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2019 Feb 23 - Shamima Begum This week has seen a lot of debate, by which I mean politicallyy correct attention seeking, over whether teenager Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to the UK, after spending years living in ISIS controlled territory and discovering that 'ISIS' rhymes with 'crisis' and that like those still holding onto Blackberry telephones, the jihadist extremists are very much on the losing side these days; the territory held has been reduced to just a couple of hundred square miles, approximately the size of a mid-sized Ikea. I know it's a military cliché but this war may well be over by Christmas, but don't tell them that, the overtly Christian religious symbology of that will only strengthen their extremist zeal.



Anyway Shamima's heard that Doctor Who is a lady now, so she wants to return to the UK. She's over 17 now too so she'd even (as a woman) be allowed to legally drive or visit the shops on her own if she lived in the UK. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people say that the caliphate is a great place for women to live, but then you realise they say it's the best place "hands down" and you become very aware that an axe is being ushered in.



For all the talk of international law and the technicalities of her case, the arguments put forward by the lawyers really seem a bit like complaining that the kitchen in the Titanic wasn’t up to code. The same people who say she was young and immature already want young people to be given the vote and at the end of the day, she was already older than that when she publicly justified the Manchester Terrorist attack. Of course it was around that time that the fighters lost interest because they'd put a lot of effort into capturing oil fields just before the price of crude headed south. Something else that of course headed south was a wave of drone fighters from NATO bases in the north.



Jeremy Corbyn of course made some platitudes which were broadly in line with his previous sentiments for extremist organisations starting with the letter "I" Mind you, with his MPs defecting to form their own group, you can't blame him for wanting every possible vote he can lay his hands on. Things aren't going too well really, I saw pictures of him in the press visiting a homeless shelter, it makes you wonder: things must be really bad in London if someone on his salary can't afford the rent. This week has seen a lot of debate, by which I mean politicallyy correct attention seeking, over whether teenager Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to the UK, after spending years living in ISIS controlled territory and discovering that 'ISIS' rhymes with 'crisis' and that like those still holding onto Blackberry telephones, the jihadist extremists are very much on the losing side these days; the territory held has been reduced to just a couple of hundred square miles, approximately the ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190223 Twitter

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2019 Feb 15 - Airbus A380 Ending Production This week saw Airbus announce that it was going to be ending production of its iconic A380, the double decker aircraft with a price tag as large as its size and its size matched only by the length of the security queue as people look at their watches and ponder two questions: 1) How is a bottle of water as dangerous as the machine gun next to it on the banned items list and 2) If you had planned to take a machine gun on board where were you planning on putting it? It certainly won't fit in the overhead locker. The aircraft has a price tag of around half a billion pounds, depending on the layout of the interior and whether you're including the bribery costs upfront in the price tag while you smoke your hashish and offer to explore military upgrades with the crown prince as you both recline next to the pool.



The plane is a cartoonishly impressive piece of engineering, almost certainly dreamt up by the lead designer when his mother had given him too much chocolate and left him alone with the legos one Saturday afternoon. Building a beamoth double story plane was for a long time in the book of proposed ideas along with a mile high skyscrsaper, a car that can do 1000 miles per hour and whatever project Boris Johnson is set to propose next time he wants some media attention.



It is ob course worrying for the workers in the South West of England who ironically live quite near the road the A380 (which goes to Torbay) but to suggest as the BBC has that the decision is somehow because of Brexit is akin to suggesting that choosing between a glass of Malbec and a glass of beer is a political one that is dependent on whether you side with the Argentinian position on the Falklands Islands. The aircraft industry has for the last 10 years been in an idiological battle between whether the future profit in air travel is in the big routes such as London to New York or the niche emerging routes such as Philadelphia to Dubrovnic and it seems that the industry is moving more towards the smaller carbon composite offerings from Boeing, such as the 777X which will be offering the sort of energy cost saving that you normally only hear about when it's someone on the phone trying to scam you into getting an energy smart meter for your house. The only money saving you're likely to make one of those is from when your friends stop inviting you down the pub after they get bored of you constantly checking what your hourly gas useage is when you're not at home.



Overall the Airbus A380 comes across as a fantastic metaphor for Airbus' beloved EU really. Initially an impressive idea on paper but in reality, oversized, too expensive, mostly for the benefit of Germany, especially for the benefit of who have an expense account, not inline with general consumer demand, starting to come to an end and unlikely to be around in 20 years time. This week saw Airbus announce that it was going to be ending production of its iconic A380, the double decker aircraft with a price tag as large as its size and its size matched only by the length of the security queue as people look at their watches and ponder two questions: 1) How is a bottle of water as dangerous as the machine gun next to it on the banned items list and 2) If you had planned to take a machine gun on board where were you planning on putting it? It certainly won't fit in the o ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190215 Twitter

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2019 Feb 03 - Russian Threats There have been a lot of ludicrous scare stories in the press about how Brexit will lead to war, pestilence, the deaths of millions, Jimmy Savile coming back to life, all the iPhones being rounded up and other similarly sensationalist nonsense. To be honest I doubt anything could be worse than the current situation where Tony Blair is given air time and political debate is reduced to discussing how everything from healthcare or the price of a train ticket is as a result of Brexit, or sometimes a conspiracy involving Russia.



