Nicholas Kristof -- who does the lord's work -- was on Stephen Colbert this week talking about his Sunday column on endocrine disruptors and their impact on water animals and humans. "We don't know for sure that these chemicals are harmful," Kristof writes in a follow-up. "But the evidence is mounting."

Kristof got interested in the issue after watching Hedrick Smith's Frontline special, "Poisoned Waters." He wonders if today's frog deformities from agricultural chemicals is somehow linked to the explosion of cases of hypospadia in human beings. The key is endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. Phthalates, used in plastics, are significant endocrine disruptors and there may be a connection with hypospadias. These are questions have have to be asked with great seriousness. If anyone can find humor in this grim issue, it is Stephen Colbert, who also, in his own fashion, does the lord's work with levity.