Personal Note: Why do women shave off their armpit hair? I find armpit hair very erotic. The reason is obvious [to me, anyway]. Armpit hair is the 'teaser' for the pubic hair that hides/protects the vagina. The iris in the female I.

Similarly, the breasts and cleavage are a trigger for "shakin' that ass"! What man doesn't prefer sex from behind? I'm not an analist. It's just that vaginal penetration from the rear is greater. The pleasure is magnified.

There's a new XXX Porn Site called Natural Women. I'm not a great Triple Xer. Most of the stuff around is pretty tacky. "Natural Women" is tacky too. But there are a few tantalising photos. It must be the hair that turns me on!

Here's a photo that caused quite a stir at the time. It's Julia Roberts showing her all! Now, that's tasty.

Sorry to bore you with my sexual preferences. Each to his/her own, eh? [Ed Strong]    more »

GLORIFYING BIN LADEN AS LEADER OF RADICAL ISLAM

With the timing and panache of a diabolical Scarlet Pimpernel, Osama bin Laden reminded the world yesterday that he is still out there and that he continues to shape the global political agenda as few others.

Of course, there are searching questions to ask about the authenticity and timing of the al-Qaida leader's latest tape before the rest of the world can make a balanced judgment about Bin Laden's message.

But there is no disputing that this was another audacious media and political coup of a high order.

The most wanted man in the world has proved again that he has an unrivalled ability to cock a snook at the American-led global manhunt against him. Like it or not, yesterday's tape will burnish his legend with his admirers and enemies alike.   more »

If a religious person told you that God had answered his prayers, you would probably smile inwardly and wonder at the man's naiveté. Perhaps you would shrug your shoulders and understand that his belief was blinding him to the delusion.

Bush is both the man to whom God speaks +and+ a believer in "the American Brand" [ideology]. No wonder he seems smug. He's fully protected by a set of beliefs. That's how naive he is. [Ed Strong]

Bush is not so much a liar as a true believer. He definitely believes that the US economy is the most efficient, and that "unfair practices" have prevented US goods and services, eg education, from being competitive.

He believes that US military power is indestructible and can beat any enemy. And finally, he believes that US democracy is the best of all possible institutions and that the charm of Lady Liberty is irresistible.   more »

Since Sept. 11, we've been living under a "clash of civilizations" doctrine that can be summed up this way:

Over there, dogma, orthodoxy, Islam; over here, democracy, pluralism, Constitution. Over there, dark continents, dark ages, terrorism; over here, enlightened West, enlightenment, freedom.

The doctrine has been used to justify two wars (so far) and a wholesale shift in the way the United States deploys its aims abroad and projects them at home.

The doctrine draws its power from the language of freedom -- the language of enlightenment -- both in the way we've gone about defining ourselves as a culture and in the way we've gone about defending our right to fight the war on terror on our terms, but on other people's turfs.

The doctrine is fatally flawed, and its consequences are lethal, both to American principles at home and to American interests abroad.

There's no connection between the language we're using in defining ourselves and the reality being imposed at home and abroad.

The language itself has become the mask of its very opposite. If you want absolutes, if you want black and white, if you want orthodoxy, look no further than the way American culture politically and legally has been evolving in the past several years.   more »

After a long silence, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden has issued a new audiotape offering a solution to the end of hostilities with America while making it very clear that the Jihad is continuing and that new attacks on US soil are in the works should a peaceful solution be rejected by its warmongering president, which of course it promptly was.

Excerpts from tape were aired by Al-jazeera on Thursday AND created a media frenzy, showing once again that the Sheikh can command he worlds press if and when he choosess. True to form, Bin Laden’s new statement comes on his own timing, when he has something to say.

The White House immediately rejected the offer of a truce, saying that bin laden is “clearly on the run.” George Bush said that four years ago too, long before thousands of American deaths, Cindy Sheehan and Spygate.

While his response was typical "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," the public is way past the lie that all these citizens of the Middle East are terrorists.

These so-called “terrorists” are Muslim Mujahideen military fighting American and allied military because they have invaded Muslim lands! This fact should be absolutely clear to all by now.   more »

Could it be that al-Qaida's gambit is beginning to pay off? It had hoped that the attacks of September 11 would provoke the US into invading the Islamic heartland. That the US did, but the mass upheaval al-Qaida had expected in the Arab streets did not materialize.

Instead, it is Iran that has been the chief beneficiary of the US invasion. As a result, it is Iran that now possesses the leverage to oppose US-Israeli aims in the region. Al-Qaida had not planned on a Shi'ite country leading the Islamic world.

It is possible that the US, choosing to ignore the colossal risks, may yet launch air attacks against Iran. President Bush could be pushed into this by pressure from messianic Christians, by Neoconservatives, by Israelis, or by the illusion that he needs to do something bold and desperate to save his presidency.

By refusing to wilt under US-Israeli threats, it appears that the Iranians too may be following al-Qaida's logic. We cannot tell if this is what motivates Iran. But that is where matters will go if the US decides to attack or invade Iran.

No one have yet remarked on some eerie parallels between the US determination to deepen its intervention in the Islamic world and Napoleons' relentless pursuit of the Russian forces, retreating, drawing them into the trap of the Russian winter.

It would appear that the United States too is irretrievably committed to pursuing its Islamic foe to the finish, to keep moving forward even if this risks getting caught in a harsh Islamic winter.

On the other hand, the Neoconservatives, the messianic Christians, and the Israelis are convinced that with their searing firepower, the US and Israel will succeed and plant a hundred pliant democracies in the Middle East.   more »

The tragic irony of the 21st century is that just as faith in technology collapsed on the world's stock markets in 2000, it came to power in the White House and Pentagon.

For the Project for a New American Century's ambition of "full-spectrum dominance" - in which its country could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major-theatre wars" - was a monster borne up by the high tide of techno euphoria of the 1990s.

Ex-hippies talked of a wired age of Aquarius. The fall of the Berlin wall and the rise of the internet, we were told, had ushered in Adam Smith's dream of overflowing abundance, expanding liberty and perpetual peace.

Fukuyama speculated that history was over, leaving us just to hoard and spend. Technology meant a new paradigm of constant growth without inflation or recession.

But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the world.   more »

19 JANUARY

Sex & Islam

Iran: The West's Kneejerk Belligerence

Bin Laden Hits Home Again + Text of Tape

The Day the Oil Runs Out

Bob Herbert on The Bush Regime: Will Nothing Stop This Bunch of Extremists?

Thomas Friedman: Pro-Semitic Propagandist

The World Bank Under Wolfowitz: "A Tool of Western Imperialism"

British Politics: Everyone Crowds into the Neoliberal 'Centre'