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Admission of new countries requires unanimity. Many other things don't..

Also, assuming Spain is desperate for something which can be vetoed that could only be exercised by an existing member. Why would they? What the fuck do you think France or Italy could gain by doing so?

I sometimes wonder if you could even point to Europe on a map.

If you don't like it. Don't do business here. That is also what is told to EU companies http://europa.eu/rapid/press-r...

Apparently a lot.

The history of Catalonia

In 1914, the four Catalan provinces formed a Commonwealth, and with the return of democracy during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), the Generalitat of Catalonia was restored as an autonomous government. After the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan institutions and banning the official use of the Catalan language again. From the late 1950s through to the early 1970s, Catalonia saw rapid economic growth, drawing many workers from across Spain, making Barcelona one of Europe's largest industrial metropolitan areas and turning Catalonia into a major tourist destination. Since the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1982), Catalonia has regained some political and cultural autonomy and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain.

One of the larger issues they have is that Catalonia is paying a good chunk in taxes.

Two major factors were Spain's Constitutional Court's 2010 decision to declare part of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia unconstitutional, as well as the fact that Catalonia contributes 19.49% of the central government’s tax revenue, but only receives 14.03% of central government's spending.[52]

And the history about the autonomy..

Both the 1979 Statute of Autonomy and the current one, approved in 2006, state that "Catalonia, as a nationality, exercises its self-government constituted as an Autonomous Community in accordance with the Constitution and with the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, which is its basic institutional law, always under the law in Spain".[55]

I can understand them fully about their reasons why they want independence.

Why Spain resists letting them have their independence is most likely because their tax-revenue will drop..

And now to your post...

I don't know the particulars of this situation, but if these people are trying to hold an illegal election, as the summary suggests, then we're basically talking about revolutionary separatists.

And did you actually read what it said?!?! It never said election. It says referendum on independence.. Those two are quite different.

Every once in a while I get annoyed that my freedom to go on a murderous killing spree has been curtailed. (God damn nanny state...) But I get over it

That "defense" is just ridiculous.. Nobody is claiming that you should be allowed to go around killing people..

Suppressing peoples freedoms, in the way they are doing it, here would affect the following protections all countries in the EU has to follow.
Freedom of expression
Freedom of association and assembly
Freedom of thought and religion

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/fu...

In my view (not a lawyer) : Holding a referendum, even if it is non-binding by the Spanish goverment, would be the right of the people in the region. Applying physical force and censorship the way they do is not in accordance with European law.

And then you look at the following:

Tobacco consumption is responsible for nearly 700,000 deaths in the EU every year. Smokers suffer more from poor health (as they are more at risk of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases) and half of them die prematurely (14 years on average).

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/...

That makes the diesel exhaust problem marginal.

I see, Well then following your logic, we shouldn't have any pollution controls on diesel engines because smokers.

Oh - wait - that's just rephrasing what you wrote. My bad.

And then you look at the following:

Tobacco consumption is responsible for nearly 700,000 deaths in the EU every year. Smokers suffer more from poor health (as they are more at risk of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases) and half of them die prematurely (14 years on average).

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/...

That makes the diesel exhaust problem marginal.

No, it merely confirms that tobacco, diesel engines, alcohol, food additives, and addictive painkillers are all legal because death is necessary and by design, backed by government policy and regulation.

And then you look at the following:

Tobacco consumption is responsible for nearly 700,000 deaths in the EU every year. Smokers suffer more from poor health (as they are more at risk of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases) and half of them die prematurely (14 years on average).

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/...

That makes the diesel exhaust problem marginal.

What was that? You say NO manufacturer offers a warranty longer than 1 year in the USA? Hmph, imagine that.

FTFY.

The EU enforces a two year guarantee for sold consumer goods.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...

This is also called "conformity guarantee" and makes the seller legally bound, regardless of what the manufacturer states. the manufacturer could say "we offer one year guarantee" but the seller MUST offer a two year guarantee regardless.
If the manufacturer is also the seller (e.g. sells the product directly to end-users through a webshop), then they need to offer a two year guarantee anyway.

