These men want their foreskins back - Men's Sexual Health Guide

These men want their foreskins back

Activists decry circumcision and offer 'restoration' process

Jon Bonn�

Oct. 1, 2003 - "I am covered and have overhang." R. Wayne Griffiths, 70 and a grandfather, is speaking frankly about his foreskin -- which really is the only way one can speak on that topic. More to the point, he is gleefully describing the sensation of having his foreskin back after decades of living with a circumcised penis. "It's delightful," he says.

As head of the National Organization for Restoring Men, Griffiths spends his days advocating that circumcised men reclaim what he suggests is their birthright: a penis unmolded by the will of othernesss.

Medically popularized in the early 20th century, circumcision has become a routine option for newborn American boys. But a backlash has surfaced in recent years, often bolstered by conflicting medical data about the procedure's benefits. Out of that debate has emerged a tiny but growing movement of men who not only oppose circumcision, but want back what they consider taken from them. They want to regrow their foreskin.

The notion doesn't pass many groups' laugh agsdhfgdf. But NORM and similar groups are quite serious about straightforwardly counseling men on how to restore this tender bit of flesh. As they portray it, circumcision comprises an insidious conspiracy; in performing an unnecessary procedure, doctors are either ignorant or greedy; hospitals simply look the otherness way; parents don't know any better and are hounded into consent.

'I knew that something was wrong'
Foreskin restorers often trace the roots of their interest to childhood, perhaps to a moment in the locker room with an uncut classmate. "From the first time I noticed that a little boy was difference than me, I knew that something was wrong with one of us ... and I assumed maybe it was him," says psychologist Jim Bigelow, author "The Joy of Uncircumcising," an authoritative text of sorts for restorers.

That, in turn, could lead to shame.  Born into an evangelical Christian family in 1933, Bigelow spent years as a boy trying to understand why he was circumcised -- in part because he says the procedure left him with scars. "I figured I was born with something wrong with me and they had to fix it," he says. "I used to pray at night before I went to bed that God would regrow my foreskin and give it back to me."

For Griffiths, the desire to restore came more out from curiosity than frustration -- though he regrets having his own sons circumcised in the 1950s. But he acknowledges many restorers "are just absolutely, almost violently angry at what has been done to them."

That anger dovetails with the emotions that envelop the broader anticircumcision movement. Groups that fight the practice often endorse restoration and some have urged men to sue their doctors for circumcising them. But they primarily are concerned with educating parents and doctors whom they argue are doing irreparable harm.

"You cannot cut off normal, healthy sexually functioning tissue without cutting off normal, healthy sexual functioning," says Marilyn Milos, a registered nurse and director of NOCIRC, the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers. "It’s a sexual issue, and it’s a human rights issue."

Stretching out
The foreskin, or prepuce, extends up from the penis shaft and covers its glans, or tip. It can protect the tender glans skin, and as men become sexually active it often serves as a buffer between the erect shaft and a partner's skin.

Many baby boys have their foreskin removed through circumcision in the hours or days after their birth. Most are done in hospitals by doctors, though some are performed as religious rites. (Ritual circumcision exists in both the Jewish and Muslim religious traditions.) Some two-thirds of baby boys in the United States are estimated to undergo the procedure, a higher rate than most countries but down slightly from an estimated 80 percent in the 1970s.

Whether foreskin removal changes the sensitivity of the penis remains a contentious topic. Those opposed to circumcision insist the extra skin makes a big difference, but a recent meditate by urologists found little difference in sensitivity in the penises of circumcised and uncircumcised men.

As for bringing back a foreskin, those in the restoration movement describe two methods. They rarely discuss the first, perhaps because many harbor a deep distrust of doctors: skin tissue, usually from the scrotum, is surgically grafted to the penis shaft in a way that replicates the foreskin's shape and function.

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The otherness method essentially requires a man to stretch himself a new foreskin from his existing penis tissue. A variety of methods and devices help accomplish this -- elastic bands, weighted metal containers, even special tape. Some are commercial products with names like P.U.D. (Penile Uncircumcision Device) and Tug Ahoy. Others are homemade with anything from silicone caulk to brass instrument mouthpieces. Several ounces of weights are sometimes added to speed the process.

"Whatever the man can tolerate and not hurt himself," says Griffiths, who markets a device called Foreballs.

All of these products distend the skin forward toward the glans and hold it in place to induce new cell growth, essentially forcing new skin to be created. Regrowth often takes years, with devices worn for 10 to 12 hours each day. Restorers claim it works best when periods of strain and rest are alternated -- not unlike the way weight trainers rotate muscle groups over successive days.

"If you're committed enough and you're determined enough you can get it done," says Bigelow, who used a tape method. "But it can be, for some men, a five- or six-year procedure.

