goals, reducing the tax on capital gains, might now have a real chance of passage. . . . Democrats consider the capital gains plan even worse than the president's dividend tax cut, noting that capital gains are concentrated even more heavily among the wealthiest Americans. "The Thomas bill actually, and I never thought I could see this, gives a greater benefit to millionaires than the president's original bill," said Representative Robert T. Matsui, Democrat of California.

So . . . the Clinton-era surplus is gone because the stock market went down that was because of capital gains taxes, because if people don't have capital gains, then they don't pay the tax, right?

So, they want to reduce (or eliminate) capital gains taxes so that . . . ? The rich can get richer? No?

Oh, I get it! So we won't have another surplus? Right? So they want to preemptively take any possible government surplus and give it to the rich so they can be richer? And their riches will trickle down upon the rest of us who are busy paying down the national debt. Or something.

DIVISION BY ZERO ERROR.

daaaaisy daaaaisy, give me your answer, doooooooo . . .