New siRNA Nanobot Cancer Treatment

In the new Nature there’s a paper on a recent study of attacking cancers with siRNA (small interfering Ribonucleic Acid strand) Nano-bots that looks very promising. More here:

Short sequences of RNA that can effectively turn off specific genes have for the first time been used to treat skin cancer in people.

The technique, called RNA interference (RNAi), gained its inventors a Nobel Prize in 2006, but researchers have struggled to get it to the clinic, partly because of problems in getting the molecules to their target.

Now, Mark Davis from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues have found a way to deliver particles containing such sequences to patients with the skin cancer melanoma. When analysing biopsies of the tumours after treatment, they found that the particles had inhibited expression of a key gene, called RRM2, needed for the cancer cells to multiply. Their research is published today in Nature

Havasu Moon

We are in Lake Havasu right now packing up mom after her cancer treatment, and we will be hitting the road to ferry her back home and to her second round of treatments later this week. (After two full rounds of Taxol treatments it’s time to switch since the cancer she has now has mutated and evolved to a state that’s resistant to Taxol.)

Here’s a picture I took  the other night from the deck.

AGW: Still Very Real Despite all the Luddite Mobs Trying to Storm the Castle

covers several of the recent climate denialist headlines, which almost always get things exactly wrong or backwards.

Peter Sinclair covers several of the recent climate denialist headlines, which almost always get things exactly wrong or backwards.

ACLU Takes Mississippi Bigots to Court Anyway

In a recent controversy a shcool in Mississippi canceled the Prom because the bigots in the school administration did not want to allow a lesbian to attend with a female date or to wear a tuxedo. The cancellation was to prevent being taken to court by the ACLU, but now they are going to court regardless. Way to go ACLU – replace “lesbian” with black, Jew, Indian, or Amish and you can see how this is clearly discrimination and how it deserves it’s day in court. The move by the school admin is discrimination, and is bigotry. Parents in the Itawamba district need to reconsider what kind of education their children are getting in a district where exclusionary bigotry like this is supported by the school board.

From the article:

Jackson, MS– The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against a Mississippi school board after a decision was made to cancel the high school prom. The Itawamba County School District’s refusal to change their policy on allowing same-sex dates to be admitted to the dance prompted their decision to cancel the prom altogether. The suit, filed in federal court on Thursday, March 11, 2010, contended the school board violated a student’s First Amendment right to free expression, according to information provided by USA Today.

Previous post: Narrow Minded Bigots Cancel Prom and Spite Everyone

Narrow Minded Bigots Cancel Prom and Spite Everyone

Bigots from the Religious right have canceled a school prom when they were challenged by a lesbian who wanted to bring her girl friend and who wanted to dress in a tuxedo.

Bigots from the Religious right have canceled a school prom when they were challenged by a lesbian who wanted to bring her girl friend and who wanted to dress in a tuxedo. What kind of educators teach gay exclusion and bigotry?

The Mainstreaming of Extremism on the Right

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok details the rise in militia, patriot, and extremist groups last year. The factor that he misses in this video however is not the rise of these groups, but rather their wider acceptance. Mainstream center right and even right-right politicians of years past would never have spoken at a convention co-sponsored by groups like the Oathkeepers and John Birch Society as this year’s CPAC event was.

There’s also no doubt that some of the leadership of the Republican Party is definitely pandering to these paranoid fools.

These radical right nutballs and dirtbags have always been out there, and Mark even mentions some of the outcomes of the past paranoia uprisings in the video, but they’ve never been accepted by the mainstream right like they have this past year. It’s highly disturbing  that fear, paranoia, and angst have replaced leadership, direction, and principle on the right. It’s why I refuse to call myelf a conservative anymore because if Oathkeepers, the John Birch Society and what I saw at CPAC this year are what it means to be conservative, then  I don’t want any part of it.

References for those who might not understand some of the Kookspiracy theories and groups mentioned in the video

New World Order Conspiracy Theory

The Turner Diaries (a book cited and read by many militia leaders and supremacist terrorists like Tim McVeigh)

You should also note that the 9/11 truthers are right in step with this kookspiracy surge, and that there are many crossovers such as Phillip Berg and others.

Lastly, here’s an example of one of the leech pundits, (also a truther) who makes his living feeding this paranoia. Lately you’ve seen him linked by mainstream right news sites like Drudge. His predecessor in the survivalist ’80’s was Howard Ruff — indeed you have to wonder why some of the new paranoia pundits haven’t been sued for plagiarism by the old school doom-criers, since most of the new doomsters are merely retreading old trash.

Bottom line: You have a lot more to worry about from Right wing Whackos like Oath Keepers or this “Operation Exodus” guy forming a police state or militia in your area than you do from President Obama and Fema camps. If the idea of un-elected and unappointed senile old farts with fifty cals thinking they are the law doesn’t bother you then I don’t know what will.