Perhaps you don't know very many people in the UK? David Cameron's coalition partners in the last government were considerably more socialist than David Cameron's own right wing party, yet they were the ones putting the brakes on this kind of State overreach and they were the ones try to protect the privacy of the people. You've clearly got some misplaced biases against socialism and considerable ignorance about the UK.

Also, stop and think about the suggestion of assigning a caseworker to every child... does that sound like something the UK could afford, and if they did do it, just what kind things would they be able to achieve given the current budget conditions? Sounds like a nonsense to me.

I live in the UK BTW.

The value of gold, silver and bitcoins is irrelevant if there are capital controls that only allow you to with â60/day - how are you going to buy them? If you could get all you hands on your money...

Sounds like you're not having to deal with 40+ networks visible at one time, often with multiple access points for each network. The impact of high density living and working in London.

How do monitor, check for and track down the interference? I've had problems in the past and would love to know how to resolve this (residential and small office)

The way this works with British Telecom is that you have multiple SIDs on your router. There's one you connect to that you have control over, and there are also additional SIDs like "BTWifi-with-FON" and "BTWifi-X" with separate IP address and logging that you have no control over. I think that BT internet customers have a free access to these all over the country and if they opt-out of this they can then get it disabled on their own home router. This way BT claims they literally have millions of WIFI access points all over the country, yet the experience is terrible if actually the network is on residential ADSL (upstream capped to 448kb/s for instance).

Incidentally I've wondered whether you could just replace their ADSL or VDSL (FTTC) router with something of your own without these additional access points and still been able to access their national network of access points for free.

Isn't rental income taxable, which is presumably why those other things are deductible? Same elsewhere although people to whinge about.

I live in London, and I can tell you that it can get much worse. I suspect it's more about the overseas investors than anything else, who buy knowing that the prices will go up and the returns are good enough that they don't even bother renting them out. Councils around here are reacting by considering laws that will allow them to forcibly use all the empty homes to help ease the housing issue, or by introducing special taxes for non-domiciled owners.

I really hate property tax, it's so offensive. For instance if you live in an area that gentrifies, why should you have to sell your home because suddenly you're paying more tax? Maggie Thatcher got rid of this in the 80s and replaced it with a council tax that everybody pays, irrespective of whether you're a renter or owner. Her first attempts at this caused riots in Scotland, but hey! I think ultimately it's fairer in a "we all pay the same" kind of way, but I suspect that 1) it hits poorer people harder than property taxes did, and 2) it removes a brake that constrained house price inflation.

They fill the gap with immigration. The current UK government has to make noises about curbing immigration for the poor people, but the home owners don't really want this to happen...

They start sub-dividing existing properties and turning them in to multiple flats. West London for instance near where I live has street after street of what would appear to be terraced town houses. Grand old buildings that were once individual homes or a home with an apartment underneath for the servants. Now? Six flats at least in each, and each flat selling for more than £400,000. Have a look online for the terms "freehold" and "leasehold", and then you'll know a whole new level home ownership legal issues.

The whole healthcare thing doesn't exactly help does it? Talk about a powerful tool for trapping people in work. I don't know if it's still true but a few years ago I heard that Americans were one illness away from bankruptcy. Even though I lived in the US in my early 20s when I was mostly healthy, I felt a weight come off my shoulders when I moved north of the border to Canada. The bills I saw when I broke my arm in the US were outrageous to me as a Briton, especially considering the quality of service I got in the hospital.

They get paid for their hours in China though. Our software engineers in Shanghai always asked for permission to work overtime before doing it. Could you imagine the cultural shift in the US if Americans did the same compared with the current situation where there's no hard boundary?

Interesting... it's labelled incorrectly as "2160p" on Keepvid, but it does appear to be 7680x4320.

http://keepvid.com/?url=https%...

 Download MP4  - (Max 480p)
 Download MP4  - 720p
 Download MP4  - 144p (Video Only) - 1.5 MB
 Download MP4  - 240p (Video Only) - 3.6 MB
 Download MP4  - 360p (Video Only) - 4.4 MB
 Download MP4  - 480p (Video Only) - 9.5 MB
 Download MP4  - 720p (Video Only) - 18.4 MB
 Download MP4  - 1080p (Video Only) - 35.3 MB
 Download MP4  - 1440p (Video Only) - 81.9 MB
 Download MP4  - 2160p (Video Only) - 316 MB
 Download MP4  - 2160p-2304p (Video Only) - 158.9 MB
 Download M4A  - 128 kbps (Audio Only) - 1.9 MB
 Download FLV  - 240p
 Download 3GP  - 144p
 Download 3GP  - 240p
 Download WEBM  - 360p
 Download WEBM  - 144p (Video Only) - 1 MB
 Download WEBM  - 240p (Video Only) - 1.6 MB
 Download WEBM  - 360p (Video Only) - 3.2 MB
 Download WEBM  - 480p (Video Only) - 5.7 MB
 Download WEBM  - 720p (Video Only) - 11.9 MB
 Download WEBM  - 1080p (Video Only) - 21.4 MB
 Download WEBM  - 1440p (Video Only) - 66 MB
 Download WEBM  - 2160p (Video Only) - 198.6 MB
 Download WEBM  - 128 kbps (Audio Only) - 1.8 MB
*NEW* Â Download MP3 Â - 64/128 kbps

... they can never deliver anything meaningful, like the Electrolysis project.

Isn't he saying that a bunch of laws were inherited from the UK.

There are still many connections with the old country: look at how various commonwealth nations immediately amended their laws to match the UK when the British Parliament recently changed the laws of succession for the monarchy.

I felt lucky to be able to afford 670 sq. ft. Including a second bedroom for me and my wife, and only be 50 mins from the office. This is London. Your life sounds so bloody easy and spoilt. Sympathy for you = 0.