This year the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen deigned to flip over their “[pretty nearly] no girls allowed” sign on the clubhouse door, as apparently 2009 was “a record year for female Nobel Prize winners:

This year a record five women were honored by the Nobel committees. In total, only 40 women have won the prestigious prizes, including Marie Curie who took the 1903 physics prize and the 1911 chemistry prize.

The Nobel Prizes have always seemed to me to be one of those self-defining, self-sustaining units, like the entertainment, fine art, and fashion worlds. The central figures  create their own definitions of what is exceptional and/or “groundbreaking” work, and then hand out “prestigious” awards for it.  The implication to the world is that these people’s achievements, in these specific subjects, are the most note-worthy — when in fact their selection is subject to the same biases of any highly insulated, elitist group.

Since they started awarding, 40 have gone to women, 765 to men. I’m sensing a pattern here.

But even the obvious (but not surprising) sexist bias of the League takes a back seat to their shameless politicking:  Obama takes home the Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Subtle!

Obama’s done fine so far. Maybe a hiccup here and there but at least he hasn’t started any illegal wars. But come on now. How extraordinary can his efforts have been this early in the game?

There were more than 200 other nominees for the Peace prize. It’s a good bet that at least one of those peacenik’s efforts have been extraordinary for longer and at much greater risk and sacrifice. They just had the bad luck to get nominated so soon after the Evil One was kicked out of office and the League of Extraordinary Gentleman has to let the world know they approve.

Now they’re going to go get shitfaced and teach him the secret handshake.