Ticking Time Bomb - In a recent op-ed column, Tom Friedman interviews an expert about where the suicide bombers in Iraq -- people of mass destruction he calls them -- come from:

"I don't think the P.M.D.'s are really a product of local Iraqi resentment against us," says Raymond Stock, an expert on Arabic literature and media based in Cairo. "They are mainly imported cookie-cutter killers, created by a combination of Arab mass media, certain extremist elements in Muslim culture, and some very shrewd recruiting by Al Qaeda and its ilk. When young, angry, futureless, sexually repressed people are taught that death is a permanent vacation of guilt-free pleasure, and they see it glorified in countless videos, all you need is a willing truck driver to ferry them over the border from Syria, Jordan, Turkey or Saudi Arabia and presto — a human bomb."

I think this is the first time I've seen these people described as "sexually repressed," and although some may disagree about psychological motivations, I think it makes sense. And it's not just men fantasizing about those 72 heavenly virgins. Apparently the rare female suicide bomber is dealing with similar social-sexual issues.

It all adds up to another good argument against the unenlightened sexual politics of most religious fundamentalists. And maybe we had better keep an eye on those XXXChurch guys with their 40-day masturbation moratorium.