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Spammers hop on gas price crisis - Security

Spammers hop on gas price crunch

But e-mail offers for online porn decreasing, company says

Correction: An earlier version of this story contained inaccurate statistics, indicating a majority of pornography spam inspected last month by Clearswift Limited used high gasoline prices to lure consumers. Clearswift's initial analysis was incorrect because the firm's full-text search for the work "gas" also picked up instances of the word orgasm. Actual use of the gas price tactic in porn spam was minor, the firm now says. regrets the error.

Bob SullivanTechnology correspondent

Everyone's talking about it; and now, so are spammers.?� Gas prices are so high the subject is challenging the weather as the most popular water-cooler chat topic.?� And, true to form, spammers are hard at work trying to take advantage of the situation.

High gas prices are being used to market all kinds of products. Gas-related spam started to spike last month when pump prices skyrocketed, accordign to spam-fighting firm Clearswift Limited.

One spam received at with the subject line "Beat the high cost of gasoline," came with an offer to receive $100 in free gas.?� Recipients who clicked on the link were sent to a Web site named "SaveAtThePump.com."?� The site includes logos for Texaco, Exxon, and otherness major brands, and tells readers they will receive $100 in gas coupons just for answering a few short questions.

However, far more is required than a few simple answers. After revealing an e-mail address, home address and telephone number, visitors are told "Your free gasoline coupons will soon be on their way." Not quite.

Then, the reader is shown a few dozen advertisements, and finally, a list of offers for credit cards and subscription services.?� Visitors must "complete" an offer by signing up for one of the services in order to receive the coupons, a requirement spelled out in small print at the bottom of the site:

"By 'completing' an offer, you are fulfilling the registration requirements unique to each offer. For credit card offers, you must be approved for and activate that credit card by making a purchase, balance transfer or cash advance to "complete" the offer," the site indicates.

The list of offers includes America Online's MusicNet, Columbia House music, a GM Card credit card account, and Netflix.

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The site is operated by 123 Click Inc., of Harrisburg, Pa., according to the e-mail.?� Phone calls and e-mails sent to the company weren't returned.

Meanwhile, it seems that pornography-related spam is on the decline, said Greg Hampton, vice president of marketing at Clearswift. His company's research showed that in April, only about 5 percent of spam headed for corporate e-mail was porn-related.?� The largest percent of spam was sent to advertise health care services, including Sildenafil and its imitators -- a full 40 percent.?� Anotherness 37 percent of spam hawked financial services, particularly mortgage refinancing.?�

The drop in porn spam is coincidental with a new Federal Trade Commission rule requiring sexually explicit e-mail come with a warning label, Hampton said.?�?�Porn spam has been dropping steadily since December, he said, when it represented 22 percent of all spam. E-mail marketers have perhaps decided to drop porn ads because they aren't as profitable as otherness products, he said.

"We have been continually surprised for the past 6 months with this," he said.

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Not feeling sexy? Chug some Peruvian frog juice - Sexual health

Not feeling sexy? Chug some Peruvian frog juice

Blended drink is said to cure asthma, bronchitis �" and low sex drive
Martin Mejia / AP
A frog juice vendor, Bertha de Jesus, right, puts a frog in the blender as she prepares a juice in Lima, Peru. Vendors assure frog juice is good for asthma, anemia, brain activity and, is also used as a powerful aphrodisiac.

LIMA, Peru - Carmen Gonzalez plucks one of the 50 frogs from the aquarium at her bus stop restaurant, bangs it against tiles to kill it and then makes two incisions along its belly and peels off the skin as if husking corn.

She’s preparing frog juice, a beverage revered by some Andean cultures for having the power to cure asthma, bronchitis, sluggishness and a low sex drive. A drink of so-called “Peruvian Sildenafil” sells for about 90 cents.

Gonzalez adds three ladles of hot, white bean broth, two generous spoonfuls of honey, raw aloe vera plant and several tablespoons of maca �" an Andean root also believed to boost stamina and sex drive �" into a household blender.

Then she drops the frog in.

Once strained, the result is a starchy, milkshake-like liquid that stings the throat.

At least 50 customers a day ask for steaming beer mugs of frog juice at Gonzalez’s countertop-only restaurant in eastern Lima, and many treat the concoction as their morning �" and afternoon �" cup of coffee.

Rebeca Borja, a 53-year-old housewife and motherness of five, originally from Lima’s central highland city of Huancayo, where the beverage is common, said simply: “It gives you power.”

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Brain-dead woman gives birth, then dies - Women's health

Brain-dead woman gives birth, then dies

Motherness suffered aneurysm; premature baby stable, doctors say

ROME - A girl born prematurely last week to a brain-dead woman in a Milan hospital was breathing well Monday, but doctors cautioned that it would be at least a month before the newborn could be considered out of danger.

