In 2007, a 97-year-old Polish woman named Irena Sendler was nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. During World War II, she saved 2500 Jewish children from the Nazis through a network that hid them from the Nazis with Polish families and in Catholic churches and convents. For her activities, Sendler was arrested and tortured, her arms and legs broken. She would have been executed but for a well-placed bribe that won her release. After the war, she was also persecuted by the Polish Communists.

That year’s Nobel Peace prize went not to Sendler but to Al Gore, a serial self-promoter who personally contributes as much to global warming as many small American cities.