Good news:

Turkey and Armenia have signed a historic accord normalising relations after a century of hostility. The deal was signed by the two foreign ministers after last-minute problems delayed the ceremony in Switzerland. Under the agreement, Turkey and Armenia are to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their shared border.

Some Armenians aren’t happy about this. Tellingly, opposition seems especially concentrated in the diaspora community where they don’t need to worry about little things like the concrete ways in which reconciliation will benefit Armenian people. At any rate, times like this one can only wish there were some sort of widely-known prize that was awarded to peacemakers.

The Washington Post editorial page reacted to Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize win by suggesting that the prize should have gone to the late Iranian protester Neda, arguing that “a posthumous award for Neda, as the avatar of a democratic movement in Iran, would have recognized the sacrifices that movement has made and encouraged its struggle in a dark hour.”

But of course as James Fallows notes posthumous Nobel Prizes are not allowed. The sloppiness, combined with the decision to editorialize on the subject of who should win only after the prize had already been handed out, makes the whole thing look like a rather slipshod slam on the President rather than a serious idea about the Nobel Prize.

Speaking of slipshod, check out Fred Hiatt’s defense of his decision to run multiple factually challenged op-eds by GOP legislators on the subject of the czar pseudo-controversy. He says “Actually, [he] did question” the facts in the op-ed, but having questioned the facts he doesn’t seem to have been phased by the fact that the alleged facts he published in his newspaper were wrong. Matt Corley observes:

Even though people publicly pointed to inaccuracies in Cantor’s article, the Post nevertheless allowed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) to publish a piece in September making almost the exact same claims. “A few of them have formal titles, but most are simply known as ‘czars,’” wrote Hutchison, which is not true.

In her comments to Time, Dunn specifically griped about the Post running the claim that all the so-called “czars” bypassed Senate confirmation, despite the fact that many of them did go through that process or hold positions statutorily created by Congress. In fact, the Politico list that Hiatt cites in his defense makes this issue clear.

I wonder what value the higher-ups at Kaplan Test Prep think is being created by the Post’s opinion section. It can’t be monetary value, right?

USA defeats Honduras in un-American football to secure our spot in the World Cup. Even better, I’m back in the United States in time to watch some American football. In this age of globalization, a lack of football is really holding Europe back.