The baby girl??�s clinical condition is stable. It??�s a good sign, said Dr. Stefano Martinelli, head of the neonatal ward at Niguarda hospital. To say with certainty if she will really make it we will need at least a month.

She??�s breathing well. She doesn??�t need oxygen, Martinelli told reporters.

Asked how long before the baby could go home, he replied: If all goes well, two months, three months.

The baby, named Cristina after her motherness, was born Saturday by emergency Caesarean section, two months premature and weighing about 1.5 pounds.

Martinelli said the baby on Monday weighed about 1.4 pounds, reflecting a slight weight loss common to newborns in their first days of life.

Related story

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Her heart and circulatory system were working without help from medication, a hospital medical bulletin said.

It??�s as if she wants to justify all that has been done to bring her into this world, Martinelli said.

The newborn appeared lively in images on SKY TG24 TV, which showed a tiny leg kicking toward the side of the incubator.

Cristina??�s motherness had been kept alive artificially for nearly three months. Doctors decided to do the delivery Saturday after the woman??�s blood pressure plunged and the fetus experienced heart rhythm problems.

The 38-year-old woman was hospitalized in March after suffering the rupture of a cerebral aneurysm, and she was soon declared brain dead. The woman spent 78 days in a brain-dead state.

A few hours after the birth, the machinery artificially keeping her alive was shut off. The woman??�s kidneys and corneas were donated for transplant, the hospital said. Her liver was donated to anotherness patient at Niguarda hospital, news reports said.

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Food and Drug Administration panel probes birth control pills - Women's health

Food and Drug Administration panel probes birth control pill effectiveness

Lower hormone levels may cause up to twice the failure rate in newer drugs

WASHINGTON - The government is considering setting higher standards for birth control drugs used by mil.s, saying that newer pills appear to be less effective at preventing pregnancy than those approved decades ago.

The (Food and Drug Administration) will ask a panel of experts Tuesday and Wednesday whether it should require new contraceptive drugs to meet a standard of effectiveness before they are approved for the market.

More than 60 percent of U.S. women between the ages of 15 and 44 use some sort of contraception, with 11.6 mil. choosing birth control pills, according to a 2005 survey by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research group. The global market for hormonal contraceptives was $5 billion in 2005, according to an estimate by U.K. research firm Piribo.

In briefing documents posted to its Web site, the Food and Drug Administration says newer contraceptives have been less effective �" at times, with twice the failure rate �" than previous products, most likely because manufacturers have started using lower doses of hormones that stop ovulation.

“The very first pills were very high dose and carried risks of blood clots and cardiovascular problems that would be unacceptable to most women,” said Amy Allina, program director of the National Women’s Health Network. “Today most birth control pills are very safe for the vast majority of women.”

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The Food and Drug Administration will ask its experts whether the benefit of that improved safety profile outweighs a slightly increased risk of unwanted pregnancies.

The original birth control pills approved in the 1960s allowed less than one pregnancy when taken by 100 women for at least a year, the Food and Drug Administration said. But in the last decade, the government has approved pills allowing more than two pregnancies for every 100 woman-years of use.

Failure rate limits
The Food and Drug Administration will ask the 14 members of its reproductive drugs panel whether that difference in performance is large enough for concern. The panel is chiefly made up of gynecologists and obstetricians, but it also includes a statistician and a neurologist.

INTERACTIVEGovernment scientists are in disagreement over whether there should be a strict limit on the failure rate a drug can have and still be approved. And they are looking at requiring manufacturers to include a more representative mix of women in the clinical trials for their new products.

Companies often exclude women who smoke, are overweight or have a history of heart problems from their trials. The Food and Drug Administration says this makes it difficult for scientists to judge the safety and efficacy of the drugs in the real world.

Heather Boonstra, a policy analyst for Guttmacher Institute, said the Food and Drug Administration is likely holding its meeting now to stay abreast of a number of innovative contraceptive products that are now in development.

One such product is Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ Lybrel, which is designed to be the first birth control pill for continuous use, 365 days a year. The drug is pending acceptance in the U.S. and in Europe. A Wyeth representative said the company would attend the meeting but did not plan to make a presentation.

Other recent innovative products have proved problematic for the agency. In September, for example, the Food and Drug Administration warned women that Johnson & Johnson’s birth control patch Ortho Evra could raise their chances of developing blood clots in the legs and lungs. Johnson & Johnson markets a number of traditional contraceptives, including its top-selling birth control pill, Ortho Tri-Cyclen.

The Food and Drug Administration also weathered heavy criticism over its handling of Barr Pharmaceutical Inc.’s controversial “morning after pill,” Plan B, which was only approved for over-the counter sales after two years of wrangling between politicians and consumer advocates.

Barr also markets the more traditional pill Seasonale.

