The wife of a knight disappears while traveling from her husband’s manor to Bampton, on the way to another of the knight’s properties. She and her maid are travelling in an enclosed wagon, whilst her husband and his grooms and a squire are mounted. When the party arrives at Bampton Castle neither the lady nor her maid are within the enclosed wagon: they have simply vanished. As the disappearance may have happened while the travelers were on Lord Gilbert’s lands, his surgeon and bailiff, Hugh de Singleton, is assigned to discover what has happened to the lady. Has she been taken? Her has she fled her husband? A few days later her husband receives a ransom demand, and Hugh is named to deliver the money. Why him? The ransom is paid, but the lady is not returned. Can Hugh help find her, or is it already too late? — Book promo @ goodreads.com
Last Sunday I post the final Federalist Paper that was in support of the constitution, the week before that I had posted the last of the Letters from the Federal Farmer which were Anti-Federalist. There were more more anti letters published but I have posted those that are considered to be the primary rebuttals to the Federalists.
With the capture of the House and Senate there is a chance that if a Democrat also becomes president in 2028 there will be another Constitutional Convention called. If that were to happen then these historical letters may be worth close scrutiny. We do live in interesting times! — Joseph Chamberlain (not an ancient Chinese curse)
The Virtual Walk Maps in the sidebar have been updated again. I’m a little late in updating the camp location map but I have finally got that done also.
I have also managed to get all my appointments set for Mar & Apr at the VA Clinic in Sierra Vista. I can now make other appointments around those dates. That is far easier than trying to change a VA appointment.
In the United States, this is the most expensive campaign process in history. And the Supreme Court has ruled that, well, we’ve got to do it the way the Romans did. The Romans assigned weighted votes to the wealthiest Roman constituency, much higher than the votes of the agrarian people as a whole. And so when the wealthiest classes voted, their votes, maybe the one to ten percent, outweighed the ninety percent. So that made sure that there wouldn’t really be a democracy there.
Well, the same thing happened in the United States. If you read the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton and especially James Madison said, well, democracy is a threat to the wealthy people. They oppose banking. They oppose the large landowners. How do we keep them in check? Well, we’ve got to have a Supreme Court, and we’ve got to have various ways of making sure that their votes don’t count. Well, the Supreme Court has said just that, that voting should reflect the wealth of the classes that pay for the political campaigns of the candidates who are running in the primaries. And as long as you can have private funding, then essentially the politicians are up for sale. It’s what Americans call pay-to-play. — Democracy Under Oligarchy by Michael Hudson
Let me add that this mid term campaign that has been the most expensive process in history has all been added to the GDP. Yes, massive political campaign spending adds to the GDP so that has to be a good thing. In addition to that I’m sure there have been a lot of temporary election hires which has also been a good thing; reduced unemployment benefits, lower unemployment and DEI hiring. A great win win for the politicians.