This makes me sad. - TTLG Forums

SirFreddieM on 23/10/2006 at 17:50

Last week I spend three days in the wonderful city of Budapest. I had my daughter Salli age 13 with me and we now love this city. The people seemed so friendly and helpful when I the helpless tourist couldn't my way back to the hotel.

Now I hear that the city is on fire. The daily demonstrations in front of the parliament has taken a nasty turn. The police are using their rubberclubs on old people and several are reported bleading from their wounds.

Last Tuesday at 17,00 my daugther and I went to see this demonstration. We found people to be friendly and smiling. When we arrived there were some 500 - 600 people and when we left half an hour later there were at least 5000. And now the city is running wild. Thank god I'm here in peaceful Copenhagen.

My thoughts go out to the friendly people of Budapest.

SD on 23/10/2006 at 18:13

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6078052.stm) In capitalist Hungary, the uprising commemorates you

Using Soviet-style crowd dispersion tactics to put down a demonstration marking 50 years of the beginning of the struggle against Soviet tyranny - these people have a capacity for irony at least.

short answer: lol eastern europe

TheGreatGodPan on 23/10/2006 at 18:41

Rubber bullets and a tank stolen from a museum seems like a far cry from what the Soviets did. If that is not sufficient though, perhaps we should have cotton-candy bullets? Or that goofy toy that sends a puff of air across a large distance? But after thinking of that I remembered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard) moral hazard, and how traffic accidents increased with the invention of the brake.

doctorfrog on 23/10/2006 at 19:16

I guess one question I would have is why they would they leave a gassed up Soviet tank with the keys inside. Wait, do Soviet tanks have keys? In which case, there should still be some kind of starter disable, even if this just means disconnecting the ignition.

TTK12G3 on 23/10/2006 at 22:06

Quote Posted by doctorfrog

I believe T-models have a freaking button for ignition.The tank's engine would remain on so long as you kept pressure on pedals. It's pretty simple to operate and easy-to-obtain octane can keep it running. I'm pretty sure that the curators did not expect this, but it was still pretty irresponsible of them not to secure it.

ercles on 24/10/2006 at 01:18

At a glance at that BBC news piece I thought the title was "Hungry police tackle protestors", now THAT would be one way to stop them in their tracks.

Renegen on 24/10/2006 at 04:13

Quote Posted by Strontium Dog

Oh please, big bad soviets. At least those tanks are durable.

Lol GodPan, I never heard anyone rue the day brakes were invented and used moral hazard as their argument. Maybe I should pull the argument that most things in life need to be dumb proof, or else not a lot of people would be left..

SD on 24/10/2006 at 04:29

Quote Posted by Renegen

Oh please, big bad soviets. At least those tanks are durable.

Were you making a point here, because if you were, I'm having trouble working out what it was.

Fragony on 24/10/2006 at 11:33

Has been going on for quite some time, weird you didn't see any of it. Riots seem to go where I go, last year student riots in paris, and a few weeks ago in Copenhagen.

SirFreddieM on 24/10/2006 at 12:52

Weel, no teargas or russian tanks in Copenhagen. Thank god.

On a sightseeing tour I met a woman with her daugther. They came from Canada. Well, the daughter did. The mother was hungarian and as a small child back in 1956 she saw first hand a man being shot dead in the street. Her parents saw friends being hanged from lampposts and decided to imigrate to Canada. Now she was in Budapest for the first time in 50 years. She was due to fly back to Canada the same evening as the anniversary.