Breaking out of Oslo: Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, together with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC.

The New York Times:

OSLO, Oct. 12 — The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its work to alert the world to the threat of global warming.

The award is likely to renew calls from Mr. Gore’s supporters for him to run for president in 2008, joining an already crowded field of Democrats. Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has said he is not interested in running but has not flatly rejected the notion.[...]

The Bay Area has been the staging area for an online movement to draft Mr. Gore to mount another campaign for the White House. A San Francisco-based Web site, www.Draftgore.com, claims more than 165,000 signatures and comments on an online petition, including several placed early this morning congratulating Mr. Gore on his win.

The same group also placed a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Wednesday, pleading with Mr. Gore to rectify his bitter defeat in 2000, when he won the national popular vote but lost the electoral college after the Supreme Court ruled against a recount in Florida.

Run, Al, run. Your country needs you.

Interesting morning, isn't it. The trains are all flooded. The tracks between Lawrence and Court in Brooklyn lost power due to flooding. My co-worker was stuck getting from Governor's Island. Sewage was backing up in my apartment (despite my building's $300,000 sump pumps, but at least the pumps kept the backup from becoming the fountaining river it used to be). The research facility I work at in Manhattan is flooded in the basement (I don't have access to the animal facility, so I can't check it, but it is in the basement!) and the elevators are out. And Brooklyn, technically speaking, had a tornado.