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2020 Sep 12 - Brexit Update I had a bit of computer problem last week but I’m not the government so it cost less than £10m to fix and unlike some politicians I didn’t later get a visit from the police to ask about the hard drive’s contents. But at least this week we finally have something to talk about this week other than Corona. Yes, it’s a return to Brexit which as any BBC panel show contestant would tell you, “sounds a bit like a breakfast cereal” and which most viewers would interpret as a sign that they were watching a repeat on Dave. The thing with repeats on that channel is that QI stops being “quite interesting” once you’ve heard Stephen talk about it for the 3rd or 4th time.



But something we have heard 3 or 4 times is that Boris is going to get Brexit done and so this week saw eyebrows raised and pro-EU keyboards smashed as the government took the inevitable step of reneging on past promises regarding Ireland which is hardly a surprising turn of events given the past 5 centuries. In this case it relates to a previous promise made to keep unified laws in northern and southern Ireland. Doing so would in effect make Northern Ireland a defacto EU state given that the Republic of Ireland’s laws regarding trade and customs are largely dictated to by Brussels. London would lose control of goings on in Northern Ireland in much the same way that John Delorean did when the FBI knocked on his door. Thus the only two options are [a] splitting Northern Ireland from British control, or [b] agreeing that the two places will in future be subject to different rules, goodness knows what will happen when someone realises that Guinness is owned and controlled by Diageo which has a stock market listing in London, not Brussels or Frankfort.



The expression being brandished by the BBC is “breaking international law” is also curious in two main respects



1. It happens all the time, notoriously by EU countries yet most notably by Tony Blair who invaded Iraq not long after he agreed the very Northern Ireland treaty in question this week. From hero to zero in less time than it takes him to get a spray tan

2. The concept of international law implies that there’s an international court or jurisdiction to which the UK needs to answer. Where is it? Strasbourg? The truth is that “international law” is a synonym here for “EU law” and that kind of gets to the crux of it. If an EU court passes judgement then whether it the UK complies is up for grabs, especially with a trade agreement on the table and EU’s member states keen sell cars and wine to Britain. The Northern Ireland troubles were a terrible time, but 2 decades on there is no demand for an renewed armed uprising, not least over Brexit. Ironically, in an era of violent looting and “peaceful protests” Belfast is one of the few places in the Western world without racial or sectarian violence. 2020 is indeed a strange place, perhaps I should put £50 on West Ham to win the Premiership. I had a bit of computer problem last week but I’m not the government so it cost less than £10m to fix and unlike some politicians I didn’t later get a visit from the police to ask about the hard drive’s contents. But at least this week we finally have something to talk about this week other than Corona. Yes, it’s a return to Brexit which as any BBC panel show contestant would tell you, “sounds a bit like a breakfast cereal” and which most viewers would interpret as a sign that they ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200912 Twitter

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2020 Aug 31 - US Election Update As the US election draws closer the country appears more divided than the flat pack desk I didn't get around to doing this weekend. It's made a number of commentators ask: what would Abraham Lincoln or George Washington would be doing if they were alive today? To which the obvious answer is scratching at the inside of the coffin as shouting so that someone can let them out. And Lincoln might be looking up that play on Wikipedia to see how it ended seeing as he missed the last 20 minutes.



But yes it's 2 months until election day as we move into autumn or as they call it in America, the "fall" which brings to mind other falls like the fall of Saigon, the fall of the Roman Empire, or that time that Neil Kinnock fell over on a beach because just like Kinnock the US left wing politicians have been trying incredibly hard make themselves seem as unelectable as possible over the past couple weeks. As an analogy, try to imagine the fictional kingdom run by Babar the Elephant and now try to imagine the hunter running for political office in it, possibly with a zookeeper as running mate. That is roughly what you have as left wing mayors champion the abolition of the police and urge you to vote for Joe Biden to speed that process up. Democratic strongholds like Los Angeles and New York are now deserted downtown and regularly witness to scenes reminiscent of the 3rd world and yet for many that is portrayed as a good thing with references being made to South Africa and the end of minority white rule as they actively fan the flames of a race war that frankly matters very little to anyone who doesn't have a financial stake in it. When Democrats say that the country needs immigrants to do the things ordinary Americans won’t it makes you wonder "like what, voting Democrat?"



All the while Joe Biden has been silent on the topic of the riots and so uninspiring that you half wonder whether making him the front-runner was part of a "make a wish event" like when they let a terminally ill patient have lunch with their favourite sporting hero. It's worth remembering that Joe only got the position because the party stooges wouldn't allow the role to go to Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton wouldn't let Elizabeth Warren beat her in the first female president competition. The somewhat confusing (yet inevitable way) the vote was rigged meant that the party activists voted for competence and charisma, yet were left with Jo Biden and for many it's like if you ordered a double bed and the company delivered you a double bass. Except that basses are associated with jazz and cool whereas Joe seems like the guy who'd go to a concert and then complain afterwards that the orchestra was a cover band. Who knows, maybe he's been around long enough to have seen Mozart playing a live gig back in the day. Either way, we currently have 9 weeks to go until we can see which of the two ld white men, both with accusations of impropriety, both running of a campaign on identity politics, gets to live in the White house next year. And possibly a 3 further subsequent years depending on how things go! As the US election draws closer the country appears more divided than the flat pack desk I didn't get around to doing this weekend. It's made a number of commentators ask: what would Abraham Lincoln or George Washington would be doing if they were alive today? To which the obvious answer is scratching at the inside of the coffin as shouting so that someone can let them out. And Lincoln might be looking up that play on Wikipedia to see how it ended seeing as he missed the last 20 minutes.



But ye ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200831 Twitter

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2020 Aug 23 - Validimir Putin's Deadly Hobbies Newspapers and magazines are always saying how you need to keep active in your old age I guess if Vladimir Putin wasn’t a former KGB autocrat he might enjoy a Sudoku puzzle or helping out at the village hall. But as it is he’s in charge of Russia and so this week saw the country’s opposition leader fall ill under mysterious circumstances and in Belarus his friend President Lukashenko remained in power despite huge protests, safe in the knowledge that Vladimir has his back, by which I mean Vladimir has some of his enemies under constant surveillance. When it comes to Vladimir he really doesn't seem to have as much in common with other 67 year olds, although he can probably recommend a good BnB if you fancy visiting Salisbury. I thought I heard someone saying he enjoys a crossword, it's actually "cross words" - the type you have shouting down the phone at someone in Ukraine. Which is a shame because if he won one of those thesauruses for doing the Telegraph crossword, he could hollow out the pages and use it to store a handgun.



In the first of those Russia stories, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny had to flee to Germany after a being poisoned supposedly by a cup of tea. Obviously there are not a huge number of facts to go on at this stage, did Alexi for instance add the milk before or after the tea, did he add sugar, was the sugar bowl actually full of Ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate? The 2006 Litvinenko killing also used a deadly cup of tea and it’s maybe a remnant from the communist days because there’s that old marxist joke about how proper tea is theft. Nonetheless, I’d like to know how you have to fill out a job aptitude test at school in order for it to recommend "Russian Opposition Leader" job as a line of work, given how dangerous it is. I mean I had one that asked me things like if enjoyed travelling but it never specified that the journey would involve being placed in a medically induced coma



Then as I said there’s also this nonsense in Belarus where President Lukashenko has been facing fierce protests after winning a recent election with 80% of the vote, enough for everyone to see that it was rigged, though strangely not as brazen as it could have been, like the 98% results that you often see. Perhaps the photocopier ran out of toner and it’s hard to buy any, what with sanctions. The one hilarious thing to come of this was when I put that story into google and the top result was an article from the Guardian about how the EU has decided to not recognise the election result, which implies that the EU ever recognises elections or referendum results for what they are. You look at their current negotiations with the UK where a red line for the EU seems to be continuing to own British fishing waters and getting the final say in UK tax changes, it all reminds be of Lord Nelson putting the telescope over his bad eye and saying “I see no ships” Just looking it and President Lukashenko has been in power since 1994 and that is a long time for anyone to remain in one job, perhaps he was inspired by that year’s big movie The Lion King. Another big film that year was Four Weddings and a Funeral. Or as it was released in Russia, “4 Funerals and another Funeral” Newspapers and magazines are always saying how you need to keep active in your old age I guess if Vladimir Putin wasn’t a former KGB autocrat he might enjoy a Sudoku puzzle or helping out at the village hall. But as it is he’s in charge of Russia and so this week saw the country’s opposition leader fall ill under mysterious circumstances and in Belarus his friend President Lukashenko remained in power despite huge protests, safe in the knowledge that Vladimir has his back, by which I mean ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200823 Twitter

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2020 Aug 16 - Biden Harris 2020 Campaign This week I thought we'd talk the upcoming American election although I thought in passing I'd point out how good it is with Corona to see the British 'Dunkirk Spirit' coming out by which of course I mean thousands of trapped Britons trying their damnedest to cross the channel and escape France.



But anyway, the US election is entering the last couple of months of what has been the quietest and most lacklustre presidential election since the era when King George III was in charge and the election consisted of a sketch comedy routine performed by courtiers. The usual feverish wall-to-wall campaigning has been a trudge this year as both candidates stumble forward like drunks at closing time, both assured in their own self-confidence and popularity though one of them will of course have a rude and painful awakening come that morning in November.



Up against Mr Trump is Jo Biden who many have accused of being cognitively impaired following a litany of gaffes, mistakes and an ability to mess up numbers that makes you assume he used to have a private sector job at Enron. There's hours of clips on YouTube if you go browsing, including one where he introduces his sister as his wife, although I don't know the context and perhaps he was trying to play to a crowd in Alabama. The Coronavirus has largely saved his campaign by allowing him to remain silent, out of the public eye and hide behind a facemask when he is on display. Gordon Brown presumably wishes he could have shielded his "smile" behind one back in the day.



In order to combat the stale old white man image in an era of BLM, Biden decided to finally appoint his running mate this week, by which I mean the results of the focus group finally came back and they went with Kamala Harris who ticks a number of boxes including the one where she can talk coherently but more importantly the ethnicity one given that we now live in an era where it's likely a matter of time until someone demands that the piano is redesigned to have an equal number of black keys and white keys. This is a week in fact in which Nasa decided to rename some star systems such as the Eskimo Nebula in case it was offensive to the Inuit, though strangely no mention yet of renaming the planets, the roman god Jupiter has a pretty offensive backstory after all and the whole Roman empire itself was based on slavery. Until the Visigoths held a peaceful protest in the year 410 and accidentally burned it to the ground.



Despite this I find it somewhat bemusing when you look at the facts. Joe Biden carved himself a career in the 80s and 90s by passing legislation now seen as disproportionately harsh on minority groups. But it's ok because Kamala Harris is only half-white although she and grew up in a white neighbourhood and married a white man and was one of the first to be kicked out of the primary race by the public earlier in the year. This is a PR effort somehow worse than the usual election effort, in which a multimillionaire candidate decides to remove their tie and slowly drink half a bottle of Coors Light while chatting to a voter in the Midwest. Sometimes I wonder if US politicians brought in Prohibition simply in order to get out of having to to do that part of the campaign.



Either way, the lack of anything to get excited about in this election is why there's so little action or enthusiasm on the ground, there's no grassroots groundswell and nobody's leafletting or knocking on doors and Covid is nowhere near as responsible for that as the Biden camp would make out. Morale and is always a strange one to tie down though, after all if the people who make motivational posters are so motivated, why are they still working in a poster factory? This week I thought we'd talk the upcoming American election although I thought in passing I'd point out how good it is with Corona to see the British 'Dunkirk Spirit' coming out by which of course I mean thousands of trapped Britons trying their damnedest to cross the channel and escape France.



But anyway, the US election is entering the last couple of months of what has been the quietest and most lacklustre presidential election since the era when King George III was in charge and the electio ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200816 Twitter

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2020 Aug 08 - Beirut Explosion There's an old joke about how do you blow up an Italian? Answer: Rigatoni. Anyway, this week it was Lebanon that saw a huge explosion after a blast ripped through the heart of Beirut, I've probably not seen such a massive bomb on tv since the Joey, the Friends spinoff. Perhaps Baywatch Nights would have been a better reference, that was set down by the docks after all.



Nonetheless, it turns out that the cause of the explosion was 2700 tones of ammonium nitrate, being illegally stored and and awaiting sale to either a fireworks company or potentially an agricultural supplier. Indeed it's likely one of the few explosions in that part of the world that wasn't anything to do with terrorism. There's that old expression that in the West the expression "you're the bomb" is a compliment whereas in the middle east it's a job offer.



