Arnie Carlson Would Be Proud

Rightie bloggers are always so rabid in their hatred of the Minneapolis StarTribune that we often forget to bash the other main bastion of local liberalism, the tax-wasting University of Minnesota. Oh sure, we're willing to get riled when the 25,000 who regularly attend Gopher football demand $350 million for a new stadium so they can see their team play Louisiana Lafayette in style. However, there just isn't enough criticism of the culture of mediocrity that makes the U an abhorrent educational institution.

However, someone is paying attention. Our local university recently won a prestigious award called the Ig Nobel Prize. Surprisingly, it wasn't the massively over-funded women's studies department, but a real science department that took the honors. The U's Chemistry department funded a study with your taxpayer dollars (Minnesota readers) worthy of an Ig Nobel. The winning entry: An experiment designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water.

Just in case you believe that this might be a real prize and not an insult, please note that the winner in the medicine category was a guy who invented fake dog testicles to improve the self-esteem of pups who had been neutered and the peace prize was granted to an experiment that monitored the brain activity of locusts as they viewed the Star Wars trilogy.