I don't understand theism. Why do people want to worship something?

Surely most rational theists would admit that, no, you can't prove (or disprove) the existence of God, or point to something and say with assurance, 'that is the work of God', so it seems to me that they believe in God because they WANT to.

Nothing wrong with that per se - you can believe anything you want without needing any concrete evidence to support it - but why do it? What is it that compels people to have these beliefs? Is it just to try and make some sort of sense of the world we live in, or what?

Whatever's driving the Arab League's initiative, it's there and must be grasped by Israel and the Palestinians.

The comparison with Northern Ireland is apt: peace initiatives never went anywhere with the 'we're not negotiating with terrorists' attitude of the British government. Sinn Fein might have been a terrorist organisation in British eyes but it had great support in Northern Ireland (and in the Republic). It wasn't until the British and Irish governments started negotiating directly with Sinn Fein, as well as the Ulster Unionists, that real progress was made.

It seems to me that the same is true of Hamas: we define it as a terrorist organisation (with some justification) but it has the support of many ordinary Palestinians no matter how much we might wish it away.

This opportunity for a settlement must be taken: it might all fall in a heap but it must be tried.

The British response to this incident was about the only one they could realistically make. The sailors were outnumbered and outgunned so to turn it into a shooting match would have just resulted in a lot of dead British soldiers and a very ugly international incident.

Tony Blair has blown a lot of hot air about 'escalating' Britain's reaction but even he (I hope) doesn't want armed conflict with Iran over this.

If everybody keeps their heads, I'd be surprised if the sailors aren't soon released. The parading of some of the sailors in front of the cameras has been nasty but they haven't been harmed and appear to be reasonably well treated (no orange jump suits, hoods and shackles for them).

I can't watch most of these shows either, as they're so far removed from any sort of reality I recognise.

I suppose it depends on what presses your buttons but, for me, this type of show is not 'escapism'. It, and others like it, purport to reflect some sort of reality when in fact they're about as real as Star Trek.

And it's not a question of viewers not being able to tell fact from fiction: these shows are asking for our involvement, asking us to believe that all this could be for real. So if you KNOW that it's just not like that in real life, how can you watch it? I know I can't.

You've got to feel for those Argentinian soldiers. This war was like two bald men fighting over a comb. From an Argentinian point of view, it achieved nothing but the deaths of a lot of Argentinian soldiers.

As a Brit, I hated the war and couldn't stand Margaret Thatcher, but you had to reluctantly accept the case for war. The Falklands was under British protection and was invaded by a foreign force. So what do you do? You can argue that, morally, the Falklands should really belong to Argentina, but the fact was that it didn't.

Britain took its eye off the ball before the war, didn't pursue the diplomatic option hard enough, sunk the Belgrano in very dubious circumstances with great loss of life, and the triumphalism afterwards was sickening. But, in the end, they had no other option but to invade.

As the article pointed out, Galtieri wanted this war for his own domestic reasons and, ultimately, paid the price for it, but so did a lot of young Argentinians. The Argentinian air force caused a lot of problems for the British but, in the end, it was a war that an ill-equipped conscript army was never going to win against a well-trained, professional army that had US support.

Pointless.

I'm not sure that Hamas/Islamic Jihad is equivalent to Sinn Fein/IRA.

Sinn Fein was the political wing of the IRA and did not engage in terrorist acts themselves (although some members might have in the past while members of the IRA). Negotiations with the IRA by the British government, and others, were through Sinn Fein.

But maybe there is a parallel after all: Sinn Fein is now a mainstream political party and the IRA have renounced the use of weapons. Hamas is seeking legitimacy, and does more for ordinary Palestinans in terms of practical help than Fatah ever did. So maybe if more effort were made to engage Hamas politically, rather than just writing it off as a terrorist organization, then perhaps Hamas could evolve into a mainstream (and non-violent) political organization like Sinn Fein?

I'm just glad that somebody from the US government is engaging with an Arab nation in a way that does not involve oil (Saudi Arabia), threats (Iran), humiliation (Palestine) or bullets (Iraq).

I hope other US leaders will learn from this.

The agony of all this is that, under the guise of fighting terrorism, the US invasion of Iraq has achieved precisely the opposite to what was intended (which before the war was what so many people round the world were yelling at Bush and co. would happen).

What was a genuine threat but probably manageable before the war, has now become a much grimmer proposition and more widespread. A generation of Muslims has been radicalized by this illegal and botched war, and this will translate into more support for Al-Qaida round the world.

I hope the neocons are proud of themselves.