But here we are though and there's not much to say or joke about this week. Hundreds killed hundreds thousands injured. I saw an article making a comparison to Chernobyl and how that event in the Soviet Union - like the Beirut explosion - was inevitable and simply the culmination of the endemic corruption and negligence built into the system. Certainly Lebanon has had a rough economic time of it of late, and that was before Corona hit; if the ammonium nitrate was destined to go into fireworks then I fail to see what they were preparing to celebrate. Was is evident is that the blast has also triggered an explosion of rage with protestors taking to the street, ironically copying something from France, the country's former colonial power. The famously forage loving french were probably confused and presumed that a cheese factory had been damaged when they heard that there was de brie everywhere. Cheese puns, I thought that was a gouda one. Here's a good joke to finish, what cheese is made backwards? Edam. There's an old joke about how do you blow up an Italian? Answer: Rigatoni. Anyway, this week it was Lebanon that saw a huge explosion after a blast ripped through the heart of Beirut, I've probably not seen such a massive bomb on tv since the Joey, the Friends spinoff. Perhaps Baywatch Nights would have been a better reference, that was set down by the docks after all.



Nonetheless, it turns out that the cause of the explosion was 2700 tones of ammonium nitrate, being illegally stored and and aw ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200808 Twitter

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2020 Aug 02 - UAE's Barakah Nuclear Power Plant There are a couple of good things to come out of the Covid pandemic: there's no pressure to go to the gym, we know that China can unfortunately manufacture things that last longer than 6 months, and most importantly, Greta Thunberg hasn't been getting any media attention, although I guess that when airplanes are grounded it's pretty hard to fly around the world spreading your hypocrisy. But the environment is out there still, at least that's what I hear, I've not left the house much these past few months. This week I thought I'd look at two examples in the news of what the green agenda has left us with, and they're both pretty scary. It's like when you ask where the George Orwell memorial is Google tells you you're living in it. That kind of scary.



First of all to the United Arab Emirates. It's a fairly quirky place with crazy mega-projects and I always thought that if I was designing something there I'd make sure I had a small child on the design team to make sure it was eccentric looking enough and needlessly tall to the point of absurdity. But they can do it because they're a country where a passport and the American Express Platinum Card are synonymous. It's quite easy to spend money when you're sitting on top of that much oil and gas. However, Mae West once said "too much a good thing is wonderful" and the UAE really wants more and more energy (carbon friendly energy!) and so therefore this week saw the UAE start up the Arab world's first nuclear plant at Barakah, just next to the border with Saudi Arabia, a country already embroiled in conflicts with Yemen and Iran. It's probably worth noting that if you look up the UAE in an illustrated book of countries, the country right beforehand is Ukraine alongside the iconic B&W photographs of Chernobyl. This is the sort of management viewpoint akin to when the BBC put Jimmy Savile in charge of a kids tv show with the thinking of "what could possibly go wrong?".



The next power station that doesn't burn oil or gas is in China. It's the 3-gorges dam that is one of the largest things ever constructed by man, if you don't include the EU constitution or the US national debt. It's the world's largest power station and as a point of comparison, take the £16bn Sizewell C reactor: the 3 gorges dam is 6 or 7 times that in terms of output. Dam indeed. Nonetheless there's a lot of talk online including pictures and leaked information from defectors to the west suggesting that shoddy construction and an especially bad flood season make it quite possible that it could collapse, killing millions in the process and causing the sort of economic damage that make President Trump's proposed Covid sanctions look like a tap on the wrist. On the other hand, the deaths of million and final destruction of the economy is hardly out of the ordinary for a country that's communist and I have to sympathise with the engineers who had to interpret the instruction manual all written in Chinese, we've all been there I suppose. There are a couple of good things to come out of the Covid pandemic: there's no pressure to go to the gym, we know that China can unfortunately manufacture things that last longer than 6 months, and most importantly, Greta Thunberg hasn't been getting any media attention, although I guess that when airplanes are grounded it's pretty hard to fly around the world spreading your hypocrisy. But the environment is out there still, at least that's what I hear, I've not left the house much these past f ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200802 Twitter

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2020 Jul 26 - Coronavirus Update Ok, let's do the coronavirus update, the main news is that fair few people are starting to go back to work, and not just the people that work at the crematorium. Restaurants and cafes are opening up and visiting a beer garden no longer means waking up in your back yard surrounded by empty cans. There's even talk about playing sporting events again, albeit with a rule about stadiums only being half full, though having been to a couple football games in the Scottish second division, that means business as usual for a lot of teams. Certainly the severity of the economic contraction hasn't been helped by the country's almost complete switch to a service based economy rather than one more focussed on heavy industry where ironically a lot of the jobs like welding and mining used to involve wearing masks.



Nonetheless, times have changed and that way of life has gone, very much like Prince Andrew in Beatrice's wedding photos. Tell you what, when I heard that he'd been airbrushed out of the wedding photos I though at least it makes a nice change from Prince Andrew doing the touching up.



The real battle of course will be over schools where 4 factions are lining up for battle: The parents who want their kids to be in school, the parents who are terrified of their children being around lots of other children, the teachers who want to remain on paid time off until there's a vaccine or they can retire and the government who know whatever solution they pick will be polarising and therefore are hoping that some kind of consensus can be reached by the newspapers and internet. This is the same panel of experts that couldn't decide what colour that dress was a few years ago, or whether that audio clip going around was saying "Laurel" or "Yannee" If you've ever read an opinion piece by a columnist who can't decide whether to bring back hanging, or whether hanging's too good for those people, that is where policy will come from as to how schools will operate during the next year. For what it's worth the science very much seems to say there's no risk: I'm looking at a study of Chicago where only 2 people under the age of 19 have died from Covid, as compared to 12 from accidents, 4 from suicide, 36 from other or pending investigation and and 46 from gun violence. The latter is due to the fact that large swathes of that city are open war zones run by gangs: criminals in Chicago tend to be a lot more violent and a lot less funny than the movie Home Alone would suggest.



To give the government some credit, Boris can hardly be said to be disinterested in the disease. He had it and nearly died. He's presumably very aware that whatever he chooses is going to result in immense damage being wrought, either to peoples' health, the country's economy or the Scottish question. Nonetheless, it is his job, and the cabinet's, to make that decision. I'm hoping that perhaps one lesson to be learnt from the Coronavirus is that next time politicians want to give themselves a pay rise for the valuable work they do, maybe the public should stand up and instead offer to give them a round of applause on a Thursday evening. Ok, let's do the coronavirus update, the main news is that fair few people are starting to go back to work, and not just the people that work at the crematorium. Restaurants and cafes are opening up and visiting a beer garden no longer means waking up in your back yard surrounded by empty cans. There's even talk about playing sporting events again, albeit with a rule about stadiums only being half full, though having been to a couple football games in the Scottish second division, that means bus ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200726 Twitter

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2020 Jul 19 - Twitter Hack I'm writing this on July 18th and that's Richard Branson's birthday, maybe somebody got him a train set for it, hopefully not the government though because that was very very expensive last time.



