"An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it." - Laurence J. Peter

***

Australian Sex Party gets all-clear - "Sex and politics have officially come together, with the Australian Sex Party obtaining approval from the Australian Electoral Commission for registration as a political party."

How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection - "I asked the C.E.O. of Pet Holdings, Ben Huh, when he knew that fail had broken through as a “meme,” to use the fashionable term for a cultural symbol or idea transmitted virally. “It really started to take off when the financial industry decided to — ahem — fail,” Huh said. “Talk about the perfect storm.” The fail meme met the financial crisis head on at a Senate hearing in September, when a demonstrator held up a sign reading “FAIL” behind Henry Paulson Jr., the former Treasury secretary, and Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve."

Unconventional Methods To Prevent Influenza - "Avoiding masturbation and homosexual activities are among preventive measures one could take against Influenza A (H1N1), according to an eminent practitioner of complimentary therapy... The former associate professor of ecology at Universiti Malaya has authored several books on complementary therapy called, 'Ecological Healing System'."
Malaysia Boleh!

How to Rid a Life of "Toxic" People - "The Internet is flooded with relationship advice, covering every conceivable topic from how to meet someone to how to break up. Not discussed nearly as often is how to rid your life of "toxic" friends and acquaintances--those relationships that seem to leave you feeling drained and/or frustrated, if not outright angry... The person you've rid yourself of will do one of two things:
1) He will cut himself off from you as well, and you will never hear from him again. This is the most likely outcome.
2) After a period of silence and absence... he will try to get in touch with you again. In this case, if the ex-companion bizarrely acts as though nothing ever happened, continue to cut off contact, as this is a refusal to acknowledge a reality that would force him to admit to lousy behavior and offer an apology he isn't mature enough to make."

A Healthy Dose of Optimism - ""The idea that optimists are healthier than pessimists is overly simplistic," says Dr. Howard Friedman, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside. "Many times, excessive optimism can be harmful to one's health. This is especially evident among teenagers, who take many risks." Friedman contends it can be damaging to think optimistically when it comes to difficult health choices like quitting cigarettes, using condoms, or wearing seatbelts."

Men, Women Attracted to Sense of Humor in Different Ways - "Of course men enjoy funny women, she said, but they don't see them as sexy, in the same way women see funny men as sexy... "In our research, women said they wanted ‘someone who makes me laugh,' and men said they wanted ‘someone who laughs at my jokes'"... 'Why does the giggling bimbo get more attention than me?' she asked. 'I can talk to a man with intelligence and wit. What does she do? She gives a coy look, flips her hair and with a jovial ha-ha-ha, stares into his eyes and says, ‘You're so funny.'' This approach, Bennett observes, is almost always more popular with men... George Miller, professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, argues that for men, the interest from a reproductive standpoint is to seduce a woman. So abundant signals that say 'I like you' can be far more important to a man than the enjoyment he may get from a woman cracking her own jokes... Funny men are attractive because humor is considered an indicator of both intelligence and creativity... Humor and laughter often communicate something much deeper than the appreciation of a joke. Robert Provine, author of 'Laughter: A Scientific Investigation,' said that 90 percent of the things we laugh at aren't even remotely funny. 'Most laughter is not about jokes,' he explained. 'It's about relationships between people.'"

Ten things we don't understand about humans - "Both general intelligence and the personality trait of being open to new experiences correlate with artistic creativity. He has also found that when women are at their monthly peak in fertility, they prefer creative over wealthy men... Our brains are designed to detect structure and order in our environment... We are also causal determinists - we assume that outcomes are caused by preceding events. This combination of sensing patterns and inferring causes leaves us wide open to superstitious beliefs... Ingesting nasal detritus might help build a healthy immune response... [Girls] look sexually mature several years before they reach full reproductive maturity. "They get into the networks of adult women," says Bogin, which allows girls not only to practise skills they will require later but also, crucially, to build coalitions... Boys, by contrast, are sexually mature long before they develop their manly physique. This, argues Bogin, allows teenage boys to acquire sexually selected attributes that appeal to potential mates, such as linguistic creativity, humour and artistic talent, in a relatively safe environment because their boyish stature means that fully grown men do not consider them a threat... On average, men are funnier than women, and his analysis of personal ads indicates that women generally request humour, while men offer it"... Women blush more than men... blushing might have evolved as a way for women to demonstrate their honesty to men and so enlist their help in rearing offspring. "Blushing is telling you that I can't cuckold you. If you ask me about infidelity I can't lie - my blush gives me away," he says."