It will be difficult to reform this gelatinous mess into one gelatinous brick

Sarah Palin officially announced she will not be running for president but still has plans to ride around in her tricked out bus. (WashingtonPost)

The Occupy Wall Street protests are spreading; similar protests have sprung up in DC, Boston, LA, Chicago, Iowa, Salt Lake City, Connecticut, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. (WashingtonPost, The Daily Iowan, The Salt Lake Tribune, North Branford Patch, Fox, NBC)

After a helicopter spiraled out of control and crashed into the East River, New York officials are reviewing helicopter traffic laws. Hopefully they make one against spiraling out of control and crashing into the East River. (ABC, CBS)

Columbia Medical school professor, Dr. Goluboff, allegedly committed fraud against Medicare “by overbilling and by billing for unneeded tests.” (Chronicle of Higher Education)

 
Bwog extends its heartfelt congratulations to Dr. John D. Clarke, MD, FAAFP, and (evidently) badass MC, whose anti-H1N1 rap beat out over 200 competitors to win Flu.gov’s 2009 Flu Prevention PSA Contest.

Looks like Clarke, who graduated from Columbia’s very own medical school, returned to Alma Mater to earn his MC as well: his swine-bashing video is filmed on the overpass between EC and the rest of the world, with the law school, Amsterdam Avenue, and assorted academic buildings in the background.

In the minute-long PSA, a lab-coat clad Clarke spits lyrics such as “Hand sanitizer I advise ya get it, why?/it makes germs die when you rub and let it dry” over an impressively catchy beat. Check it out- this just may be the best informational music video since back in ’86, when another doctor taught us all to stroke.

Image via Daily Intel

But only if you’re in the Law School or SIPA. Columbia’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs announced the complete list of Class Speakers today, and joining Attorney General Eric Holder are many other famous names to prop up the 22 various Class Day and Commencement ceremonies taking place between this Saturday (the B-School) and next Thursday (Law School and Dental School).

Among the big names: former California governor Gray Davis at the Law School graduation, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft at SIPA’s Commencement, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall at the J-School’s Class Day, New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman at the Med School graduation, and senior advisor to Hillary Clinton Phillipe Reines at General Studies’s Class Day. Of course, some of the speechifying talent isn’t travelling very far: professors Jagdish Baghwati and Jeffrey Sachs will be speaking at the Ph.D. convocation and the Dental School graduation ceremonies, respectively.

Our favorite detail, though? Both J-School ceremonies are “closed to the media.” Full list after the jump. Read more…

Uh well, yikes: a husband and a wife have been arrested for trying to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from Columbia. John Bzdil III and his wife Heather Brooke Rinehart scammed the University by sending in fake invoices that somehow, in fictitious criminal land, related to the Pediatric Neuroscience department at the Med School, of which Bzdil is the former manager.

They also tried to bill personal items — like their own wedding (at the pretty fancy looking Skytop Lodge, in Skytop, Pennsylvania) — to the University.  They managed to steal about $200,000 in total.

Documents detailing the team’s corruption after the jump.

Read more…

Living in a thriving Democracy means having your NROTC vote stolen.

Native American Columbia students, voiceless no longer. 

Have you taken a gander at MARSLAC? 

Sing along: “Oh, who owns New York?”

Columbia on its way to discovering the cure to cancer.

Catch your first glimpse of the new permanent dean of the medical school — it’s no LandryView.