Well it seems that Vladimir Putin has been inspired by what he's read online and decided to literally plan for a "nuclear option" - and not the sort of nuclear option that Jeremy Corbyn often talks about, involving a strongly worded letter at a poetry workshop in Hampstead. I'm talking the sort of nuclear option where atomic weapons explode in a radioactive blast and the only people who end up surviving are the poor folk who'd already had to spend nearly an hour stuck on the broken down underground train that ultimately saved them. Be prepared for endless rants on post-apocalyptic Question Time about whether rich pensioners should qualify for the nuclear winter fuel allowance.



This week Russia announced that it's suspended its involvement in the IRNF Treaty designed to prevent weapons research, following moves by America to up its game. In all honesty very little has changed because both countries have been secretly developing new weapons for years anyway. To a large extent the US and Russia have been sitting on weapons systems designed in an era when there were 2 Germanies and vodka only came in one flavour: vodka. The admission from both sides that they're keeping their weapons up to date and not reliant upon punch cards is a bit like when the US was condemned by the left for formally recognising that the Israeli capital might actually be the city whin which the government is located and not Tel Aviv



Nuclear weapons are one of these topics where in the real world it comes down to facts vs feelings and anyone who tries to simplify it down to a good vs bad argument is almost certainly incorrect or attention seeking. But then we already know that thanks to nuclear physics, the world is divided into protons, neutrons, electrons and morons. There have been a lot of ludicrous scare stories in the press about how Brexit will lead to war, pestilence, the deaths of millions, Jimmy Savile coming back to life, all the iPhones being rounded up and other similarly sensationalist nonsense. To be honest I doubt anything could be worse than the current situation where Tony Blair is given air time and political debate is reduced to discussing how everything from healthcare or the price of a train ticket is as a result of Brexit, or sometimes a ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190203 Twitter

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2019 Jan 27 - Mugabe & Macedonia With Brexit and President Trump hogging the headlines, sometimes it's easy to forget that there's a whole world of news out there and I don't mean the sports section of the newspaper, or that advertising section selling either made-to-measure chinos or perhaps premium rate phone numbers, depending on your newspaper of choice. I thought this week we'd look elsewhere and talk about 2 other things that happened in the world this week.



First of all to Zimbabwe and here's a joke for you: How does Robert Mugabe like his eggs in the morning? Answer: with the whites separated and beaten. But what has he been up to since he stepped down as president? Well this week it turned out that he'd been the ironic victim of theft. A briefcase was stolen from him containing $1m in cash. They even turned out to be US dollars, not Zimbabwean ones, so all in all pretty serious! Certainly if he was planning on using the money to get his driveway tarmac'd cash in hand then you'd expect it to be long enough to show on on Google Maps. The thieves apparently spent the money on a Toyota Camry, a Honda, livestock and a house, so all in all a mixed and dare I say astute portfolio of assets. Between their investment save and propensity for crime, I imagine that if they don't go to jail, they'll do very well in government.



Next to Macedonia or should I say the "Republic of North Macedonia" after the country changed its name this week, following decades of disputes over the name with neighbouring country Greece which will presumably now be able to throw everything at its dispute with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. Greece has long claimed ownership of the name, it has a northern region which it calls Macedonia and the country to the north, for the past 20 or so years, has formally been titled the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" which I imagine is an era in history that either means nothing if you're young or is tarred with bad memories if you're old and actually lived through the communist era, very much like most of Jeremy Corbyn's policy handbook really. And very much like Jeremy Corbyn, Greece can now get back to running its economy on the profoundly misinterpreted premise/joke that "debt pays off in the long run" With Brexit and President Trump hogging the headlines, sometimes it's easy to forget that there's a whole world of news out there and I don't mean the sports section of the newspaper, or that advertising section selling either made-to-measure chinos or perhaps premium rate phone numbers, depending on your newspaper of choice. I thought this week we'd look elsewhere and talk about 2 other things that happened in the world this week.



First of all to Zimbabwe and here's a joke for you: How does Ro ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190127 Twitter

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2019 Jan 19 - US Government Shutdown With Theresa May continuing to run down the clock, let's take a look at America where a government shutdown has been going on for several weeks, long enough that even drum soloists have started to look at their watches and question how much longer it has to go.



Normally budget disputes are solved by both sides coming together and agreeing to get the next year funded on the condition that certain additional chunks of money are set aside for wasteful but politically important job creation schemes. Most famously was when Alaska Senator Ted Stevens became very cooperative after persuading congress to set aside an extra $223m to construct a bridge to Gravina Island which was home to 50 Alaska residents.



This time around however, President Trump has demanded $5bn dollars are set aside to build part of the wall with Mexico and the Democrats have said that there's about as much chance of that happening as there is of Disney building a theme park based on the Human Centipede franchise.



Things have descended fairly quickly with the president refusing to allow house speaker Nancy Pelosi to use a military vehicle to travel abroad and adding that she should perhaps fly commercial out of her own pocket, especially galling given that unlike the president she doesn't own a jet of her own, never mind one with her name written down the side in huge lettering in case she forgets where she left it.