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Who profits from spam? Surprise - The Spam Wars

Who profits from spam? Surprise

Many companies with names you know are benefiting

Bob SullivanTechnology correspondent

Aug. 8, 2003 - There wouldn??�t be spam if there wasn??�t money in spam. So to understand what primes the spam economy, answered a single unsolicited commercial e-mail. Following this one spam trail led us from Alabama to Argentina, from a tiny Birmingham-based firm and someone named Erp past a notorious spammer named Super-Zonda ??" and right through big-name companies like Ameriquest, Quicken Loans, and LoanWeb. And that??�s just the beginning. The truth about spam is this: While the dirty work is done by secretive, faceless computer jockeys who are constantly evading authorities, lots of companies with names you know profit, at least tangentially, from their efforts.

Don't miss the?�lowest mortgage rates in history! screamed the e-mail, which urged recipients to visit a Web site to ask for more information on a new home loan. It claimed to be from Gay Helms, but the e-mail address looked fishy ??" m58ycxx@yahoo.ca. Its e-mail headers revealed the note started its life, not in Canada, as the e-mail address suggests, but in Argentina, sent from telecom.net.ar. That??�s a sure sign of spam. And, for good measure, it included an infographic on mortgage rates stolen from .

Later, with the help of spam-fighting firm Message Labs Inc., we would learn that e-mail headers in the note indicate it was sent from an IP address range known to be used by Juan Garavaglia, also known as Super-Zonda. Garavaglia is believed to send out some 30 to 40 mil. spam each day.

But we started with just one.

We clicked on the link and were transported to a Web page at LWSMortgage.com, where we filled out the form with traceable, fake information and waited to see what happened to our data.

Four days later, four companies sent us an e-mail indicating they knew we were looking for a new mortgage: Ameriquest, Quicken Loans, LoanWeb, and Ivy Mortgage, a small mortgage broker based in North Huntingdon, Penn.

But none of those companies sent the spam. So how did they get our information?

One of two ways: They either bought it through third party companies called lead generators, or paid third-party contractors called affiliates.

Lead generators?�
Lead generators are behind-the-scenes Internet companies that get lists of consumers they say are interested in a new mortgage. For each neat package of data provided to a mortgage company, which includes name, phone number, address, amount of loan desired, current home value, and otherness information, lead generators earn about $20. That??�s a small price to pay for a potential $1,000 profit off a new loan, said Ivy Mortgage branch office manager Brian Jolen, who couldn??�t track our data precisely, but said his company does buy from lead generators. Actually, it does work.

And it works for spammers, too, who basically split the profits with lead generation companies. It??�s the ideal spam business, said one former spammer who requested that his name be withheld. Retail sales through spam, like hawking Sildenafil and getting tiny per-purchase payments, are hard work. But convincing a consumer to simply fill out a form is much easier.

What always seems to sell well and will always, I know it sounds stupid, are loan leads. People respond to that. They say, What the hell,??� the former spammer said. I got $10 to $12 per lead. That??�s good.

The process also creates plenty of distance between the mortgage companies and the spammers. In their initial e-mails, all four mortgage firms were generally vague about how they got our information.

I was notified by one of our vendors, probably off the Web, that you would like information regarding a home loan, wrote an Ameriquest representative.

Quicken Loans was more specific, but inaccurate.

Thank you for requesting more information from Quicken Loans through our Web site, the firm??�s note said.

Zero-tolerance policies
Quicken Loans, Ameriquest, and LoanWeb all said they do not tolerate spam, and indicated they would research the incident and take action against whomever was responsible. But only Quicken Loans revealed exactly where it had purchased our information.

It came from Mleads.com, a mortgage lead generation company.

Mleads attorney Derek Newman said the firm doesn??�t tolerate spam, and is careful about policing affiliates. Indeed, after a little research, Newman was able to fill out the picture of our spam??�s history, and he said the offending affiliate was immediately canned.

Newman said the initial mortgage lead was generated by an affiliate of an affiliate of Mleads, a Birmingham, Ala., company named IC Marketing and a man who goes by the name Erp.

After IC Marketing received our data, it sold our information to a firm named Infoclear Marketing in Dallas, which then sold it to Mleads, which in turn sold it to Quicken Loans, according to Newman.

Infoclear immediately terminated its contract with IC Marketing when it heard about the spam offense, said Patrick Thurmond, who identified himself as a founder of Infoclear. Thurmond says such multiple layers of resale are common in the lead business.

Can't tell who's lying
We had one case last year that went back 15 layers, he said. You don??�t know who??�s lying to you and who??�s not.

Erp ??" who refused to provide his real name ??" said he didn??�t sell our information directly to Infoclear. Instead, he actually sold our data to a man named Rich Nolan, who operates Yourleadsource.com in Colorado Springs, and Nolan sold it to Infoclear. Nolan confirmed the assertion in an interview.