What else is in the news? I see that Shamima Begum is also trying to return to the UK, something about losing an appeal. Appeal? I didn't think she appealed to anyone, other than the sorts that probably want a statue of her put on that plinth in Bristol. The guardian can call her stateless for all they want but she looked like she was in a right state the last time folks saw her running about trying to kill people. I also saw an article on Coronavirus and how the acting profession are fearful that some theatres may never open again after lockdown. Why do they have to make a song and dance about everything?. There's also a new disease on on the loose: Bubonic plague! A Chinese city has issued a black death level three warning. Well, 2020 is the year of the rat.



I guess though, the big story this week seems to be the Twitter/Bitcoin hacking scam which in my mind reassured me that the world is still kind of the same and that fools and there money are easily parted. Earlier this week some hackers managed to take control of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Barack Obama's Twitter accounts and posted a tweet saying that as a charitable act, anyone who sent money to a certain anonymous Bitcoin account would get twice the amount paid back. This on the surface looks remarkably suspicious. Designed to appeal to the sort of people as lazy as whoever it was that named the fireplace. But the internet is populated with idiots, the sort of people who think that pharmacists work on farms and boast that they can still fit into the same shoes that they wore 10 years ago. People being stupid on the internet? That expectation is the price of entry.



Nonetheless, this is probably the least dubiously legal thing to happen with bitcoin this year and it's the least dubious business thing to involve Elon Musk this year. I have a bitcoin wallet and it's a nice little hedge against economic collapse that can't be seized or stolen through inflation, but I largely have it through greedy speculation that the price jumps 10-fold. It's not a proper investment and nobody's in it for anything other than the off-chance of getting rich. And anyone that thinks that Elon Musk is going to give them a thousand dollars is either deluded, or they're perhaps just Elon Musk's lawyer charging by the hour for whatever mess he's gotten himself into this time, mostly likely on Twitter ironically. Which was ironically also on Twitter. And as for the rest at least when it was Obama or Joe Biden's twitter account claiming to give away free money folks should know better not to trust it, because they're politicians. I'm writing this on July 18th and that's Richard Branson's birthday, maybe somebody got him a train set for it, hopefully not the government though because that was very very expensive last time.



What else is in the news? I see that Shamima Begum is also trying to return to the UK, something about losing an appeal. Appeal? I didn't think she appealed to anyone, other than the sorts that probably want a statue of her put on that plinth in Bristol. The guardian can call her stateless for all they ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200719 Twitter

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2020 Jul 13 - Roger Stone I’m posting a day or or two later than usual after Ghislane Maxwell seemingly managed to survive this past weekend in prison, something that indeed surprised many, not least the people who have already likely instructed their lawyer to make her disappear. You know how these things work though, we all know that if there are what look like guard dogs in the prison, they’re probably seeing eye dogs for the legally blind prison staff put in charge of her safety.



Nonetheless, the main legal story this week has been the furore about Roger Stone, the political consultant and lobbyist who had been one of the few people charged with something to come out of the Mueller report. The other people charged? The US taxpayer of course, they were charged tens of millions of dollars to pay for the investigation that ultimately showed the Trump 2016 campaign to have had about as much Russian Influence as the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The narrative woven by those against the President certainly turned out to be no less fictional than those in the Canterbury Tales and you can maybe imagine the Clerk or the Merchant inventing the story if the progressive left hadn’t already left to start a protest movement having heard some of earlier tales. I’m not sure if the Wife of Bath had a twitter account or not, I’m tempted to suggest “no” given that it was the 14th century but then publishers are quite keen to retroactively airbrush and change the past to suit today’s moral and ethical standards so who knows what the latest version contains.



Nonetheless, there remains two questions. Was he guilty and was President Trump wrong for commuting the sentance. The answer to the first part is simple enough: yes, he did lie to congress. He probably thought it was the done thing given the sort of people who worked there on a daily basis. Part two though is more subtle because the prosecution, trial and sentencing were about as fair as that game as the side of the road with the cups and balls where you lose whichever one you pick. The whole grift of prosecuting Roger Stone was more about justifying an investigation that contained less than one of Robert Maxwell’s pension plans. One key factor being that the jury was led by a foreperson who was a semi-professional anti-trump activist and democratic fundraiser. It’s also worth noting that President Trump didn’t actually pardon Stone, he simply commuted the sentence and that’s a subtle but important difference that is lost on the sort of people that think own an electric car because wielding a petrol pump reminds them of a gun. I could also list off the litany of other presidents who commuted sentences in the past, they all do it, an especially corrupt one being Bill Clinton who used his executive authority to get his brother off the hook. I guess it’s an executive power that Prince Andrew really wishes his mother employed.



I’m posting a day or or two later than usual after Ghislane Maxwell seemingly managed to survive this past weekend in prison, something that indeed surprised many, not least the people who have already likely instructed their lawyer to make her disappear. You know how these things work though, we all know that if there are what look like guard dogs in the prison, they’re probably seeing eye dogs for the legally blind prison staff put in charge of her safety.



Nonetheless, the main legal sto ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200713 Twitter

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2020 Jul 04 - Ghislaine Maxwell Arrested Ok, this week it's a bit of an unfunny subject so let's start with a crime-related joke: A young man robbed a bank wearing a suit made of many mirrors. But he turned himself in after taking some time to reflect. Luckily the judge was lenient as he saw a lot of himself in the young man.



But back to the topic at hand, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested this week in America after an international hunt ended with the FBI showing up a a mansion in New Hampshire. She didn't own a Ford Bronco so they quickly took her to jail where she'll probably have lots to talk about with a lawyer. Ghislaine is supposedly an eye-witness to lots of crimes involving formally alive and mysteriously now dead Jeffrey Epstein and a lot of his former associates from the Clintons to Prince Andrew to Elon Musk are probably sweating now. Apart of course from Prince Andrew who is famously unable to sweat. Except of course when he's being photographed doing so.



Ghislaine has been described in the news as Epsteins former girlfriend but unlike many of his girlfriends, she's an adult and be facing some serious criminal charges relating to human trafficking and so many are suggesting that she'll cut a deal and offer up information on everything that went on. I once heard someone say that they didn't trust stairs because they were always up to something, but in this case there's an cadre of rich and powerful people likely up to something, ready to prevent any stories being revealed and that of course is why everyone is wondering how long it will be until a tragic accident occurs. Possibly in the same prison as her friend Jeffrey was staying. my betting is that the Coronavirus will be responsible this time and that a high profile court case will be yet another big event missing from our tv screens this year. Certainly the prospect of Prince Andrew being called to give evidence at a trial must make him rather glad that she wasn't arrested when she was at her other house in France, because the British Royals seem to have bad luck when they visit that country, and having watched that interview, Prince Andrew is certainly no stranger to car crashes.