For now, things don't appear to be going anywhere and the president has said that the shutdown could last for months or years, like that half-used jar of dill everyone has sitting in the spice rack, years after the Oregano long since went.



I digress. For now the distraction of the moment is talk of a new round of negotiations with North Korea, an autocracy where I imagine the population pray every day for a government shutdown. And who says the Americans don't do irony? With Theresa May continuing to run down the clock, let's take a look at America where a government shutdown has been going on for several weeks, long enough that even drum soloists have started to look at their watches and question how much longer it has to go.



Normally budget disputes are solved by both sides coming together and agreeing to get the next year funded on the condition that certain additional chunks of money are set aside for wasteful but politically important job creation schemes ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190119 Twitter

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2019 Jan 13 - Brexit Update In spite of a referendum to supposedly settle the issue, Brexit apparently remains one of those divisive things, like marmite or Justin Bieber, although actually at least with those two most people can agree on the fact that they both go best on the end of a knife. Maybe a better example would be the film 2001 which is either a stunning untouchable masterpiece or (if you're under 30) in dire need of a reboot with laser fights and maybe Chris Hemsworth. Unfortunately that's the level of intellectual debate we have with Brexit, a chasm of opinion that Jeremy Corbyn has ironically managed to bridge by explicitly not having an opinion on the subject. Rather like me being asked by a vegan what my favourite bean is, to which of course the answer would be that Christmas one where Rowan Atkinson visits Harrods



Brexit though: the clock is ticking so this week the debate move up a notch as Remain MPs gave up on debate and switched to using arcane parliamentary procedure as their latest weapon to prevent Britain from leaving the political union and the retirement jobs it promises to all failed left wing MPs. As far as parliamentary ceremony or procedure goes, it was as confusing as watching the opening ceremony of a ribbon repair business. Ultimately a clause was added to a finance bill that would make the tax system grind to a halt and need repeated voting on in the event of a no-deal Brexit. While a number of legal minds have subsequently suggested that it doesn't actually prevent no-deal, it certainly leads to an assumption amongst the many, by which I mean the few, that Theresa May's vote failing to pass would force a general election in order to change that finance bill, or somehow delay article 50. There are a couple of sorely mistaken leaps in logic here.



1) There are European elections coming in a couple of months and the EU is now actually quite keen now to be rid of the UKs anti-federalist sentiment

2) If Labour were to win a springtime election, the northern MPs would likely make Brexit more likely, unless they're envisaging some come of crazy national government where the likes of Kenneth "comrade" Clarke are invited

3) If Labour think that Theresa May has any plans of resigning or calling that election then they really haven't been paying much attention to the past 2 years. In spite of a referendum to supposedly settle the issue, Brexit apparently remains one of those divisive things, like marmite or Justin Bieber, although actually at least with those two most people can agree on the fact that they both go best on the end of a knife. Maybe a better example would be the film 2001 which is either a stunning untouchable masterpiece or (if you're under 30) in dire need of a reboot with laser fights and maybe Chris Hemsworth. Unfortunately that's the level of intellect ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190113 Twitter

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2019 Jan 05 - Happy New Year Happy new year, it's 2019. I imagine that if you asked Diane Abbott what 17 plus 1 is she'd reply, 20(or)019. This is also (finally) the year that science fiction film Blade Runner is set in so while we count down to Elon Musk selling us tickets to the off-world colonies, let's maybe take a look at what the next few months have in store down here on earth,



First to America where a new house of representatives have just taken their seats and promised to pass all sorts of crazy laws for the senate to of course veto and vote down a few days later. I was going to make an analogy about the Democrats having a shiny new car but no petrol to put in it, except you could still use a broken car to store stuff inside, this is really more like one of those fake bookshelves you see in a pub. The US government will be like Michael Schummacher's race car in so much as it is not going to be doing or passing anything for a very long time. President Trump has even said as much, pledging to keep the current budget showdown and government shutdown going for months and even years if necessary, probably because the 2020 electioneering is going to kick into gear soon and he'll be busy on the campaign trail because elections in the US last longer than a Rolling Stones farewell tour.



In the UK, we are 80s or so days until Brexit happens. Thereafter Theresa May can finally leave, the Conservatives can break into civil war over the succession and the Labour Party can be relied on to stand to the side, arguing about anti-semitism instead or whether anyone finally figured out what the 'single market' was. The singe market, wasn't that the thing that Lembit Opik used to talk about? I guess the antisemitism thing will be a recurring story later in the year so I won't dwell on it and I'm not saying they're naive but I can imagine Corbyn and Ken Livingstone trying to recognise Jewish Labour MPs by emulating school teachers and handing out congratulatory gold stars, just like primary school teachers in 1930s Germany, before of course blaming a combination of the BBC and Paul Dacre, who I thought actually stood down as editor of the Daily Mail last year



Where will it all end up and where will we be next year? Well I don't know do I, I've not got 2020-vision, geddit? Happy new year, it's 2019. I imagine that if you asked Diane Abbott what 17 plus 1 is she'd reply, 20(or)019. This is also (finally) the year that science fiction film Blade Runner is set in so while we count down to Elon Musk selling us tickets to the off-world colonies, let's maybe take a look at what the next few months have in store down here on earth,



