Nobel Nonsense

In keeping with the quality of decision making that gave Nobel Peace Prizes to Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho, the Swedes gave this year's prize to the incompetent director of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. This guy was recently appointed to a third time, despite objections from the U.S.:

ElBaradei, who was reappointed last month to a third term, has had to contend with U.S. opposition to his tenure. Much of the opposition stemmed from Washington's perception that he was being too soft on Iran for not declaring it in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (search). That stance blocked a U.S. bid to haul Tehran before the U.N. Security Council for more than two years.

He also refused to endorse Washington's contention that Iran was working to make nuclear weapons and disputed U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq had an active atomic weapons program — both claims that remain unproven, despite growing suspicions about Tehran's nuclear agenda.

This is another example of the Nobel committee trying to make a political statement against the U.S., much as they did when they awarded the prize to the incompetent Jimmy Carter.

In what was clearly a wiser decision, the Ig Nobel Prize committee gave the award for medicine to the guy who created fake dog testicles. Here are some of the other Ig Nobel winners:

Some, like Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who won the biology prize, actually nominated their own work. "I've been a fan of the Ig Nobels for a while," he said.

Smith's team studied and catalogued different scents emitted by more than 100 species of frogs under stress. Some smelled like cashews, while others smelled like licorice, mint or rotting fish.

He recalled getting strange looks when he'd show up at zoos asking to smell the frogs. "I've been turned away at the gate," he said.

This year's other Ig Nobel winners include:

— PHYSICS: Since 1927, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have been tracking a glob of congealed black tar as it drips through a funnel — at a rate of one drop every nine years.

— PEACE: Two researchers at Newcastle University in England monitored the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star Wars."

— CHEMISTRY: An experiment at the University of Minnesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water.

The Ig Nobel for literature went to the Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters ... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled."