trump’s name does not feature in her plea documents and he wasn’t referred to during the plea hearing.
The more interesting one is kenneth cheseboro and whether he cuts a last minute deal.

yes, this whole RICO case is a hub and spoke with Trump and Meadows at the centre. The more people in the spokes flip the better chance of a conviction at the hub. Shame the Cheese & Kraken case will not take place 😀

Apparently her light sentence is because of the quality of evidence she has handed over implicating Trump and Meadows. Fingers crossed. 

Direct flights from MAN to Funchal are ridiculously expensive but about half the cost if you bounce through Porto or Lisbon and stop over for a couple of nights. You should be able to get at least one nights hotel accommodation in Porto/Lisbon based on the saving. Bolt taxi service is also incredibly cheap in Porto. In fact everything is cheap!

Better start praying

Edit – too late!

I was from that era and like most people I just though his behaviour was eccentric rather than creepy/seedy.

As part of Engoron’s ruling putting Trump’s companies into administration he’s also asked for details of everyone who has a stake in these companies. Should be interesting what overseas names come out.

A strategic decision to leave the decision to a judge who is not impressed by Trump? Everything I’m seeing indicates an oversight and now Alina Habba is doubling down claiming a jury trial was not an option.

Would be funny if true but it isn’t.
Earlier this year his lawyers waived his right to a jury trial as confirmed in online court filings; this is why it’s just the judge.

Yes, his lawyers waived his rights to a jury trial by not ticking the box saying ‘do you want a jury trial’, which according to a couple of reports is a major cock up considering how he’s attacked the judge who will be deciding the verdict.

Had he just admitted defeat graciously, and slipped into the background

The trouble is of course that he couldn’t ever have done that. Admitting defeat for Trump is physiologically impossible

Narcissists are just not wired that way. See also Lance Armstrong.

Oops. Trump’s lawyers forgot to ask for a jury trial so the judge will decide the verdict. Jury could have been influenced by the ‘no victim’ argument but not the judge.

That a Roadrunner is an actual animal and not a fictional cartoon character.

By way of a backstory Trump was originally a Democrat as are most NY business folks and he made political donations to the Democrats. The issue he’s in court for today came up a few years ago when Cyrus Vance Jr was the NY DA and was poking around Trump’s business dealings. Trump sent his attorney to meet with the DA and made a contribution to his political campaign and the investigation suddenly stopped.

Martin Lewis has been pushing for personal finance education in school and has managed to get some traction with a textbook and teaching guide link

I dont have any pensions after watching Mrs SSS’s dad lose the lot with Equitable Life, others getting stuffed with annuities in the wrong market conditions, friends getting pension schemes ‘red’ letters saying ‘please feed me more’, the govt having their sticky fingers in the pension pots occasionally and the spivs having a great time at your expense.

I’m sorry but that attitude is plain bollocks. Sure, there have been some bad experiences for some but the Government Pension Protection Fund should stop these things happening again in the future with 90% of your pot protected.

For the average punter who has no knowledge or interest in pensions

And that’s the major problem. The lack of knowledge on something so important and fundamental to how you hopefully see out your days is criminal. With all the content available on YouTube you only need to spend a few hours getting your head around some basic principles and it will pay dividends.

Quite a few new players (Sony and Bose included) have come to the market now the US has approved over the counter hearing aids and prices have dropped. To keep things cheap you have to set them up yourself which should be easy for most people by running a hearing test from a smartphone app which will tailor the hearing aid.

I’ve got oticon which are pretty good but still struggle in noisy environments. In these situations I either change the program to ‘comfort’ or if that fails take them out which often makes things better as people you are with are generally talking louder because of the noise.

Average price per kWh for us based on usage since we switched to Agile:
September 20.13p
August 18.68p
July 18.64p
June 16.64p
May 20.63p
April 24.62p
March 26.47p

Current standing charge is 44.72p/day

We didn’t really get into the load shifting until around May as the main reason for going Agile was Mrs S PHEV which has a range of 30m.

What you are doing is trying to steer the boat by looking at the wake.  If you can load shift your consumption to outside peak hours octopus agile should be ok.  We’re retired so easy for us.

If you like W2W check out Bunch of Amateurs on YouTube. Fly on the wall about Dorking Wanderers with their larger than life founder and current manager Marc White who comes out with some absolute crackers – “At 2-0 do you seriously want to give this lot a nick? Don’t pass to anyone back to goal. You know it in advance. It’s like sending your bird to a ****** ex-boyfriends house for the night. Seriously. You know what’s gonna happen”

Another key thread in S2 will be the development of the women’s team so as Ed points out the story is much more than trying to get out of the NL.

But based on the result on Saturday the PL is a long, long way off.

Saw my first Wrexham match in 1968 and seen many games over the intervening years including the recent 5-5 against Swindon. The impact it has had on the town (it will always be The Town to most people) is nothing short of amazing. Kids are no longer walking around wearing Utd, Liverpool, Everton etc shirts but wearing the Wrexham shirt with pride – 24,000 were sold last season.

S2E2 on autism was the best so far

Jack Smith is taking a keen interest in the fund raising and further charges may follow if they are deemed to be illegal.

Trump is definitely starting to realise he may die in jail.