But of course this is all speculation & rumour for now. Without answers or evidence it's as much use as asking what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag. Personally I'm happy to wait until the judge or the coroner make their mind up and come back with something conclusive and in the meantime if you're that interested in gossip, go online and look up the lives of Robert Maxwell's other children because they give soap operas a run for their money. I guess that Ghislane therefore had more in common with Prince Andrew and his family than you'd think. Ok, this week it's a bit of an unfunny subject so let's start with a crime-related joke: A young man robbed a bank wearing a suit made of many mirrors. But he turned himself in after taking some time to reflect. Luckily the judge was lenient as he saw a lot of himself in the young man.



But back to the topic at hand, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested this week in America after an international hunt ended with the FBI showing up a a mansion in New Hampshire. She didn't own a Ford Bronco so they quic ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200704 Twitter

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2020 Jun 27 - Wokeness in America It seems like things may be getting back to normal, the biggest story seems to be the incident in Glasgow and a stabbing in Glasgow somehow makes front page news then maybe I've lost touch with the modern world. There was also another terrorism-related story in which Leeds United had to remove a photograph of Osama Bin Laden that had been spotted in their Elland Road stadium. Quite right too: everyone knows he supported Bradford, or was it Rotherham?



Nonetheless, In America things are still going just as they ever were and it seems that constant woke outrage may just become another strange part of normal life that everyone else finds weird, like cheque books or pickup trucks or finding James Corden to be a hilarious raconteur who definitely deserves more money and exposure. I recently saw a harrowing documentary about the the asbestos industry and yet it was more entertaining than that late night show where James drives around singing in a car like he's on a hen-do.



One story this week was about Bubba Wallace who's a Nascar driver. Nascar for those unaware of it, is the name of the motorsport where cars drive around and around in a circle for several hours, presumably invented when somebody realised that they'd forgotten to buy the bit of land in the middle of the racecourse. It's a high-money stakes version of watching the cars driving round Marble Arch but this week there was excitement (for once) after a decision was made to ban confederate flags from the events and then the driver Bubba Wallace discovered a noose in his garage. The FBI were sent in to investigate the supposed hate crime and their detective work revealed that noose was in fact a small rope used to help lower the garage door once he was done with it leading some to speculate what else he could find offence with next. Perhaps he'll see some of those conical paper cups next to the water cooler and mistake them for white hoods. Maybe he'll sue the manufacturer of his car's tyres for assuming that he wanted them in black. Personally speaking, I don't understand why he couldn't just get one of his sponsors to buy him one of those automatic garage door things that come with a button for your keychain.



Moving one, while I joked about the English national anthem last week, this week saw some especially attention seeking folks claiming that the US National anthem is racist, and should therefore be banned. It's a position so unpopular and preposterous that it makes you wonder if it's for real, or an idea being put out there to undermine support in the movement. I'd also like to know how many people in the survey were actually just especially jingoistic British tourists who think that the anthem should be banned because they want it swapped back to the one about praying for her majesty's good health. I wonder which of the songs Prince Harry is a fan of in California. You know, the funny thing actually with the anthems is that they never actually got rid of God Save The Queen in America. Go look up the song "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" - it's the same tune but with new lyrics. They play it when they're swearing in a new president but I'd probably not recommend singing the British lyrics if you ever find yourself in DC when they're doing that.



It seems like things may be getting back to normal, the biggest story seems to be the incident in Glasgow and a stabbing in Glasgow somehow makes front page news then maybe I've lost touch with the modern world. There was also another terrorism-related story in which Leeds United had to remove a photograph of Osama Bin Laden that had been spotted in their Elland Road stadium. Quite right too: everyone knows he supported Bradford, or was it Rotherham?



Nonetheless, In America things are still goi ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200627 Twitter

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2020 Jun 22 - General News Roundup This week it seems that the main story from last week, namely the culture war has continued to crash and dwindle into left-wing obscurity in a way reminiscent of Channel 4 News or a semi-finalist on the X-Factor. I always used to get confused on those talent shows when someone said their goal was to have a platinum album, I mean I have dozens of those downstairs, by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. I know that High Street record stores are in a bad state of repair but is it that hard to find a copy of Thriller these days?



The one musical story I did spot this week was the decision by some well meaning idiots to demand that England Rugby fans to stop singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot, on the basis that it is supposedly racist and offensive, a decision that sort of makes we almost wish that God Save The Queen included a verse about Prince Phillip. Currently there is nothing being said about the other 6-Nations teams' anthems which is probably due to attention seeking but ultimately lazy activists being to unwilling to learn French or Italian.



In a contrasting turn of events, the news was released that Boris has decided to repaint the prime ministerial Jet Plane in a patriotic union Flag pattern. Some news outlets made a comparison to the jumbo jet in the Austin Powers movies, while other reporters decided to appeal to the youth readership by referencing that dress worn by Gerri out the Spice Girls, a reference from 25 years ago that largely went unnoticed by anyone under the age of 30 let alone anyone born this century.



Piers Morgan was also a little bit old school with his references after photos emerged of him wearing an SS uniform at a party many years ago. Controversial indeed and yet the strangest part is that this still not the most controversial story involving Piers Morgan and people getting dressed up in army uniforms. Although it is one of the stories that the Mirror decided not to stick on its front page.



