Dublin is well known for its sunny weather and calm beaches. Oh wait, that is Dublin California. The Dublin Airport is about 5 miles from the sea, and the weather is usually windy and rainy. I cannot imagine what flying a 737 in those conditions must be like, certainly will require the full attention of a pilot. As if that weren't enough, the second hub is London Stansted which is around 30 miles from the sea, and even though the weather is slightly better, it is still not a calm Spanish summer. More likely this is yet another O'Leary publicity troll.

Mission Accomplished.

Ireland will be a test bed, and if it goes even remotely well, this program will expand to most of the EU and north america. I'm not sure how enthusiastic the ISPs will be about cutting off customers, however, I am sure that they will ham it up to get the highest possible "operational costs" from the RIAA and their ilk, to cover expenses, of course. To cover expenses per instance they will try to go after their customers too :-)

There is some competition; at least in the large cities you have multiple operators over DSL and cable service. Eircom thas a huge advantage, though, given that it is also the phone operator, so when you request a phone line installed, changed, etc. etc. they try to upsell you their own internet service.

Actually, in the UK, most of the tracks are owned by Network Rail, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail . Granted, the UK is mentioned as having one of the worst rail systems in Europe, but trains are actually convenient and for any internal travel probably faster than the equivalent flight. It is more expensive though

It is not large airlines (Air France and BA may be slightly better, but it is pretty standard in Economy). BA is not charging for luggage in short flights now, for instance. However, sometimes the smaller regional carriers that handle very short internal flights for major airlines, like City Jet in London City, the airline that connects Valencia and Madrid, or one of the minor Lufthansa controlled airlines, provide 1 free suitcase, food and very friendly attendants, while the major counterparts don't

Actually, I would say a decent percentage of third world airlines are better than US based airlines (I cannot specify the percentage, though).

So let's suppose I download a cracked version of Spore, removing all the locks, DRM, etc. Needless to say, there is no similar version in the market, and the version I downloaded is of significantly higher value. How will I be taxed? I can imagine the government will try to tax me even more, because it is an enhanced version

I am sorry, but I don't buy it... You have a theory how the world behaves. You do a numerical simulation based on that theory, and amazingly, it proves true. And you consider that a proof of your theory?
I guess I will make a theory stating that fairies exist... simulate that in a computer, and when fairies appear in my simulation I write an article that I have observed fairies. Mmmmhh, this certainly sounds like proving ID.