"I want to take a long, hard look at Bush's sexuality. Because The Photos are Bush's porn. Oh, he says they "disgust" him. Of course, they do. Listen, I'm a sex therapist. Many of my clients will say something disgusts them at first, only to confess a few sessions later that it really turns them on.

Shortly after the censorship dam burst and The Photos were released publicly, Bush issued his first attempt at apologizing: "I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated." He coughed up the words like a chicken bone, or that pretzel he swallowed and almost choked on. And he looked like a shifty-eyed boy caught by his mama, his schoolteacher and the whole neighborhood with his political pants down, way down around his ankles, exposing his severe shortcomings for all the world to revile.

Notice that he started to say how "those prisoners" were "treated." But then, he couldn't say it. After all, it might have given him an erection. Which would not help his reelection."

- Dr Susan Block on Bush and Abu Ghraib

I'm still not convinced by this, but I was chatting to Mix Master El Bastardos Rock Star about it yesterday and he made a couple of points:

"...the thing is that BT enables you to have a nice level of anonymity and be playful before committing yourself. I think this is what people like... also the immediacy of it (i.e. the fact that it's someone nearby) probably gives somewhat of a kick."

The idea of "playfulness" and its important in this sort of communication isn't something that had occurred to me. Mind you, then he said:

"I do think it would be quite nice though if your personality could be tattooed on your forehead as a bar code (as you once aspired to). I think we should then be given optical scanners and scan each other to see if we are interesting. That would be cool."