Finally, the one other story which is worth mentioning is the final decision by the NHS to abandon its in-house development of a contact tracing App in favour of one developed by Apple and Google. It really is worth examining the concept as it is identical to if the foreign office decided to stop buying A4 paper and develop their own in-house size ratio, then spend billions establishing a manufacturing and logistics chain. Say what you will about the Iraq dodgy dossier, at least it was printed on normal paper. Nonetheless, Apple and Google offered a product for free and yet the NHS ploughed on ahead with its own vanity project that, was slow, insecure, and cost a fortune. And so was the App that the department developed. The sole cause of this seems to have been an over-promoted civil servant by the name of Matthew Gould. He's a former ambassador and you'd think perhaps he had a past life in the software industry but in fact he has less experience than the fictional meerkats from that price comparison company. As far as I can see the only experience he has is having PPE on his CV, but even then it's a politics, philosophy and economics degree. What a surprise. This week it seems that the main story from last week, namely the culture war has continued to crash and dwindle into left-wing obscurity in a way reminiscent of Channel 4 News or a semi-finalist on the X-Factor. I always used to get confused on those talent shows when someone said their goal was to have a platinum album, I mean I have dozens of those downstairs, by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. I know that High Street record stores are in a bad state of repair but is it that hard to fi ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200622 Twitter

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2020 Jun 13 - Mob Rule & Chaos on the Streets In the space of a week and a half the reasonable protests of a man’s death have escalated rather quickly from a movement arguing simply for justice. Instead we’ve seen a series of marches, riots and angry demands extending from everything such as police reform to more fringe ideas like banning the tv show Thomas The Tank Engine and demanding that Scotland remove statues of Wallace The Bruce, on the spurious grounds that he was racist for not employing Africa-Americans in 13th century Scotland. Or maybe it's because they're confusing him with Mel Gibson.



Ladies and gentleman you may wish to call me Rod Serling for the next few minutes because we have crossed over into the Twilight Zone here. It’s a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind, wait in fact no it isn’t, it's not of mind, it’s a mindless rabble where a political and media class are too terrified of being seen as politically incorrect to tell people to go back to writing letters to the Morning Star or setting up a poll on Twitter. This isn't the idiots left in chart of the asylum, because at least then the problems would be mostly in the vicinity of the asylum. An asylum that would at the very least give us movies like Silence Of The Lambs or One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, rather than banning Gone With The Wind a film which in a twist of irony featured the first black Oscar winner but sure let's ban it until the Academy issues Oscar Statues in a rainbow of colours and not just gold. That film's whole plot is that the South loses the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves but this mob, these are the people that in London vandalised the Abraham Lincoln statue on the basis that he lived a long time ago so must have been a slaveowning racist and goodness knows what they'd have to say about actress Honor Blackman if they saw her surname.



To this day I’m still unsure as to what the protestors in London actually expect Boris Johnson to do with regards to police reform in America, it’s rather like demanding that your MP makes Apple go back to having USB ports on their laptops. Or picketing a branch of Tesco because your train tickets cost too much. At least i think that train tickets are still one of the things that Tesco doesn’t sell. I guess it’s probably somewhat more useful than protesting outside a corporate office due that’s empty because everyone’s working from home but as I said we’re in bizarro world territory here anyway, I was especially intrigued by furious demands to ban the children’s show Paw Patrol in which 3D puppies help solve problems and fix things, supposedly the rage is over the fact that one of the puppies dresses up as a emergency workers wears a little policeman's hat and badge. I’ve never seen the episode in which the fictional dog kills people or uses racial slurs, not even to the other different coloured dogs. Perhaps it’s on a DVD special and besides my kids are more into Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom so I’ve only seen a handful.



Let’s look at America though where they’ve been having a riot, literally. A 6 block section of Seattle is currently being run by a social commune where there are no rules and everyone solves thing in partnership, which in practice means it’s a borderline active warzone with looting, people unable to get food or clean water and scenes very much like something out of a Movie. At least I think it’s like a movie, it’s been months since I was able to go to the cinema. Either way very little is likely to happen now legally speaking with any good faith and public support for change now destroyed, much like a newly torched branch of Foot Locker or a mobile phone store robbed of all it's pretend demonstration phones in a crime presumably carried out by people in such a frenzy that they were probably stealing more of the phones advertised as 50% off. If protests had remained peaceful, they would have achieved some aims like police reform, or at the very least preventing the police unions from keeping convicted officers on the payroll. Instead it was transformed into a culture war where in an us-vs-them situation, most people will side with the people that don't want to ban Citizen Kane because it's described as black and white. In the space of a week and a half the reasonable protests of a man’s death have escalated rather quickly from a movement arguing simply for justice. Instead we’ve seen a series of marches, riots and angry demands extending from everything such as police reform to more fringe ideas like banning the tv show Thomas The Tank Engine and demanding that Scotland remove statues of Wallace The Bruce, on the spurious grounds that he was racist for not employing Africa-Americans in 13th century Scotlan ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200613 Twitter

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2020 Jun 06 - Coronavirus Summer It's now June, normally a month when you might be out enjoying a drink in the sun and watching the cricket, but thanks to the Corovirus, the only kind of bat you're going to be seeing is one of the ones for sale that that Chinese wet-market. Did I say cricket? Because I'm fairly certain you can buy them there too along with locusts, grasshoppers and pangolins which I've never had, though supposedly they taste a bit like pork or duck. I must say that I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian but a general rule is that if you don't know what noise an animal makes, don't eat it.



Anyway, a summer with no cricket, no beer garden and strangely no Wimbledon which is odd given that the players stay far more than the regulation 6 feet from each other. Rest assured though that, this summer will be quite different all round, with the one exception being the riots which will remind many of the long hot summer of 1967, though everything I always heard was that if you could actually remember the 60s then you weren't there. For my generation it would be the 90s LA riots I suppose. A truly bizarre piece of trivia regarding that is that the only reason that the Rodney King video ever even existed was because the event in question happened right next to a motel which was across the street from where they were filming Terminator 2 and one of the guests just happened to have his camcorder handy on the off change that Arnold Schwarzenegger was hanging about.



Nonetheless, we'll leave that topic for next week potentially and take a look at the UK where a range of proposals have been put forward for easing the lockdown, many of which are unworkable in practice, like having separate smoking and non-smoking sections of a taxi, or a no-peeing section in a swimming pool. Those who want to take a regional approach to handling the problem seem to have forgotten that the thing managed to get in and out off China, Russia and other locked down places in a way that would make James Bond raise an eyebrow if he was paying attention rather than thinking up suggestive things to say to Maud Adams. You have to either open the country up or not though and yet the government continues to pursue an on-the-fence approach to things, probably best summed up where trains ferries and planes are off-limits, yet makeshift rafts in the channel made out of driftwood are maybe ok?



