One is the graphic slaughter of an elephant by GoDaddy.com’s CEO, in some misguided attempt to help some poor Zimbabweans protect their crops and get some protein at the same time (um..huh?!). Boy am I glad we took our websites off GoDaddy!

And then there’s the Scarlet e-Letter. Third year student Alexandra Wallace had to leave the UCLA (dropped out?) because of the outrage, including harassment and death threats to her family, on the heels of her YouTube rant against Asians. Check out this video. As a bonus, the guy’s voice ain’t half bad, so I voted for him (clicked on the thumbs up) for YouTube NextUp!
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Image from babynursingblog.com

Really?? A “leftist agenda” of a “nanny state”? I especially love the bashing of Michelle Obama’s breastfeeding advocacy after Palin’s own breastfeeding initiative in 2007.

Why people choose leaders with nothing constructive to add to the dialogue except to auto-bash the other party’s efforts is beyond me. Great quote from one of the commenters to the above blog post:

“Empty vessels make the loudest sound, they have the least wit and are the greatest blabbers” Plato

And a shame that people blindly follow.

Get updates on both the companies and physicians from Dollars for Docs at ProPublica.org. InsideCounsel.com explains:

Employers in all industries face the challenge of implementing changes in their employee benefit plans as a result of the sweeping health care reform program that became law in March (see “Examining the New Health Care Law”). But health care providers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers face even more change as a result of “sunshine” and “integrity” provisions of the new law.

Included in the massive legislation is the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which requires drug and device manufacturers to make annual federal disclosures of their financial relationships with, and in-kind contributions to, physicians and teaching hospitals. The reports will be available to the public via an online database. While some states already require such disclosures, the new law is the first federal transparency requirement for the health care industry.

“The sunshine provisions for the first time on a broad-based national basis would require the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and devices to report payments that they make to physicians,” says Laura Keidan Martin, a partner in the health care practice at Katten Muchin Rosenman. “It requires disclosure of every transfer of cash, in-kind consideration or stock. Every dinner a sales rep has with a doctor now will have to be reported. It’s very controversial because physicians feel it is an invasion of privacy, but the point is the public should know the relationships that their physicians have.”

And here’s one physician’s take on drug reps and the practice of pharma’s direct-to-consumer marketing, on Medicine in Plain Words:

Make no mistake, some patients are quite sick and need to take medicine, some need to take a lot of medicine in order to function at a level meaningful to them.  But we all need to remember that TV commercials are not there to educate us, they are there to sell a product.  In the case of this product (pills), the company needs a middle man (your doctor) to close the sale.  Taking a daily pill is a big commitment and should not be taken lightly.

On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge. Jews and atheists/agnostics stand out for their knowledge of other world religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism; out of 11 such questions on the survey, Jews answer 7.9 correctly (nearly three better than the national average) and atheists/agnostics answer 7.5 correctly (2.5 better than the national average). Atheists/agnostics and Jews also do particularly well on questions about the role of religion in public life, including a question about what the U.S. Constitution says about religion.

Take the Religious Knowledge quiz from the Pew Forum and compare yourself with the average American! And check out the following video from PBS about the roots of American religious identity:

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Stephen Colbert (a comedian!) testifies (satirically!) under oath before the US congressional subcommittee hearing, on the plight of migrant farm workers and the immigration reform. Via The Hill: “I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican, I want it picked by an American,” Colbert said, appearing to parrot statements made in the past by Republicans. But then he continued, “And sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan, in a spa, where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.”

Is anyone else shocked by this? …anyone? I swear my buddy Bill Tucker and all the bloggers writing this up is pulling my leg. But it looks like a real C-SPAN coverage…

RT @alexlobov on twitter, who is perpetually tuned in to the broad scope of news around the world, says: “Haha. No it’s definitely cspan. Hell, if Elmo can testify in character, why not Colbert? ;-)”