I'm certainly against safe seats, but this could be fixed very easily by having open primaries. If you live in a (for example) safe labour area, you could then at least decide which person within the labour party represents you area, and vote them out if you wish.

I'm also not arguing that the conservatives deserved a majority this time, clearly they didn't (and nether did labour in 2005 for that matter, they only got 36% of the vote). A hung parliament is probably the correct outcome this time.

PR results in coalitions. Coalitions give:
1) Too much say to smaller parties
2) Too many decisions made behind closed doors

Now, imagine if we had this same outcome in seats terms with PR. This is what would be happening:
A party with ~45% of the vote is being blackmailed by a party with 10%, and extracting demands and cabinet seats. This would be quite wrong. The views of the 10% would be vastly overrepresented and the ~45% under-represented.
Plus everything would be happening behind closed doors.

This would clearly be quite wrong, and is what I am arguing against.

Yes, because what I want is the politicians deciding everything important behind closed doors in back room deals, like they are doing right now.

Seriously, what is happening right now is a terrible advert for PR. I would hate for this to happen after every single election, but it's what we'd get with PR.

To say that our system is unfair is untrue, every constituency has equal weight in parliament. You could argue that the constituency boundaries are unfair, and you'd probably be right and they probably should be fixed. But to switch to a system where minor parties get overrepresented in coalitions (like the Israeli system) and back room deals override the electorate (like right now) is a huge mistake.

What she'd be doing is forcing a new election. Not overriding democracy, but saying to the people that the politicians have failed and the country requires politicians who can succeed.

I think you misunderstand the idea of a constitutional monarchy.

Er. TFA say the offer is 400p a share. Currently they trade at around 250p a share. This represents a 60% premium. Given that ARM is very close to its 52 week high, at 400p it's a no-brainer for the shareholders.

I, however, don't really think that Apple is going to buy ARM. The Inquirer has a very good analysis of why not here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1602331/apple-arm

If it's so good, why were we denied a vote on the treaty?

I really want an @compuserve.com email address. Retro-cool.

Hahah! THIS.

Wouldn't industrialisation make wine production in extreme situations easier not harder?

Also, I'm loving your complete denial of the world ever being warmer than it is today. That's got to be on a par with flat-earthism.

When has a couple of degrees C rise in global temperature ever wiped out a very large number of humans?

As another poster (DaveAtFraud) in this thread put it, all I'm looking for is proper back-testing of the apocalyptic predictions. Until I see one, I'm going to remain a skeptic.

Exactly my point. If these strong positive feedback loops existed, then they would have already occured in the course of human history.

This frozen methane? Worst case scenario the global methane output goes up by 5-10%. That's about the same as the can be attributed to cow farts.

1) The temperature changes predicted are very small compared to the various "great dyings" we do see in the fossil record.
2) Temperature changes of this size have already occured in the course of human history and were non-fatal. Which was my original point.
3) I am neither american, christian nor rich. Just skeptical. Keep your trollish statements to yourself.

ok let me rephrase because you clearly didn't understand.

If global temperatures are going to go up by 2 C, then it would be useful to find out when the last time in history the earth was 2 C warmer than it is now and what happened as a result, no?

Because of the constant change in global temperatures (I assume you're not going to argue against the fact that there have been ice ages) it is likely that this temperature has happened at some point in the past.

If it has happened in human history (and evidence suggests that it has) then any catastrophe that they are predicting would have happened already.

I'm not denying that the climate changes, and I'm not denying that humans have had an impact, I'm simply questioning the doomsday senarios that appear hyped up in the media and from politicians. It is you, by angrily dismissing this out of hand, that is showing religious fevour, not I.

We know there has been natural global cooling - ice ages and the like, so it would make complete sense for there to have been natural global warming at some point too.

We also know in the UK the romans (circa 100BC) grew grapes almost up to the scottish borders, something not possible today because it's too cold.

So, the climate has always been changing, and while it's almost certain that humans have made an impact on the environment, I find it very hard to believe that the results will be catastrophic.

You're wrong.

High frequency trading means that more trades happen in general. This extra competition to fill orders drives down the difference between the buy and sell prices and greatly reduces arbitrage situations (ie, the difference in price between the same stock listed on different exchanges and possibly in different currencies).

So, if you buy or sell a something, you're giving less money to the market-makers and you're getting a more "correct" price. It levels the playing field.

And it's true that arbitrage and hifi trading are a zero-sum game. That's why it's an arms-race at this point.

Almost! It's actually about the location of the data center, i.e, close to the exchange. A fast, low latency connection to the exchange gives you a crucial edge over the competition. It means when things change you can get your trades in before your competition does. This is ever more important in the up-and-coming automated trading systems.