A Nobel Prize for GW Bush? Surely Mr Simic is being comedic!

Al Gore isn't an academy award winning actor, or even an actor. The film he produced - An Inconvenient Truth - won oscars for best documentary and best original song.

I would agree that Arafat, Kissinger, and (probably) Fleming weren't deserving.

But Philipp Lenard? He won his prize in 1905, well before German nationalism was considered uncouth. Churchill won an award well after the war and it was revealed just a few months ago he tried to negotiate an alliance with germany in '32. And Lenar's contribution was to cathode rays! If it wasn't for LCD I would most likely be staring at his life's work as I write this spiel.

Anyway, the coolest thing about Alfred Nobel's will is that he makes it very clear that the prize should be awarded regardless of race, creed, or political persuasion.

Tesla, Edison and Mendeleyev are all deserving in my opinion. But Ghandi? A crude, hypocritical individual who was more than happy to sit back and let others do his fighting for him, and has left a legacy of violence in the conflict between India-Pakistan.