Flirtation is a game we play, a dance for which everyone knows the moves. "People can flirt outrageously without intending anything," says independent sex researcher Timothy Perper, who has been researching flirting for 30 years.

"Flirting captures the interest of the other person and says 'Would you like to play?'" And one of the most exhilarating things about the game is that the normal rules of social interaction are rubberized. Clarity is not the point.

"Flirting opens a window of potential. Not yes, not no," says Perper. "So we engage ourselves in this complex game of maybe."

The game is not new. The first published guide for how to flirt was written about 2,000 years ago, Perper points out, by a bloke named Ovid.   more »

Hillary's greatest asset has been her husband. Few doubt that he is steering campaign strategy and there is no one better.

In South Carolina he has been happy to play attack dog for his wife, leaving her to make high-minded speeches that ignore her Democratic opponent and focus, loftily, on the case against George W Bush.

They are "double-teaming" against Obama, leaving his head spinning so badly that, as he admitted the other day, "sometimes I don't know who I'm running against".

So fate has played a cruel trick against Barack Obama. It has made him the most exciting newcomer in US politics for a very long time - then pitted him against the man who held that title first.   more »

Most white Americans' desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.

The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal.

Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically."

He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?   more »

Congressional Democrats hailed the agreement because the number of families receiving rebates rose from 82 million under the original Bush plan to 117 million by adding 35 million lower-income families. These families would receive rebates totaling $28 billion.

But in return for this “concession”—clearly envisioned as a bargaining chip by the White House when it issued its plan—Pelosi agreed to drop any extension of unemployment and food stamp benefits as well as proposed funding increases for low-income heating assistance and state Medicaid programs.

Even some of Pelosi’s fellow House Democratic leaders were taken aback by this abrupt abandonment of traditional social safety net programs, particularly unemployment compensation, which has been extended from the standard 26 weeks to 39, 52 or even 65 weeks during many US recessions.

According to reports from the Labor Department, more than 1.4 million unemployed workers had been without a job for more than 27 weeks as of November. This is twice the level of long-term unemployment that existed before Bush took office in 2001.   more »

The Israeli state, with the complete backing of the imperialists of the U.S. and the European Union, as well as their clients among the corrupt feudal monarchs in the region, has deprived the entire Palestinian population in Gaza of electricity, sanitation, potable water, heat, cooking gas, medicines and adequate food.

And it is winter in Palestine. Nothing has been done to end this crime against humanity, this collective punishment of the Palestinian people, despite many appeals to international agencies and organizations.

With no other choice available, the Palestinian masses and their organizations on Jan. 23 took their destiny into their own hands by blowing up, tearing down and eliminating the fence between Gaza and Egypt.

The Israelis built the fence to enforce their illegal occupation. But the Palestinian people have once again given an example of how, by mass, courageous action, a mobilized population can turn the tables on the most heavily armed state in the region, backed by the world’s biggest armed power.   more »