Mr MacDonald's letter is simply priceless. I feel so ashamed that as a progressive / left-winger I cared so little about the Iraqi people that I didn't want to invade their sovereign nation, bomb the fuck out of it, reduce living conditions so far as to make Saddam's regime look like a golden age, and search for Weapons Of Mass Destruction that were such a threat to Western Civillisation that they made Killer Kane's death-ray from Buck Rogers look like a fucking pea-shooter.

Every court case that these zealots lose further fuels their own sense that they are a persecuted minority. Which in turn, suits the Pastors and Preachers as it keeps the cash rolling in from their gullible and captive flocks.

Why doesn't the USA set up specific ignorance zones? Anybody who wishes to live in the 18th Century can go and live in one of these zones. They would be free to have the teachings of Gallileo and Copernicus refuted and they could wander about their flat and five thousand year old Earth.

If they get a headache, they can go for a spot of blood-letting or trepanning and they should also be denied penicillin, or any of the other Ungodly trappings of Satanic science.

What's all the outrage and indignation about?

Isn't selling snake oil an American cultural tradition?

Oprah should concentrate on what she's good at. Adding and then dropping weight and then adding it again.

"while Campbell had spent a pathetic $119,000"

You just summed up the reason America is in the mess it's in with that one sentence.

Whilst ever candidates for election need to spend over a million just to win a primary, your democracy will remain in thrall to special interests and big business; and detatched from the needs of it's people.

Gosh it certainly did turn him into a monster didn't it?

Thankfully however, it sounds as if this effete and pretentious ponce still knew which knife was for the fish course, even after he'd had his daily fix.

"but you're WAY more boring than the "trustafarians" I've known."

That's because when they were roughing it in Eritrea during the Civil War on their gap year, they fought off militia on horseback with Soviet RPG's. And then got ameobic dysentry.

So obviously trustafarians are more interesting that an average working joe.

So water scarcity is going to unpick the seams of society as we know it?

Pop Quiz: What is 70% of the surface of this planet comprised of?

If these women feel the need to enforce their religious views in terms of the way in which they excercise; why don't they visit their local mosque, speak to their religious leaders and elders to see if the mosque can offer excercise facilities in accordance with Islamlic tradition? Rather than attempting to force a commercial gym to conform to their religious ideals.

The comparison between Bush and Churchill is quite apt. But not flattering.

Two warmongers, enjoying playing slaughter with little people from the comfort of their ivory towers.

Churchill directed the disastrous Gallipoli campaign of the Great War, and whilst Home Secretary oversaw the creation of the Black & Tan irregulars that terrorised Ireland; not to mention ordering the British Army to fire on General Strikers during the 1920's for having the temerity to march because they could not find work enough to feed & clothe their children.

Most organised crime families have "operatives of Rove's ability", they being the people generally in posession of "the negatives". That's not really a good recommendation for sound and responsible government.

Why the opponents of stem-cell research are more bothered about the rights of a discarded blastocyst than they are about alleviating the suffering of fully formed human beings?

Just what kind of a mindset leads to this "Focus on the Foetus" mentality?

"One option being entertained by the Israeli leaders would have the effect of turning the Lebanese capital into a fetid slum, swamped by hundreds of thousands of cowering peasants expelled north by a vast Israeli human engineering project"

Ghettoisation eh?

My neurons are playing up at the moment, can anybody remind me which country and political party used ghettos to control and humiliate civillians, and which ethnic groups were affected?

From Peter Ustinov

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."

Kind of sums it up.

" and, of course, the US is either directly or indirectly responsible for the current crisis."

Of course, of course there goes the lightbulb over my head...finally.

It was Al Quaida or the Russians or Chinese or Koreans who manufactured a bunch of fighter jets, tanks, rifles,missiles grenades etc that look exactly like American weapons; and then supplied them to Israel so it could massacre Lebanese civillians & destroy Proctor and Gamble factories. This would then look like America was either indirectly or directly responsible for the current Lebanaon atrocities being committed by Israel.

And by the way, what you term "left-wing" is actually slightly to the right of centre.

What years did the Hit-ites and Samaritans occupy it?

Why is nobody pushing for a Samaritan homeland?

If I find out I'm part Samaritan can I have a big patch of land in the Middle East as well?

"After all there is a UN resloution telling Lebanon to disarm these fascist morons. Anybody out there want to bet their lives that the UN will come through for them in a pinch...????"

Can't have it both ways. If we are going to start discussing UN resolutions let's start with those that require Israel to return it's various Middle-Eastern land grabs shall we?