husmusen

Provided they don't come in disheveled and feverishly talking to themselves they can cut their ears off and paint portraits(Hi Vincent). It might not be optimal but people have a right to autonomy I suppose. ecoli Well a little bit of fentanyl during the procedure and a packet of Vitamin P afterwards, should take care o' that. I'd never considered that before, just guessing it probably attrophies, but good science doesn't come from just assuming and moving on. I wonder if anyone has studied this? BUJ dont know that one but the BMJ has plenty. it should be noted that even if it did reduce the risk it can be subject to what I dub the "perverse helmet" risk. That is you have a responsible driver who starts to wear a crash helmet. Because of this he thinks "woot I'm invincible" and starts driving around at 200KpH. Thus while a F1 racing crash helmet undoubtably makes you a lot better off in a crash because of the behaviour change the driver is now more at risk than he was without it. So if you go around saying "I'm circed no need to worry about HIV, then you are more at risk than if you were uncircumcised." The other thing that has occured to me is that if there is reduced sensation, that could increase anti-condom sentiments as they reduce it further. A nasty double whammy. Also in European countries they have very good sex-ed. Australia has marginal sex-ed but they were very quick to incorporate STD's into it, from what others have told me US sex-ed is little stories about children, storks and cabbage patches. All of these factors I feel probably contribute a little to it, but in the end, what you can take from the US stats and the medical research is that circumcision may or may not be helpful, but it certainly no sure fire solution to HIV. Cheers.

YT2095: eh? Tolomerase is a protein that adds tolomere repeat sequences. Tolomeres shorten as cells divide over time. Which is different from the wear and tear accumulated from free radicals and other sources in my understanding. While a tolomerase based drug may be very useful in slowing ageing, I'm not sure you would want to give this to a cancer patient, as it would probably only accelerate the tumor or at best do nothing. (I'm not a bio-chem Authority though) But I'm not sure what you are saying?

Dak: Interesting, I suppose since the Yanks do it, and the Australians up until about 1970 did it routinely, I guess I just assumed a common heritige. Well that clears that up anyway. It's an American cultural thing. Cheers mate.

Given the bodies massive and intricate arsenal of DNA repairing and guarding proteins, if you have been eating a poor diet and then swapped to a good one, I would be surprised if at least some of the damage wasn't repaired. Perhaps he was referring to the second claim that you can stop damaged genes from being inhereted by diet which is just plain wrong. By far the greatest effect of a good diet is not in Apricot kernels, but in proper nutrition which gives the body all it's raw materials to repair and replace damaged and disabled cells. And also anti-oxidants which slow down DNA damage from normal genetic wear and tear. Cheers.

Sounds like an interesting book. It never hurts to get all sides of a story. Cheers.

logic bomb: I don't see a medical reason to circumcise an infant with regard to HIV, I know they say kids are growing up faster every day but I don't we've gotten to that point yet. Also we should be frank, in the anglo culture, Medical is not the reason why people circumcise, a lot of the time it's not even religious. It's more cultural. Medical is thus more often the excuse used. You can see this by the fact that the dsire in anglo cultures to circumcise remains fairly constant, but the reason changes every decade or so. Christianity does not require circumcision, Paul explicitly stated that outward circumcision avails nothing. I'm not going to take a firm stand one way or the other in this argument. I think it could depend on local factors, if you live in Africa, don't understadn how HIV works, don't have access to condoms, well it might just be better than nothing. But If it was proven to me today that ripping out my fingernails would make my hands less infectious as a nurse, I think I'd say "Nah thanks, I'd prefer to wear gloves." To use a surgical cure when less invasive methods are available, Like instruction in proper hygene, and condoms. Is not consistent with general medical practice. Also if we are to be consistent with medical practice, it is well known that genetalia are a major focus of body image in many people so no alteration should be taken lightly. So if it is acceptable to ampute portions of an infants penis to spare him an infection(UTI) that's easily treatable with AB's. Then why is it not then medically acceptable to amputate the breasts of all newborn females to prevent breast cancer, after all we have formula, and that could save many hundreds of lives. I'm not advocating this just pointing out an inconsistency in argument. Regarding sexual pleasure, anglo cultures are far too obsessed with it IMHO. Regarding daks question on HIV and the sources. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/320/7249/1592 More interesting is the study of inner foreskin suceptability in the American Journal of Pathology. http://ajp.amjpathol.org/cgi/content/full/161/3/867 Langerhans’ cells seems to be a favoured entry route for HIV. So I suspect circumcision(unless there was scarring or complications) would reduce the chances of HIV infection but not eliminate it. As witnessed by the USA's infection load being much worse than many European countries. But even if it did reduce HIV risk that does not necessarily equal Circumcision == Good. And there is no medical reason to do it in infacts that I can see. Cheers.