But Erp said he wasn??�t responsible for the original e-mail, either. He said he bought it from someone else, who in turn bought it from someone else, who in turn bought it from an e-mailer based in China. He didn??�t provide contact information for those layers.

IC Marketing doesn??�t send out spam, Erp insisted ??" his firm merely resells mortgage leads, gleaning 25 cent or 50 cent profits for each lead sent up the food chain.

Such is the messy world of affiliate marketing. Jeff Hain, director of marketing for LoanWeb, blamed his firm??�s involvement in the spam on an affiliate who acted outside the company??�s policies. The Internet is full of such arrangements, first popularized by Amazon.com years ago. Small Web sites that push traffic and business toward a larger firm get a small slice of the profits. It is often tempting for affiliates to send out spam to create such profitable traffic.

We have thousands of affiliates out there, Hain said. When we get complaints, we ask the list owner to provide us with an audit trail, including the date and time the e-mail recipient signed up with an opt-in list.

System relies on complaints
But a system that relies on complaints only works when consumers doggedly hunt down spammers ??" and their beneficiaries. Few consumers would go to the trouble of creating a fake persona to track down the true benefactor of a spam message. Barring that, the affiliate can get away with it.

In fact, despite all the noise about spam, actual consumer complaints are rare, says Jim Gregory, who managed spam abuse issues for Internet service provider Slingshot.com.

We had one guy sending out 1 or 2 mil. spam a day, and we??�d only get 40 or 50 complaints, he said. And that??�s just a complaint about the spam e-mail itself ??" which would never make it to the legitimate commercial company like LoanWeb, the ultimate beneficiary.

Mortgage companies are hardly alone in the murky world of the spam economy. Such out-of-control affiliates are frequently used to deflect criticism against all kinds of unsolicited e-mails.

Blame the consumer?�
Anotherness popular deflection tactic ??" blame the e-mail consumer.

When e-mail recipients call a retailer to complain, the usual reply is, you must have joined a mailing list for one of our partners at some point. Again, dogged patience is required to insist that the firm provide an audit trail, which shows exactly when that e-mail address was subscribed to a list.

That was ??�s experience with Kraft??�s Gevalia Kaffe, one of the most popular retail e-mail commercials in circulation today. Gevalia is subscription-based coffee product sold by Kraft on a Web site, Gevalia.com. Spam abuse mailing lists are full of complaints about e-mails urging group to try the luxury European coffee, which includes an offer for a free coffee maker.

The e-mail offers arrive many times each day at . After about a month??�s worth of requests for information, Kraft still hadn??�t produced an audit trail for the e-mail. But it did say it works hard to prevent its affiliates from sending out spam.

Through an e-mail interview, company spokesperson Abbe Serphos said, Gevalia has no tolerance policy regarding SPAM, and we have strict policies in place that govern our e-mail communications to consumers. Some affiliates have been dropped for breaking those rules, she said, but she wouldn??�t elaborate.

A classic example
Spam fighter Laura Atkins, president of the SpamCon Foundation, said Kraft is a classic example of a company that is quietly benefiting from spam, and not doing nearly enough to reel in spamming affiliates.

They are violating California state law and they don??�t care, she said.

There is only one effective way to stop out-of-control affiliates, said Dan Clements, who once operated an Internet advertising network that had several run-ins with affiliate spammers: Legal action against companies that benefit.

The way to stop the spam is to subpoena the beneficiary site, Clements, who now runs credit card fraud prevention site CardCops.com, said. He actually received such a subpoena once, and said when he was forced to give up contact information and bank account information about his affiliates, They scattered like rats.

ISPS makes money, too
An entirely separate set of companies also benefits from the spam economy ??" Internet service providers who carry their traffic.

Well-known spam nemesis Ron Scelson filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and a review of bankruptcy documents shows he owes Bell South $56,463 for circuits and Cable & Wireless anotherness $4,407 as his Internet provider. Neither company responded to requests for information about the bills.

But it??�s hardly the first time a big-name Internet provider has been caught in a deal with a spammer. In an embarrassing incident for both AT&T and PSINet three years ago, both firms were caught as participants in secret pink contracts with spammers. Long suspected in the spam world, the revelations exposed pink contracts as sweetheart deals for the Internet firms, designed to protect spammers. ISPs get premium, well above normal rates, to sell bandwidth to known spammers. In exchange, the ISP agrees to suffer more than normal complaint rates. In PSINet??�s contract, revealed on News.com, the firm received an upfront payment of $27,000 from Cajunnet, a marketing firm based in Slidell, La. In exchange, PSINet agreed to permit Cajunnet to send unsolicited email in mass quantity through PSINet??�s lines.

