I feel I need to expand upon this for people who have not studied the Westminster System. Unlike the US or other countries with a written constitution the UK only has a set of prior laws passed by Parliament and a set of traditions to guide it - or in other words their is no document to define how the government works. Now as far as modern history is concerned Parliament has been supreme - that is to say that Parliament makes its own rules, the rules for the country, and no check exists upon them other then popular support with respect to elections. Now to the UK Human Rights Act - Parliament could do away with it overnight because it was enacted by an act of Parliament and Parliament can repeal its own acts, what stops them is tradition. As a side note I should note that Comparative Politics is my field of study, and this is a horribly succinct explanation of the UK's parliamentary powers.

Email yes - and that was used, the other two options however that you list were not practical, in large part due to the time zones and the low amount of bandwidth (Skype uses comparatively low bandwidth for calls, but even that was more then the available bandwidth). All that said, I'm 22, and among my friends its almost sad how little email is used compared to texts/facebook/skype. As much as I hate to say it, when the user-base is as high as Facebook's, sometimes its the most practical way to keep in contact (least til a better option shows up).

I took a different approach - needed one to get in contact with friends while out of the country... That was three years ago. Now I check it about once every month and a half to re-lock all my privacy settings -- so yes; I have one, but its effectively the same as not, with the added 'advantage' that should I need it the account is made.

Not to plug amazon - yet I get my textbooks from them - but for a good number of us on this site who are students; we can use our university email to get the free amazon prime as well.

I'm willing to give the GP a little credit - mostly because I'm willing to guess he has his terms mixed up (or I am having a bout of kindness). Now I would like to point out quickly that their is a relation between the governance structural (liberal democracy, monarchy, etc) and the political economy of a given nation. Overarching trends tend to be that the more a government resembles a unity government the more the political economy will be dominated by the government (for example the UK in the 70's) - and I'm not going into the hotbed of communist countries and their political economies. Now what does this have to do with the populations interaction with the government? None (except that in a state led economy the average person 'interacts' with the government a lot more), the populations interaction (and the power over) is only based on how the political culture functions - which changes based on the rules and norms governing a given society

I dont know how the EU courts work - is the ruling binding in the same way that the US courts work with respect to the idea of president cases (or cases of first impression) for civil law. At least in the US the judge(s) verdict is binding and fully law until such time as a different judge in a higher court modifies it, or the legislature changes the law - so I'm wondering if this verdict is handled in the same way?

And here I was thinking everyone filled the name slot on those cards in with "A. Person", who has the easy to remember phone number of (123) 345-6789...

And if we want to get really twitchy we can shift every character x characters to the left or the right... OR you know, just set up your web browser to block adds, and use throw away email accounts (thank god for gmail)...Hell this is the Internet, most major websites keep their services for free by selling add space...

Try moving up to Bellingham from Seattle (about an hour and a half north on I-5) - the temperature difference is not much (it was a nice brisk 30ish this morning as I rode my bike to school) -- but I swear this whole town is one big wind tunnel - to the point were I have stopped carrying my trusty umbrella when its raining -- because the wind will brake it...

They'd end up at 4chan or ebalmsworld, which in turn buffers the rest of the Internet...turns out those websites do have a reason for existence.

Yes, 'how do I cancel my facebook' is the first recommended search query on Google, but the interesting thing is it does not turn up on Google trends - due to lack of data on Google's part.

Check out the greesemonky script 'Disable Text Ads' - it removes most (a few things get around it, if I remember right) of those fun hazards to mousing over the browser window.

...and for those of us who dont wanna bother downloading a PDF, just post pictures of the symbols (even if it would take some time to load)...

Now a real trick is if they can get the prices down to the level that it can be 'tossed' out - for example getting a moving logo on the can of beans you just picked up at the store...