It varies a little from person to person. Also different people react to different drugs in different ways. Have you had alchohol? Have you had caffiene? Short answer don't play with stuff, even panadol. Besides all the good Pain killers are schedule 8, so how do you propose to obtain them?

I am not familiar with the intricacies of Repub-Democ' warfare. Thanks for the info. Well I thought it was a vietnamesque scenario too, but at the start of the war the US having to call up a draft wasn't on my radar, and from my rereading of it, I agree it's all coming from the dems side. On that regard I fear you may be wrong, I can see the yanks being in Iraq for a while yet. I think that's quite a patriotic statement. Patriotism is looking out for your country, not agreeing with it's leaders. (I don't see this war being in the long term interests of the US.) Cheers.

Linkage: The Australian <Adrian cronauer> GOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOOORRRRNNNIIIING IIIIIRRRRAAAAQQQQ. </Adrian> O.K. back to reality. Excerpt: Seriously what are your thoughts on this, personal, political. Some topic starters. 1) I found it surprising, you've only lost 1700 people which, as invasions come and go, isn't shocking, I find it startling that such a minor casualty rate is supposedly "compelling" them bring back the draft. Something doesn't seem quite right here. 2) As I alluded to in my opening, this does seem more and more vietnam-ish everyday. 3) Say you go ahead with this. If you draft people into service, and give them some basic training and then throw them into a house to house guerilla war against hardened forces, who've been cutting their teeth on professional soldiers for a year or so, they're going to get slaughtered. IMHO anyway. 4) One could argue for the morality of a draft to defend the country, but I could imagine it could be quite demoralising if you were being forced to put you life on the line defending a country you couldn't give a rats R-E about. 5) Shouldl this compulsion apply to all citizens or will only males from families too poor to afford a lawyer be compelled to fight? Cheers.

That's seems reasonable, #7 might be a sticky for some but single men and women who don't have family commitments would be able to cope. Back when I was looking for work, I would have gone for that, especially if you taught trades. Agreed, so have I, the nursing courses though, are very well done and very high quality(in VIC at least). I suspect partly due to the Nurses Board having oversight, which could perhaps serve as a model for reform of some other ones. Cheers. P.S. Regarding universities, they also keep cutting engineers(I think) and nursing courses(I know), I guess they aren't considered as necessary to industry and nation as the lawyers. Between the New agers who want to teach all sorts of rubbish("The Gender interpretations of teacup sipping styles" ) and those who want them to become trained monkey factories (no research), they're in a bit of a hard spot I fear.

Which I suppose is a good example of why Big Business trying to tell you how you can use and listen to your music is as annoying as Big Government trying to tell you how you can use and listen to music. Cheers.

Ah yes, but it does remind me of a funny story I heard a few years ago where some people entered a chimp into an stock performance contest. I think the chimp finished in the top 5. Which was probably a tad embarressing for some of the gambl, err financial managers. I think it was in one of those "What on earth!" boxes so I don't know how factual it was, but it was still funny. Cheers.

Actually I'll give them a little more credit, they are really quite good at dealing with mentally ill people. I think the problem is when people who aren't mentally ill, or aren't seriously so, get taken to a psych, you know the old saying, take it to a plumber, you have a plumbing problem, take it to a carpenter, ... Madness Explained by Richard Bentall. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140275401/qid=1118640190/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/102-1753874-9087313 I found much of this mans insights quite illuminating on the positives and negatives of psychiatry and psychology. I don't know why they state it hasn't been released yet, I am looking at it right now? Released earlier in Australia than the US? That'd be a change, a pleasant one too. Cheers.