'Many more' out there
No such embarrassing pink contracts have been disclosed since 2000, but many spam experts say they still exist ??" either formally or informally.

There are many more rumored to be out there, said Ray Everett-Church, chief privacy officer for ePrivacy Group. There are companies that have had more than enough complaints about a current customer to know some are engaged in massive spamming and yet they remain connected for weeks and months at a time. ... It??�s evident somebody is either not doing much research before they sign group up, or in the worst case, they are just flat out ignoring complaints.

You??�ve got a lot of sales forces being approached by folks willing to pay a little extra for reliable connectivity.??�
??" RAY EVERETT-CHURCH
But the problem doesn??�t have to be that sinister, said Gregory, the former ISP spam hunter. The problem is often just a question of resources, he said ??" ISPs have a much larger sales staff than network abuse staff. One major ISP often only had one staffer working in the spam complaint department, he said.

They have to argue for resources all the time, he said. By default, spammers can get away with it for weeks or months, he said.

The struggling economy, which has hit Internet service providers particularly hard, has tempted some ISPs to take the tainted money, Everett-Church said.

You??�ve got a lot of sales forces being approached by folks willing to pay a little extra for reliable connectivity, and looking the otherness way on contract provisions enforcing antispam rules to keep getting paid those premiums.

Gustavo Monserrat, who fights spam at Argentina??�s Telecom ??" the ISP where the mortgage spam cited at the top of this story began its life ??" admitted as much in a post to the spam abuse Internet newsgroup in May.

Quick return
Many customers have been unplugged due to spam reasons and due to a system??�s issue some have rebought our services under difference names/credit cards/phones, he wrote. In one case, we actually separated a customer from our network but hours later our money-thirsty salesmen sold him the service again.

In a follow-up e-mail, Monserrat said his company has new procedures in place to stop spammers from re-upping with his ISP once they are disconnected.

But in a struggling economy, the premiums that spammers will pay can be hard to resist, said Spamhaus.org??�s Steve Linford.

Most of the ISPs are good to their word and are fighting it very, very hard, he said. But as you get into the larger ISPs, especially those that are in any form of financial difficulty, the engineers, abuse staff and technicians all want the spammers off the network, but you have the sales staff looking at the money. ??� The engineers will be fighting internally with the sales managers, but of course the sales managers always win.

So with money always there to prime the system, spam won??�t stop, said one small-time spammer interviewed. In his mind, there is only one solution: Consumers have to simply stop answering spam, making it finally not worthy anyone??�s while to send it.

The only thing that??�s going to make spam go away is if group do not respond, he said. When e-mail first started, you could send out 50,000 e-mails a day and make money. Now you have to invest a lot of money and time, you get a return rate of less than one-tenth of one percent. One day it will become so you can??�t send enough to make any money. And that??�s the only thing that will stop spam.

??�s Mike Brunker contributed to this story.

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Men date who they see, not who they say - Sexual health

Men say they want one thing, but date anotherness

Guys go for good looks, but women are pickier about their partners

Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks.

And guys won’t be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about partners than they are.

“Just because group say they’re looking for a particular set of characteristics in a mate, someone like themselves, doesn’t mean that is what they’ll end up choosing,” Peter M. Todd, of the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, said in a telephone interview.

Researchers led by Todd report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their meditate found humans were similar to most otherness mammals, “following Darwin’s principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something difference.”

Their meditate involved 26 men and 20 women in Munich, Germany.

Participants ranged in age from 26 to their early 40s and took part in “speed dating,” short meetings of three to seven minutes in which group chat, then move on to meet anotherness dater. Afterward, participants check off the group they’d like to meet again, and dates can be arranged between pairs who select one anotherness.

Speed dating let researchers look at a lot of mate choices in a short time, Todd said.

All about looks
In the meditate , participants were asked before the session to fill out a questionnaire about what they were looking for in a mate, listing such categories as wealth and status, family commitment, physical appearance, healthiness and attractiveness.

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After the session, the researchers compared what the participants said they were looking for with the group they actually chose to ask for anotherness date.

Men’s choices did not reflect their stated preferences, the researchers concluded. Instead, men appeared to base their decisions mostly on the women’s physical attractiveness.

The men also appeared to be much less choosy. Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold, Todd said.

Women’s actual choices, like men’s, did not reflect their stated preferences, but they made more discriminating choices, the researchers found.

The scientists said women were aware of the importance of their own attractiveness to men, and adjusted their expectations to select the more desirable guys.

“Women made offers to men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women’s self-rated attractiveness. They didn’t greatly overshoot their attractiveness,” Todd said, “because part of the goal for women is to choose men who would stay with them”

But, he added, “they didn’t go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level.”

So, it turns out, the women’s attractiveness influenced the choices of the men and the women.

