The Professional Left Podcast
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In the month of February the economy created 295,000 jobs. Tune in to Fox... @JohnFugelsang @SXMInsight #UniteBlue pic.twitter.com/gyjyzzsS0v
— Syd's Soapbox (@heysyd) March 6, 2015
"This Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."
-- Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Citizens United v. FEC, 2010.
A 3-year-old boy died yesterday after having shot himself in the head in what police are deeming an accidental shooting, The Houston Chronicle reports.
Harris County Sheriff Deputies said that the shooting happened at approximately 12:30 p.m. on Friday. According to KHOU, the gun was in the boy’s mother purse, which had been placed on a shelf.
The boy’s mother was in another part of the house, but when she heard the gun go off, she rushed in and found her son with a gunshot wound to the neck and jaw.In the two months of 2015 so far, almost 80 kids under the age of 12 have died from gunshot wounds here in USAmerica Inc. (Gun Violence Archive)
What is this virus treatment?
The researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the US, led by Dr Stephen Russell, are using an approach called ‘oncolytic virus therapy’, which is generating a lot of excitement in the cancer research community around the world. In fact, we’ve written about some of our work in this area a couple of times already.
Briefly, it involves treating patients with viruses that have been genetically engineered to specifically infect cancer cells, rather than causing the particular illness that they usually bring. When injected into the body, the viruses seek out and destroy the tumour cells, multiplying inside them to create even more cancer-killing viruses. At least, that’s the theory.
To date, researchers have created oncolytic viruses from a number of different types of modified virus, including the herpes virus (which causes cold sores), pox viruses and adenovirus (common cold). But while tests in cancer cells grown in the lab and animals have been remarkably successful, this promise unfortunately hasn’t yet translated into success in clinical trials with actual cancer patients.Now if we could just get a certain bunch of politicians to turn loose on the purse strings and get some of these docs the bucks they need to finish the thing, we might just have a chance. (translated: Stop voting for assholes who stand in the way of research and development.)