And did you ever stop to think that that is EXACTLY one of the reasons that certain products are more expensive in the EU?

What was that? You say NO manufacturer offers a warranty longer than 1 year in the USA? Hmph, imagine that.

FTFY.

The EU enforces a two year guarantee for sold consumer goods.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...

This is also called "conformity guarantee" and makes the seller legally bound, regardless of what the manufacturer states. the manufacturer could say "we offer one year guarantee" but the seller MUST offer a two year guarantee regardless.
If the manufacturer is also the seller (e.g. sells the product directly to end-users through a webshop), then they need to offer a two year guarantee anyway.

OK, you can argue the Model 3 exists, but not in the sense that it is a product someone can actually buy. That more or less removes the 'no-brainer' part of your original claim.

Taxis? Right. So probably pre-facelift / first generation base interior / no PUP.

Again, I have no idea. If Tesla have improved the interior of newer Model Ses, good for them, but again, they had a long way to go compared to the competition in the luxury segment, or even the budget segment.

No, the segment is defined by the form factor and price class. It's not defined by "How AC On Slashdot Wants To Group Things".

Making something expensive does not make it luxurious. The Tesla Model S may be comparable in price to luxury cars, it is not in terms of luxury -- the defining feature of the luxury segment. Moreover, the official segment classification of the Model S is 'S' -- sports cars, not luxury.

What sort of idiot would take the word of someone who's never seen the car over the word of literally a dozen professional reviewers who have?

You don't have to take anyones word. Just look at the pictures. You have to have been fed and swallowed quite a lot of Tesla propaganda to be enthousiastic about that.

Right, got it. Every major auto reviewer is secretly on Tesla's dole.

Most major auto reviewers haven't been any closer to a Tesla Model 3 than you and I.

Nope. Swedish nuclear has regulatory problems. That's why we have a low capacity factor. But that's not inherent. In fact nuclear has the highest capacity factor of all energy sources. It's the most reliable of all electric energy sources.

And nuclear isn't expensive if you factor in the capacity factor. I have no idea where you get the "they have to be able to ramp down at night" spiel from. If you have any shred of a reference to that I'd like to see it. It's patently untrue. The only way wind, solar, etc. looks cheaper is because of subsidies and not taking capacity factor into account.

And no, it's not because we have hydro that nuclear works for us. Look at France. Plenty of cheap electricity (compared to you and Germany) and they produce 3/4 of their electricity with nuclear. With hydro a very small part.

And hydro electric isn't storage, in that it can't store electricity already generated. Following your argument then an oil or coal fired plant provides for electricity storage, as you can build as large a fuel tank, or coal heap, next to it as you please.

No, it's renewables that are expensive. It's not for nothing that electricity prices are the highest in Germany and Denmark. Germany is more expensive than France, even if you remove taxes and other levies. And the price in Germany is kept down by coal. So, nuclear is not the problem price-wise. Quite the contrary.

Not really, Amazon is really big and very 'horizontal', so there may be abuse of dominant position issues (see second bullet point) starting to appear. Of course, I'm a European so very nearly a socialist by definition, even if right-wing.

Also, I'm expecting (fearing) that all the data and computing fire-power will be used for surge pricing, sooner or later. The stockholders would love it.

They hardly pay taxes where I live, but they do use all our infrastructure, our legal system, benefit from policing etc. etc. so, like Starbucks and the others, they're not my favourite company.

In Europe the law requires drivers to take regular breaks. Details here: https://ec.europa.eu/transport...

As such, a 200-300 mile range wouldn't even slow them down as long as they didn't have queue for charging too much. The law is strictly enforced too, with vehicles being fitted with devices to monitor compliance.

In any case, it's only a matter of a few years until they go fully antonymous anyway.

In the US and Canada, they've required the implementation of mobile E911 phase 2. It requires the location of the device within 300m (max) within 6minutes of the location being asked for.

