should there be a seperate political off topic area?


No.

IMHO, Off Topic is the best part of this whole bbs (has anyone noticed that in the near future Off Topic will have the most posts of any of the forums?) and what makes Off Topic so good is the free-wheeling, anything-goes diversity of topics and opinions, expressed by civil-minded, intelligent people who have interesting things to say.

Restricting any aspect of that would be unfortunate.

tanstaafl.