First to America where a new house of representatives have just taken their seats and promised to pass all sorts of crazy laws for the senat ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20190105 Twitter

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2018 Dec 20 - Calvins Swiss Adventure I'm going to be away on holiday the next 2 weeks in the far north of Scotland so there won't be any new uploads until the new year. However, because I'm a generous individual, I've produced a Christmas present for you all in the form of a point and click adventure game which you can all play for free by clicking on the "Game" tab above



It really is free, not those "free" government services where they force you to pay hundreds of pounds at the end of every month. In "Calvin's Swiss Adventure" you can travel to a conferences, make deals, start wars and if you want extra realism then feel free to pour a couple too many glasses of wine while you play along. This is all just a little gift from me to you. Thanks for following, do email me with any bugs or glitches you come across and have a very merry Christmas. I'm going to be away on holiday the next 2 weeks in the far north of Scotland so there won't be any new uploads until the new year. However, because I'm a generous individual, I've produced a Christmas present for you all in the form of a point and click adventure game which you can all play for free by clicking on the "Game" tab above



It really is free, not those "free" government services where they force you to pay hundreds of pounds at the end of every month. In "Calvin's Swiss Adventure" ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181220 Twitter

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2018 Dec 15 - What keeps May going? This week Theresa May finally grasped the idea that her deal has about the same chance of being formally enshrined in law as the 5-second rule or that one about stepping on the cracks in the pavement. A few days later and she flew out to Europe once more, expecting the EU commission to ditch ideological purity in favour of pragmatism or economics. There's about as much chance of that happening as there is of seeing Jade Goody being the face on the back of the new £50 note. After 2 years Mrs May seemingly still doesn't get it that the EU will never settle for anything other a deal that involves More Europe. To them the deal as it is gives them Northern Ireland. That's a cause for which the IRA fought unsuccessfully for decades, yet Brussels managed to do it in less than 2 years. Unless I'm wrong and the Prime Minister's simply adopted a mantra of "aim low so you’ll never be disappointed"



This last week Mrs May also finally faced a vote of confidence by her party in which she won albeit she received less than 2/3rds of the votes. This vote may have been a great song and dance number for the news media to discuss for 24 hours but in the long run it was ultimately as meaningful as deciding whether to wrap your fish and chips in the Telegraph or the Daily Mirror.



At this stage it doesn't matter who's in charge of the Conservative party, which I guess is good seeing as how nobody is. But as of this week it's now 7 days less than it was last week and Brexit is steadily coming down the line in March. Also in March? It's St Patricks Day so you can kiss goodbye to any chance of Jean Claude Juncker being in a sober state to make any last minute changes to the timetable. The irony really is that it was the remain camp that insisted that everything having to go before parliament. Now even if Mrs May formally came out and decided she wanted to cancel Brexit, she'd have to go with the LibDems instructions and get parliament to vote on it. It's likely the one single policy to have come out of the words of Nick Clegg and Tony Blair that I wholeheartedly endorse. On that bombshell I'll leave it.



This week Theresa May finally grasped the idea that her deal has about the same chance of being formally enshrined in law as the 5-second rule or that one about stepping on the cracks in the pavement. A few days later and she flew out to Europe once more, expecting the EU commission to ditch ideological purity in favour of pragmatism or economics. There's about as much chance of that happening as there is of seeing Jade Goody being the face on the back of the new £50 note. After 2 years Mrs May ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181215 Twitter

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2018 Dec 09 - Paris Yellow Vest Protests It's the run up 'til Christmas and rather than the 2 calling birds or 3 french hens, the French government dispersed tear gas in Paris. Police fired into the crowd as a fourth weekend of anti-government protests turned violent. 8000 police and 12 armoured vehicles have been deployed in Paris and if you think you hear 12 drummers drumming, it's probably the sound of those 12 armoured vehicles being pelted with rocks, or possibly oyster shells and wine bottles because it's Paris and why not enjoy lunch if you're already making a day of it?



The "yellow vest" or "gilets jaunes" movement initially set out to protest the unpopular fuel tax increases in this year's budget, a tax that Emmanuel Macron has since changed his mind about, presumably as he contemplates a prohibitive duty on the sale of yellow vests. He also decided to freeze the price of Electricity and gas prices next year but then the president is a former Goldman Sachs banker so it's not as if fixing energy prices is anything new



The problem is that Mr Macron has opened Pandora's Box with protesters now thinking they have momentum and calling for higher wages, lower taxes, better pensions, easier university requirements a partridge in a pear tree and perhaps the abolition of normal toilets in favour of those weird trough things you used to see on holiday.



They've also demanded the resignation of the president and they may achieve that but only by means of the second definition of resignation: namely "acceptance of something undesirable but inevitable" It seems that for the next couple of weeks, the weekly protest movement will be just as much a part of Parisian life as the folk on the pavement selling tacky oil paintings, miniature Eiffel Towers and offering to take your photograph before either charging you €20 or possibly just running off with your phone.



