I'm not sure that logic plays through. Frankly, for Microsoft, the real problem is that damned few people really even consider Microsoft mobile products at all. They're a niche player, competing with BlackBerry for who will end up pushed right out of the market.

Imagine you're Microsoft, you're faced with the possibility that you will never, even if you heavily subsidized a mobile Windows product line, be able to make any significant headway into the iOS-Android hegemony. What would you do? If it was me, I'd quietly admit that I'm never going to be able to dominate mobile platforms the way I do desktops and portable computers, and I'd leverage what I had by opening up my software to more platforms.

This isn't even a revolutionary idea for Microsoft. They once owned their own *nix platform; Xenix. Windows NT itself was designed a hardware abstraction layer so it could be ported to multiple hardware platforms. But somewhere along the line Microsoft and the x86 computer manufacturers welded themselves together. I can't say it was a bad decision, as it made Microsoft and Intel absolute shitloads of money for a quarter century, but at the same time it seems to have frozen Microsoft in place. It became a one-trick pony, only able to envision itself in a world of Backoffice apps and OEM licensing. Now it's got to be nimble again, and as it has already effectively ceded a large portion of the computing products out there to Apple and Google, it's got to make the best it can with what it has.

No, this seems to be evolving into "Embrace... or die."

The world is a very different place for Redmond, and if they want to hang on to any piece of the consumer market, they need to get their software on to all the major platforms.

First of all, I'm not British, so I only meant this as an outside observation. I'm Canadian, so certainly well versed in the realities of Westminster politics.

Second of all, as much as Cameron may be far from ideal, I don't think he's any kind of Palpatine. As much as anything, he's been delivered the fruits of the Labour meltdown in Scotland which began in 2010 and now appears to be permanent.

I do think that the specter of a Labour government reliant on the SNP disturbed a good many English, and I think there are reasonable grounds to argue that, for England, the idea of a Devo-maxed Scotland still able to push English MPs around on matters of largely English concern demonstrates fundamental inequities. And before we all forget, it is Labour, as much as anyone, who created this dilemma by dealing with the Scottish question, and going out of its way not to deal with English question.

At any rate, British voters had their chance to pick a new electoral system that would have made the ability of any party to form government with less than even a 40% share of the popular vote far less likely. They rejected that. Coupled with what looks to be a permanent break with Labour in Scotland, and the phenomena of UKIP actually stealing more Labour votes than Conservative votes in the North, the Tories probably have a good chance of repeating the 2015 election again, providing they don't go completely off the rails. And that will moderate them as much as anything. Their first majority in 23 years is not something they're going to be keen to throw away on a pack of Thatcheresque exploits.

The alternative being a weak Labour government with its balls firmly in the Nats hands.

If there was ever an election that was a choice of the lesser evil, the 2015 UK general election was it.

Well, right up until the Daily Mail gets blocked... and given how offensive the lies the DM peddle are, it really should by any kind of "offensive content" filter.

"Shall I felate you with my misshapen blackened teeth, luvvey?"

"Please do, dearest, and I shall think of England while you do it!"

You seriously think that an entire civilization was built on sexual slavery, and the emancipation of it women will bring it down?

Boy this place sure does attract the dark underbelly.

Well, now women have full civil liberties, and that is that.

Civilization will survive husbands not being able to rape their wives. And yes I support a spouse's right to leave a marriage. Women are not chattel, which was the underlying argument for spousal assault.

Why indeed. I have no issue with multiple spouses, though I wouldn't want to be part of such a group.

But one step at a time.

One class: consenting adults

Extrensing marital rights to gay couples is no more creating a new class than overthrowing anti miscegenation laws created a new class. From my point of view, allowingf same sex marriage in fact creates fewer classes.

Sodomy with an infected person is a transmission risk for almost all diseases.

As does vaginal intercoursw. And, of course, many heterosexual coup!es have anal intercourse as well.

In most common law jurisdictions, a religious ceremony has no legal standing at all. The magic in a marriage ceremony isn't "by the power invested in me by God", it is " by the power invested in me by the State of Massachusetts."

Churches' attachments to marriage is historic and I doubt there is anywhere in English speaking North America where a religious ceremony was ever required.

Actually in many jurisdictions thee lack of marital status means even attempting to duplicate the full powers of a spouse in regards to incapacity can be all but impossible to replicate. Even powers of attorney and living wills don't quite deliver you the power in the event of your spouse's incapacity that a marriage license does.