I'd be interested to hear why the down modder thinks my points above are trolling. Can you actually defend the FSF statement as written? Is it not a poor and flawed blanket statement? What are your arguments in support of it? Or did I just hit a nerve?

Everyone using Bash has the freedom to download, inspect, and modify the code -- unlike with Microsoft, Apple, or other proprietary software.

This comes across as scaremongering, as its a blanket statement professing the openness of bash compared specifically to Microsoft and Apple, while both those companies have huge collections of open source projects where I can do just what they are trumpeting with Bash and the GPL.

Its a perfect example of why blanket statements should be studied very carefully before being used, as it can just distort your perceived stance when people call you on the flaws of your statement.

That's because energy companies in the UK struggle to make a profit on residential business - take the bill I have in front of me from EDF Energy, it breaks down the £57.85 charge for gas and electric covering the period of 01/08/2014 to 08/09/2014 as follows:

Electricity: 5% VAT, 12% Environmental and social obligations, 17% Operating costs, 24% Network costs, 42% Wholesale costs, 0% Profit.

Gas: 5% VAT, 5% Environmental and social obligations, 16% Operating costs, 20% Network costs, 54% Wholesale costs, 0% Profit.

Their electricity sources are broken down as: 17% coal, 73.7% nuclear, 8.3% renewable, 1% other.

What people fail to realise (or just outright ignore) about pre-privatisation is that the costs were hidden and subsidised by the Treasury.

Or just houses - shacks and the like. You think shanty towns have planning permission or generate property taxes...?

I didn't ask any question, but feel free to not check who posted what before you make stupid posts...

And this is what is wrong with the US medical system - in my country I can call an ambulance every day of the week for as long as I want and one would attend me each and every time at no charge to me at all. Of course the NHS would take legal action after a few weeks if the calls aren't justified, but they can't charge me or refuse to attend...

Yup, he read an unproven and unsubstantiated allegation...

I'm afraid you have fallen in Salmonds trap - debt and currency are two entirely separate things, they are not linked in any manner and while Scotland can *refuse* to take its share of debt, that refusal is not automatic based on not taking the currency.

A countries debt is denominated in the currency that country uses, but its not linked to it in any other way.

If Scotland do refuse to take its share, then it will have a poorer credit rating on the international funds markets because of it.

No, what the Treasury did was confirm that the entirety of the debt was safe, it would be serviced by the UK even in the event that Scotland refused to take its share - they did this because it eliminated pre-referendum uncertainty about the financial situation, and prevented pre-emptive financial issues surrounding borrowing rates when lenders refuse to lend to the pre-referendum UK on the basis that it may not get its money back.

Again you have fallen into Salmonds trap by accepting his statements at face value - the UK just guaranteed the entirety of the debt, but that doesn't have any standing as to exonerating Scotland from its share when it comes to post-referendum negotiations. This isn't the school yard here.

Actually the rUK can refuse a currency union, and it will - there is nothing stopping it, and no foreign court has jurisdiction here. There is nothing stopping Scotland from *using* Sterling as its currency, but that's not what's being discussed here as I said in my earlier post - Salmond wants a seat at the table when it comes to Sterling fiscal policy, while none of the Westminster parties want to sit next to him, because they do not want to be beholden to a second economy when setting fiscal policy for the rUK.

That's what this discussion is all about. Why should Westminster have to share fiscal decision making with an "independent" Scotland?

Go ahead and use Sterling as the thing you use to buy and sell things - but you aren't getting a seat at the Bank of England table.

Infact, Salmond could quite easily take the entirety of the Bank of England and Sterling with him, but that won't solve his issue - it doesn't get him a stable currency because the Bank of England will no longer be backed by the Westminster treasury, and as the Bank of Englands assets would still be sliced up as before, he wouldn't get any more money with which to base his lender of last resort on.

What Salmond is after when he says "I want a currency union" is actually "I want a backing lender that I can rely on to bail me out regardless, but I don't want to set up my own backing lender because that is costly and would mean I would have to renege on my taxation promises, and anyway said new backing lender would not have the standing on the international financial markets because of its lack of history and backing of an established economic policy and government treasury, so what I actually need is a backing lender linked to the Westminster government. Crap."

