Like Michael Moore appears to suggest, I think the Nobel committee's strategy in awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is to encourage him on the path toward which he has made some baby steps, rather than as an acknowledgment of "mission accomplished" and, if so, I wholeheartedly agree with their decision. Of course, it may well all come to nothing, but what would you suggest? It seems to me that President Obama can do nothing right according to those who by their discourse and behavior place themselves at the farther reaches of the political spectrum. I would suggest that he be given a chance -- he may well surprise. Miracles, though, is something he can't do.

I never grow weary of saying this about certain individuals, like the abovementioned drama queen: He is a legend in his own lunchtime.

I think the entire issue is laughable. This isn't "discourse," it's down-in-the-dirt, pure and blatant propaganda of the sort that has come to represent discourse in America, ably abetted by a media that ceased being relevant a decade or more ago (as shown by their feeble, tepid, I'll lay down, you rub my belly response to Bush's trampling of the Constitution in the wake of 9/11).

At the root of it appears to be a conviction that Americans (and humans in general) are stupid, infinitely malleable creatures who will buy anything. Although some small minority may well fit that description, the overwhelming majority do not.

In a world where almost anyone can communicate with everyone instantaneously, we need a media that can sift through the mountains of dross generated daily and report the significant stuff, not add to the mountains of dross.

As a regular viewer of this odd program -- via our premium cable service here in Australia -- I'm disappointed in advance if we don't get to see the extra episode that's on the DVD. First, we pay enough to view the show every month (it's near the end of its first season here) so if the extra episode is not shown here I will deem the show's creators to be money-grubbers of the worst, but all too prevalent, kind. Second, if this kind of behavior is going to be adhered to in the next season of the show, we might well ignore it on the cable and wait until the DVD comes out -- and we will be sure to let our cable provider and the channel it's shown on know all about it.

Next week I will not remember writing this comment, and will write about how excited my better half and I are that the second series of True Blood is starting here next month.

Isn't television wonderful?

Good article, Dr. Parikh, thank you.

I ceased reading Huffpo mainly because of its promotion of woo -- snake oil such as acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, and so on ad nauseam. I live in an evidence-based world, and time's too short to be wasted on "advice" that has no supporting evidence. Going to the Huffpo for medical advice is akin to visiting an astrologer for financial advice, yet that is what people do when they rely on Huffpo instead of science.

People are free to believe whatever they want to, of course, but much of the nonsense peddled by some of the writers at that site is potentially dangerous, even lethal. Two recent cases attest to this.

The first occurred in my homeland of Australia, where the homeopath parents of an infant chose to treat a simple case of eczema with homeopathy instead of seeking medical assistance, which resulted in the infant's totally unnecessary death from a preventable infection. The parents were tried and found guilty in a court of law.

The second case occurred in the U.S., and concerns the death of an eleven-year-old girl after her parents, devout Christians, declined medical intervention for their sick child, preferring to "pray" her to health.

Both cases illustrate a retreat from solid, evidence-based medical science in favor of beliefs that are based on nothing more than imagination and wishful thinking.

Thanks again for your article. I would hope to see many more such articles in well patronized places such as Salon. The lives of many more innocent children may depend on it.

@all the rightwingnuts vomiting their vile tripe here and elsewhere: I find it incredibly disturbing that your and Glenn Beck's DNA* appears to share more than a passing resemblance to mine.

Mother nature surely skipped a step there, somewhere.

*(biochemistry) a long linear polymer found in the nucleus of a cell and formed from nucleotides and shaped like a double helix; associated with the transmission of genetic information

I've long suspected that if you put anyone in front of a camera and an open mike and allow them to say whatever comes into their minds, sooner or later they will say something that they - and we - might regret. With her comments about the moon landing I think Whoopi has managed it, just like O'Donnell did with her thoughts about the 911 horror.

I call such belief in the improbable and implausible, or the downright ridiculous, the manifestation of one's woo spot: an area of one's mind in which fantasies flourish and truth almost never visits. We all tend to have a woo spot, although we rarely broadcast its contents to the world, unless one is Fred Phelps, Sean Hannity, or Whoopi.

Of course I, being of sound and rational mind, eliminated all things woo from my mind a long time ago.

Now excuse me while I massage my chakras.