The one point of apparent clarity is in the opposition to extending the Brexit transition period, a policy decision that may actually be made out of ideology and policy, or perhaps Boris doesn't want to shake hands at a covid-ridden press summit and end up in hospital again. Certainly Brussels has lots of plans to hand out money it doesn't have and yes, wasn't it always but this time even the Germans are getting cold feet about footing the bills. It reminds me of an old joke where 3 construction firms are bidding for an EU contract. The French firm puts in a bid of €10m. Then a German firm puts in an offer of €20m with a presentation explaining that their engineering will be of higher quality. Finally an Italian construction firm puts in a bid of €30m Euros and the Brussels official phones up the company to ask how they could possibly justify the bid being was so high and the owner, explains, €10m for you, €10m for me and €10 for the French. It's now June, normally a month when you might be out enjoying a drink in the sun and watching the cricket, but thanks to the Corovirus, the only kind of bat you're going to be seeing is one of the ones for sale that that Chinese wet-market. Did I say cricket? Because I'm fairly certain you can buy them there too along with locusts, grasshoppers and pangolins which I've never had, though supposedly they taste a bit like pork or duck. I must say that I didn't fight my way to the top of the food c ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200606 Twitter

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2020 May 30 - Minneapolis Police Shooting It would be great to not talk about Coronavirus for a week, so let’s flip to the front page of the news and… Oh dear, it’s a racial killing in America and a city is tearing itself apart, in a show of emotion that’s you probably wouldn’t see in Britain unless the NHS was sold to Phillip Green or the Royal Mail released a special set of limited edition stamps featuring the life and times of Oswald Mosley



Nonetheless, what happened in the US was fairly abhorrent. An African American named George Floyd was stopped by the police and despite not resisting, they nonetheless decided to restrain him by kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes, after which he was of course long dead and the officers who were standing by have decided to not to co-operate with the investigation into what happened, though one has since been charged with 3rd degree manslaughter.



Nonetheless, as with Dominic Cummings’ trips to county Durham, this has happened on more than one occasion and so the discussion of police brutality and what to do about is once again on the table. One obvious solution would be probably stop recommending the police service as a quasi-military career path to soldiers returning home from the army, many of whom haven’t been properly debriefed. Call me old fashioned but taking someone with PTSD, handing them a gun and asking them to maintain law and order is akin to a hardware store putting a selection of fans opposite the shelf where they store all the bags of feathers and 32 gallon drums of tar. Let’s think of another analogy: it’s like if the UN set up a human rights council and then invited Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Russia to run it. Except woops, that did actually also happen, sometimes fact is of course stranger than fiction.



There was also an almost equally bad incident incident in New York's central park which you may want to look up on the web but for now I just don’t really want to make any more jokes on the subject of these stories. The unfortunate thing is that next week we will likely be back to coronavirus. But as the old expression goes, one death is a tragedy, hundreds of thousands of deaths is a statistic. It would be great to not talk about Coronavirus for a week, so let’s flip to the front page of the news and… Oh dear, it’s a racial killing in America and a city is tearing itself apart, in a show of emotion that’s you probably wouldn’t see in Britain unless the NHS was sold to Phillip Green or the Royal Mail released a special set of limited edition stamps featuring the life and times of Oswald Mosley



Nonetheless, what happened in the US was fairly abhorrent. An African American na ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200530 Twitter

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2020 May 23 - Coronavirus & The Economy I'm publishing this on May 23rd which is George Osbourne's birthday, which now means we've had more months of Coronavirus than he has jobs. It's hard to tell really because with social distancing in play, he's maybe had to add 'clean ing the house' to his CV, or perhaps he prefers to live in filth; a lot of anonymous people online say he's into filth. I've never met the man though from what I read he seems like the sort of chap that probably closes the laptop at around 8 o'clock so he can listen to people clapping outside and assume that the public are celebrating his stewardship of the Evening Standard.



I imagine the one job he wouldn't want to be doing right now however is the old "chancellor of the exchequer" one, seeing as how this is a time when there's serious work to be done and major decisions to make amidst a no-doubt shambles where the usual economic models are falling apart alike an Air-Fix model Spitfire assembled by a small child. I would imagine Gideon Orbourne actually probably quite likes making airfix models, what with all the glue and the naphthalene vapours although in the real world the word 'solvent' has a far more economic meaning because right now the Western world is voluntarily embracing the economic equivalent of self-immolation. Perhaps cutting limbs off would be a better analogy because the Prime Minister continues to convey a jovial charm and indifference that's reminiscent of the Black Knight in that Monty Python film, while the business owners across the country are more akin to John Cleese demanding that the government fix the dead parrot, I mean the dead economy and reopen things.



The current situation is now forecast to cost around half 500bn pounds between government borrowing, lost investment and other costs and in context, that's literally the cost of a manned mission to Mars, or the kind of outlay you're looking at if you wanted to see Accrington Stanley win the Champions League. Certainly If "money talks" then it's saying "goodbye" and for no return other than maintaining the status quo. But "every life counts" though currently only 36,000 people have died from the coronavirus which in context is a lot less than have died from other things since the start of the year. I can't help wonder whether it would have been better spending that half a trillion pounds kind of money 5 years ago to cure cancer or at the very least become the world research capital. It would be nice if the UK was the pace where people came to cure cancer rather than the place that Far Eastern betting syndicates go to launder money before they get uncovered by the Mail On Sunday.



For context imagine everywhere in the top 500 towns and cities, you're down to smallish towns like Fathersham, Truro, Broadstairs, Dumbarton, and now imagine giving every single one of them £1bn no strings attached to spend or waste on anything they like. Mostly community art projects and pay rises I imagine. Nonetheless you examine it in that context and you quickly realise that the return on investment is worse than that time King Phillip of Spain bought hundreds of galleons to conquer England.



In my mind the only way this thing ends is with inflation exploding to 20%+ or taxes, possibly a massive raid on corporations which means your pension. When I'm not wasting my money on eBay, I like putting it into cryptocurrency and gold and I'd frankly adviser others to do likewise. Or at the very least buy an investment on eBay, and by "investment" I don't mean a classic Nintendo or a classic car, or frankly anything on my watch list. I should delete all that stuff actually... I'm publishing this on May 23rd which is George Osbourne's birthday, which now means we've had more months of Coronavirus than he has jobs. It's hard to tell really because with social distancing in play, he's maybe had to add 'clean ing the house' to his CV, or perhaps he prefers to live in filth; a lot of anonymous people online say he's into filth. I've never met the man though from what I read he seems like the sort of chap that probably closes the laptop at around 8 o'clock so he can listen ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200523 Twitter

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2020 May 16 - Coronavirus Thoughts Once again there's not really a huge amount of news to talk about this week but I guess that the purpose of these is to write down some thoughts that make people laugh, very much like the LibDem manifesto. So I'll try my best.



