as I live a few more questions

Scientists Find Cancer Cure, But Big Pharma Isn't Interested

The drug dichloroacetate appears to target cancer cells, causing them to die. Its potency as a cancer killing agent has been tested in tissue cultures and mice, with very promising results.  However, clinical trials need to be run. Since the drug is not patentable and can be produced very cheaply, pharmaceutical companies won't fund those trials.

Why isn't this story front-page news in every newspaper?  Just because there's no pharmaceutical industry PR firm handling it?  This Canadian scientific discovery has appeared in very, very newspapers, one among them being The National Post:

A simple molecule, used for decades to treat children with rare metabolic diseases, commits "immortal" cancer cells to a natural death and could soon be used to treat many forms of cancer, according to a new study.

University of Alberta researchers were excited to discover that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast and brain tumours.

"It's important for the future of cancer," said Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the University of Alberta's department of medicine and an author of the study. (Source: Leong, Melissa. "Cancer finding hailed", National Post, January17, 2007)

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Bridezilla Meltdown: And you thought YOU were having a bad hair day....

This video starts off with three bridesmaids sipping champagne and making last minute adjustments to their outfits, waiting for the bride to show up from her hair appointment and put her wedding dress on.  I won't spoil the rest, but trust me on this: If you ever thought that YOU were having a really bad day, you ain't got NOTHING on this bride!  This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on YouTube, and the fact that it showed up there at all, probably means that she's not speaking to at least one of her bridesmaids anymore!

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2nd: Turns out this was a hoax.

(Source: I found this via Lainey's Entertainment Update, a great Hollywood gossip blog)

Intervention?

If I'm addicted to Intervention, do I need an Intervention intervention?  At least I'm not the only one:

I’m an addiction addict.  And, yeah…I can totally stop on my own, but now is just not the right time, okay?

The one addict from Intervention that haunts me is Kelly F. from Episode 10 (image left), a beautiful blond man hell-bent on alcoholic self-destruction.  He agrees to go to rehab only because it means he can get his dog back, the only creature he appears to care about.  But the first thing he does after leaving rehab is buy beer.  A drunk panhandler who lives on the street, he eventually loses his beloved dog.  About a year after the episode aired, viewers of the TV show cross paths with Kelly F:

My wife and I were vacationing in Las Vegas on 11/12/2006 when we were sitting at a traffic light in our convertible and were approached by yet another beggar. This particular beggar however my wife instantly recognized from an Intervention episode. Neither of us could remember his name at the time but we both remembered that he was a skater from California with a beer addiction who so dearly loved his dog Odie. Although I recognized him myself once my wife said, “hey, weren’t you on A&E”, I am very sad to say that he looks nothing like he did on the show. He looks at least 10 years older and had a large abscess on his right lower jaw, and although I am not a doctor, I would be very surprised if he lasts another year.

This sort of story just tears my heart out.  Totally engaged, I sit there on the couch and talk to the TV set: "How can you be so stupid?"  "Omigod, she's chugging another beer!"  "With that attitude, she is so not gonna make it through rehab."

I know, I know, some may laugh at other people's predicaments, and others may judge the TV series to be exploitative of addicts, but there is a very strong, real sense of caring about these people and what happens to them that I find, um, well.... addictive.

Oh God.  Why do I have this feeling that one day soon, I'm going to open a door in a hotel room and come face to face with Jeff VanVonderen??

P.S. So do Intervention interventionists need Intervention interventions if they become workaholics?   And if I keep having Intervention interventions, does that mean I need an Intervention-intervention intervention???  AAARGH!!!!

How Much Blood? [a Creative Commons remix]

An antiwar protest summed up in one photo

PICT6038.JPG, originally uploaded by andycarvin.

Catch The Wave [Creative Commons Remix]

Catch The Wave [Creative Commons Remix], originally uploaded by Quiplash!.

Today's Anti War Protest in Washington D.C.

Anti War Protest Washington DC, originally uploaded by squinn4420.

Photos speak louder than words.