It's also worth noting that the protest movement has also spread to Belgium with 70 people arrested in Brussels so far. I also saw a photo of a crowd of people violently brawling with the police outside a Weatherspoons in the north of England, although I'm not sure if that's a protest against Theresa May or a protest about someone looking at someone the wrong way. It's the run up 'til Christmas and rather than the 2 calling birds or 3 french hens, the French government dispersed tear gas in Paris. Police fired into the crowd as a fourth weekend of anti-government protests turned violent. 8000 police and 12 armoured vehicles have been deployed in Paris and if you think you hear 12 drummers drumming, it's probably the sound of those 12 armoured vehicles being pelted with rocks, or possibly oyster shells and wine bottles because it's Paris and why not enjoy ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181209 Twitter

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2018 Dec 01 - That Brexit Bill This week we got to see Theresa May in action. Wait, hang on, there's no space in there, it's one word: inaction. This week we saw inaction from Theresa May, a lack of action or persuasion, the amount of productive work you'd normally more associate with a Mediterranean country on a hot afternoon. Even she knows the Brexit bill is terrible but her advisors think that promoting it alongside Jeremy Corbyn on a BBC televised debate might make it seem more palatable, like a prawn sandwich that's past it's sell-by date but still smells sort of ok.



The Brexit bill will be coming to parliament and some Remainers are promoting it with the excitement level you'd expect if Led Zeppelin or The Smiths were getting back together whereas the bill itself is more a knock-off tribute band you'd see if you were on the ferry over to Zeebrugge. Or a get-together of the Brotherhood Of Man except not a lot of back-benchers will be 'saving their kisses for' May.



Currently there's a hundred back-bench government MPs voting against it, the government's science minister just resigned from the cabinet in order to vocalise his objection to it and in this topsy turvy up is down world I for once actually find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the EU commission because they finally said in so many words what so many of us have wanted from the start which is that we either get a bad deal, or preferably no deal. By which they mean a no deal where you can purchase non-EU goods like Australian wine, coffee, computers, Dysons and a half the Argos catalogue without it being subject to European import duty because it wasn't made in France. Want to buy a Tesla? Wait until it's £10k less because the German car industry isn't passing laws to discourage you from buying one.



Whilst the continent would dearly love to rename Ireland "West Flanders" it stands that this time next it will remain exactly as it currently it because nobody in either Dublin or London is proposing actually building a wall and, as with Mexico, nobody's willing to pay for one even if they wanted it. If that means there's different rules on each side of the land border then it would mean it's exactly the same as it is now currently, with wildly different levels of taxation, business rules, different currencies not to mention a sudden break between the metric system and miles per hour that does little to help anyone other than those wanting to give a misleading 0-60 time for their car, quoted in kilometers.



It seems that British companies might have to start trading with the EU without getting a say on the rules of the game, the same torturous position that companies such as Apple and Toyota have to live with. If you're buying an advent calendar this weekend, get 4 of them, because whilst it's 25 days until Christmas, it's just over 100 until Britain leaves the EU and by a combination of blind incompetence and parliamentary procedure that makes it impossible to legislate for a new referendum in time, nor rewrite a new deal, we're going to be going WTO, by which I mean either "World Trade Organisation" or "Without The Obstructionists" This week we got to see Theresa May in action. Wait, hang on, there's no space in there, it's one word: inaction. This week we saw inaction from Theresa May, a lack of action or persuasion, the amount of productive work you'd normally more associate with a Mediterranean country on a hot afternoon. Even she knows the Brexit bill is terrible but her advisors think that promoting it alongside Jeremy Corbyn on a BBC televised debate might make it seem more palatable, like a prawn sandwich that's pas ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181201 Twitter

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2018 Nov 24 - Brexit deal "like the Titanic" Theresa May has a couple of different residences: sometimes she lives in Number 10 Downing Street, sometimes Chequers but for the most part she's living in fear and denial.



She's also living in cloud-cuckoo-land as she flies off this weekend to get the EU to sign off on her deal, under the misapprehension that a majority of MPs will vote for it when it comes back to Westminster. When you see the prime minister talking about how great an idea her deal is, it very much reminds of a contestant on the Apprentice proposing some dreadful idea like baby toys made out of lead or a steak+kidney flavoured chocolate cake. I suppose the irony is that Sir Alan Sugar is actually in the House Of Lords.



The latest agreement in many ways has been designed to effectively keep Britain within the EU's framework of laws and regulations, whilst allowing Theresa May to claim that Brexit has apparently happened, I half imagine in a few months she might give a speech from the new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier with a huge "mission accomplished" banner behind her, like George W Bush did, one year into that never-ending quagmire of deceit and murder.



There's also been an attempt by Downing Street to make Mrs May look professional by squaring down Spain after a spat about Gibraltar that was likely planned weeks in advanced. In truth a Spanish veto was never an issue due to majority voting, and any 'written assurance to work hard' is worth less than the paper it's printed on. Possibly less than the paper an verbal statement isn't printed on.



The only positive thing to come out of Mrs May's trip to Europe is that the local news is likely giving a lot of coverage to the fuel riots in Paris. Perhaps she'll get a sense of what might happen in the UK if she's not too careful. Though perhaps the French wouldn't have to worry about the cost of petrol if they weren't setting fire to so much of it in the streets. Theresa May has a couple of different residences: sometimes she lives in Number 10 Downing Street, sometimes Chequers but for the most part she's living in fear and denial.



