my enemies enemies

From Salon:

Pope Benedict XVI has made some Anglicans an offer he thinks they can't refuse. The pope has opened his arms to welcome, en masse, Anglican and Episcopalian priests, bishops and even whole congregations into full communion with the Catholic Church -- so long as they disagree with Anglican decisions to accept women priests and gay bishops. The Anglican priests and bishops can even bring their wives and kids with them. [..read more..]

and from closer to home - well a tiny bit closer - WA. From WA Today:

Pope Benedict has shown himself to be the ultimate short term thinker. He has dealt with his putative partner, Anglicanism, the third largest church after Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, with such sleazy opportunism that he has killed off all hope for a more unified wing of the European higher churches.  
... 
What has he done? After decades of gentle negotiation and muted love calls between these two behemoths, he made a desperate grab for a fringe of Anglicanism – the bells and smell sector. He has offered a deal to the small number of Anglo Catholics to come within his Roman fold (who in Australia will bring no property or assets). As my wry wife observed, this will increase the average IQ of both Anglicanism and Catholicism.

Benedict has shown himself to be a naked empire builder whose friendship cannot be trusted. His avarice is palpable and reveals him to be untrustworthy.

females succeed at uni

An Australian study into the sexual history of 185 students at the University of Sydney found male science "nerds" were the least likely to have had sexual intercourse.

At the other end of the spectrum, female arts students ranked as the most sexually active.

The study of 16 to 25-year-olds, published in the journal Sexual Health, said: "Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group compared to the group of females in the sample.

"Science students were also less likely to have had sex compared to their counterparts in other faculties."

NB: Before anyone one sniggers - yes I did notice "Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group..." Group sex - no thanks I'm an engineer.

making up nonsense

" MEN are born with a highly tuned infidelity detector designed by nature to help them ensure they are supporting their genetic offspring and not those of an interloper.

It's so sensitive, though, that suspicious men are prone to see cheating when it doesn't exist, according to US evolutionary biologists.

The new findings fit with statistics reported yesterday in The Australian that one in five fathers who seek private paternity tests have their suspicions confirmed that they are not the biological father of the child."

The above is from an article in The Australian that contains more of the usual nonsense we have come to know and love from "evolutionary biologists" both here and overseas.

I'm not going to address the "findings" from the "research" here. I'm interested in the statistics on paternity tests. This claim that one in five fathers who have paternity tests discover to their shock and horror that they aren't the fathers is often tossed around. By tossers.

Surely it is far more accurate to point out that four in five or 80% or the overwhelming majority of suspicious men who get paternity tests done are proven wrong and are in fact found to be the biological fathers. Only a minority, one in five or 20%, have their doubts confirmed. Bugger all in the greater scheme of things. And certainly not enough to suggest that these males have any bloody idea at all how to sniff out paternity.

UPDATE: dr faustus has a similar problem with a BBC report of having sex within 24 hours of first meeting

takin' tha piss

Urine
Urine is produced by the kidneys, and plays a vital role in maintaining homeostasis by removing excess water, electrolytes such as sodium, chloride, potassium, and calcium ions, urea and other metabolites from the blood. Urine excreted by healthy kidneys is sterile.

Uses
Human urine has energising and strengthening properties which make it most useful for treating many deficiencies. Although it can be used externally as a baldness cure or as a cure for trembling hands or persistent itching, it is probable that is is most usual medicinal use is as a drink. Drinking your own urine is a excellent cure for scurvy,dropsy and jaundice

From: Wiki4CAM - an online encyclopedia for Complementary & Alternative Medicine!

close shave

"..Sometimes it's hard to be a man.."

Astute observers will spot Tom Waits connection in pic.

plug & play 4 faggots

The other day I bought an external USB hard drive enclosure that will do both IDE and SATA. Only $45 at my local computer shop. Looks pretty spiffy with shiny black case and blue led light.

Anyway I needed to find out more info than was on the bit of paper that came with it. So I googled "Ritmo Quiro External 3.5 Hard Drive enclosure".

One of the pages gave me this:

Ritmo QUIRO 3.5" IDE/SATA USB 2.0 ENCLOSURE
CE-3586
* Compatible with both USB 2.0 and USB 1.1
* 2 colour indicator
* Screwless, easy to install
* Plug & Play 4 faggots
* Stylish Aluminium cover and stand
* Support Win98/98se/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/VISTA, MAC OS 8.6/9 and above.

Plug & Play 4 faggots?

Sheesh go easy - even Linux has plug & play these days.

Some one should grab the /. nerd who wrote that web page by his security lanyard and have a quiet word in his shell like.