I am stunned and amazed that anyone thinks this show is somehow showing polygamy in a positive light.

Barb and Bill obviously have an enduring affection and attraction for one another that is 'outlawed' by the polygamous situation they've set up for themselves. It's not only shorting out big time on the potential their relationship had to sustain themselves and their children throughout their lives.

Nicky is frustrated and unhappy, obviously not cut out for the inferior position she finds herself in as second wife. She is doomed - along with her whole family - to a life of underhanded manipulation and deceit.

Margene is lonely. She is a sweet girl who could have been very happy in a mutual loving relationship with a young man her own age. They could have had friends and a social life. She is obviously isolated and lonely. Every time you see her at home one of hte kids is in the playpen and she is just sitting there.

Bill's life is filled with useless stress and pressure.

The whole arrangement seems pathetic and wasteful of potential and happiness.

An elegant explanation? I don't think so. About as original and derivative as 'The Secret' - although I don't think Oprah will be embracing Paul Davies.

The more physicists scrabble around splitting theological - oh sorry I mean scientific - hairs over how we came to be here, the less I respect them. These questions: What am I? How did I come to be here? Why am I here? are at the heart of all philosophy and theology - and science too if it feels like it. To pretend otherwise - that no this is not a religious argument, this is a scientific one, calls into question what exactly 'scientific' then means. He's quoting St Augustine at the same time as he's saying he doesn't want to talk about God for Christ's (sic) sake! (query: unless there's some other Augustine he's mentioning here?)

It's all conjecture. And when you compare the conjecturings of guys like Paul Davies compared to science fiction writers, Paul and his ilk come off a very poor second.

It's time these guys actually got off the fence that they're ever more precariously perched upon and embraced the search for meaning - meditation, looking within - or embraced their imaginations and, if they can pull some kind of entertaining story out of it, started writing fiction.

It all reminds me of string theory and what a load of fashionable, incomprehensible and irrelevant bollocks that's turned out to be.

I'm an Australian and here on the North Coast of NSW we are celebrating July 4th, Independence from American Day. It's more of a hope than a reality - as in the last few years we have seen the signing of a Free Trade Agreement with the US that many Australians were opposed to, and Australian participation in the Iraq war that millions upon millions of Australians came out to protest against in unprecedented numbers. Still, of course, our Prime Minister kowtowed to your President and we're there.

I remember when Bill was president - people liked America. I don't have stats for that, but I remember the feeling in the air. And not just here in Australia. Elsewhere I lived during his presidency - in India and the UK, and travelling in Europe, I and my friends, my 'demographic' really, felt good about the USA and friendly towards it. My husband worked in an American firm in London and even though we found 'you' strange in some ways - incredibly hardworking and serious about doing so, amazingly obsessed with shopping - it was overall a good fit. There was a tonne of respect.

Fast forward - no one I know speaks of America with anything but contempt bordering on fear. I was in New Orleans on business a few months before Katrina and I was dumbstruck and frightened by the poverty I saw there. Yet when I tried to tell my American colleagues about it - that yes in fact it WAS on a par with what I had seen in India and other parts of the third world - they didn't want to hear it. Well, who would?

America these days has an image of an Imperialist, out of control, barely legal state. It was scary enough when Bush stole the election, but things have spiralled so badly down from there.

I KNOW none of this is the fault of anyone I know. I KNOW all of this horrifies fellow Salon readers much more than it does me, becuase you LIVE there.

What I have to say though is this: if Hillary Clinton were to win the Presidency I think internationally it would win America an enormous second chance. Unlike any other incumbent, who would have so much repair work to do before they could even start going forward, she would be given a free pass on a lot of things, both because so many of us around the world already 'know' her, and because of Bill.

If the 'Rest of World' as we're so nicely named in US marketing terms matters a jot, then Hillary for President is the one to go for.