Afghan couple stoned to death by Taliban and their own neighbors

It may be worth sticking round this hell hole to keep Al Qaeda out, but as for protecting these savage people? Not worth one of our soldiers’ lives. We are never going to bring these primitives to our concept of Western civilization, nor should we waste another minute trying.

It’s Chinatown, Jake

Illinois Supreme’s restore Emanuel to the ballot in Chicago. In fact, I thought, reading the two applicable laws, that Emanuel had the better side of the argument, but I never believed that Chicago would let a front runner be bounced, regardless of the law.

Such a steal but …

Remorseful (after the fact) buyer

I’m watching a deal that will collapse tomorrow over a $100,000 difference of opinion. I always respect clients’ ceilings, and if they can’t afford something, they can’t – end of the matter, no hard feelings, and let’s move on to another property. But in this case, where we can pick the house up for less than half its asking price, and it seems to me to more a “matter of principle”  than lack of funds, I’m not happy. I worked for months on this deal, got an absolutely astonishing result, and nothing’s going to happen (except that a higher bidder, who came in after we had a contract, is waiting in the wings to pick it up tomorrow when our contract expires). I appreciate Wall Streeters - they pay my bills, but the ones who are obsessed with deal making and can’t see the friggin’ bargain right in front of their eyes do annoy me. Oh well, the house, and the client, will be out of my life tomorrow. For their desired price range: low $2s, I know the entire inventory, and there’s no way I could come close to this one, and I won’t waste my time trying. If anyone out there wants it and can commit by Friday afternoon, send me a message in the comments section, since I have no email at the moment (or, better, call me at (203) 249-4394) – I’ll keep your identity secret.

GMLS closed today due to snow

So no sales or contracts to report. Tomorrow, maybe. Greenwich Time has a teaser ad on its web page promising an article in the Sunday edition asking whether our market has recovered. I’ll save you the wait, and the cost of a newspaper – it hasn’t.

Here’s how the Demmerkrats will stay in power

Conservatives boycotting meeting of like-minded people. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and all sorts of Christian family type groups won’t go because (a) the meeting is co-sponsored by a gay conservative group and (b), in the words of Mr. Huckabee, “they’re too libertarian”. Fine: have it you way, reject your natural allies in fiscal conservatism, and stick to your social mores. Suckers. Enjoy ObamaCare.

Wow, I’ve been hacked, and don’t know what to do about

First, someone changed my password to lock me out of my email. Now, I just went to Gmail’s paid advisory panel and tried to pay $48 for an answer as to how to get around the lock-out and turns out my two credit cards and Pay Pal all decline to process the charge, even though I have zero balance at all of them. Ah the joys of modern society. I even think I know who did this, but whatcha’ gonna do?

Still no email, after a week. Thanks, Google

Same problem I had when I used to use their blog host – suddenly cut off from access, with no human available to help and their computerized responses absolutely useless. The frustration I have is that people are emailing me and their messages aren’t bounced back, but piled into the account, so senders assume I have received their message and am ignoring it, while I have no idea that they’ve written. The account is there, but either a hacker changed my password or Google vaunted computers did it. Either way, not only are all my messages in there, but my address is in hundreds of peoples’ address book, which drives me to try again to get Gmail to fix the problem, rather than start again. Google is great, until it isn’t. Sell it short? I would, if I owned its stock – they have no absolutely no customer service- literally none, and that can’t be a viable business model.

The town with a heart of gold

Greenwich suing the family of our two Perrot librarians for recovery of worksmen’s comp payments. That is how the law works, unfortunately but in case like this, where there seems to have only modest amount of assets to satisfy two wrongful deaths, it’s not uncommon for the insurance company to compromise its claim. We should probably pressure our carrier to do just that.

(H/T, readers Sauders, Brit and FF)

If you like FAR, you’ll love the P&Z’s impervious coverage regulation

How about no garage? No paved driveways? Tiny houses? No terraces?It’s all their for your pleasure.