She's also living in cloud-cuckoo-land as she flies off this weekend to get the EU to sign off on her deal, under the misapprehension that a majority of MPs will vote for it when it comes back to Westminster. When you see the prime minister talking about how great an idea her deal is, it very much reminds of a contestant on ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181124 Twitter

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2018 Nov 17 - Theresa May Unveils her Brexit Plan This week Theresa May finally unveiled the details of her Brexit plan and in doing so became about as popular as Peter Sutcliffe at a WI meeting. Troops were mobilised, ministers resigned, letters were written, pieces were given to camera and if a week's a long time in politics, this upcoming week will likely feel like the DFS sale.



If you're clicking the refresh internet news website, waiting for an announcement of a leadership election, it almost feels like the old days waiting for a Ceefax page to tick over and I imagine that the prime minister is currently frantically watching the clock tick by, like a football fan in the 89th minute, aware that the more time that passes, the greater the chance she'll have escaped once more time.



In the meantime, following resignations, there were new cabinet appointees because as they say, "as one door closes, another one opens" which is a great lesson in life but also highly annoying if you have an Ikea wardrobe. Those new ministers then: Stephen Barclay as new Brexit Secretary. It's a job which largely involves signing off dishonest press releases and claiming expenses, ironically the exact sort of European Parliamentary thing we're supposed to be leaving. Amber Rudd is the new DWP minister, the 6th in 3 years by the way, and Northern Ireland minister is Remain fanatic John Penrose. Fans of optical illusions will know that a "Penrose Triangle" is the formal name for that 3D impossible triangle illusion so perhaps it's all just a high-brow joke, placing him in Northern Ireland, the unsolvable part of the Brexit riddle.



Except I doubt anyone right now is in charge or sensibly in control of anything. On the plus side, it is perhaps only now, with Angela Merkel also leaving her job, that it's dawned on Brussels that the same incompetence to negotiate anything of substance, is the same incompetence that makes Mrs May unable to sell their backstop scam and that the UK now looks increasingly set to leave with no deal. The most annoying thing is that were that to happen then in 10 years from now almost certainly be subjected to Europhile careerists insisting that they were playing a long con from the start and they supported a no-deal Brexit the whole time. This week Theresa May finally unveiled the details of her Brexit plan and in doing so became about as popular as Peter Sutcliffe at a WI meeting. Troops were mobilised, ministers resigned, letters were written, pieces were given to camera and if a week's a long time in politics, this upcoming week will likely feel like the DFS sale.



If you're clicking the refresh internet news website, waiting for an announcement of a leadership election, it almost feels like the old days waiting for a Ceefax p ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181117 Twitter

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2018 Nov 11 - US Election Aftermath This weekend marked 100 years since the end of the 1st world war and therefore it's also the end of 4 years of seeing the Sunday papers lazily padding out their pages with archive articles. Don’t worry though folks, it’s just one year until we start seeing 80 year commemorative articles about WW2. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it's not new. I guess a lifestyle and opinion journal calling itself a newspaper is a legacy thing, like the Carphone Warehouse, or SNP member swearing allegiance to the “United” Kingdom with the sort of honesty that I’d expect from a dodgy car mechanic or someone who says they were only visiting a strip club for the free buffet.



So what has happened in the news? Well last week I said that not a lot would happen in the US election and in many respects I was correct. Sure the Democrats took control of congress, but not by anywhere close to the margins that people were talking about. They also failed to take the senate and the Republican Party actually gained a seat in Indiana. There was no blue wave, Ted Cruz kept his seat and don’t forget that with Brett Kavanaugh installed and another 2 years of potential changes by the senate, the Supreme Court will likely be conservative leaning for the next 20 years or so.



Holding on to all parts of the US government is like trying to capture a shadow and the US system is purposefully designed to prevent legislation that isn’t agreed upon at all 4 stages. So be prepared for a year of nothing followed by a year of people running for president in 2020, something that actually sounds more tedious than the aforementioned ‘year of nothing’. Sure the house could go down the road of impeachment all it wants but they don’t have the senate so it’s a bit like 2 blokes in a pub discussing what car they’d buy if they won the lottery. In my mind the interesting thing to come out of the election, asides from local ballots like Michigan legalising marijuana, is that the new congressmen don’t actually take those seats until January so we might see the incumbents happily passing all sorts of crazy laws in the next month or two, safe in the knowledge that they won’t face any electoral consequences. Sort of like when David Cameron delivered the Brexit vote before heading of to the countryside to write a book and drink wine rather than doing any real work. This weekend marked 100 years since the end of the 1st world war and therefore it's also the end of 4 years of seeing the Sunday papers lazily padding out their pages with archive articles. Don’t worry though folks, it’s just one year until we start seeing 80 year commemorative articles about WW2. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it's not new. I guess a lifestyle and opinion journal calling itself a newspaper is a legacy thing, like the Carphone Warehouse, or SNP member swearing all ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181111 Twitter

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2018 Nov 03 - US Midterm Election It's a very exciting couple of days coming up in America. Asides from a National Sandwich Day and National Donut Day fast approaching it's also a massive mid-term election on Tuesday. I looked on Google and apparently Sunday 4th is actually "National Common Sense Day" but rest assured, that will all be forgotten when people on both the right and the left go to the polls to vote in a 2 party system where a brutal combination of districting, voter suppression and an electoral system about as honest as Piers Morgan mean that, in the end, everything will most likely be decided upon the votes of just a handful of people. Which if it sounds familiar is because it is. In the UK it's the same method as how Arlene Foster decides (on a day-to-day basis) whether Theresa May can remain in power or not.



