Nobel peace prize

The unexpected choice of President Obama is puzzling. Did the selection committee really think this through in terms of the reality of Washington and what Obama is fighting these days? I would argue that Copenhagen did him less harm by turning down the Chicago Olympic bid, than Oslo by selecting him ,9 months into his term, and as he struggles with a 50 % approval rating in the U.S.
The Conservative opposition( pure hatred of anything he does ) loves it !Your thoughts will be most welcome.

Perceptions

Most Swedes who visit Canada really like the country But to live here? Despite being a rich and blessed country, Canada performs very poorly in most,UN and Oecd(organization for cooperation and development ) studies. One example recently in a UN study we finished 25 of 25 countries ,passing in but one criteria. Sweden # 1 passing in all ten.It was nice that we beat you around that time in the World Junior hockey but... Unfortunately not an isolated measure; we are usually at the bottom of some 25 ind. in poverty,transparency of government, global warming progress..the list goes on. I care and bombared editors with letter as to my thoughts but am more interested in how you Swedes feel. Do you care about such things,do high taxes bother you (probably 50 to 100 % higher than ours),do you feel that your coalition governments do basically work for the betterment of all Swedes etc.We cling to an outmoded system ( only the UK , the U>S(well,does anyone really understand theirs) and Canada maintain it. It is first past the post vs single vote proportional representation basically. The result...last election the Green vote,almost 1 million, resulted in 0 seats in our over 300 seat Parliament. Not too Democratic,I think. But we are a young country.
Most interested in comments and perspectives.

As a news-junkie,am interested in opinions of relatives in Sweden about...well,really not anything specific but certainly perceptions we have about our two countries in such areas as government,how democratic are we,image we are trying to project in the world++. But sports,the arts,our troubled neighbour the U.S.(Obama does need a holiday, most Republicans would prefer it was a permanent one!),a very eclectic approach would be appreciated. And ,yes, philosophy Hans. As a startdo we agree that things are good or bad ,only to the degree that our minds are affected by ..whatever?Believe I am quoting Spinoza.Dick