In the “gonzo” style (those films with no plot or characters, just straightforward sex on tape) that dominates the market, directors continue to push the edge, filming increasingly rougher sexual practices involving multiple penetrations of women by two or three men at a time.

Or oral sex designed to make a woman gag, while the language used to insult women during sex grows harsher. Since legal controls on pornography began loosening in the 1970s, pornographers have pushed the limits of sexualizing the denigration of women.

Though the pornography industry loves to talk about growing sales to women and the so-called “couples market,” men are still the vast majority of pornography consumers in the United States. Producers and distributors I interviewed at the convention all estimated their clientele was 80 to 90 percent men.

What do these men want to watch? It turns out they like viewing sexual acts that the majority of women do not want to perform in their lives.

While there is no survey data about women’s preferences regarding multiple penetrations or gag-inducing sex, informal investigation suggests such things are not common in the day-to-day lives of most people and not sought after by most women.   more »

The centre of Lahore was in flames and dead bodies lay on the streets, as the crisis over the "blasphemous sketches", as Pakistanis call the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, moved into a new, violent and for Musharraf, treacherous phase.

After a week in which protests spread like a rash across the country, many of them violent, Musharraf intervened yesterday to ban a mass rally planned for the capital, Islamabad, and ordered the detention of hundreds of ringleaders.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, the religious party that called yesterday's rally, was placed under house arrest.

Just hours earlier he had warned of a nationwide campaign to unseat the President if Musharraf were to hinder the protests. "We will not stop till we achieve our objectives against the present rulers," he said.

"General Pervez Musharraf is acting as the representative of western civilisation and is fighting a battle against Islamic values."   more »

Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country and become unapologetically paranoid. Paranoia should now be the normal state of mind for thinking people.

Sneers and dismissive remarks about "conspiracy theorists" must be ignored. We don't want to end up like the proverbial frog who boils to death because the heat was turned up slowly.

The Bush administration is becoming ever more brazen in its effort to snoop on the American people. The Attorney General is making the case that warrants aren't needed if the government wants to spy on us. Unlimited government power is predictably effective.

Anyone not wire tapped, investigated or banned from airplanes will be too intimidated to speak up or even to "Google."

The Bushmen are too smart to only go after political opponents. Instead they are honing their tactics on everyone who does an internet search, a majority of people in the nation.

Under the guise of investigating the extent of child pornography on the internet, the ironically named Justice Department demanded that the largest search engines in the country turn over the results of millions of internet searches in the country.   more »

Friday morning in New Orleans a truck pulls up and is immediately surrounded by a group of Hispanic men. The driver shouts out his needs; the men shout back their price. Across the street a banner reads: "Remember those suffering from Katrina and Rita."

But why remember something you can still see? The confederate general, high on his column in the middle of the roundabout, looks on at the haggling. Some go back to the curb; others jump in the back of the van.

These scenes are replayed throughout the US every day. Scattered vignettes of supply and demand woven together with intense vulnerability that illustrate the human imperfections in a so-called perfect market.

A recent report from the University of California suggests that every morning 117,600 day labourers are hired this way. Half are employed by homeowners looking for gardening and domestic work. Slightly more than 40% are employed by contractors in construction and landscaping. Nationwide almost two-thirds are Hispanic and just over a quarter are from central America.

Migrant labourers are crucial to the US economy. Yet xenophobia among a militant minority of the public allied with opportunism among a majority of the politicians has conspired to demonise them.   more »

Watching Tim Russert's Meet the Press yesterday morning I felt locked in a horrible nightmare -- because today's installment was a true horror show.

If you tuned in, you already know what I'm talking about: Mary Matalin, the Republicans' Cruella de Ville, Cheney's vampire bat, released to suck media blood.

Oh my God.

James Wolcott called her "a car wreck in repose" and "the Beltway's Madwoman of Chaillot."

Let's start with the unavoidable: what was she wearing? First, the brooch. Or was it a sculpture? Or was it perhaps some bizarre new NSA listening device? It was so, well, there, that hard as you tried you could not avert your eyes from it.

And then there was the black Asian pajama top to match the black eye makeup and the scarlet red nails to match the scarlet red lips.   more »

Citing the "Prevention of Terrorism" act, British Police have arrested and interrogated three of the stars of the award-winning film "The Road to Guantanamo" [scroll down for info on film], together with the three ex-Guantanomo detainees on whose story the film is based.

Acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom ("A Cock and Bull Story", "24 Hour Party People", "Welcome to Sarajevo") had been showing the film at the Berlin Film Festival, where it has won a number of top awards.

"The Road to Guantanamo" traces the true story of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed, three Muslim friends from Birmingham who were picked up as aliens in Afghanistan by US forces and ended up in Guantanamo for three years, where they suffered brutal and humiliating treatment.

Extensive interrogation established that they had no connection with al-Qaida, and despite their plight being ignored by British authorities, eventually they were returned home.

The UK media covered live the return of these "Suspected terrorists" and the massive police convoy that brought them in to Ventral London for questioning. Their release after the UK police also found they had no connection with terrorism was, naturally, hardly mentioned.   more »

19 FEBRUARY

"Dead-Eye Dick" Shoots Himself in the Foot

Muhammad Cartoons: Muslim Protests Used as Fuel in Western Propaganda

Everthing's Fine in America? Not for 37m Living in Poverty

Guantánamo: America's Gulag

The Baby-Boomers Grow Old Disgracefully

Maureen Dowd: Cheney's Laughing-Stock Rises

Home Abortions Perfectly Safe

CIA Torture Techniques: From Cold War to War on Terror