Please. Let. This. Be. True.

Scientists identify a single ‘master’ gene that seems to turn on cancer-causing action of other errant genes

BY DELTHIA RICKS
STAFF WRITER

January 20, 2005

An international team of scientists believes it has found cancer’s master switch with the discovery of a gene they dubbed “Pokemon.”

Like the electronic game figures – tiny monsters with bad tempers – the cancer-triggering gene apparently instigates the misbehavior of other cancer-causing genes, leading to tumor formation.

In today’s issue of the journal Nature, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, in collaboration with teams in Japan and Britain, announce that the gene plays a key role in starting a malignancy. As a result, scientists now believe they have stumbled upon an important new target for an anti-cancer drug…

“This is the master switch that interacts with other genes… It acts differently than other oncogenes. Others regulate cell

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Peggy Noonan is prolly one of my favorite people to ever come out of mainstream politics in the last 20 years or so. Didja know that she’s the one who helped Reagan with his speech on the afternoon after the Challenger exploded? Still makes me cry whenever I read the words of that.

Well, she’s also someone who ain’t afraid to note when something is terribly out of kilter, no matter who it’s regarding. And in “Way Too Much God”, she’s got some choice words about Bush’s inauguration speech. It’s a good read and worth contemplating and there’s a lot I could cite from it, but here’s the heartmeat of her beef about what was wrong with Bush’s mindset yesterday:

“This world is not heaven.”

A man can follow Christ. A man can be the world’s most powerful leader. But a man cannot be a Christian world leader in the ...

“Hey, all you ‘evangelical Christians’ that voted for me…”

“…UP YOURS!”
After reading this, the dark “id” creature dwelling in the recesses of my heart is licking its chops, salivating in anticipation of the next four years. So many people are going to be made out before one and all as being deluded fools who preferred a lie more than they would adhere to the truth.

Tonight they party. Tomorrow comes the hangover.

It’ll be tough, but I promise to try and not gloat when the hard reality finally strikes them in the face…

“We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world… So it is the policy of the United States to seek

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So far no one in my circle of friends has told me that I absolutely must read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (right now we all seem to be reading Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, re-reading all the current Harry Potter novels, or the first serious biography about Oskar Schindler… that’s me :-). Not really expecting anyone too either. And already plenty confident that I won’t waste a single dime or moment of life reading this tripe.

We’re told that The Da Vinci Code is a “phenomenon”. Heck, Ron Howard is doing the film adaptation (starring Tom Hanks) right now: I like both of ’em but I’m not gonna plunk down good money to see their movie either. In fact, they’re making a huge mistake by having anything to do with this project. No doubt it seems like THE sure-fire hit right now, but enough people ...

…and the only thing keeping him from being a fish and chips dinner for Ewan McGregor was when this once-innocent potato was pulled from the fryer by his dark master and given new life behind the terrifying blackness of a breath-mask.

It’s Darth Tater!
PAWTUCKET, R.I. (AP) _Jan. 19, 2005 — Hasbro Inc. is promoting its latest Mr. Potato Head figure, Darth Tater.

The toy spud will be available next month, ahead of the May release of “Star Wars: Episode III _ Revenge of the Sith,” the latest installment in that film series.

Darth Tater will come with a light saber, cape and helmet, in addition to the regular Mr. Potato Head accessories such as eyes, mouth and nose.

The Pawtucket-based toy maker says children will be able to “have all kinds of mix n’ match, Mr. Potato Head fun with this wacky spud dressed as the infamous `Star Wars’

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Funny thing: all my friends will attest that most of my life I’ve been addicted to politics. Even from a very young age no matter what or where or who, if it was political I had to study it some. Probably because of why I had to make the drive to Washington D.C. last June (twelve hours after an already long drive back from Georgia) to watch the procession carrying Ronald Reagan’s casket from the White House to the Capitol and why the following night was spent waiting to go through the Rotunda (was there for the next-to-last changing of the guard, by the way). I was one of the Reagan generation, and that was the neatest time for a kid to grow up amid so much history: I was prolly the only kid in third grade who knew that much about Andropov in Russia or Walesa in Poland. When ...

“There are some secrets that do not permit themselves to be revealed.”
— Edgar Allan Poe

There’s something about this whole story that… well, it’s one of those things of enigma that nowadays run scarce in this world. We shouldn’t be able to explain everything and though it would probably be pretty easy to find out exactly why this takes place every year, we don’t really need an explantion, or need to know anything else about the people responsible. Whoever they have been, their tradition should be revered for its own sake, and given the respect it’s due as a uniquely American mystery…

The three roses and bottle of cognac left by the Poe Toaster this year (held by Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum)

January 19th is the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. And on its night, every year since 1949 (at least) someone steps out ...

…but geez I’m conflicted on this. Hate to admit but it’s not really resonating/feeding the “wanna see” factor with me like the movies for Spider-Man and X-Men, and even Daredevil have done. I mean, it looks good:

Those are all the right visuals – except the Thing could stand to be bigger, and boast a larger brow – but having watched the trailer 3 times now, it just doesn’t feel like the spirit of the original Jack Kirby/Stan Lee comics (gotta wonder where Lee will cameo in this one 🙂

The origin of the Fantastic Four is structurally similar to their beginnings in the comic, but it screams too much government-funded mandate and one little nuance that I loved from the Marvel mags is that Reed Richards basically hijacked his own test rocket ship so that he could try it out before they cut the pursestrings. He conned his best ...

This just might be the most darned kewl-est thing I’ve seen in WAY long time. Saber-Scorpion you rock!! Seems that this young man has quite the talent for LEGO and he put it to use in a way that almost makes me drool to look at. I mean, check this out…

Sauron, the Lord of the Rings himself… with every cruel detail replicated as a LEGO minifigure! And there’s PLENTY more where that came from (I only had the heart to post Saber-Scorpion’s Sauron: wait’ll you see his Gollum 🙂 on his Lord of the Rings LEGO Customs page. He’s also got some Star Wars and Halo stuff done in LEGO too! Nice job Saber-Scorpion… now get to work on a mumakil complete with wartower and swarthy-looking Haradrim on its back!

(Though must admit I’m getting chills wondering if he replicates the assault on Minas Tirith: catapulting ...

Well, let’s see what we’ve gotten so far and what we’ll be getting soon…

– The cost of the American Revolutionary War was $130 million spread over 7 years.

– The cost of the War of 1812 was $107 million spread over 2.5 years.

– The cost of the Mexican War was $74 million spread over 2 years.

– The cost of production of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy was $270 million spread over 4 years.

– The cost of building Hoover Dam, with an estimated life span of a thousand years give or take, was $170 million spread over 5 years.

– The cost of digging the Panama Canal was $639 million spread over 34 years.

– The cost of constructing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel – 17.5 miles long – was $200 million spread over 2.5 years.

– The cost of the Manhattan Project’s results –

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