My favourite expression in politics is "The tyranny of the status quo" and for all the talk of blue waves and millennial voters, I really don't think anything major is going to happen. Elections are always decided by swing voters, so really this mid-term comes down to the question of whether anyone's changed what's left of their mind since 2016. If, for instance, you're a Democrat voter, you should reflect back on whether you've used charm and persuasion to convince some Trump voters to switch sides this time around. I imagine that entrenched voters are as likely to switch sides as I am to order a vegetarian roast when I visit a pub. Do not be mistaken, this election will completely be decided by who gets closest to 100% of their core voters to turn out to vote.



The thing is that outside the voter bases, a lot of people really don't really care about the Mexican border or transgender rights in schools, although they do care about potholes and whether their schools have working air conditioning. America might now have an official 3rd party but it does have "don't know don't care" and it's a lot bigger than people - on both sides - are willing to admit. There's probably a lesson for other countries in there too. It's a very exciting couple of days coming up in America. Asides from a National Sandwich Day and National Donut Day fast approaching it's also a massive mid-term election on Tuesday. I looked on Google and apparently Sunday 4th is actually "National Common Sense Day" but rest assured, that will all be forgotten when people on both the right and the left go to the polls to vote in a 2 party system where a brutal combination of districting, voter suppression and an electoral system about as hones ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181103 Twitter

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2018 Oct 28 - Pipe Bomb Attacks Well it's halloween time but there's always someone who takes it too far and this year it was a 56 year old man in Florida who took it upon himself to scare politicians by sending them over a dozen pipe bombs in the post. The potential victims included the Clintons, former president Obama as well as actor Robert Deniro who having escaped a grisly death akin to Goodfellas or the Godfather, will now have many more years in which to murder his reputation with films like the Fockers series or that one, Dirty Grandpa, in which the crassest joke was the one in which millions of people were convinced into paying money to see it.



Anyway, the domestic terrorist Cesar Sayoc was apprehended at an Autozone where he was possibly buying more bomb parts. This story of course should not be mistaken with the similar but different story in which Elon Musk was seen in an auto factory manufacturing a bong. Cesar was traced fairly easily after he left fingerprints on one of the bombs so the lesson there is either to wear gloves or to not make bombs in the first place. For Elon Musk the lesson is not to publish videos of you taking drugs if you're the owner of a billion dollar company on the verge of bankruptcy.



Of course, one of the telling parts is the part where President Trump went on to tweet that political violence has "no place in this country" with the key word being "this" what with the White House being surprisingly ok with political violence when it happens in other countries, especially those closer to the equator, or oil. I guess chain letters have gone out of fashion but I could imagine Mohammed Bin Salman being told that someone posted a chainsaw to him, and misreading that as an excuse to start sending saws onto people in his address book, like that chap in Turkey who ended up more hacked than a Windows XP computer.



Other point to note has been a lack of response from Jeremy Corbyn's office but I imagine he must find it morally difficult to pigeonhole a glorious freedom fighting terrorist who somehow isn't Irish, Middle Eastern, or in charge of economic policy decision making. Well it's halloween time but there's always someone who takes it too far and this year it was a 56 year old man in Florida who took it upon himself to scare politicians by sending them over a dozen pipe bombs in the post. The potential victims included the Clintons, former president Obama as well as actor Robert Deniro who having escaped a grisly death akin to Goodfellas or the Godfather, will now have many more years in which to murder his reputation with films like the Fockers series or that o ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181028 Twitter

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2018 Oct 20 - Jamal Khashoggi A couple of week's ago Saudi Arabian journalist and prominent critic of the government Jamal Khashoggi disappeared but this wasn't a magic show and he didn't suddenly reappear on the other side of a stage. It turned out that this was more like the magic trick where they cut someone in two or make them disappear and it was Saudi spies running the show so it was less Houdini and more Whodunnit and they've stayed quieter than the one in Penn & Teller that doesn't say anything.



There are two stories being proposed. One is the Official Saudi one in which Jamal entered the Saudi Embassy in Instanbul, got into a fight and was accidentally killed in the process. They didn't tell us sooner because they were embarrassed, like in those children't story where a vase gets broken and everyone learns an important lesson about telling the truth. Except in this case someone died, if it's a children's fairytale then it's some kind of twisted version of the three little pigs where the wolf ends up in the brick house feasting on barbecue ribs.



There's also the Turkish version of events, in which private jets landed with officials from Riyadh who set about dismembering Jamal with a surgical bone saw and they have evidence in the form of a recording from his Apple iWatch. The Saudi spies presumably went on to synch the device to the bottom of the Bosphorus.



Whatever happened I'd rather focus on the fact that this is a classic example of one death being a tragedy while millions dying is a statistic. Much has been said about the war in Yemen and a criminal justice system that puts ISIS to shame in terms of brutality, but you can also take a look to the other participants. It's one hundred years since over a million other people went missing in Turkey, except the were Armenian and Istanbul would prefer you forgot about that story.