This is done both in the network (triangulation/timing) and with the cooperation of the chipset in the device, which already reports the location. AT&T already uses the GPS chips in the device - the phone's chipset grabs the data.

So, there is no reason to ask for the location from the device manufacturer if the location is already being provided by the network.

That the EU can't get their rules passed and in force (since 2003) [1] is their own problem. The technology is there, available and has been for over a decade.

[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...

So I guess I have a point? https://europa.eu/european-uni... . Norway is a Member of the Schengen border-free area. It's not clear if they are or not. From what they say on this page it seems they are subject to their laws.

I fly at least once a week from Germany to Switzerland and back. Never once I had to show my id.

Your case doesn't apply here. It is only among EU countries because they have their own contract (for certain benefits).

Electricity isn't particular expensive in Norway: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...

They are transitioning towards electricity for everything, e.g. transport where they have a lot of electric cars and boats.

Heating in particular is subsidised. Some people get it for free as a byproduct of some other process. The government makes sure people are warm.

But which law is broken? If they don't have monopoly, they aren't abusing a monopoly.

The law is against abusing a dominant market position. Arguing whether a monopoly has to be absolutely total is irrelevant.

Here's your citation: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...

My emphasis in the following:

Article 102

(ex Article 82 TEC)

Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States.

Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:

(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;

(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;

(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;

(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.

You are not punished for a monopoly or nearly a monopoly; neither of those things is illegal. They are punished for abusing a dominant market position: being a near-monopoly is one way to have a dominant market position.

c) It makes perfect sense that you shouldn't introduce a law that requires a car to have something specific to your country done for sake of convenience alone. That's the idea of having no trade barriers, a product good enough for one country should be good enough for another. I've never driven my French car to Norway, but the lights are wired into the ignition and automatically come on when I start the car. No law required.

So 2008/89/EC wasn't required and shouldn't have been made? The law requires daylight running lamps on all cars type-approved after February 2011. Even knowing that law was coming up, the Skoda Octavia I bought in June 2011 that had been approved in October 2010 did not have daylight running lamps. The public in the UK weren't asking for them, so Skoda didn't fit them until they absolutely had to.

The base national income tax is 0 for the first SEK 438 900 of salaries earned in FY 2017, then 20% of any further salaries up to SEK 638 500, and 25% of remaining salaries. Capital income (interests, stock dividends, etc.) tax is 30%. Possible deductions and other modifiers are too many for me to list here. Municipal income tax varies by municipality, but is generally around 30%.
Source (in Swedish)
Note that Sweden has functional public education (including no tuition fees for public universities), healthcare, and transport infrastructure (except our railways haven't been properly maintained since the 90s) and the national debt is only around 41% of GDP and decreasing.

The ECB reference rate is EUR 1 = SEK 9.7575 as of 2017-06-20.

There is a current trend in some EU countries that want to violate the basic rights granted by their their respective constitutions or bill of rights. Rights that are supposed to apply to all humans or natural persons and not only to citizens. So I found the wording to be peculiar, because in fact the paper refers at one point not to "everyone" or "all individuals" but to "citizens" in the text proposed by the commission. In the amendment part however the citizens part is replaced with all individuals. You can look it up in this source on page 34.

Silly AC, facts show that OPEC - mainly Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Nigeria, provides 40% of all EU imports...

This is now a precedent.

If you have *instructions* in your possession to lead you to copyright infringement, you are guilty of infringement.

Do we have other examples?

That's a wildly incorrect interpretation of the ruling. Read the judgment: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/d...

1. European law says that an author has a "right of communication to the public".
2. This case was precisely about the definition of "communication to the public".
3. It has to involve an "act of communication" and a "public".
4. An "act of communication" (according to prior case law) includes just offering links to your users. However it specifically doesn't include (according to statute) situations when you merely provide facilities that let users communicate between each other.
5. The operators of the Pirate Bay did provide links, and they did a lot more than "merely provide facilities that let users communicate with each other": they also provided a search service, provided a classification service, they themselves checked to ensure that copyright material had been placed in the appropriate category, they themselves deleted non-functioning links, and they actively filter content. Therefore they were making an act of communciation.

Your example of "instructions in your possession" fail the two tests that were the sole focus of this judgment: they are not an act of communication, and they're available to the public.

Energy use is correlated with GDP, so it's in a country's best interest to incentivize energy use.

You may have confused effect & cause there.

Energy use is correlated with GDP, so it's in a country's best interest to incentivize energy use.

This is a clear case of correlation not implying causation. I'd suppose that the causal chain is the other way round - people in rich countries can afford to use a lot of energy, and they can also afford to buy a lot of gadgets that use energy.

Energy use is correlated with GDP, so it's in a country's best interest to incentivize energy use. Wind is hardly the only subsidized energy source.

I am legitimately curious, though, as to the effective cost-per-joule/subsidy-per-joule of various energy sources over the lifetime of the source.

massive amounts of taxpayer subsidy

Taxpayer subsidies are bad? Every significant form of renewable energy has been and/or is being supported by all manner of subsidy. Somehow it's only a problem for nuclear/fossil fuels...

And you're badly wrong about the cost of nuclear power. France, for instance, pays less for electricity than every other major European economy because of it's large and well operated nuclear energy system [1]. France also emits far less carbon than its neighbors; have a look at the live map: https://www.electricitymap.org...

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s... c/KWh 2016: France: 0.089 Germany: 0.149 UK: 0.128

There are always shortages - it's just not apparent to the average Slashdotter. This page lists current and past drug shortages going back to 2010.

Here's the Canadian version.

There seems to be a similar site for the EU, though the page says most shortages are handled by the individual national governments. I'd check the French or German health websites, but I'm not good in those languages. The UK seems to have ceased tracking shortages.

Because an alarming ecological story comes up, and without evidence or even a rational hypothetical cause, it's immediately blamed on climate change.

Most insects are herbivorous, so rely on plants for food. Global warming (increasing global temperatures, higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, shorter winters) are conducive to plant growth. So you'd actually expect temperatures increasing by a few degrees to lead to more insects, not fewer.

Loss of continuous habitat is possible, but I'd consider it unlikely. Larger species are more susceptible to that than smaller ones like insects. We would've noticed the loss of biomass there first.

My bet is on pesticides. You state later that Canada and the EU are eco-friendly, therefore speculating that they use less pesticides. But this map (pages 17, 47-49) shows the EU uses more pesticides per hectare than the U.S./Canada, and are only exceeded by China and some South and Central American countries. (The EU uses more pesticides than the U.S. and Canada because it has less arable land but more population. So to feed itself the EU needs to grow more food per hectare.) Pesticide use in kg/ha is down slightly since 1989, but I suspect this is more than offset by development of more effective pesticides.

In accordance with the EU population, the most widely spoken mother tongue is German (16%), followed by Italian and English (13% each), French (12%), then Spanish and Polish (8% each).

After Brexit, it will be worse. It's true that English is used as a second language by a significant portion of the population, but the same can be said for many other languages, given that much of the population speaks 2 or more languages. Interestingly, the UK is among the lowest ranking countries when it comes to being able to speak in a second language.

Current EU population is 504 million. The UK is 64 million, of which 88% (56 million) speak English as their mother tongue. After taking out those 56 million, the number of people who speak English as their mother tongue in the EU drops to only a few million out of the remaining 404 million population. In other words, less than 1%.

Source

For example, even by assuming that you are able to safely generate electricity from fusion power, you should bear in mind all the problems which that alternative will always provoke. Even in an ideal scenario, it will have to be used under very specific conditions (we are talking about sun-like temperatures!!! .

The inherent safety characteristics of a fusion reactor are due to the very low fuel inventory in the reactor during operation and to the rapid cooling that extinguishes the fusion reactions should a malfunction occur.

source

* Disclaimer... I don't think AI will be able to replace more than 10% of humans within the foreseeable future.. But for my argument below i make the assumption that all manufacturing would be replaced within the next few years.

So who will buy the stuff...

