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HovellingHermit

Listed below are comments made by HovellingHermit between Friday, 21st November 2008 and Tuesday, 10th March 2009.

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YouTube row reflects online minefield 3:43pm on 10 Mar 2009 Perhaps this will lead to a proper public discussion of how the whole music scene works, and more importantly, how the licensing regimes and more critically, how the remuneration is worked out.

In most other fields, you do some work, you get paid, end of story. For historic reasons, musicians seem to want to get paid again, and again and again for their work. I don't buy the argument that they need to have a revenue stream for their retirement, they can do as other people do and make plans for their old age.

Lets get away from the greed based musical culture we have, of celbrity and excess, and lets make sure the hangers on in the middle, the "recording industry" who are like leaches, they add no value at the end of the day in this internet age, are removed so that their proportion of costs are removed at a stroke.
BBC and the Gaza appeal 12:21pm on 26 Jan 2009 Heartless, callous and a disgrace!

Having heard the interview on the Today programme earlier, it was obvious that Mark was having a difficult time in putting forward tangible reasons for refusing to air this appeal. The only reasons I could fathom from his at times blustering, and at other times hesitating replies is that he feels the BBC viewers are incapable of telling the difference between a charity appeal and a news programme, or that the money would somehow not get to intended victims.

How patronising! If he really has such a low opinion of the BBC viewers, then he needs to resign and go to channels that really do pander to people who are unable to think for themselves.

This refusal has more to do with keeping Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby happy than with the real issue here which is the homeless, the sick and the starving of Gaza. Are they somehow not worthy of humanitarian aid because they are victims of bombs and tanks? Having spoken with friends who are journalists at the BBC, I know just how sickened and appalled they are at this disgraceful decision, nicely mirroring the disgust that the license fee paying public overwhelmingly also feel.

I always used to support the BBC and its right to be license fee funded, but given this appalling travesty of failing to keep to a public service remit, perhaps it is time that their funding was re-examined.
Israel's critical timing - from start to finish 10:09am on 06 Jan 2009 They might have used enormous skill in picking the right date, but the killing of large numbers of innocent civilian children, women, the elderly, disabled and men who have done nothing is still a shameful atrocity.

That the world is standing by and letting this go on is simple disgusting.

The people of Gaza have been blockaded, food and medicines even have been blocked from entering this little strip of land that the Palestinians have been forced onto, now they are using overwhelming air and infantry power to destroy hospitals, schools and infrastructure, the little that these people have.

History will show Israel as committing outrageous genocides on a defenceless people, and it will show that the USA was complicit in this genocide by not only its tacit support of that regime, but also by its funding and supply of arms which is enabling the wholesale slaughter of the Gazan people.

The world has the means to stop this outrage if politicians showed the will, people the world over are sickened and disgusted by this genocide going on, any sympathy Israel may still enjoy is slowly being eroded away until only die hard Zionists will remain as the apologists for this pariah state.
Serious questions to answer 6:40pm on 03 Dec 2008 This govt has eroded civil liberties in a way that any tinpot despot could only dream of. It is high time that the draconian "anti-terror" legislation is repealed, that the MET is re-structured completely from the top down and made to stop behaving like a bunch of bullying thugs.

By putting a bogeyman in the front of a media frightened public, the Govt. has managed to curtail the freedoms we have to hold them to account, with this act, they are showing that even our elected officials can be bullied and abused. Well, it is time to stop.

If we let them get away with this, then a day will come when the ordinary man will be wary of hearing the step of the jackbooted policeman walking up to his front door.

The speaker has also shown he is weak and incompetent, any householder would ask if the police had a warrant before allowing them to enter their property, if this man can't even do that obvious step he was either in collusion of incompetent, and needs to go forthwith!

Of course, by posting this on here, I am probably next on their list... Is that a car coming up the road...
Green's arrest draws parallels 3:28pm on 29 Nov 2008 By posting on here and complaining about the acts of the MET means that we are probably all on the list of people getting monitored under one of the many anti-terror legislations. Rather than fighting crime or "terrorism" they are probably documenting who you phone, what you eat and what kind of car you drive.

It would be bliss if I was an attention seeker!
The sanctity of the Commons 3:23pm on 29 Nov 2008 While I feel sorry for the way this MP has been treated, people should remember that many ordinary people have been treated in a much worse fashion over even more trivial things by anti-terrorism squad officers.