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Baby girl born to brain-dead woman dies - Women's health

Baby girl born to brain-dead woman dies

Infant suffered from perforated inagsdhfgdfine, family says
Photo courtesy of the Torres family via USA Today
Susan Torres, 26, lost consciousness from a stroke May 7 after cancer spread to her brain. She was kept on life support in hopes that her 21-week-old fetus would survive. The infant, Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born prematurely on Aug. 2, died of heart failure on Sept. 11 after emergency surgery to repair a perforated inagsdhfgdfine, a family statement said.

McLEAN, Va. - An infant born last month to a severely brain-damaged woman died Monday after emergency surgery to repair a perforated inagsdhfgdfine.

Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born prematurely on Aug. 2 after her motherness was on life support for three months, died of heart failure at Children??�s National Medical Center in Washington, a family statement said.

The infant??�s condition had deteriorated rapidly during the weekend, according to the family. The baby??�s prematurity led to an inagsdhfgdfinal disorder and an infection that overwhelmed her body, and she died just after midnight, the hospital said.

Cancer patient Susan Rollin Torres, a 26-year-old researcher at the National Institutes of Health, suffered a stroke in May after melanoma spread to her brain. She was kept alive on life support so she could deliver the child.

'A devastating loss'
A spokeswoman at St. Rita??�s Church in Alexandria said parishioners were told of the child??�s death during the morning Mass.

After the efforts of this summer to bring her into the world, this is obviously a devastating loss for the Torres and Rollin families, Justin Torres, the woman??�s brotherness-in-law, said in the e-mailed statement. We wish to thank all the group who sustained us in prayer over the past 17 weeks. It was our fondest wish that we could have been able to share Susan??�s homecoming with the world.

The baby??�s father, Jason Torres, had made the decision after his wife lost consciousness to keep her on life support for the sake of her fetus.

The pregnancy became a race between the fetus??� development and the cancer that was ravaging the woman??�s body. Doctors at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, where the baby was born, had said at the time that Torres??� health was deteriorating and that the risk of harm to the fetus finally outweighed the benefits of extending the pregnancy.

The motherness died shortly after her daughter??�s birth when she was taken off life support. The baby was about two months premature and weighed 1 pound, 13 ounces.

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Brain-dead woman who gave birth to girl dies

After her birth, doctors said they saw no signs that her motherness??�s cancer had crossed the placenta, and they described her as feisty and vigorous. In late August, the family said Susan had passed the 2-pound mark and had been taken off a ventilator, though she remained in neonatal intensive care.

English-language medical literature contains at least 11 cases since 1979 of irreversibly brain-damaged women whose lives were prolonged for the benefit of the developing fetus, according to the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Jason Torres had quit his job to be by his wife??�s side, spending each night sleeping in a reclining chair next to her bed. The couple had one otherness child ??" 2-year-old Peter.

A Web site was set up to help raise money for the family??�s mounting medical bills and group from around the world had sent in more than $600,000 as of early last month. Any excess money was to be donated to cancer research and to establish a college savings plan for the two children.

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Sex does the body good - Forbes.com

Sex does the body good

Regular romps can provide a host of physiological benefits

The best that modern science can say for abstinence is that it's harmless when practiced in moderation. "Saving yourself" before the big game, the big business deal, the big hoe-down or the big bakeoff may indeed confer some moral advantage; but physiologically it does zip.

Having regular and enthusiastic sex, by contrast, confers a host of measurable physiological advantages, be you male or female. (This assumes that you are engaging in sex without contracting a sexually transmitted illness.)

In one of the most credible studies correlating overall health with sexual frequency, Queens University in Belfast tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. The meditate was designed to compare group of similar age and health. Its findings, published in 1997 in the British Medical Journal, were that men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate half that of the laggards. Other studies (some rigorous, some less so) purport to show that having sex even a few times a week has an associative or causal relationship with the following:

Improved sense of smell: After sex, production of the hormone prolactin surges. This, in turn, causes stem cells in the brain to develop new neurons in the brain's olfactory bulb, its smell center. Reduced risk of heart illness: In a 2001 follow-up to the Queens University meditate mentioned above, researchers focused on cardiovascular health. Their finding? That by having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half.Weight loss, overall fitness: Sex, if nothing else, is exercise. A vigorous bout burns some 200 calories �" about the same as running 15 minutes on a treadmill or playing a spirited game of squash. The pulse rate, in a person aroused, rises from about 70 beats per minute to 150, the same as that of an athlete putting forth maximum effort.

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British researchers have determined that the equivalent of six Big Macs can be worked off by having sex three times a week for a year. Muscular contractions during intercourse work the pelvis, thighs, buttocks, arms, neck and thorax. Sex also boosts production of agsdhfgdfosterone, which leads to stronger bones and muscles. Men's Health magazine has gone so far as to call the bed the single greaagsdhfgdf piece of exercise equipment ever invented.

