You realise that absolutely everything the Tories said to get elected was a lie, not just that? Same old Tories.

Actually, our Health Secretary (minister) Andrew Lansley is cutting funding and systematically destroying healthcare, so no, not all ministers will argue that their area is the most important.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. The private companies shouldn't own any of it, just as here in the UK (although that is rapidly changing).

The UK's NHS is consistently shown to be one of, if not 'the', most efficient healthcare system in the world, and yet it's (currently) the one with the lowest level of private sector involvement among the developed nations. There is no evidence at all that private companies make things more efficient - in fact the evidence points the opposite way.

This is one of the many reasons why any private healthcare model is broken. As soon as there are financial incentives for anything the care of patients, both donors and recipients, is secondary.

I give blood and have a donor card. I do this willingly knowing that I am helping society. If my donated blood or organ was the source of profit for some company, would I donate? I don't know, but I can't see why some company should make a profit out of something I donated.

Private healthcare is a scourge. Nobody should be made bankrupt by illness, or even have to worry about it (financially). In the UK our NHS provides whatever you need, regardless of means - it's just a shame that the current government is in the process of destroying it as a reward to private healthcare companies who funded them at the last election.

UK taxes are by no stretch of the imagination 'excessive'. The poorest pay far more than the rich as a percentage of their income. We have a massively regressive tax regime, but then that's what you get when you have a government of millionaires and a public who are easily fooled into blaming the poor for everything.

If there isn't a candidate that represents you, stand yourself. What's stopping you? There is never a good excuse not to use your vote - if you don't vote nothing will change.

Expensive mess? The NHS is actually one of (if not 'the') most efficient healthcare systems in the world, whatever our present government might want you to believe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877

Actually, BR was both more efficient and much better for the UK economy. I just happen to have written a piece on this very subject a couple of days ago: http://www.dominictristram.com/2012/01/05/rail-fare-increase.html

...except that is exactly what they're not doing when the companies go bust, even when they are much more efficient when (briefly) run by the state.

The last government didn't do this either, despite a motion suggesting exactly this being passed by 2:1 at the 2004 Labour conference.

Unlikely, seeing as the three largest parties don't support renationalisation of the trains.

I used Wildfire until Orange discontinued it. It was excellent - a much more usable way to deal with voicemail. It really seemed like the future. Orange used to be pretty bleeding-edge until they were bought by France Telecom.

I paid something like five quid to activate it, but after that it didn't cost any more money, and I was on a very cheap contract for the time (Everday 50).

Wildfire and my StarTAC. It felt like being in Star Trek.

So Gandhi was a coward?

Except that getting doctors to run hospitals is completely stupid. They are massively more expensive than managers, and when you do medicine at university you tend to learn how to treat people, not run businesses. That's not to say that *appropriate* managers aren't doctors (people such as clinical directors), but if you think that doctors are the best people to decide which printer paper supplier to use, or the logistics company that is responsible for transporting samples around the country, or the million other things that running a multi-million pound business (which is what a hospital is), then you are severely misguided.

Only 3% of NHS staff are managers. That is lower than pretty much any company in the oh-so-efficient private sector. The NHS is also the most efficient healthcare system of seven top industrialised nations: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877

You, sir, are a right-wing troll. I suggest sticking to facts in your future posts.

That was me. God knows what's up with the Slashdot commenting system these days, but I seem to randomly post as anonymous (when it manages to post at all)...

Did anyone really use 'App Store' in everyday language before the one on the iPhone? Someone says that they used it internally in their company, but I'd suggest that this was the exception - it was not an everyday term.

I'm not being pro-Apple here, but their case is actually stronger than the case for 'Windows'. Maybe they're both bad, but Apple's is still stronger. I certainly referred to 'X Windows' (however incorrect that may be!) before I ever saw Microsoft Windows, so is just 'Windows' a valid trademark?

So people may or may not think that 'app store' is something they said before the iPhone, but the majority of people definitely didn't use it. Also, while I guess it's more likely that people might combine 'app' with the word 'store' in the US, that would never be a natural thing to say in the rest of the world. For example, you'd say 'shop' in the UK, not 'store'. Perhaps 'App Store' is actually far less generic in most of the world than 'Windows' is? Apple should perhaps try to register the trademark in the UK - they'd get far less grief.