It's a shame that you got that hostility while shopping for a bra. I've shopped for lingerie for myself in full beardy guy mode and never had a problem (okay, the occasional knowing smirk, which I welcome). I know that response isn't going to deter you from doing everything you need to do for your daughter. Keep on doing what you do.

I've seen The Cycle, her MSNBC program, a few times. She works well with the other two members of the team, who both appear to be more left-leaning, though once or twice she has quietly hissed an exasperated correction to what she believes to be a mischaracterization of a Republican policy by one of her co-hosts.

From reading about Cupp in her Wikipedia article and on leftish atheist blogs, I'd expected a strident, contrarian personality, but thankfully she is not at all antagonistic. It's a bit like seeing Dawkins speak after only ever hearing him described by Christians. I'm glad she's on MSNBC instead of some place like Fox News where I would never see her.

You're doing fine in my opinion. I don't come to this site for the ads--in fact I'm most likely to get your material from an RSS feed in the first instance--but when I do come here the ads are discreet and I don't notice them. If I did, to be perfectly honest, I'm very unlikely to care whether I see two men kissing on an internet page.

I think this is so much bollocks. I live in the UK so if the "atheism is inherently hostile" argument held water I would encounter similar reactions to the fact that I don't believe in God. The fact is I don't.

It's a particularly dumb argument because it's blatantly false. If I say I don't believe in God to someone who believes in God it doesn't involve setting myself up as an authority any more than his or her belief is necessarily a claim to authority. We just have a difference of opinion. While that can lead to conflict this is not necessarily the case.

"We've got the politically correct doing battle with zealous Christians over whether the three wise men were following a bright star or Rudolph's nose."

Nice one.

I think this is all very promising, actually. To let the Christmas season become the property of any one religion is unhealthy.

And yeah, I do know what I'm saying. Christmas may be the festival of Jesus' birth, but everybody needs a winter festival, and such festivals existed before Jesus.