Don't know the specifics for Tae Kwon Do but some sort of dress code (for whatever practical or traditional reasons) is usual in sports like these (e.g. judo).

The fact that we're talking Muslims and the hijab here might make it more sensitive than usual but, nevertheless, if some federations choose to enforce the rules more rigidly than others, it's just not something that, personally, I could get worked up about.

(And the 'rough-and-tumble' photo is rugby not football.)

I'm a Tolkien fan so will read this book. I thought Andrew O'Hehir's review was a very good one: he treats the subject - elves, dragons and all - with the seriousness it deserves without lapsing into geekery.

On the question of Tolkien's religious conviction, I never felt I was being evangelized to when I read the books, both in childhood and later, and could just enjoy them in themselves. But when I read C.S.Lewis's Narnia books to my young daughter, I felt the Christianity message coming through strongly, particularly in The Last Battle. (My daughter didn't notice of course, as I didn't at her age.)

If "Crossroads" represents a 'mainsteam' American view of Islam and terrorism then I think Gary Kamiya is right to question it.

The US is very much the exception in the western world with its absolutist views on Islam/Israel/Palestine. The mainstream view in western Europe, for example, is nearer Kamiya's (and Salon's) than America's.

I agree with GK that a knowledge of history is invaluable, particularly for politicians - if only George Bush and co. had understood a bit about Iraq before invading it.

But you can read two different history books and come to two very different conclusions.

We know that George Bush has read at least one history book: "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900" by right-wing British historian Andrew Roberts. He even invited him for lunch in the White House in February.

The trouble is, this is hearing only what you want to hear - Roberts was a leading British proponent of the Iraq war. In history, like in anything else, you need to get more than one point of view. And read more than one book.

As a non-American, the whole American gun thing seems bizarre to me. Why is having (almost) untrammelled access to guns so sacred?

OK, it's in the constitution, but this is 2007; how likely is it that the citizenry will need to form a 'well-armed militia' to defend themselves against their own government? It wasn't their government in colonial days.

In the meantime, shootings in the US, deliberate or accidental, vastly outnumber those in other western countries. This, presumably, is the price Americans are prepared to pay. But why?

What are the real benefits of gun ownership - and this is a genuine query - that outweigh the downside? How often do you need to shoot a bear?

I don't watch many films these days but I'll watch this one. I glimpsed a short trailer on British TV (with the sound off) that made me laugh out loud. Not often that happens.

(It was the bit where Simon Pegg is chasing somebody through a series of gardens - effortlessly vaulting fences as he goes. And then Nick Frost tries it... )

As a Brit, I'm hoping the neighbours elect Royal over Sarkozy.

Sarkozy admires the Anglo-Saxon economic model and the 'Blairite revolution' in the UK. I've seen where Blairism has led the UK (into Iraq, for example) and I don't like it. The French won't like it either once President Sarkozy's honeymoon period is over.

France has plenty of problems that need fixing (don't we all?) but I'd back Segolene Royal to attempt this rather than the queasily right-wing and incendiary Sarkozy.

You must bear in mind that Melanie Phillips (aka Mad Mel) is not a rational person. In the UK she's part of the lunatic right-wing fringe and I'm surprised that even The Spectator (a right-wing magazine) printed this crap.

What IS scary is how right-wing blogs can pick up this sort of tripe and, by dint of repetition, give it some sort of legitimacy.

There's been a whiff of this in American foreign policy for years, not just in Iraq. Of course, American lives ARE worth more than other lives - to Americans. But Iraqi lives are worth just as much to Iraqis, and it's this that Americans seem to lose sight of sometimes, and then are surprised at the hostility directed towards them.

It's as if there's little ability to empathize with or understand the feelings of people 'out there' who have to bear the consequences of US foreign policy. How can anybody pretend that 650,000 dead Iraqis (a reputable figure, by the way) is somehow 'worth it'? Beyond fighting a global nuclear war, what possible foreign policy aim could justify that number of deaths of any country's citizens?

The rest of the world is not just a resource to be plundered, but is full of ordinary people who have fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, and respond in the same way as Americans would when they are harmed.