O.K. Pangloss I understand where you're coming from re the bolted horse. So here's a suggestion, I haven't given it enough thought yet to be sure of whether it would work in RL, but here goes. Tail them. To stop relying on stupid exclusionary rules that will make life agony for the reformed ones who will try and keep to them, and be ignored by the ones that actually pose a threat. And get decent teams that are good at their job, not any old John Porker. (It costs 50,000 per year to jail someone, so we can afford a bit of decent surveliance while they are out). Track them for 2-6 months after release(Random or by risk assessment),Then return for 4 week assessments 3 to 10 times over the next 5 years, at random intervals. That should make recidivism difficult, and limit any harm from it. Given that they have to let the bail office know their address for X years after they get out, tracking them should be fairly easy, and if your team turns up to a carpark, then you have an automatic excuse for an APB. I realise there is a freedom and liberty issue here, but I feel that as long as their brief is only to intervene on serious crimes(e.g. large scale drugs, attempted molestation, planning a murder or armed robbery) and not for growing a pot plant in his/her backyardit should not be a problem. Also there is the pragmatic reason that we wouldn't want the existance of tails to become a widespread knowledge, hence no arresting for misdemeanors in the larger interests of the program. Also since the government routinely follows activists, and spies on them e.g. Extend and Defend Medicare, I don't see how it would be a worse breach of civil liberty to follow child molesters. But it's up for debate and it wouldn't cost more than keepig them in jail would have. And it would let reformed ones be free to lead a reformed life. Cheers.

Something which I am sure has probably occured to at least some if not most crackers and the Russian mafia. Does anyone know if sygate has similar issues? You could try running tiny in conjunction with your firewall, each one keeping tabs on the other. And microsoft security is a contradiction in terms. Cheers.

It would be more correct to say that they condem certain forms of it, and condone other forms. Slavery, for example, was once condoned and supported, and those good and decent people who opposed it were villified just as the decent people who oppose todays evils. For example the detention of a young baby, potentially for life (although politically unlikely), for the crime of being born. (To an illegal immigrant making the child stateless). Christian values seem rediculous when preached by people who do not abide by them, when preached by people who live by them, they no longer seem rediculous but very beautiful. As for Ghandi, he saw hypocrisy and he called them on it, good on him. Cheers.

I have two main thoughts on this. First, is that it doesn't seem to be just a matter of criminality and knee jerk reactions. e.g. We have councils that exclude mentally ill people,(they can't do it directly as it would be illegal under .au law, but they refuse to allow construction of residential rehab facilities for patients). This is on the grounds that having mentally ill people would, "Lower the tone of the neighbourhood ... and affect property prices" Classic NIMBY syndrome. It's amazing how much prejudice can laundered by property price concerns. I mean an ABI case, for example, isn't a "bad" person, yet they suffer just as much exclusion and revulsion as a criminal. You get such stupidity as, "We're afraid for the children at the local highschool." You'd think they were dracula the way people carry on, in my experience the nurses need to escort them because the ABI patients are more in danger from the school children. (also some don't understand the concepts of roads, navigation, and traffic lights). Second, is that the conflation of serious sex offenders with misunderstandings is stupid beyond belief. There is all the differance in the world, between a intoxicated bloke who goes to bed with a 15 year old and 11 months sexually mature and very willing girl, who he picked up in an 18+ nightclub that she got into with her sisters ID. And the type of deformed character that gets off on baby rape. And if the law and legal system don't reflect that, then the law is a donkey. IMHO The former is a misdemeanor which, if anything, a fine would suffice for. The latter should be restrained in either a criminal jail or a ward for the criminally insane, depending on wether they are considered insane or evil. For life if need be. Cheers. Pangloss: Let the board know if you get a reply and (if you do) wether it was a meaningful response or some sort of motherhood statement. Cheers.

And if a shark did try to bite ya'll, whack him in batter and he'll taaaaaste delightful. Oh, wouldn't it be nice. We see a man eating shark every day in Melbourne. Cheers.

Most coffee drinkers would need at least 20 milligrams of caffiene to get a boost, you aren't inhaling that amount, even if caffeine is volatile. I think it's more conditioned association. (Pavlov and friends). You have learnt to associate the smell of coffee with immenent caffeine intake. Sometimes when I'm really done, I eat a few jelly babies, and the effects are instant, now I know refined sugar gets in real fast, but not that fast. So either it's a placebo, or my liver, with the assurance of fresh sugar on the way, gets less miserly with the glycogen. Also coffee is a real cocktail, so it could be some other ingredient that is having the effect. But my informed guess would be conditioned association. Cheers.

