"It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation," he wrote, adding: "If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments - because we care about the commandments - there is nothing wrong with the murder."

I'm neither a believer nor a scholar, merely an innocent (I thought) bystander... I never heard of the Seven Commandments before this. From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahide_Laws

The Seven Laws of Noah, often referred to as the Noahide Laws or Noachide Code, are a set of seven moral imperatives that, according to the Talmud, were given by God to Noah as a binding set of laws for all mankind. According to Judaism any non-Jew who lives according to these laws is regarded as a Righteous Gentile and is assured of a place in the world to come (Olam Haba), the Jewish concept of heaven. Adherents are often called "B'nei Noach" (Children of Noah) or "Noahides" and may often network in Jewish synagogues.

The seven laws listed by the Tosefta and the Talmud are

1. Prohibition of Idolatry: You shall not have any idols before God.

2. Prohibition of Murder: You shall not murder. (Genesis 9:6)

3. Prohibition of Theft: You shall not steal.

4. Prohibition of Sexual Promiscuity: You shall not commit any of a series of sexual prohibitions, which include adultery, incest, bestiality and male homosexual intercourse.

5. Prohibition of Blasphemy: You shall not blaspheme God's name.

6. Dietary Law: Do not eat flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive. (Genesis 9:4)

7. Requirement to have just Laws: Set up a governing body of law (eg Courts)

The Noahide Laws comprise the six laws given to Adam in the Garden of Eden, and a seventh (eating flesh from a living animal), which was added after the Flood of Noah. Later at the Revelation at Sinai the Seven Laws of Noah were regiven to humanity and embedded in the 613 Laws given to the Children of Israel along with the Ten Commandments, which are part of, and not separate from, the 613 mitzvot. These laws are mentioned in the Torah. According to Judaism, the 613 mitzvot or "commandments" given in the written Torah, as well as their reasonings in the oral Torah, were only issued to the Jews and are therefore binding only upon them, having inherited the obligation from their ancestors. At the same time, at Mount Sinai, the Children of Israel (i.e. the Children of Jacob, i.e. the Israelites) were given the obligation to teach other nations the embedded Noahide Laws. However, it is actually forbidden by the Talmud for non-Jews (on whom the Noahide Laws are still binding) to elevate their observance to the Torah's mitzvot as the Jews do.

The Ten Commandments apply only to Jews but the Seven apply to all of us.

If one needs to reduce my point to a single sentence, one can try this:...

That is an admirably long sentence. Reminds me of the time I stopped reading Moby Dick after going back to the beginning of a sentence I was reading and had to go back 16 pages.

OK, the number of pages has increased over years of telling the story. I no longer remember the actual length but it was a really long sentence.

When I click on "continue reading," I don't get the rest of the post. I even tried opening it in another window, but that didn't work either.

I have not read all letters yet so I apologize if someone else addressed this. You may have javascript disabled. Be sure to enable it for salon.com.

Remember how, during the Bush years, the GOP would disgustingly try to equate liberals with Terrorists by pointing out that they happened to have the same view on a particular matter (The Left opposes the war in Iraq, just like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah do! or bin Laden's criticisms of Bush sound just like Michael Moore's! ). It looks like the Democratic Party has learned and adopted that tactic perfectly...

The tactic is the same but the result is not. Republicans ignore any criticism of them but Democrats always bristle. The MSM (the conservative echo chamber) knows which of those results play better on TV.

There have been staggering choices over the years including mass murderers and war criminals as others have pointed out. So why the surprise and outrage? Even if we agree that Obama hasn't "done much," surely he is not in the league of evil-doers like Henry Kissinger!

Like any group or association that honors people, the Nobel committee does so for their own reasons. Let them. Who cares? Personally, I hope Obama does reject the award as premature or accept it as a challenge to do something. I only hope it is the right thing.

Ha ha, I think the Nobel Prize is a joke and the punch line is that it will be the war-mongering neo-cons who will be most "outraged" that Obama has won this award. What? you mean he hasn't done enough to get us out of Bush's wars? This award that your whole politico-religion mocks?

If Obama does reject it (he won't), the neo-cons will find some reason to be "outraged" by his rejection. "What kind of socialist would reject $1.4 million!" or "Obama rejects Peace! (all you peace-loving liberals come over to our side! We do what we say!)"

Oh my. Sorry to take up your time.