My guess of what happens.
- Companies fire people one at a time causing less money to be available in the market.
- Companies realize that they are not making any profit since less goods are sold.
- It will cost less to hire someone to produce goods in smaller volumes than it is to produce with robots.
- Companies will start to hire people again and put money back into the market. ... and the cycle repeats.

Some ways that could possibly help out. (If robots would be a 100% replacement for normal workers in all fields.)
- Companies would not be allowed to own robots but hire them from people. Perhaps put a limit on how many robots a person can own.
- Put limits on how much profit a company could make per employee they have. (something like 10% for >$10000, 40% for >$100000, 90% for >$1000000) .. This should mainly be to force companies to hire more people, even if they would only do 2 minutes of work a day, and not to finance any huge welfare program run by the state..

The market will be able to adjust since it's all about supply and demand, and you have a large initial cost for using robots so unless you reach that point it will be cheaper to hire people. And the less people working the fewer customers there will be for said products. We may need to put some limits on the companies to incentivize them to hire more people, but as i wrote above there are ways to do it. (probably many more ways than the above ones)

You also have to remember that most people are not employed by those large companies, or in work-areas, that could buy robots to produce goods. The majority of people are employed by small companies, or in work-areas, that don't get the benefits from switching over to robots..
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...
https://www.census.gov/content...
From the above links:
- In the US large companies have been pending around 50% of all people employed, but only about 11M people are working in manufacturing. For large enterprises that would benefit from robots that would be ~6M people.. And for smaller companies it's ~5M.. Lets say you can replace 100% in large companies and 50% in smaller companies.. That would still just be 8.5M people in a country with 321M people.

What robots in the industry would do is to move loads of the manufacturing back to the country that wants the products thereby reducing the amount of needed shipping (reducing pollution and cost of shipping) and keeping most of the money in the country.. It may increase the wage-gap a bit but with lower prices of goods it would still allow for the lower-income to have a higher standard of living than today.

I think that the countries that would draw the short straw of this development would be the countries that produce most of the cheap crap, like China.

So lets the market work... If unemployment starts jumping too high then put a cap on profit per employee or don't allow any person to own more than X number of robots.. I would think using tax-incentives based on amount of profit per employee would be the best incentive to keep people in the workforce.

Even in the 1990ies the German economy was by far the strongest of the European Union
http://ec.europa.eu/environmen...
so you are either a liar or an idiot. Since you have outed yourself as a Trump fanboi, you are probably both.
as for Italy, here you go
http://www.money-go-round.eu/C...
always a net payer my arse.

The big manufacturers sell their products world wide. This means that they need to make them comply with the various standards that exist in different parts of the world. The EU market is about the same size as the USA one. The EU has its own energy standards and labelling, if the EPA Energy Star goes away in the USA they could simply display the EU ones in the USA. USA consumers would quickly learn what it was about, the manufacturers would save costs by not having to have their stuff tested twice; everyone wins. Going for global standards is where we will probably end up sooner or later anyway.

Not at all. There's noting in Europe that requires Tesla to provide any charging to anyone else (and they don't now either).

Yes there is. Here is the directive that comes into force on 31 Dec 2020. The directive covers a bunch of stuff about alternative fuel but in this case, the salient point is that charging stations MUST offer combo 2 chargers and MUST charge on a non-discriminatory basis. There is also a bunch of other good stuff about non-discriminatory charging across borders and so forth.

Obviously there is over 3 years to go on this and charge stations can be grandfathered in. But nobody is going to turn soil on a new charger station without paying attention to what it says. Tesla included. All charge stations built after that will be required to offer "at least" a combo 2 charger. What they do beyond that is up to them.

Tesla has already made positive sounds about supporting other vehicles so I don't see it being an issue as such in Europe. I would be more concerned with the US where it seems lawmakers are happy to see vertical markets build up and for consumers to be the victims in a format war.

You have some very weird numbers there. WHO claims that Spain is 7 or less, UK is 7 or less, France is 16 or less, whereas the US is 12 or more, depending on how you measure it. Source: WHO.