That's a good question and it's not the first time I've heard that, at the same time I am quite aware of the fact that there are many people who send out hundreds of application, cold call companies and so forth who can't just can't find work. About this time last year, I would have moved to Brisbane for work, (I am not kidding), any work, any roster. But I didn't see your ad's. I also know of businesses that advertise and they have to subcontract the selection because they get 30,000 resumes in the post/email/fax and people coming in and handing them in. Either that or (in one instance) they grab 200 at random toss the rest and pick the best one they can from the 200. This leads me to believe that the gremilins are in the interface. In market terms we have buyers and sellers, both are sincere and neither has a clue the other exists. So I've a few questions? 1) Where did you advertise? (Job Network, Papers?) 1a) Did you ask around your current staff? 2) Have you tried a provider e.g. Salvation Army Jobs+. 3) Are you willing to hire disabled people, or even consider them on a case by case basis? 4) Would you hire a person with a criminal conviction in the last ten years, (on a case by case basis?) 5) Would you hire a person who had been caring for a ill relative and had just re-entered the workforce and therefore has no recent job experience? 6) Would you hire a persn on a trial basis? 7) What types of jobs are they? Clerical/IT/Carpentry/Other trade? Full time/part time/ casual on call? I am just trying to get a feeling for what may be going on, because I doubt it's lazyness. We can all find individual instances of moronic employers and lazy individuals. But my own experience says most people are genuine, most employers are genuine, despite the few job snobs, and employer snobs, and that it's more likely they ae not talking to each other. I still think the government should encourage the retraining of unskilled workers, because it would be more profitable for them to collect taxes of skilled workers, than unskilled workers. (we really need a machiavelli smiley on this forum). Cheers.

Well that may explain some to a lot of gut feelings, and probably near 100% of all poker related ones , but I dont think it can come anywhere near explaining all of them. From talking to people, it seems these are a near universal human experience, I also find evidence for them in literature going back to the 1800's. Cheers.

I'll be lining up for that one if I ever have to do any ebola nursing. (Not that I think I will). An interesting technique they used to get the prototype vaccine. One can only hope the same promising results carry over to humans. Cheers.

I'm no great defender of Hawke and Keating, but Howards even worse. The only reason we have as low unemployment as we do is because Howard/Costello shunted all the older workers onto the DSP. And 12% unemployment will pretty look pretty good, if the skills crisis reaches a point at which things start to break and the economy goes straight own the shitter. "Our real unemployment rate is not a tick over 5%, contrary to what you’ve been breathlessly told by the government and the media, because the numbers are a fraud. If you add up the total of unemployment, disability and sole-parent benefits together, there are more people now than when the official unemployment rate was much higher. This, despite a decade of boom. It works like this: We used to have about a million unemployed and about 100,000 disability pensions. Now we’ve got half a million unemployed and 600,000 disability pensions. We’ve just rearranged the deckchairs, and declared victory. That’s why we still have one in six children growing up in a jobless household. If you doubt that, let me take you for a drive forty-five minutes from here. The truth is we have about two million people who have less work than they want." -- Evan Thornley, CEO Pluto Press and founder of Looksmart. And yes you can have 12% unemployment and a shortage of skilled workers. It takes a lot of effort but it can be done. It just means that the skills possesed dont match the skills required. At the moment Australia has a huge pool of unemployed unskilled workers, and a big skills shortage, the solution should be obvious to blind freddy. Instead Howard prefers to ignore it or make token efforts. Cheers.

An arabic question. Does Arabic cover a multitude of languages like Chinese does(Mandarin, Cantonese, Fukien, etc) or is it a single language? ee dak-san, nihon no inshokubutsu wa oishii desu ka nani inshokubutsu ga oishii ka Watashi ga amaimono to ameni to oshizushi to anzutake tabemas. Oishii desu ne. yakimeshi ga ichiban oishii desu ze. aburaage ga ooaji desu. (I also like a lot of other Japanese food but my likes extend beyond my language) Am I correct in thinking that kantarella are called apricot mushrooms in Japanese? Anzu=apricot?? take = mushrooms?? [hide] Hey Dak, Do you like Japanese food? Which ones? I eat sweets, fruits boiled in sugar, (sort of like a cake made of rice mixed with fish and other stuff), and kantarella(a mushroom). Fried Rice is the yummiest!! Tofu is tastless crap. [/hide] Cheers.