We would cry if we have to contend with 18 months of electioneering. Everyone complains about the few months we do have. It’s non-stop coverage and it’s very tiresome. I feel so bad for Americans :(

the center-left mega-rich pro-business candidate

This article was a little too ‘Californian cult of the self’ for my tastes. Getting rejected is neither inherently good nor bad. It’s just something that many people have to deal with if they feel like getting into relationships.

I love being single. I literally have no desire to enter into a romantic relationship with anyone. I especially never want to live with anyone else. I wish more people could be happy with being alone!

I never want to be in a romantic relationship with another human being — and I love it. I get all the affection and social intercourse I require from close friends and family :o)

I’m British. I would be very depressed if I lived there. You have a choice between fringe lunatics (Republicans) and warmongering, centre-right wingers (Clinton). Obviously Clinton is a better choice than any Republican, but she won’t be a good president.

America is thirsty for an Angela Merkel of its own.

The problem is - of course she’s warmongering and hawkish. She’s blindly pro-Israel. She’ll keep dropping drones in Pakistan. She will be as warmongering as Obama.

It will be business as usual with Hildog :(

Anna, any chance you can do lectures for journalism classes? We need students to realize you have to do more than just rely on what you read off Twitter or political web-sites.

I have heard of those numbers you speak of but I don’t trust that poll.

I’m based in Britain. Are people not free to switch religions or have no religion in Western countries? Are things that are private moral issues that are forbidden in the Bible (such as adultery) punished in Western penal codes?

She is my ‘favourite’ of the Daily Mail crazies. I’m quite convinced she’s genuinely out of her mind. She weaves this utterly bizarre narrative where there is some sort of collusion between Marxists, gay men, feminists and Muslims to bring about the destruction of Britain.

Do you have any opinion polls to back that up? I’ve not been able to find any.

I absolutely hate hate hate hate Melanie Philips. This was part of a larger image that said ‘Mad Mel’ next to it. She is a complete lunatic, so please understand the deployment of her mug is an attempt at post-modern irony. It was a toss-up between Melanie Philips, Jan Moir or Richard Littlejohn, and I went with Mel…

Fair enough, although doesn’t that indicate that some barbarism is ‘inherent to Islam’ (just as it is inherent to Christianity) and that the problem is people sticking too closely to the archaic, barbaric (by today’s standards) source material?

btw, thank you for the very interesting discussion. I knew that Islam was responsible for a lot of scientific/mathematical knowledge early on but I didn't know what the era was called. V. interesting.

Are you saying there’s no textual justification for Sharia penal codes in Islam at all? I’m baffled by this attempt to absolve the source material of any responsibility. Any ancient text - even one that was a force for progressive values - will become ossified and archaic over time unless it is reinterpreted in light…

Oh, I agree that a Christian theocracy would be no better than a Muslim theocracy. Please do not misinterpret my scorn heaped upon Islam as a indication that I’m a defender of Christianity. I despise proselytising conservatism wherever and however it rears its head. However there are no Christian theocracies in…

US has a high GDP and a HDI but despite that look how religious fundamentalism poisons it’s politics and institutions.