Oh dear

English majors protest spending cuts at University of Washington – dummies don’t know it’s spelled “hour”

It’s (almost) enough to make you lose faith in your fellow man

Psychic accused by SEC of fraud. With a beautiful cat like that? Impossible!

According to George Canellos, director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office, “Morton’s self-proclaimed psychic powers were nothing more than a scam to attract investors and steal their money.”

Shocking.

UPDATE: I do love the New York Post headline writers. their take on this story: Seer $ucker Suit. hee hee.

A Hard Day’s Night

A brother is visiting and as a result we had the TV on and he found A Hard Day’s Night being broadcast. I just caught the last twenty minutes of it but, not having seen it since 1964, I was struck by how good it was. Black and white, frenetic action, funny lines and no special effects at all, and it’s better than most of the movies I’ve seen since. My brother described it as “a movie about nothing” which is quite accurate, but somehow, all that nothing added up to a fully-complete film. I think I’ll add it to the Netflix list.

Huh?

I love the little freebie web visitor gadget over the right – Cluster somethingorother. But check this out, on readers since November, 2009:

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA)

11

I mean, who in Bosnia could possibly find Greenwich real estate of interest?  Fascinating.

Michael Foot dead at 96 – rot in hell

Don’t want to be too harsh on the old fellow, but he represented everything I despise, so good riddance.

In the 1983 general election, he campaigned on a Labour platform that included unilateral disarmament, higher taxes, a more interventionist industrial policy, nationalization of the banks and abolition of the House of Lords.

“We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress,” he declared in a campaign speech. “No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer, ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.”

The Labour manifesto, 700 pages long, was described by the right-wing Labour politician Gerald Kaufman as “the longest suicide note in history.” Lady Thatcher, buoyed by victory in the Falklands War, dealt Labour a humiliating defeat. Mr. Foot resigned as party leader and was succeeded by Neil Kinnock.

Is Diana Ross’s place a dump?

Diana Ross's living room

She says so, and wants her taxes reduced. I sympathize. The place is a run-down, neglected old house that ought to be valued for land value with nothing attributed to the house itself, which is obsolete and worn out. None of that stopped her from listing it at the laughable price of $39 million a few years ago but hey – can’t blame a girl for trying.

The town’s got it pegged at $29 million including a separate 4 acre building lot, and maybe they’re right – similar land last year sold for something like $16 million, so there is a market for this sort of land. But just like that parcel, this one is pummeled with highway noise and I, at least, wouldn’t live here on a bet, Belle Haven address or not.

Greenwich Time comes through with hard hitting reporting once again

Here’s a  puff piece on a new realty business in town with “high end listings”. You’d think that the reporter, Susan Nova, could have found a few inches of column space to mention that this house on Taconic has been for sale for years now and Higgins has it only because they’re stupid enough to take on the task of advertising it. But no.

Best part of the article: this firm, dedicated to “high end luxury housing”, has rented space in Cos Cob, across from Jos. A. Banks. I suppose their customers will find that exceptionally convenient.

I actually love this house – I can’t imagine who would live in such a large space but it’s beautifully crafted and surely there’s someone out there with millions to burn who wants a cool, really big house. So good luck to these Higgins Realty people and best wishes to the sellers – my beef’s with the reporter, not them.

Methane is pushing global warming over tipping point – we’re doomed!

Well probably not, but as long as it’s hopeless trying to contain global warming, let’s move on.

I blame Bush!

Get off mah house boat!

Thousands stuck in ice on the Baltic Sea

Not nice – but funny

(hat tip, Instapundit) Saving money on an ipod

I’m sorry, but Darwin was right

Two men apparently drown when their 10′, flat bottom boat capsizes in 2 foot chop. A flat-bottom boat, two-foot seas, water temperature of 40 and you go boating? Sorry – next!

Welcome back to the 20th century

I’ve been trying to track a realtor just now to set up an appointment to view his listing. I can’t access the Greenwich MLS directory from home because I’m Mac, they’re  Windows exclusive – cheaper that way, I guess, so they bought a crappy program from somewhere. Okay, the firm has a web page – which is fine, but has no email addresses for its agents. Hmm, then I’ll use the telephone as a last resort, but the number listed on their website is five years old and has been reassigned to someone else.

I’ll make contact tomorrow, but the Greenwich real estate scene is at least ten, probably 15 years behind the times and in this era, a year is a century. Good Lord.

None so blind as those who will not see

Poor Governor Paterson. Al Sharpton is deserting the guy, his press secretary quit today, citing his lessons as  U.S. Naval officer in integrity and public service, and apparently the old fool has been locked up in a room with his remaining aides trying to figure out how he’ll survive. Time to go, fella.

It’s not like they have anything better to do

House panel looks into the past and condemns Turkey for Armenian genocide. I like the Armenians I’ve met and haven’t been so wild about the Turks, but do we really need to piss off an ally for a century-old blight? Hmm.

Doesn’t anyone want this place?

109 Byram Shore Rd

This is a beautiful piece of waterfront – 10 acres, 600′ of shoreline,deep water dock, etc. but it’s having trouble staying sold. Originally listed at the improbable sum of $45 million back in 2003, it finally sold for $17.5 million in 2005 and was resold again in 2007 for $28.5 million. Those were the fun days of real estate but they ended as this was purchased late in November. In April, 2008 just five months later, the buyer tried reselling it with one more price jump to $34 million.

And there it sits, unchanged in price or appearance two years later.

Another failed spec house moves off a bank’s books

26 Cedarwood Drive

 

This short sale is reported as pending today, finally bringing a close to its woeful tale. It was originally priced at $7.950 back in 2007 and eventually dropped to $4.995. The bank’s getting around $4 million, the builder will get nothing. It’s a nice house, so the buyer will do well. Funny – after sitting around for so long, two buyers appeared almost simultaneously. Shows you what a price cut will do, eh?

It’ll probably be over $5 million by 2012

11 Pinecroft Road came on at $4.350 million way back in March, 2007 and slowly dropped in the ensuing years until it hit $2.845. Today it was bumped up to $2.995.

Morgan Stanley: Americans trapped in their houses

The Joads head west

No worker mobility when folkis can’t afford to sell their houses. Unless, like Joads, they turn their backs on the old farmstead and go.

Funny, but probably inappropriate

Teachers suspended after giving kids pictures of OJ, RuPaul and Dennis Rodman to carry in Black History Month parade.

Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Children from other classes at the school displayed photos of more appropriate black role models, such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Obama, Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.

The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino.

District Superintendent Ramon Cortines placed the teachers – all white men who teach first, second and fourth grades – on administrative leave on Tuesday while an investigation is conducted, Pollard-Terry said.

“The superintendent will not let anyone make a mockery out of Black History Month,” she said.

One contract

A very slow week for real estate (and the country – sales way down last month, according to the NAR), but 17 Fairgreen in Old Greenwich is reported under contract. That will happen when you drop a price from $1.875 to $1.295.

38 Frontier

And one pending, over on Cos Cob’s Frontier Road. Also in the low $1s, so not much whittling away of our pricier inventory these days.