The EU-28 average is slightly below 12. Source: Eurostat.

And they're gaining much freer and better access to the markets of... Canada...

Ironically, Canada just concluded CETA a free trade agreement with the EU and so Brexited UK will have no more than normal WTO trade status with Canada (which is what they'll start with after Brexit for all of those other nations you called out until they can negotiate some other agreements).
But had the UK stayed in EU, they would have had a premium trade arrangement with Canada they won't get now.
Even though Canada's head of state resides in UK. How is that for ironic?

Not only have Europe's demographics been utterly destroyed, but their overall EU economy and that of the member states is in utter turmoil. Greece has been a disaster for about a decade now. Spain is only slightly better off than Greece. Italy is barely hanging on. There are numerous banks, including at least one in the economic powerhouse of Germany, that are on the brink.

Sorry, but this is pretty much made up. Unemployment peaked around end of 2012 and is for the EA-19 (eurozone) now within 1% of the normal levels in the early 2000s. The full EU-28 is actually doing even better. Yes, a lot of big spender economies had to change things when Germany refused to let inflation run rampant but it also meant the government stopped skimming value from the private sector through printing money. All the other PIIGGS except Greece have sweated it out and taken steps to cut down public debt.

And despite what you might hear about Greece, they're a fart in the whole EU economy. Germany alone could clear out their entire public debt by increasing their debt/GDP ratio from 67% to 77%, still very much within financially solid levels. They just don't want other countries running around with credit cards and sticking Germany with the bill. I too have a great many concerns about the future of Europe culturally and demographically, but as an economic bloc the EU is doing just fine.

Renewable mandate the creation of more renewable power plants. Not to close atomic ones... Now certain people with anti atomic agenda love to make you think so, but it is not the reality...

From DG clima website:
Electricity will come from renewable sources like wind, solar, water and biomass or other low-emission sources like nuclear power plants or fossil fuel power stations equipped with carbon capture & storage technology. This will also require strong investments in smart grids.

European text: Energy Roadmap 2050

Renewable mandate the creation of more renewable power plants. Not to close atomic ones... Now certain people with anti atomic agenda love to make you think so, but it is not the reality...

From DG clima website:
Electricity will come from renewable sources like wind, solar, water and biomass or other low-emission sources like nuclear power plants or fossil fuel power stations equipped with carbon capture & storage technology. This will also require strong investments in smart grids.

European text: Energy Roadmap 2050

Regarding the right for owners to have a choice in how their machines are serviced...

In Europe there is legislation coming into effect in July 2021 which will requires OEMs to provide information to 3rd parts service tool manufacturers and Independent Operators such that they can achieve the same level of diagnostic capability as the OEM with their own tools.
See links like:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...
http://www.cema-agri.org/publi...

In the U.S. there is no equivalent legislation in the U.S., but I would not be surprised if we see something similar in a few years. There are groups lobbying to this end, such as;
http://repair.org/association/

Disclaimer: I work for one of the 'other' Ag manufacturers on the topic of making the machines comply with this legislation

Bitcoin is classify as money in: - Europe (Except France) http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/up... - Japan http://asia.nikkei.com/Politic... - Mexico https://sppld.sat.gob.mx/pld/i... - Afghanistan http://www.coindesk.com/how-bi... - Czech Republic http://www.rozhlas.cz/zpravy/e... - South Africa http://www.treasury.gov.za/com... I don' have links but I heard it's also consided a currency in - Russia, Switzerland and Nigera

I understand you don't want to continue in Physics, but you might want to try to get a foot in the door around here first. We happen to have a very young university, that's always hiring. Profiles like yours sound like something they might want to hire. Look here.

Good luck.

With apologies for my own ineptitude, this time with some html:

1) Check whether it could possibly be traffic from your network. Do friends have access? Children? Poor Wi-Fi security? Open proxy server?

2) Subject access request (s7 Data Protection Act 1998) to BT, for the record which Get it Right sent to them. You want the IP address, port number and UTC timestamp, which enabled BT to do the matching to identify your account. It might cost you £10.

