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Taxing Wallonian Barbecues?

BPSCG

Penultimate Amazing
B
Joined
Mar 27, 2002
Messages
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This is a joke, right?

Seriously - is this supposed to be a joke? The source appears to be a Russian newspaper and the only other confirmations I can find all appear to be blogs that all lead back to the same Russian newspaper.
 
BPSCG said:
This is a joke, right?

Seriously - is this supposed to be a joke? The source appears to be a Russian newspaper and the only other confirmations I can find all appear to be blogs that all lead back to the same Russian newspaper.
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1. Sounds like a typical caricature of an EU bureaucrat "solution."

2. It also sounds like The Onion, or a similar rag.

How does one say "Onion" in Russian?

I didn't realize that Belgians liked Bar B Q. I learn something new everyday.

DR
 
What was the date of the Russian newspaper? I ask as one of the UK papers had a very similar story, of inspectors charging £5 as a tax on barbecues, on Sunday. (Didn't catch the details, just saw it in the round-up of April Fool jokes on the TV news.)
<googles>

Here you go, it was the Daily Mail, as reported by the BBC.
The Daily Mail warns al fresco foodies that firing up the barbecue this summer could cost you £5 for "carbon offsets".

The paper reports that councils across the UK will appoint barbecue inspectors to enter private gardens to check whether any charcoal has been burned.

Offenders who have not pre-purchased their offsets could face a £50 fine.

Barbecue lover Ron Staines, of Kent, is quoted as saying: "I think it's disgraceful... I just don't believe I produce that much CO2, mainly because I usually can't get the thing alight."
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ETA: google finds the link to the original article at the Daily Mail, but it appears to have been deleted now.
 
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Because of the tone of the article, I thought it might be a parody of some obscure Belgian law, so I checked the home page to the link and found a much more interesting story here regarding the reduced capabilities of the 82nd Airborne and the 101st Air Mobile (look for the new thread - I didn't want to totally derail this one).

It seems that Reason Magazine's gist is to poke fun at frivilous laws and stupid policies everywhere.
 
Rule number one when analyzing government action: Remember, they just want the money.
 
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