Problem is, the voters don't understand the complexities of all that and simply believe Salmond...

Investors aren't going to go anywhere, because the financial worth of the City of London far outweighs the potential revenue of the north sea oil - don't get me wrong, that oil revenue is a nice to have, but it won't break the rUK not to have it. The bulk of the GDP of the UK resides outside Scotland, so we aren't in anywhere near as much of a sticky place as you think we are, especially as most large Scottish financial institutes will have to move south of the border to satisfy EU and WTO regulations.

Sharing fiscal policy with a brand new government, one that has to find its legs, sort out internal taxation, find the balance of its people etc - thats not something we want as a country, because all that brings uncertainty and instability. Salmond can have all of that, we will just get on with our own fiscal responsibilities thanks.

I also don't see how the rUKs debt will "increase massively in proportion" - if Salmond tries to make good on his threat of not taking Scotlands portion of the national debt, then the fledgling Scottish treasury will have a fairly poor international credit rating, right at the time it needs to be borrowing in order to set up its central bank.

Don't fall into the trap of believing Salmond and his supporters when they link a currency union to debt - a countries debt is not linked to the currency that country uses, its an entirely separate thing. It might be denominated in that currency for the purposes of reporting, but it isn't linked to it - it doesn't magically go away if the UK stopped using Sterling, and it doesn't mean that Salmond can legitimately refuse to take the Scottish share of debt without a currency union.

Its not the Bank of Englands assets that Salmond wants, its the Bank of England itself. He wants to be able to retain the BoE as a lender of last resort, while maintaining a say in how Sterling fiscal policy is created - inflation controls, interest rates, ability to borrow at a base rate etc etc etc.

Without the BoE, Scotland would need to set up its own lender of last resort, or risk having less foreign investment as Scottish banks have to borrow on the standard market, which is a lot more expensive.

There is no positive to the rest of the UK to allow an independent Scotland to continue to have access to the BoE in the capacity it wants to, which is why the Westminster government parties have all ruled it out - Salmond mean while continually pushes the fact that "Ireland was allowed to have a currency union with the UK when it was granted independence in the 1920s" but ignores the fact that the Republic of Ireland did not actually have a currency union as it had no say in fiscal policy in the few short years where it actually used Sterling as its currency, it simply just used Sterling like any person on the street does. Then they pegged the Irish Pound to Sterling for the next 50 or so years, again with minimal fiscal decision making as a result.

Salmonds other argument is that Scotland cannot be held liable for any debt that the rest of the UK has already acknowledged responsibility for, which Westminster did the first time Salmond made his threat because any doubt over that would cause fiscal policy difficulties with foreign markets - but that doesn't mean foreign lenders cannot view Scotland as a higher risk as a result, because it is after all refusing to take a portion of the debt it helped create.

Whatever happens, Friday is going to be very very interesting - if its a "Yes" then Salmond starts making his demands and then runs into difficulties where he insisted there wouldn't be any (currency union, which he has insisted all along would happen, despite being told time and again that it wouldn't, and membership of the EU, which Salmond has again insisted would be nearly instant while major EU politicians and leaders have said a newly independent Scotland would be required to apply to join as a new member state, the same as any other new member state seeking membership).

If its a "No", Salmond won't back down but will probably use it to fuel more dissent toward Westminster, insisting on another referendum in the near future.

Ho hum, the weekend is going to be fun.

That's skirting around the issue - this wasn't a purchase, so it shouldn't have been distributed that way.

Neal Asher, Peter F Hamilton and James S. A. Corey (pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) - all do extremely good scifi series.

Really? I'd love to see scifi adventure stories written before 1730, when Colonel C. F. von Geissler introduced them into the German military... and thats not even the earliest use of rockets if you want to go as far back as the Chinese.

Interesting to see that version of history making the rounds - the pilgrims weren't kicked out of England for anything, they left because they felt they didn't have the freedom to oppress their group members under English law. So they went somewhere with no laws.

Of course they have, its called pandering to the masses. The masses want the spying to stop, so promise that. These parties know they will never have to actually do anything about it because they know they will never make the landslide gains needed to actually govern - but then their goals are not to form a government, but to increase the parties reach, so even a single additional seat does that.

And you are falling right into their hands.