A couple of week's ago Saudi Arabian journalist and prominent critic of the government Jamal Khashoggi disappeared but this wasn't a magic show and he didn't suddenly reappear on the other side of a stage. It turned out that this was more like the magic trick where they cut someone in two or make them disappear and it was Saudi spies running the show so it was less Houdini and more Whodunnit and they've stayed quieter than the one in Penn & Teller that doesn't say anything.



There are two storie ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181020 Twitter

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2018 Oct 13 - Stock Market Losses There's that old joke about what's black and white and red all over, to which the answer is either a newspaper, or the corporate balance sheet of a newspaper in the digital age. Nonetheless, the leaves are starting to turn red and so were a lot of stock markets this week with the FTSE 100 dropping below 7000 points. Not to be mistaken for dropping 7000 pints, which is what Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed and used to call a "fun weekend."



Share prices have been going up for the past 10 years and the last time we had a market crash, Prince William had a full head of hair and Netflix was a company that physically posted DVDs to you in the post. Stock market losses in the past week have been attributed to many things, the US trade war with China, Brexit uncertainty, US midterm election uncertainty not to mention the reptilian overlords that David Icke likes to write conspiracy books about. I've always thought that if he were correct and the Queen was secretly a reptile, the bedrooms at Buckingham Palace would have a lot more UV strip lighting in them.



Anyway, the economy. What is certain is that central banks have allowed an asset bubble to grow well beyond anything that can be controlled sensibly and at this point the only question is whether there will be a crash and defaults when investors realised that rates are rising and the game is up, or whether inflation will kick in with regular savers bailing out the markets and bond-holders by stealth. I was going to make an analogy of the stock market being a bit like the bus at the end of The Italian Job, except at least in the Italian Job there was a big stack of gold to help them out, and the Italians in that film still had their own currency rather than being held in bondage by political forces at the ECB.



What is also true is that whatever happens, Theresa May and President Trump will be given 100% of the blame. Or to be more specific, Trump will be 40% responsible, Theresa will be 40% responsible, Brexit 30% responsible, and the fact that those add up to well over 100% will not be entirely surprising given the academic pedigree of the armchair economists that will be invited to provide punditry to the masses. The sort of people that need to give you change when you offer them a penny for their thoughts. There's that old joke about what's black and white and red all over, to which the answer is either a newspaper, or the corporate balance sheet of a newspaper in the digital age. Nonetheless, the leaves are starting to turn red and so were a lot of stock markets this week with the FTSE 100 dropping below 7000 points. Not to be mistaken for dropping 7000 pints, which is what Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed and used to call a "fun weekend."



Share prices have been going up for the past 10 years and t ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181013 Twitter

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2018 Oct 06 - Conservative Party Conference Birmingham once gave us the band The Moody Blues so is seemed appropriate that moody blue rosette wearing MPs gathered in Birmingham this past week for the Conservative Party Conference. There were fever pitch levels of excitement normally reserved in Birmingham for a nill-all draw at Villa Park. But this wasn't football, it was politics and rather than a game of two halves, this was more like 8 full pints and a bottle of whisky into the night as scheming ministers gathered to see if Boris would come out it as a leadership candidate or not.



True to form, Boris made a remarkable speech, the sort of one that would of course sound mad and pretentious if anyone else else reads it, the lexical equivalent of a 3 piece suit. If some people think the Conservative Party is stuck in a 1950s time-warp though then they were in for a surprise as Theresa May came out to give her speech to the hip happening modern disco sounds of ABBA, just like what the youth probably listen to when they're lurking outside off-licenses or perhaps in those underpasses, the sort of places that Richard Littlejohn warns you about.



Anyway, what did the critics have to say about Theresa May's speech? Well it was described by commentators as "about an hour long" and asides from some sharp critiques of "The Jeremy Corbyn Party" was the same sort of generic thing you'd expect a committee of dreary staffers. Two or three bright young things, who all graduated from Oxford with a first in English Literature from but who now spend their days correcting apostrophes and writing press releases for inane government plans too insignificant for Labour to even bother objecting to



At this stage it doesn't matter though because Brexit is 5 months away, Boris doesn't have the necessary votes to call for a leadership election and the EU has also started to realise that Theresa is so utterly shambolic at selling their bait-and-switch Brexit deal that there's a real reason that Britain could simply drop out, with no deal but also with £40bn pounds of divorce payments that Brussels was hoping on getting.



Theresa walked, danced, shuffled out to Dancing Queen but in all honesty the ABBA track played should have been "Our Last Summer" because she certainly won't be in Number 10 for the next one. Birmingham once gave us the band The Moody Blues so is seemed appropriate that moody blue rosette wearing MPs gathered in Birmingham this past week for the Conservative Party Conference. There were fever pitch levels of excitement normally reserved in Birmingham for a nill-all draw at Villa Park. But this wasn't football, it was politics and rather than a game of two halves, this was more like 8 full pints and a bottle of whisky into the night as scheming ministers gathered to see if Boris would ...... Share >>> http://www.calvinsworldnews.com/searchresults.php?searchfor=20181006 Twitter

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