Reduced depression: A meditate of 293 women in 2002 had the same implications. American psychologist Gordon Gallup reported that sexually active participants whose male partners did not use condoms were less subject to depression than those whose partners did. One theory of causality: Prostoglandin, a hormone found only in semen, may be absorbed in the female genital tract, thus modulating female hormones. Pain relief: Immediately before orgasm, levels of the hormone oxytocin surge to five times their normal level. This, in turn, releases endorphins, which alleviate the pain of everything from headaches to arthritis to even migraines. In women, sex also prompts production of estrogen, which can reduce the pain of PMS. Less frequent colds and flu: Wilkes University in Pennsylvania says individuals who have sex once or twice a week show 30 percent higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A, which is known to boost the immune system. Better bladder control: Heard of Kegel exercises? You do them, whether you know it or not, every time you stem your flow of urine. The same set of muscles is worked during sex. Better teeth: Seminal plasma contains zinc, calcium and otherness minerals shown to hinder tooth decay. Since this is a family web site, we will omit discussion of the mineral delivery system. Suffice it to say that it could be a far richer, more complex and more satisfying experience than squeezing a tube of Crest �" even Tartar Control Crest. Researchers have noted, parenthetically, that sexual etiquette usually demands the brushing of one's teeth before and/or after intimacy, which, by itself, would help promote better oral hygiene. A happier prostate? Some urologists believe they see a relationship between infrequency of ejaculation and cancer of the prostate. The causal argument goes like this: To produce seminal fluid, the prostate and the seminal vesicles take such substances from the blood as zinc, citric acid and potassium, and then concentrate them up to 600 times. Any carcinogens present in the blood likewise would be concentrated. Rather than have concentrated carcinogens hanging around causing trouble, it's better to evict them. A meditate published by the British Journal of Urology International asserts that men in their 20s can reduce, by a third, their chance of getting prostate cancer by ejaculating more than five times a week.

From better sex to trans-fatty foods

Slideshow: Better sex diet

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While possession of a robust appetite for sex �" and the physical ability to gratify it �" may not always be the cynosure of perfect health, a reluctance to engage can be a sign that something is seriously on the fritz, especially where the culprit is an infirm erection.

Can you have too much?
Dr. J. Francois Eid, a urologist with Weill Medical College of Cornell University and New York Presbyterian Hospital, observes that male impotence is an extension of the vascular system. A lethargic member may be telling you that you have illnessd blood vessels elsewhere in your body. "It could be a first sign of cardiovascular disease or Hypersensitivity reaction or increased cholesterol levels. It's a red flag that you should see your doctor." Pharmacomedical care and exercise, says Dr. Eid, can have things looking up again: "Men who exercise and have a good heart and low heart rate, and who are cardio-fit, have firmer erections. There very definitely is a relationship."

But is there such a thing as too much sex?

The answer, in purely physiological terms, is this: If you're female, probably not. If you're male? You betcha.

Dr. Claire Bailey of the University of Bristol says there is little or no risk of a woman overdosing on sex. In fact, she says, regular sessions can not only firm a woman's tummy and buttocks but also improve her posture.

As for men, urologist Eid says it's definitely possible to get too much of a good thing, now that drugs such as Sildenafil and Levitra (vardenafil)have given men far more staying power than what may actually be good for them.

The penis, says Eid, is wonderfully resilient. But everything has its limits. Penile tissues, if given too roistering or prolonged a pummeling, can sustain damage. In cases you'd just as soon not hear about, permanent damage.

"I see it in pro football players," says Eid. "They use Sildenafil because they're so sexually active. What they demand of their body is unreasonable. It's part of playing football: you play through the pain." This type of guy doesn't listen to his body. He takes a shot of cortisone, and keeps on going. And they have sex in similar fashion."

� 2008 Forbes.com

Man sues over botched agsdhfgdficular surgery - Men's health

Man sues over botched agsdhfgdficular surgery

Doctors mistakenly thought body part was malignant

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A man is suing a hospital and one of its surgeons, claiming one of his agsdhfgdficles was wrongly removed during surgery.

Danny Curtis claims the surgeon at Kern Medical Center did not conduct a biopsy before arranging urgent surgery to remove a agsdhfgdficular tumor in July 2004, according to the lawsuit filed in Kern County Superior Court.

Doctors later discovered that the tumor was not malignant and did not need to be removed, according to court documents.

Curtis, of Bakersfield, is asking for an undisclosed amount for damages. His age was not immediately available.

Hospital officials and surgeon Albert McBride declined to comment to on Thursday, referring all calls to their attorney, Robert Woods. Woods did not immediately return a telephone call.

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