Very free. No fees at all.
UK state funded directly rather than via local government.
As opposed to "private" schools where parents pay fees.

I voted whig, but only because royalist and unionist (in the Irish sense) were missing. When you rebellious colonists come back to accept the supremacy of the crown and parliament you will cure all the social, welfare and cultural ills that are prevalent throughout "America".
Constitutional monarchy rules. OK

The correct spelling of "honour", "colour" etc. is clearly given in the ENGLISH dictionary, The words "honor" etc. are not English, but "American", Mr. Webster and his ilk have a lot to answer for, especially their failure to use "Z" in words such as enterprize.

From Wikipedia zero day exploit

For example in 2008 Microsoft confirmed a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which affected some versions that were released in 2001.[4] The date the vulnerability was first found by an attacker is not known; however, the vulnerability window in this case could have been up to 7 years.

Looks like we've known about this for quite some time

As a proud UK subject (we are NOT citizens), I don't understand the lack of "social belonging" that is shown by so many colonists posters. Is it because by starting with an illegal act and armed uprising the conspiracy of "founding fathers" set a precedent which is still followed by this generation, or is it because a mongrel mix of immigrants from minority cults and diverse cultures has failed to form a cohesive "nation".
The police force should be seen as an integral part of society, and respected as defending the values of it. You claim to be democratic republic, so either you have the laws and constabulary that a majority wants, or you have failed to use your votes to that end.
If you admit that the majority of your society is happy with the current policing policy, but are personally against it, then you should either accept the will of the majority as the cost of the (other) benefits of citizenship (while using your freedom to try and persuade your fellow voters to change that policy), or give up that citizenship and emigrate. If your claim is that the majority of the electorate do not agree with the current policy, then I do not understand how that could come about unless your republic is not democratic.
As a bystander, I acknowledge that I have no right to criticize, but I would like to understand.

Firstly, he was guilty of bad taste, and bad style, and given that any reasonable person would have thumped him at first sight, he was guilty of behavior likely to cause a breach of the peace. And then he was on a suspended sentence.
He should consider himself lucky he didn't get a couple of years.

If they have a guy for the fire next week, they get a penny, otherwise they get shot as rebellious colonists:)

A crossbow.

Post hoc propter hoc

In the 70s I lead a team of about a dozen software engineers working on technical software (flight test, CAD etc.) . There were three females in the group, and at a later date a female manager ran the whole department (about 100 programmers). So where have they gone? or is it a myth. I know that females tend to leave careers to have families, but why don't they come back? Is it the rate of change in IT ?

I have to agree, I like slashdot a lot, because lots of what we get comes from minorities, and they are where amusing / interesting / insightful ideas generally arise. It gives me a place to express my opinion, which frankly is as weird as you get. A theist, techy, old hacker who started when assembly code was a new tool, and still believes in SSADM (structured system analysis and design methodology) and thinks gun control is good and capital punishment is necessary. In my mind, the most important aspect of the "new media" is the bi-directional nature of the beast. I strongly support free speech, and I like moderation schemes like ours (even if the urge to join in has to be suppressed in favour of "doing ones share").
There are a few times I get annoyed by the number of AC posts, but I suppose that is part of the price we pay for giving minorities a hearing.
Now I know that the Jeff Bates was equating the slashdot community with "a minority", and I am talking about minorities within that, but I think "as below so above" applies, and I expect that model will be applied to many other groups as more people get used to the idea of posting thanks to sites like Fbook but want more "substance".
Keep up the good work and happy birthday!