Passing Observations 100

This is a long standing series of small items which have caught my eye or mind and which seem relevant, startling, amusing or all three. Occasionally, items which appear here may return as a longer piece. Mostly they will not.

1. The conspiracy practitioners behind the Great Reset recruited the gullible, the ignorant, the easily manipulated, the greedy and the corrupt and those so full of hatred for themselves, their culture, their history and the people around them that they’ll glue themselves to the road to protest about a threat that doesn’t exist.
2. The boss of Barclays, Jes Staley, resigned after a probe into his relationship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Staley and Epstein exchanged over 1,200 emails. Amazingly, Barclays gave Staley a goodbye award of £2.4 million. I bet Barclays shareholders were delighted with their generosity.
3. Official government figures show that far fewer people have been killed in Ukraine than have been killed by covid-19 jabs.
4. The dengue vaccine can result in people getting more serious versions of the disease because of antibody dependent enhancement.
5. Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive will receive $35 billion in awards over the next year. That’s billion with a ‘b’.
6. Some years ago the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, suggested that only works meeting its 'diversity standards’ would be eligible to win awards. To qualify as ‘diverse’ you would have to be female, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, minority ethnic or, at the very least, poor and from the provinces. Who thinks this stuff up? You will note that Shakespeare was white and male. But he was from the provinces, if Stratford upon Avon can be deemed provincial.
7. Our world is now controlled by a left wing cabal of academics, charity bosses, union bosses and civil servants who are all defined by the principles of Agenda 21. It is easy to see the UN strictures at work in every aspect of modern life.
8. Klaus Schwab is paid a huge salary by the World Economic Forum. The WEF has allegedly spent £57 million buying land near Schwab’s home.
9. Individual students are spending an average of £1,639 on gambling. (They use their student loans.) It seems a fair assumption that they’re not very good at it, and that they lose their money.
10. A writer in the US has claimed that mocking the deaths of anti-vaxxers is necessary.
11. Countries where there are high levels of obesity have ten times as many covid-19 deaths as other countries.
12. In the UK, the elderly have been denied the annual pension rise that they were promised. And those who have to work to stay alive are now being forced to pay a new tax on their earnings. It’s pretty clear the Government just wants to kill as many pensioners as it possibly can.
13. A local car park charges £1 an hour to park a car (though the price is going up). On the other hand if you want to park a lorry or a car with a caravan behind it or a large motorhome (all of which take up more space) the price will be £1 an hour.
14. Greetings to all the Government agencies who visit this website every day. I do hope you learn something useful.
15. Our car uses less fuel at 70 mph than it does at 30 mph. If I am stopped for speeding my argument will be that I am going faster to save the planet, the polar bears and small, irritating Swedish girls.
16. An increasing number of shops now allow customers to take their dogs in with them. Shop keepers should be aware that if a dog bites a customer, there are likely to be unpleasant legal repurcussions.
17. Demonstrators who cause serious annoyance can be fined £2,500 or sent to prison for three months. Any demonstrator who `recklessly causes public nuisance’ can be sent to prison for ten years.
18. Interest rates in the UK are now lower than they have ever been. Taxes are at a 70 year high.
19. Britons who were born abroad or who have a parent who was born abroad can have their citizenship taken away from them if they misbehave. Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, was born in New York.
20. Those who cheered the sanctions against Russia should know that Russia produces 43% of the world’s palladium, 15% of the world’s platinum and hefty percentages of the world’s supplies of copper, aluminium, wheat, nickel, gas and oil. Some 90% of the world’s supply of neon comes from Russia and Ukraine. The world’s biggest supplies of titanium come from Russia. Those who cheered when the sanctions were introduced should also cheer when the cost of absolutely everything goes through the roof.