On the whole, the entire Special Branch of the MET behave like they were out of the Sweeny, they swagger, bluster and bully. This is the reality facing many innocent people who are arrested and grilled for many, many hours with their rights curtailed by this Govt. under the cloak of fighting terrorism.

We seriously need to roll back the laws and re-instate the freedoms we all had before this draconian controlling Govt. machine came in.

Also, it highlights the way that the MET is now seriously out of control and needs to be broken into smaller sections and be under more control and scrutiny to stop them abusing their powers. When an MP gets arrested, the country should wake up and realise it is high time to make a change, NOW!

Remember, tomorrow it could be you or a friend or family member who is treated in this way for having the nerve to contradict Govt. policy.
We own Royal Bank 09:29am on 28 Nov 2008 Oh dear, we all now, each and every one of us, owns by proxy, a part of a bank, an organisation which many if not most ordinary people hold in contempt.

It seems ludicrous that we are bailing these creators of misery, they have made billions from the tears and pain of people who have literally had to sell their souls to them in order to have a roof over their heads. Im not talking about the ones who take out loans for huge tv's or the second car, but people who took out a mortgage to put a roof over their heads, not to make a profit, or who found themselves a little short at the end of the month and got hit with a huge penalty fee.

Personally, I think all the banks should have been allowed to go to the wall, and then the Govt. could have bought up the assets for cheap, and re-opened them as fully nationalised companies, there to be a part of the national infrastructure, not as a profit making concern. If Europe didn't like it, well, tough on Europe, let them go examine some bananas for the correct curvature.
Woolworth into administration 5:29pm on 26 Nov 2008 It is a sad day to see such a icon of the high street in dire straits.

I can remember being a regular in my teens for the cheap paperbacks, and of course the pick n mix sweets.

Lets hope something can be salvaged, not only for those who remember the brand fondly, but more importantly, for the many, many staff who will loose their employment if it is allowed to close.

It just shows that all businesses, just like personal and even Govt. finance, has been run on nothing but mountains of debt. In 12 months time, we might perhaps see a high street missing some very old and well known names.
Citi and manic Monday 07:54am on 24 Nov 2008 It really is turning into a fantastic farce. When will people wake up and realise that before this entire shambles can come to an end, we are going to have to come to term with some harsh home truths.

The problem is that you simply cannot sustain an economy based on debt. At some point in time, the amounts borrowed have to be paid back, and spending levels go down in response. When people are buying less, economies HAVE no choice but to contract, do deflate. The contraction can be in one of two ways, a slow, controlled contraction, or, as we are finding out all too painfully at the moment, a fast, implosion that deflates all too quickly.

While it may seem that the US Govt. can keep on bailing out and lending money to banks and industrial giants in distress because they find themselves lacking a billion or ten, that money too has to be paid back at some point in time, and if the companies do not recover, and I doubt that ALL of them will, then the taxpayer is left with the bill. The same of course is true in the UK and other countries where the central banks and treasuries are handing over vast amounts of cash.

Then we have farcical situations where countries such as Ireland have guaranteed all deposits in their banks, yet the amount that would need to be paid out is mind bogglingly large compared to the size of the economy, which means that the guarantee is about as much use as a chocolate teapot!

Today of course, Darling is supposedly going to drop the VAT rate to 15% and give us an amazing £2.50 for every hundred pounds we spend back in the reduced TAX. Hurrah! Except that retailers are slashing prices by 30-40% and people are keeping wallets firmly closed, so small cut in the VAT rate is not really going to entice people to go on a spending spree.

What this mess has shown is that far from having the courage to do what is right for the nation, assuming they do know what to do and they are simply not incompetent, they are simply pandering to the lies and threats of the banks and finance industry to keep the status-quo. So, we suffer, the nation suffers, and the bankers and financiers are laughing all the way home.

If only we had leaders with courage and vision to look at the situation and dare to do the hard things, hard things such as being honest that a debt based economy is never sustainable, that in a true capitalist, free market economy you will always get boom and bust no matter how often you say it won't and that simply throwing taxpayers money at the problem without changing the system is no solution at all.
Taxes to fall and then rise 6:50pm on 21 Nov 2008 Lovely, VAT goes up again, and the rich are laughing, while pensioners suffer once more.

Instead of increasing VAT, just have flat rate VAT of 15% on ALL sales, with no ability for business to offset it on their purchases, made here or on imports. Then remove income tax and corporation tax, and simple, a huge increase in Govt. revenue, simpler collection and no more silly tax loopholes, also a vastly reduced number of specialist tax accountants and lawyers, and a smaller Tax collection agency.

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