Of the two pupil barristers at the prestigious chambers of 5 Caper Court, only one can win the coveted role of junior tenant. Penniless Anthony Cross is brilliant, hard-working, and longs to gain a foothold on this legal ladder to success. But his rival, Edward Choke – wealthy, good-natured, and not very bright – is also the head of chambers’ nephew.
Caro Fraser is the daughter of George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels. She attended art school and worked as an advertising copywriter before deciding to pursue a career in law. Fraser began to write full-time while bringing up the third of her four children, and published her first novel, The Pupil, in 1993. Since then she has written several novels, including the critically acclaimed Caper Court series. She is currently a full-time shipping lawyer and lives in London.
As the US increasingly resembles ancient Rome, being president is more and more dangerous. Something around 35 emperors met violent deaths, most from people in and around their courts. In other words, members of the Roman Deep State. An ugly situation is brewing in and around Washington DC. — Doug Casey
It [2024 election] could go a few ways. One is, just let’er rip, harvest all those fake votes, stuff the drop-boxes, flood the zone, and do it all right in America’s face as if to say: we can do whatever we want… to get whatever we want… and you can’t stop us. That is probably the point where blue America finds out exactly what the Second Amendment was designed for. You might also expect a whole lot of state-organized resistance, especially in the populous red ones, Texas, Florida, real court cases over fraud this time, contested certification.
Or, the election could come out a hopeless unresolvable muddle. There’s no precedent for this and no provision in the Constitution, but you can imagine the Supreme Court having to decide a necessary do-over minus all recent gimmicks, paper ballots only, voters with proof of citizenship only, all voting on one re-scheduled election day before January 1. This novelty would be something apart from the clunky Congressional machinery established for settling electoral college disputes, since it is predicated on various states’ inability to determine their electoral college vote in the first place, based on patent irregularity and fraud. — Kamala Unwinding by James Howard Kunstler
In early October Claudia Sheinbaum was invested as Mexico’s new President, succeeding Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO) at the expiration of his six-year term. Ms. Sheinaum is a member of Morena, the populist political party founded and led by AMLO. AMLO’s relations with the United States in general have not been smooth because of his fierce insistence on unconditional respect of Mexican sovereignty and the right of Mexico to pursue an independent course in domestic governance and foreign relations. Significantly, on his watch Mexico had expressed interest in associating itself more closely with the BRICS nations, and perhaps even applying to join the group at some stage.…
Ms. Sheinbaum is publicly swearing fealty to AMLO’s legacy and so far the transition seems to have been executed with no visible indication of political disruption. That is all well and good, but in that regard Latin American politics offers some notable examples of post festum treachery. The turncoat performance of Argentina’s pseudo-Peronist President Carlos Menem, who betrayed his campaign commitments and switched to neoliberalism virtually the day after his inauguration is an illustration that promptly comes to mind. — Mexican “Judicial Reform”: Do As We Say Not As we Do by Stephen Karganovic
I hope Ms. Sheinbaum maintains the ” insistence on unconditional respect of Mexican sovereignty and the right of Mexico to pursue an independent course in domestic governance and foreign relations”. She is already faced with meddling by the US on the judicial reforms. The US will really get their knickers in a twist if Mexico joins BRIC+.
US exports for the first eight months of this year, 2024, included oil with sales worth $82.8 billion. The US government, under both parties administration, use that data as proof that the the US is energy independent and the echo chamber media report it as fact. Whereas during that same period oil imports were worth $178.4 billion which the government and their echo chambers ignore. Most of the imports come from Canada, around half, with Mexico supplying about 10% of the total. Not a lot of reliance on Middle East oil which is a good thing.
I said I would comment more on my purchases at the Sierra Vista Co-Op. What I ordered and then picked up was a case of Kite Hill non dairy yogurt; that is six 32 oz containers. I have just enough room for those six plus the 1-2 containers of non dairy milk that I usually have in the refrigerator. Amazon has a price of $9.99 but not available, Giant Food has it available at $10.49, marked down from $11.49 — I paid $8.52. Also got a case of Lightlife Tempeh; 12 8 oz ‘slabs’. Amazon would sell them for $4.49 each, I paid $3.43. The last case was 30 Tucson Green Chile & Chicken Tamales which Tucson Tamale Co. will sell for $4.69 using Gold Belly (an expensive shipper reseller) whereas I paid $2.79. I also signed up to become a Member of the Co-Op so those prices are at a 20% discount from their usual non member prices.
I should have done it prior to picking all that up but it became very obvious that I needed to defrost the refrigerator and freezer. When I say defrost what I really had to do was a serious de-icing operation that I did over a two day period.
I’ll be going back to Sierra Vista again on Wednesday and hope that my glass lens have come in at Wal*Mart. Will stop at the Co-Op again and maybe talk to the Grocery Manager about ordering some bulk gains. Will go to AT&T and see what they can do for me to ditch Verizon; they are still a NO SERVICE problem but not as bad during the weekend. Maybe go to AZ MVD to get my license renewed and address change on Desperado’s registration; maybe not if I run out of time. I can go to the MVD in Douglas later in the week or next week, that is about half the distance that going to Sierra Vista is.