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fluffy2560

Listed below are comments made by fluffy2560 between Tuesday, 5th February 2008 and Friday, 28th August 2009.

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What can music teach telly? 5:51pm on 28 Aug 2009 The regionally controlled TV industry model is dead. That industry needs to wake up. At lot of British people live outside the UK. Broadcasters are always reducing the footprint of the Sky TV dominated Astra satellite system so that British TV is not available in fringe areas in Europe. I look it as though broadcasters are restricting access to my language and culture for no good reason other than greed. Many expatriates are quite prepared to pay something (not a premium, just say, license fee equivalent) for access to ALL domestic UK TV on an uncontrolled basis (not a stupid BBC Prime type thing) via the Internet or via satellite. Until that's available, people will just keep downloading. If legitimate TV was available to people, then it'd go some way to stop downloads. It could well be that by the time the broadcasters wake up, they'll already be bankrupt and out of business.
Shift to the right for rural Hungary 4:13pm on 03 Jun 2009 I've lived in Hungary on and off since 1995 and I am married to a Hungarian citizen. All my kids are bilingual British-Hungarian citizens too. Hungary has always been a country in my experience which punishes the successes of its citizens. There a urban myths of a sort that Hungarians are only a success when they go abroad. There are so many examples of Hungarian ingenuity and innovation succeeding outside it makes one wonder how the country actually survives at all with such a brain drain. To get on in Hungary, you just have to leave. It won't make any difference who is in power - Fidesz or anyone else. It just a choice of which on which piggies will be able to have their turn at the trough. Economically, the increases in VAT and tax increases plans go against every common sense approach to encouraging economic growth. You only have to look at Slovakia to see economic success by cutting taxes. Once again, the people are being punished by the elite. Anyone who wants to get on needs to do it somewhere else.
Suggest a story 5:36pm on 17 Feb 2009 I'd like to highlight police racism in Austria.

A week ago, two undercover police officers beat up a black African American english teacher called Michael Brennan on the Vienna metro system who they believed (without foundation) was a drug dealer. So far, the police in question have not been suspended while an investigation is mounted. Moreover the police commissioner seems to believe that the teacher was partly to blame even though he was entirely innocent and minding his own business - he doesn't even recognise the institutional racism which pervades the police in Austria. The Austrian police always wriggle when pressed over this kind of thing and it's well known in Austria that the police hassle people who are not white or appear different in some way.

Here's the link (in German) to the story:

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Movable Type Comments 5:36pm on 05 Feb 2008 MPs are such hypocrites. Here we have MPs saying they are "self-employed", employing their wives and other family members, and who now effectively appear to being treated totally differently for tax purposes from the rest of the population. Compare how S660a was applied in the case of Artic Systems where HMRC attempted (and lost in the House of Lords) to say that paying a wife a salary was purely a tax avoidance device. HMRC now want to change the law but there have been no calls to align MPs arrangements to be the same as the rest of the populations. If there wasn't one rule for them and one for us, these parliamentary allowances should be taxed as though they were MPs income (and therefore at a higher rate).

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