How long should you hold out for Mr Right?A new book urges singletons to give up the search for Mr Right and marry Mr Second Best instead. What kind of advice is that, asks Becky Pugh. By Becky Pugh
Published: 7:00AM GMT 26 Jan 2010Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw held out for Mr Right Photo: REX  Single women up and down the country had good reason to spit out their cornflakes as they read the papers yesterday morning. Nestling among tales of bankers' greed and Brangelina's have-they-or-haven't-they split was arguably one of the most incendiary stories of 2010. It goes like this: American author Lori Gottlieb has written a book, published here next week, in which she declares that singletons who are still searching for Mr Right by the age of 30 should give up and settle for Mr Second Best. The book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough, blames literature, film and TV for leading us to believe erroneously that The One is out there. Hence, she says, in our doomed search for true love, we overlook countless relationships that could have made for "viable" marriages. How many self-respecting women do you know who dream of a "viable" marriage? We are grown-up enough to know that while the perfect relationship does not exist, we can expect a lot more of marriage than just viability. Women want love and warmth and emotional connection, and they want it to last for a lifetime. The good news, contrary to the gospel according to Gottlieb, is that those things exist, and they can last a lifetime. Not to believe that is to resign oneself to lifelong mediocrity and to the notion that it is all you deserve. We don't accept mediocrity from our government; we…

From The Times January 2, 2009Don't expect Obama to get tough with IsraelThe President-elect has much more important priorities than a radical change of direction on the Middle East Gerard Baker
As the new year begins to the depressingly familiar noise of war in the Middle East, a pregnant silence is all that can be heard from Barack Obama. This is, of course, only proper. The President-elect has political decorum and the prerogatives of diplomacy on his side. Every day his spokesman patiently reminds reporters clamouring for a hint of direction that there is only one President and that he is, if only now for the next 18 days, George W. Bush. But it is an especially intriguing sort of silence. The whole world is waiting impatiently for Mr Obama to start making good on his promise of change. Of all the issues that have separated the US from the rest of the world during the Bush presidency, the Israeli-Palestinian one might span the largest chasm. Europeans and Arabs have simply not been able to believe at times the virtually unyielding pro-Israel line that the US has taken since 2001, whether over Jewish settlements, Ariel Sharon's security fence, the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 or the present fighting with Hamas, or on any number of lesser but pointed issues. There are lingering hopes in Europe and much of the Middle East (suspicions in some parts of America) that the new president will seek to rebalance US policy. No one really thinks that Mr Obama is about to “get tough” with the Israelis, as some fantasists would have it, but it is surely plausible that the new administration will change tack. Or to put it another way, surely it's implausible that the new Democratic administration could possibly…

 Republicans v secular AmericaWith blatant disregard for the first amendment, Republicans' intolerance of US secularism means things are turning ugly Dan Kennedy guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 February 2010 Article historyIf you're part of secular America – that is, if you're an atheist, an agnostic, a religious liberal or even a mainstream believer who thinks religion should be kept out of politics and vice-versa – then you should be very afraid of what the Republican party has in store for you in 2012.No news there, you might say. The Republicans, as we all know, have been in thrall to the Christian right since the Reagan era. But there's something new, something more intolerant, something truly ugly in the works. And if you don't believe me, let's start with Tim Pawlenty, unassuming governor of Minnesota in his day job, fire-breathing Christian warrior and aspiring presidential candidate in his spare time."I want to share with you four ideas that I think should carry us forward," Pawlenty said on Friday at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC. After invoking "basic constitutional principle and basic common sense," he continued:"The first one is this: God's in charge. God is in charge ... In the Declaration of Independence it says we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. It doesn't say we're endowed by Washington, DC, or endowed by the bureaucrats or endowed by state government. It's by our creator that we are given these rights."Never mind Pawlenty's fundamental and no doubt deliberate misreading of the founders' intent. (Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, is well-known for having cut up a Bible to remove all supernatural references to…

 Has Rupert Murdoch's paywall gamble paid off?Advertisers don't like it. Analysts are unconvinced. The paywall at News International may not be winning many fans, but the man behind it is determined to keep it standing.By Ian Burrell
Thursday, 2 September 2010
AFP/GETTY IMAGESWall or nothing: It remains to be seen if the 'Times' paywall reaps sufficient rewards for Rupert MurdochRead Article    

 Op-Ed: How Can Obama Rebound?Americans want one thing from their elected officials and especially their presidents: success. Read Opinions