A day after the Nobel Committee named two Americans the winners of its prize for medicine, the august body named two more Americans the winners of its prize for physics. John Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California won based on their work detailing with greater precision the "big bang" that started the universe billions of years ago. What? Hold on a second. Billions of years ago? The universe was created 6,000 years ago. Take back the award! (I keed! I keed!) Anyhow, in a slight improvement over the award for medicine, Americans, and people affiliated with American institutions, have won a share of the award in ten of the last ten years. I would say that when it comes to science and medicine, America is like the New York Yankees. But the Yankees only win the big one every five or so years. Americans win these Nobels almost every year. So, instead, I'll say that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, and Mexico are like the Los Angeles Clippers of science and medicine.

Dan,
if you refer to the Clippers baseball playing performance I concur wholeheartedly.

I don't know if this was Webster's point, but the Clippers are good now. They made it Western Conference Semifinals (second round) and lost to Phoenix in 7 games. They will certainly be in the playoffs again this season. Perhaps the Atlanta Hawks make for a better comparison.