Fidesz leader Orbán held his speech before tens of thousands. As now regular, a figure of the European People's Party also lent support: this time Winfried Martens, who in his speech drew a parallel between 1956 and now. Now the rally is over and people started going home, however, police is pushing the rioters towards the protesters.
While one policeman was stabbed, police applied rubber bullets from close range...
Star Wars:
Where the tear gas rounds land:
Where the rubber bullets impact:
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The police aren't much better, reports say a lot of tear gas rounds miss their target, one even landed in the underpass of the main subway station (where three lines cross)... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Is it normal to have ticket-checkers? Why not just use turnstiles? I thought the whole idea of people coming & asking for your tickets was odd. Though we do have them on regular (non-subway) trains. But they are exceedingly polite. And everyone always has a ticket. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire
That was the director's concept :-) The subway as inferno. (As such it wasn't even that original -- maybe you saw Luc Besson's.)
Since it is in a country I know nothing about
I'm curious: why did you (like most foreigners) believe that the film plays in a real country? Was it the Budapest Traffic Company's ridicuous intro [was it in your DVD version BTW?]?
Let's just say I've seen a lot of bloodied Hungarian faces in the last 24 hours.
Heh, then my photo choices are as distorting as he MSM :-) On my photos, you see a single bloodied face, and reports are of less than a dozen similarly serious injuries. The lack of basic law and order is cordoned off along two main roads and involved no more than a few thousand at any moment (not hundreds of thousands like in 1956) -- worse than a month ago, but still not beyond the scale of a big football riot.
Is it normal to have ticket-checkers? Why not just use turnstiles?
I don't know why no turnstiles were installed originally, but I'm certain that they would severely limit capacity at rush hour. However, the ticket-checkers in real-life Budapest aren't specialised for the subway, and also control trams, trolleys and buses, where turnstyles would be a rather expensive solution. Also, in recent years, controls in the subway are conducted by groups of 6-10 controllers at the entrances, simultaneously at multiple stations -- when this was introduced, ticket purchases jumped by double figure percents.
Though we do have them on regular (non-subway) trains.
Controllers (who check tickets validated by passengers themselves with some machine) or conductors (who validate tickets)? The two are a different caste... The difference is not in politeness, but in the attitude of passengers without ticket towards them. (In a small part justified: some controllers, being paid for the number of culprits caught, try to catch regular month-card buyers who forgot to buy next month's in time.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I mean, the Traffic Company boss's intro.
also control trams, trolleys and buses
Thinking of American urban buses I see on TV or in movies, I shal add: the buses here have frequent stops and carry lots of passengers, thus entry across a single door with the driver playing conductor is impossible. But you may know that from Moscow. (BTW, no ticket controllers on the Moscow metro?) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The groups pushed around by police now number in the hundreds. The victims of police include a leader of Fidesz who was hit by a rubber bullet, allegedly as answer for asking why they apply violence at the Fidesz event. Some of the rioters also attacked police defending a synagogue, this time they were reportedly loudly denounced even by people leaving the Fidesz protests. Meanwhile, at the unveiling of a new 1956 memorial, some 500 people are shouting abuse at the appearing prominence.
