In the UK (England and Wales at least) you *do* have "Miranda" rights, and have done since around 1912 (54 years before Miranda v. Arizona), as anyone who's ever watched any UK TV Police drama can tell you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#England_and_Wales

Just looking at the first page-full of those, Åland Islands are an autonomous region of Finland, Bouvet Island is a dependant territory of Norway and the British Indian Ocean Territory is an overseas territory of the UK. The distinction between sovereign country and parts of sovereign countries and their dependancies is not so clear...

Nope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_mission they may be afforded special privileges, but they're not foreign soil.

Nope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_mission

Unless they were born in India before partition or Ireland before 1949, they're not 'subjects': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law

A-levels are the courses students take at ages 16-18 *before* going to university, and stand for "Advanced Levels". Done in all parts of the UK except for Scotland, who have different qualifications called "Highers" which are somewhat equivalent.

There's a difference between things and activities that we want and our rights.

I may want to get out of the cage, but it doesn't necessarily mean I have the right to (prison, after committing a crime, for example). I may want to bungee jump off the Eiffel Tower, but it doesn't mean I have a right to.

Just because something might make me happy doesn't necessarily mean I have a right to do it.

Well, the Bank of England actually, so technically its boss is the one making the promise. Far more dull, unfortunately.

Yes but the Lords tend to stay in their legislative chamber in the House of Lords, not be part of the Cabinet (executive). We have enough problems trying to reform their chamber without them trying to insinuate themselves into executive power.

For some dark deal of a reason Mandy got back into Brown's good books and got positions and titles heaped on him. All without us, the electorate, having voted him in again (impossible) nor having a way of getting rid of him without a general election. He should be ashamed of himself first for taking a position counter to British political democratic ideals (note: though not reality), and so should we for allowing such a system to persist.

Grr. Annoyed.

I agree in that it's not just a kind of apology to now deceased Turing, but more of a symbolic statement, but it shouldn't be a case of encouraging people to not persecute gays in case they do great things for society. It should be because persecuting someone for being gay is illogical, unjustifiable and thoroughly uncivilised. Not because they *might* be good at maths.

Nope. It means the Canadian Crown owns it. Which is the corporation sole (look it up) that represents the Executive of Canada. If anything it means the Canadian government 'owns' it, but only on behalf of the nation.

Innocent *unless* proven guilty.

Erm, I think most of that road system you analoguously described wasn't paid for or built by you but by the countries it's physically in, even if you came up with the initial idea. Which I am guessing (utterly, no evidence whatsoever) makes up more of the network than is in your country. And yet the vast majority of the users have no say over how the whole traffic laws/lights/parking system etc. is run.

In the UK the citizens don't vote for their PM at all (other than at a constituency level as an MP). We vote for a party to lead the government. The head of the party becomes PM. We (suposedly) vote for a party ideology, not for a single man/woman. Gordon Brown is head of the party that got voted in to power in the last national *democratic* election and is therefore our *democraticaly* elected PM. QED. And don't throw terms like 'dictatorship' around when describing any western european nation as it leaves you rather lacking when it comes to describing places like, say, North Korea, (recent) Zimbabwe etc which are in a whole other ball park...

Absolutely not! Finnish is in a whole other language group slightly connected to Estonian and distantly to Hungarian, but nothing Germanic or Romance about...