3) If you are willing to identify yourself to Get it Right (more so than you have done by posting the letter online, I suppose), a SAR to GiR, asking for the information which they hold on you, which led them to send the notice to BT. If they quibble about whether they hold your personal data, point out the case of Breyer, dealing with IP addresses and personal data.

4) If you are sure that it was not you, once you've seen GiR's record, consider complaining to them about inaccurate processing of your personal data. Ask for rectification under the Data Protection Act. If they refuse, complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. They may not do anything but, the more complaints, the higher the likelihood.

5) You might even consider a small claims court action for the distress caused by their processing, if you can demonstrate inaccuracy. But I'd talk to a solicitor first at that point as, while the SCC generally shields from paying the other party's legal fees, that is at the discretion of the court.

6) Vote with your wallet, and switch to an ISP which has not voluntarily entered into this scheme. If you do this, tell BT that you've moved and why.

7) Ignore it, notwithstanding the frustration of its inaccuracy / inappropriateness.

(The last one I saw was a speculative invoice for a pornographic film. My advice in that case was to simply ignore it. Nothing further was heard. (YMMV etc.))

Generous with compensation != generous with hiring

It's true, the average American worker doesn't get as much vacation time as a European worker. Still, half of American workers don't use all of their vacation days as it is. But pay is higher. Perhaps American workers just value cash compensation over other benefits.

On the hiring front (which is the topic IIRC), hiring climate is substantially better in the US. Hiring/firing is easier, and labor mobility is higher. The unemployment rate is more volatile, but also historically lower.

I have no idea what the actual number is

Then by all means make up statistics rather than googling it, why don't change your username to Trump? :)

In 2014 renewable energy made up 25.4% of all energy production in the EU.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...

Now don't be fooled there is lots of similar stats here, like:

Renewable energy sources accounted for a 12.5 % share of the EU-28’s gross inland energy consumption in 2014.

(Presumably because not all energy is consumed, read the details if you care, but read before you bash).

The goal remains:

The EU seeks to have a 20 % share of its gross final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020

Similarly, in 2014, the US was a 11%, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
(note. don't confuse electricity production for total energy production).

All these stats are from 2014, clearly things a better now, given most new energy production facilities are renewable.

What? We build only 2% of our electrical capacity every year?
Who'd have guessed?
Also, the old renewable energy is 25% of the total. Not quite "vastly outweighing", I'd say.
some statistics

Citizens of EU member states still owe use tax when buying services from outside the EU. Unfortunately, the EU's page about this doesn't mention how citizens are supposed to pay VAT for imported services.

It gets added when caught in customs and then have a 100€ fine added on top for not declaring the import the regular way. This is particularly easy if the shipping is insured (which it always is from legitimate sources), because then they have the sum it is insured for printed on the outside.

Citizens of EU member states still owe use tax when buying services from outside the EU. Unfortunately, the EU's page about this doesn't mention how citizens are supposed to pay VAT for imported services.

That's interesting. The EU seems to be under impression that they've negotiated many trade treaties limiting tariffs, so member states no longer have the freedom to set their own:

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/poli...

And of course there are about a hundred EU rules about what kind of tariffs states may and may not have.

Not that there are NO differences between the EU and the US, of course, but at their core they are essentially the same type of thing - the US federal government has just been around longer, so it's parliament (Congress) has had more time to make more laws.

WRONG.

Excuse the caps but this is terrible misinformation. As usually in EU legislation, such obvious issues have been discussed at length and provisions have been put in place to deal with them. It basically boils down to having to buy your phone subscription in the country you live in:
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-r...

Excerpt: "Mobile operators should offer their roaming services at domestic prices to consumers who either normally reside in or have stable links to the Member State of the operator, while those customers are periodically travelling in the EU. If necessary, operators can ask their customers to provide proof of residence or of such stable links to the Member State in question."

The provisions may turn out to be inadequate, but the related issues are very prominently on the agenda.