Sins of Stubbornness: "Because I told them it had to"

"He's tried this two times — it's failed twice," the California Democrat said. "I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' "

Asked if the president had elaborated, she added that he simply said, " 'I told them that they had to.' That was the end of it. That's the way it is." (source: "Pelosi says she wasn't consulted on Iraq", CBS News)

Boy, if that doesn't sum up Bush's approach to the war in Iraq: "Let's just throw more troops into the killing fields."  Then again, this is the same stubborn administration who still insists that Maher Arar is a terrorist, even after complete exoneration in a public report, a handwritten apology from our prime minister, the resignation of the head of the RCMP, and a $10 million cash settlement. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday that his government would continue to press the Americans to take Mr. Arar off the watch list.

“The government has sent letters to both the Syrian and American governments firmly objecting to the treatment of Mr. Arar. Canada has removed Mr. Arar from Canadian lookout lists and we have specifically requested that the United States amend its own records accordingly,” the Prime Minister said.

He defended Public Security Minister Stockwell Day's urging of Washington this week to remove Mr. Arar from the list, an action that was criticized by U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins as an attempt by the Canadians to meddle in U.S. affairs.

“The government of Canada has every right to go to bat for one of its citizens when the government believes a Canadian is being unfairly treated by another country,” Mr. Harper said. (Source: Galloway, Gloria.  "Exoneration and an apology, but U.S. won't budge on ban", Globe and Mail, Jan. 26, 2007)

Thank God for people like new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and those Democrats (and some Republicans) who are speaking out about the enduring folly of the Iraq war.  And for people like American Senator Patrick Leahy, who has the opportunity to use his influence to speak out about the terrible injustice that has been done to an innocent man in the name of "homeland security". 

Last.fm Update

Last.fm (still my favourite Internet radio station) is again working on an upgrade.  One of the new features that I like is something that I had seen earlier on a service called finetune, the ability to stick a personalized radio station into your blog or MySpace page, so users can listen to a stream of your favourite songs without having to go through all the sign-up hassles UPDATE: Whoops, turns out if you don't already have a (free) account on Last.fm, it asks you to sign up when you click on the radio below.    Please give it a try, and send me a comment to tell me what you think.  It's still in beta so there may be a few bugs, oh and this radio app requires the Flash browser plug-in.

As I was kicking the tires on the new Last.fm beta service (the beta test is open to subscribers only, sorry), I came across this terminology that made me chuckle (see right).  Nudge nudge wink wink saynomore saynomore ;-D  (Note that "my neighbourhood" is Last.fm-speak for listeners whose musical tastes are calculated to be the most similar to your own.)

Why I Think Rod Bruinooge Is An Idiot

Yesterday I received a piece of mail from my Member of Parliament, Ron Bruinooge  (for whom, I hasten to add, I did not vote in the most recent election).  What I read, and how it was written, made me very angry.   

Canada's ruling Conservative party has halted a pilot program to provide safe-tattoo supplies to prison inmates, the purpose of which was to reduce the transmission of diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS within the prison system.   

It has been suggested in the newsmedia that the cost of the program would be covered, if it stops the spread of Hep C or HIV to as few as five other inmates per institution (thereby saving the government from paying associated healthcare costs later on when inmates become ill).

So Rod Bruinooge, my Conservative member of parliament, says in his mailing (reproduced above, the item I'm holding in my hand in the foreground): "I was against free tattoos for convicts and am proud our government ended this Liberal program." So he's proud that his government short-sightedly cut this pilot project, even before it could even be properly evaluated by the government's own public health department?   

Dear Rod:

You are a political opportunist, pandering to the lowest common denominator using Fox-News-scare-bites devoid of any meaningful context.  If you were indeed serious about ensuring my tax dollars were spent wisely, you could do a cost-benefit analysis and share the results with us, rather than simplistically  paint the issue as an example of the previous Liberal government's misspending.  And you're NOT getting my vote next time around, for exactly this sort of nonsense.

For God's sake, give the public some credit for being smart enough to figure out issues for themselves, instead of feeding them this pablum, you idiot.

More on this issue:

The Canadian Medical Association Journal article displayed on-screen above (PDF from CMAJ website, Jan. 24, 2007).

Prison tattoo parlours get the axe (from CBC website, Dec. 4, 2006)

Give prison tattoo parlours a chance: activist (from the CBC website, Jan. 11, 2007)