No, Council actually. The democratically elected European Parliament is quite often overruled by the unelected and unaccountable European Council.

I think you'll find the reasons that the majority of Europeans (not European nations) were against those wars was because: (A) They were illegal under international law and (B) The ensuing wars would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent civilians who never did anything to us - amongst others. Any 'nation' or government who represented the views of their citizens were in fact just doing their job properly. There were notable examples of governments giving the finger to their electorate, such as the British government of the war criminal Tony B-Liar, but as a whole, the bigger part of the population of Europe was against the unnecessary murder of millions of civilians.

To date it hasn't been shown that any of the warmongers who started these illegal wars felt they were 'necessary' for any reason. They may have said they felt it, but these are proven liars, so the balance of probability lies with the idea that their claimed feelings over the matter were merely another lie, and that's even before you consider that mere 'feelings' about how you act do not usurp the law.

To deny this obvious state of affairs is shamefully naive and the reason these b*stards keep getting away with their crimes. I mean, COME ON PEOPLE!!!

So they don't need to individually number them, they just need them all to stand still and be counted. hehe ;)

Surely that's to distinguish direction that the signal applies to, particularly when there are separate signals for a lane turning than for a lane carrying straight on.

Here in the UK we generally have these arrows to indicate either a 'filter' on just the green light in addition to the main green light (where you are turning across the oncoming traffic and their signal has just turned to red, or hasn't yet turned to green).

Although there are occasions where the directional indicator arrow is used for all 3 colours, especially where a multitude of light clusters make a junction particularly confusing for anyone unfamiliar with the road layout.

Conversely to TFA, I've noticed that whenever traffic lights fail over here, traffic has a greater tendency to flow much better, because the majority of people's natural courtesy to each other allows for them to 'take turns' crossing a 4 (or more) way junction.

Additionally - to be covered by the PRS' services, an artist must first register with them. Whichever name is used (whether the artists' actual name[s] or a band name) is the one the royalties are collected under. Therefore, if a BAND register (say, 'The Beatles') and all tracks released are credited to 'The Beatles', then the PRS will collect on those tracks alone, distributing money equally to all members of the band. They would not collect on tracks credited to 'Lennon' or 'McCartney' unless those names had been specifically registered with them. This is why some bands fall out over royalties, because a couple of members may be credited as writing the songs (melody/lyrics) and get all the royalties whilst the others get nothing for those tracks despite having written their respective instrument's parts.

So if you've not registered yourself or your band with the PRS and are performing your own original material, then they have absolutely NO business with you at all. They shouldn't automatically think they have a 'right' to police all music, because they're far from being so ubiquitous.

If the PRS are trying to recover money from you and decide to take you to court to do it, then the onus is on them to prove why you owe money, specifically proving in which way you have infringed upon or are basically covered by copyright laws. If they can't show which copyrighted works you owe royalty payments for then they don't have a leg to stand on and would indeed have to pay YOUR court costs/legal fees too. That's how the system works in the UK - loser pays. If they tried to claim ownership of your own original compositions, but you could prove otherwise it would further damn their case against you.

Does anyone else think it's ironic that the PRS (Performing Rights Society) whose job it is to collect royalties on behalf of artists is trying to charge a performing artist money?

So just imagine if she had been singing her own material and paid the PRS the required fee - just how much would she see of that money from the PRS when they came to pay out her due royalty earnings? It'd be interesting to know how big a cut they take! :-o

Has he borrowed Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field? :D

Unless you set your security so that you don't even show up in search results. Honestly, 2 minutes to set security properly would have blocked this, not that the 'victim' should have HAD to set it up given the restraining order, but just saying...

Oh ffs! RIAA, MPAA, BPI, PRS, AFACT, IFPI and now BSA.

Just how many more people are going to jump on this bandwagon of 'teh evil interwebz are killing my business'?

Software piracy is NOT a new thing, nor has P2P particularly changed things - how many people do you know who bought a WinPC from some small backstreet shop with Win95/98/2K/XP pre-installed along with a copy of Office. And they didn't have to pay for the software, they just assumed a PC always came with that stuff on it!? And that's just people using pirated software without even knowing it's pirated. Most small businesses can't possibly afford a multi-user license for half of the software they use, and I know most will buy a copy to be 'legit' and then install it on multiple machines for starters.

...I only buy it for it's interesting articles and thoughtful investigative journalism anyway!!!

Actually, I've noticed that some netbooks are shipping with Google's apps pre-installed. So maybe this is MS trying to regain some ground they're losing in that space...

I think you're onto something there. Although from memory, many of the Office 30 day Trial versions give you the option to 'upgrade' to the full version at the end of the trial period. Which means a direct 'download' sale from MS and not necessarily a box-off-the-shelf sale for a 3rd party retailer. I suppose if it establishes lock-in for the customer then it increases the chances of the retailer making that sale long term rather than short term.

I copulated with a bear trap and lived. I loved it so much I bought a whole range of traps... mmmmmm masochism!