Don't use Hotmail. Don't use AOL either. I use a local outfit.

You make it clear that anyone who disagrees with your political viewpoint should be fired from any academic post.

Never said that, never will. I said that a university ought to fire avowed Marxist academics who seriously believe that the ideal way to build a proper society is to enslave its members, as every last Marxist nation that has ever been in existence has done. A university also ought to fire academics who think that large doses of cyanide are good to eat, that chemical processes work using phlogiston, and that the sun goes around the Earth. There's "opinions," and then there is just plain flat-assed wrong.

I'm British...

I guessed. It radiates off you. Either that or a college student. That's why I used the word "sods" just for fun. I'm in California, BTW.

in my country all education, including University level used to be free. Not any more. We have gone your route. So now we churn out vast numbers of timid accountants and lawyers instead of free thinking scientists.

Your education was never free. You just were able to force someone else to pay for it. Not sure why "free" education would turn out more "free thinking" scientists, unless such people have trouble finding jobs to pay for an education.

- I don't know about the "efficiency" of a government medical system. I have not been impressed by the efficiency of government agencies in my country. I'm not sure the fact that you pay a lot less for yours means anything. Some third-world nations pay hardly anything. State medical care ends up either two ways: it runs out of money, or care has to be rationed. Don't know which way Britain will go for sure.

- The military is a proper function of a government. One of the few. And yes, it is a big military, and probably more than a little bloated financially, but for the past half century it sure as hell kept the Soviet Union from rolling over you and the rest of Europe like a monster truck over a Yugo. And our schools and hospitals are doing just fine, thanks.