If Trump gets elected he will walk free

little Donny 2 scoops still had the power of pardon between Jan 6th-20th and didn’t pardon any of the proud boys or his legal team who are now jointly on the rap sheet. That decision is now playing out nicely with people flipping.

From The Guardian link

Giuliani failed to produce records during the discovery process while making “excuses” to shroud his noncompliance

But there’s more to it than that:

“Perhaps he has made the calculation that his overall litigation risks are minimized by not complying with his discovery obligations in this case,” Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court in Washington, DC, wrote Wednesday. “Whatever the reason, obligations are case specific and withholding required discovery in this case has consequences.”

Just in…court has decided that rudy is liable in defamation case brought by two election workers in Georgia and the case will go to trial.

They just don’t seem to understand the legal difference between the first amendment and defamation. Long may it continue.

The touchscreen was to me at least; a jumble of icons and sub menus, admittedly if my school-boy Spanish had been better I might have been more speedy, but ultimately I didn’t think it was safe to drive through the centre of Barcelona.

Sounds like the car I had in Spain. After a bit of wrestling I made it into the settings menu and changed the language to English.

I noticed they’re also clamping down on the keeper trying to grab the ball after a goal to slow down the restart. That tactic really boils my piss. Swindon keeper thought about grabbing the ball after we scored a pen to make it 2-4 on Saturday but then stopped himself which was amusing to see.

We were also disappointed with Macmillan but Maggies were fantastic. We also used PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) when things seem to drop through the cracks and they got involved swiftly and helped resolve the issues. Every hospital has a PALS.

League 2 is going to be a real bunfight this season. Before the season started Nigel Clough (Mansfield) reckoned 16 teams could easily make a case for making the playoffs and the results so far are bearing this out. Gillingham have spent big and look the team to beat so far. We’ve got the biggest budget but any transfer targets now come with a Wrexham tax.

I went to Wrexham 5-5 Swindon Town yesterday. Bonkers game but hugely enjoyable.

it’s genuinely baffling to watch.

Jon Stewart nails it – NSFW swearing

It’s interesting watching Giuliani being very public about Trump not paying is his fees for months and months. Looks like he’s sending a message that he’ll flip unless he’s paid.

The other attorneys will be in a bind as they will have to find $25-50k retainer just to engage an attorney to defend them. That’s a nice conversation to have with your better half when you have a mortgage, kids in college etc.

Attorney-client privilege also goes out the window so they won’t be able to use that tactic. For example, if I go to my attorney and say I’ve robbed a bank can you help defend me that’s covered by ACP. But if I go to my attorney and say I’m thinking of robbing a bank, what’s the best way of doing it without being caught that isn’t covered by ACP.

Nearly all the attorneys in these cases will flip.

Why not?

On second thoughts it would work. I looked a bit further into IFTTT for the charger with the idea I could use it to pick the cheapest slots during the night for charging the hybrid and avoid doing it manually, but although Agile Octopus and Hive play together via IFTTT there isn’t support for the Hive car charger and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to fit a smart plug onto the charger.

Agile is more of a gamble and to a greater degree relies on your input, if that’s what you mean by ‘manual’

With these low prices on Agile Octopus I really should install a smart plug on the immersion heater then use IFTTT to integrate with Hive to heat the hot water. Gas boiler is normally a much cheaper way to heat water than electric but not recently. Apologies for drifting off topic.

Edit – no that won’t work!

@molgrips it varies by month. Obviously lots of solar and wind around over the last few months so costs have come down nicely e.g. last bill was £71.26 for 292 kWh.

Or you can use Octopus Go and it’ll do it for you. Ok so it’s more expensive, but still only 1.5p a mile for the car. I’ll take that.

True, but being retired means we can also take advantage of cheaper rates during the day for washer, tumble dryer, charging up the ebike etc. We’re not obsessive about it, so the dishwasher often goes on during the evening if it needs to but the bills have been surprisingly low since moving to Agile Octopus.

@bensales has it.  Car gets plugged in on arrival.  During the evening Mrs S checks the next days rates on the Octopus App then switches to the Hive App and sets the charger schedule for whatever time during the night is cheapest.  However, the last update to the Hive App has been shambolic and it assumes you are on a smart tariff from British Gas and automatically schedules the charge for when British Gas rates are cheapest – WTF?

The hybrid only needs 2.5 hours to fully charge on the wall charger so it’s easy to pick a slot to optimise rates (usually around 02:30).  In fact we sometimes charge twice a day and we even get surge pricing where we get paid to use electricity. Here are the cheapest 1/2 hourly periods today

12:00 – 12:30 5.93p/kWh
12:30 – 13:00 5.5p/kWh
13:00 – 13:30 4.95p/kWh
13:30 – 14:00 0.09p/kWh
14:00 – 14:30 1.36p/kWh
14:30 – 15:00 0.48p/kWh

In theory price can go way up to something like £2/kWh but very rare and we haven’t had anything like that since we started in April.

There’s little in the day rate between Octopus Go 30.27 p/kWh and Flexible Octopus April 2023 29.97 p/kWh with the same standing charge.

Agile Octopus has been great for Mrs S hybrid.  Last month we averaged 16.64p/kWh and the month before 18.64p.

OddBalls is my go to for socks and undies. Good product and also supports good charities.