I didn't get your point; CNN and MSNBC and the BBC would be all over it if it were Bush.

The problem with PR is that it tends to come with party lists. Representatives become even more slavish to the party line than MPs are now, and independents don't stand a chance (particularly if you have a threshold). In principle, MPs are supposed to represent their constituents over the party.

I always admire the German Bundestagswahl system, with aspects of both. I believe the Scots use it in their parliament. I think the London Assembley operates on the same principle too.

Exactly this.

I'm in Hammersmith, a notional marginal Labour/Conservative seat. I would rather have a Lib Dem MP, but they haven't a chance of winning, so I'll probably vote Tory because I'd rather have a Tory government than a Labour one. If we had STV I could codify this vote by voting Lib Dem, Tory, Labour*, or with PR I could vote Lib Dem knowing my vote would be counted. At the moment, voting Lib Dem means my vote has no impact on the governance of the country.

*I'd rather have Labour than UKIP, the BNP, the Greens, the English Democrats etc.

At the moment, we're just winding up Parliament before it is dissolved in a few days time. Any bill that pasts has to have the support of all three main parties, or it could easily be blocked in that time. Also it's a convention not to rush into law something which the next government will immediately chuck out, not least because it'll make the party that does it rather more unpopular.

So the Tories, and indeed the Liberal Democrats, bear some responsibility for allowing this bill to pass, unlike the rest of the year when there'd be nothing they could do to stop it.

From a list?! What are you doing, judging by name? "Hmm, Black Sheep sounds unpleasant, will give that a miss".

Does it matter?

Also, realistically, the impact on the average American of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is nearly nill. It's no wonder that domestic policy gets people more worried; it actually affects their lives.

I'm in a Polo 1.0 Manual. It's amazing what it can't do at 4500 rpm.

And it makes some pretty bold claims about those use cases...

Is this true? I have a kneejerk reaction to "Studies have shown..."
I guess there may be some benefit to SADs cases*.

*Though I can never decide if it doesn't exist or if everyone in London has it. Check out the symptoms; "...some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change. They may sleep too much, have little energy, and crave sweets and starchy foods. They may also feel depressed. Though symptoms can be severe, they usually clear up." [via Wiki]

A good example for me is my dad driving up Remenham hill in a full car. This is a modern Mercedes automatic, and it shifts up too early, slowing the car down. Fortunately it also has manual paddles so you can correct this behaviour, but I'm glad my (tiny little 1.0l) VW Polo is manual. I can't imagine doing pulling out onto a dual carriage way in automatic.

Oh, to explain that last bit; here in England we have roads where traffic speed is 70mph that you can pull onto from a T-junction. No sliproad.

Very true. If you had the accelerator problem when just starting, and got stuck in first gear, and your engine races away, you might reach a peak speed of as much as five, maybe ten miles an hour.

Even if we had guns, we're not exactly going to launch an armed insurrection because the BBC has asked someone to stop running an open-source iPlayer client.

Hell, the Yanks couldn't be bothered to get another revolution together for the PATRIOT act, let alone a TV licensing spat.

Yeah, those factors of four are really hard to compute in your head, right?

The calorie is loosely defined, but at 4.18something kJ/kcal it's more accurately defined than most people need to worry about. As someone else has already pointed out, it is defined as SI.

2500kcal is the UK Government's RDA for an adult male (compared to 2000kcal for a normal adult woman).

Applied isn't a dirty word. It's how the rest of the world supports the pure mathematicians. I would have voted Engineering, but I did my degree in that and I work as an engineer.

Quite so. Was talking to someone about Switzerland's policy of (heavily) armed neutrality the other day, they asked why Switzerland didn't have the bomb. After all, they have the wealth and the know-how. But what would they do with it? The only possible use for it wpuld hurt the Swiss as much as anyone else.