One of the stories this week that caught my eye has been talk of if and when a vaccine may be developed. Great news except for the small detail that the doctors are keen to test the vaccine on monkeys first before giving the vaccine to humans. The reason this causes me to worry is that as with most people, I've spent the past few weeks watching a lot of movies and I recently re-watched the Planet of the Apes series in which the humans all die and the monkeys take over the world. That is not a world in which I want to live, though nor is the Omega man, also starting Charlton Heston. He was in Soylent Green too wasn't he, I could live with that, as long as I stuck to the other colours. #spoileralert.



A vaccine may one day happen but don't bet on it, they never developed one for MERS or SARS so I doubt we'll see one for the Chinese virus any time soon and the truly scary part is the virus could easily mutate into something new long before the pharmaceutical companies get anywhere close to cashing in on it. Sad news indeed for both Glaxo shareholders as well as people come more at it from the angle of having empathy. Here's a good one for you: What's the difference between apathy & empathy? Don't know. Don't care.



Back to cashing in, London Transport certainly aren'y shy of cashing in on things as fast as they can, in a three part story which I initially assumed was a satirical piece: Pt1) they put out a press release encouraging some people to drive into work in order to make the trains safer for key workers Pt2) They're already in talks to get a bailout due to the lost revenue Pt3) They decide to cash in twice by upping the concession Congestion Charge to $15 in order to make sure the drivers we just mentioned are left out of pocket.



It makes your blood pressure rise really, though largely because I've been doing a fitness regime whilst listening to 1970s Prog Rock meaning that I largely stand completely still for 3 hours.

Once again there's not really a huge amount of news to talk about this week but I guess that the purpose of these is to write down some thoughts that make people laugh, very much like the LibDem manifesto. So I'll try my best.



One of the stories this week that caught my eye has been talk of if and when a vaccine may be developed. Great news except for the small detail that the doctors are keen to test the vaccine on monkeys first before giving the vaccine to humans. The reason this causes me to ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200516 Twitter

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2020 May 10 - Coronavirus & VE Day This week was yet another one where Coronavirus was dominating the news. By the time things finally return to normal, the Chelsea Pensioners will consist largely of their team from last season. And it's been so long since I went to the gym that I should start calling it James.



But here we are and this week saw the nation stop to commemorate VE day and the end of the second world war in Europe. Prince Charles led a 2 minute silence while Prince Andrew also joined in with his two minutes of right to remain silent. May the 8th (VE day) was also ironically the anniversary of the date that the WHO declared that smallpox had been eradicated. You would expect that a comparison of then to now would be a large story, yet here we are in 2020 with newspapers leading with the news that reality tv show Love Island will be canceled, due to Corona concerns and not because it it's the television equivalent of feeding a library into a wood chipper



The front page right now is talking about how the singer Little Richard has died at the age of 87 with many suggesting Covid is to blame rather than simply being an 87 year old person whose lifestyle had been like a hybrid of Keith Richards and Liberace. At the moment anyone who dies for whatever reason is liable to be connected to coronavirus, no matter the actual cause of death. It reminds me of when I was a child and my mother used to make sure I didn't take up smoking by regularly pointing out dead people on the television who had died young and smoked cigarettes, whether that person was Yul Brynner or John Wayne who died from Lung Cancer or JFK who occasionally smoked cigars when he wasn't travelling to Dallas.



Talking of US Presidents I also noticed that VE day was also Harry Truman's birthday and he was only a month into the job when that happened so I wonder if he initially thought all that celebrating on the television was for him?



Anyway for now I will close with the observation that VE day may have been the end of the war in Europe but the 2nd world war continued for several months later until the Japanese finally surrendered. And so here's hoping that the lockdown stuff is over by August and that life for health care workers can get back to normal, rather than having to work 20 hour shifts in order for their inclusivity manager to be able to post choreographed dance videos onto Twitter. This week was yet another one where Coronavirus was dominating the news. By the time things finally return to normal, the Chelsea Pensioners will consist largely of their team from last season. And it's been so long since I went to the gym that I should start calling it James.



But here we are and this week saw the nation stop to commemorate VE day and the end of the second world war in Europe. Prince Charles led a 2 minute silence while Prince Andrew also joined in with his two minutes of right ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200510 Twitter

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2020 May 03 - Coronavirus Month 4 Here’s a remarkable thought, four years ago if the Brexit referendum had gone the other way then this would be the final week of David Cameron’s second 5-year term as prime minister and the UK would be about to undertake a 2020 election assuming Coronavirus didn't mean it got delayed along with football season, olympics and my eventual plan to one day tidy the cupboard under the stairs. As it is, we’ve had multiple elections 2 prime ministers and the Covid thing which has probably made Dave think twice about going near a bat or more importantly a pig again, remember that story back in the day? But I digress, Dave instead spent that past 5 years inside his shed watching Amazon and listening to podcasts, in some respects I guess we’re ALL David Cameron now thanks to the lockdown. All I have to do is wait for the pub to reopen so I can leave one of my kids there.



Coronovirus thought, we’re now into month 4 of this. Ironically it’s about 4 months into a military siege that you start having to eat the wild animals and the zoo becomes a market like that one in China. The big story this week has been the moves to re-open parts of the economy, and that was a topic that Elon Musk was asked about on a conference call with investors. He proceeded to answer that question using the sort of language that would make a sailor blush, you’d think he’d save those words for when he stubbed his toe, or after he realised he left his wallet in the glove box of that car he sent into space 2 years ago as a publicity stunt.



The facts do seem to be that Sweden’s approach has been working and if you separate the New York statistics, the rest of the US actually has one of the lowest per-capita rates in the world. My guess is that there’s some kind of genetic or demographic aspect to the virus that’s being kept secret, in much the same way that most health experts on the BBC also want to keep their political leanings secret. When a doctor’s involvement in political activism is kept more confidential than the records of their patients then you can trust that interview to be about as honest as one where a child covered in chocolate where the cadbury went.



Nonetheless politicians are drawn to power in the same way that Diane Abbott is drawn towards the bakery in Tesco and this petty scramble for power never more true than with local government officials. No mayor or state governor wants to relinquish power, the economy will always come second to their heightened fame and celebrity and what we’re seeing now is what happens when mediocre people get given omnipotent powers as the country dies. If people wanted the government to destroy the economy through neglect and malice then they’d have elected Jeremy Corbyn. And yet they didn’t. Here’s a remarkable thought, four years ago if the Brexit referendum had gone the other way then this would be the final week of David Cameron’s second 5-year term as prime minister and the UK would be about to undertake a 2020 election assuming Coronavirus didn't mean it got delayed along with football season, olympics and my eventual plan to one day tidy the cupboard under the stairs. As it is, we’ve had multiple elections 2 prime ministers and the Covid thing which has probably made Dav ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20200503 Twitter

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