CNN (Communist News Network): dozens of people at Tea Party rally

12, 24, maybe even 36 people here!

Does this look like dozens?

I can’t do justice to this story in a summary

But for bureaucratic, cover-your-ass weaseling that cost a woman her life, read this.

The first Mrs. Cohen – a stupid, vindictive nutcake

New York Magazine is out with a hugely long story on Steven Cohen’s first wife. I didn’t have the patience to read the whole thing and stopped when I got to the part about their 1990 divorce: she got a million in cash, a $3 million co-op, and blew the whole wad in a year. She’s been after him ever since, it seems. I’m not inclined to feel sorry for Greenwich’s wealthiest trader, but geeze.

Brits being pulled from a hot spot in Afghanistan

Redeployment of the ISAF force, which stands for “I Saw Americans Fight”. U.S. Marines will take over.

If it’s really going to rain as much as they say …

Good time to revisit any houses you’ve been looking at. Six inches of rain ought to reveal any basement flooding issues and if the house you want stays dry in that downpour, you’re pretty well set. If not, you have a price negotiating point. You can probably save effort by just asking your agent to schedule an appointment for, say, Tuesday afternoon. If the house is “unavailable”, there’s your answer.

Okay, this is funny

Angry Cablevision customer on Pecksland Road chases a repairman. Hey fella, try a book.

Flood warning!

4 – 6″ of rain predicted. That’s a lot.

I’m up late (for me) because we watched Sharpe’s Revenge on Channel 13. Very entertaining. I’ve enjoyed Bernard Cornwell’s books on his Napoleonic soldier, Colonel Sharpe, but hadn’t realized they’d brought at least one tale to the screen. Well done and engrossing.

UPDATE: Who knew? There’s a slew of Sharpe films.

Jerky Bambi

Slice me dice me!

Somewhere at Pal Nancy’s there’s a Bambi celluloid print, signed to me by Walt himself, so if his copyright folks come after me on this one, I’ll just use the substitute. Until then, there’s this:

I’ve just converted 5 lbs of Bambi into jerky, slicing two most excellent roasts into 1/8″ thin strips and dunking them into a marinade of salt, black pepper,garlic and onion powder and Worcester sauce for a drying-smoking process in my Bradley Smoker. It broke my heart to do this, because I was losing two great feasts, but I’m alone here in my suburban extended family in my appreciation of deer meat, and rather than see this great stuff go to waste, I converted it into hiking fare, Such a waste. I’m looking for a woman who appreciates game but Walt, I still think we could find a cozy accommodation over a nice venison loin and dim candlelight.  Hubba hubba.

Sherwood Avenue mansion

A reader wrote to inquire about the new house going up on Sherwood Avenue  in Glenville. Looks like # 20, which was a beautiful house when first listed on the calamitous day of 9/11. It eventually sold for peanuts years later and I guess it’s been torn down. The stone wall that’s been thrown up around it probably cost more than the land and house itself. The property is assessed at a mere $2.9 million but I’d guess that will change once it’s complete.

It may be a spec house. Tax records show that it’s owned by an  Adam Skarzynski, a Brooklyn builder going under the name Adam’s European Contracting, Inc. Which makes sense: I figured this for either the project of a townie who knew what he wanted and didn’t care about the location or that of a clueless outsider who knew nothing about relative values in Greenwich. Seems it was the latter.

The International web

Marty Hirsam, Daddy's boy at Hirsam Acorn

80% of Web traffic is outside the U.S.

Don’t I know it. Here are my own website visitors since just November. As has always been the case in my life, getting canned from one job opened up vast new horizons. When idiot -owner Marty Hersam  caved in to Coldwell Banker and freed me from his silly, provincial Greenwich Post with its 14,000 readers a week he set me loose on the world-wide net where I now average 7,00 readers a day. Thanks Marty – hope the world’s treating you as well as it’s treating me.

United States (US) 136,317

United Kingdom (GB) 3,386

Canada (CA) 2,571

Australia (AU) 846

Germany (DE) 726

France (FR) 506

Switzerland (CH) 471

Netherlands (NL) 417

Ireland (IE) 416

India (IN) 356

Brazil (BR) 337

Italy (IT) 319

Sweden (SE) 271

Spain (ES) 242

Mexico (MX) 239

Philippines (PH) 235

Denmark (DK) 219

Turkey (TR) 216

Chile (CL) 194

Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 171

Poland (PL) 162

Singapore (SG) 152

Greece (GR) 143

Belgium (BE) 142

Hong Kong (HK) 138

Czech Republic (CZ) 134

Hungary (HU) 132

Bermuda (BM) 131

Japan (JP) 121

Romania (RO) 119

Malaysia (MY) 118

Finland (FI) 114

New Zealand (NZ) 108

Saudi Arabia (SA) 104

Norway (NO) 100

Israel (IL) 100

Indonesia (ID) 99

Argentina (AR) 96

Austria (AT) 92

Korea, Republic of (KR) 87

Thailand (TH) 83

United Arab Emirates (AE) 76

Bulgaria (BG) 75

Peru (PE) 71

Slovakia (SK) 69

South Africa (ZA) 64

Pakistan (PK) 64

China (CN) 62

Russian Federation (RU) 59

Portugal (PT) 56

Croatia (HR) 52

Colombia (CO) 48

Puerto Rico (PR) 46

Vietnam (VN) 46

Serbia (RS) 45

Ukraine (UA) 38

Taiwan (TW) 37

Egypt (EG) 35

Estonia (EE) 34

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (VC) 34

Bahamas (BS) 34

Slovenia (SI) 32

Lithuania (LT) 31

Latvia (LV) 27

Jamaica (JM) 27

Virgin Islands, U.S. (VI) 27

Asia/Pacific Region (AP) 25

Dominican Republic (DO) 23

Costa Rica (CR) 23

Venezuela (VE) 22

Bangladesh (BD) 21

Macedonia (MK) 20

Sri Lanka (LK) 19

Iceland (IS) 18

Trinidad and Tobago (TT) 18

Morocco (MA) 16

Saint Kitts and Nevis (KN) 15

Malta (MT) 14

Jordan (JO) 14

Barbados (BB) 14

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) 13

Luxembourg (LU) 13

Netherlands Antilles (AN) 13

Uruguay (UY) 12

Georgia (GE) 12

Guatemala (GT) 11

Cyprus (CY) 10

Turks and Caicos Islands (TC) 10

Ecuador (EC) 10

Bahrain (BH) 9

Anguilla (AI) 9

Vanuatu (VU) 9

Kuwait (KW) 9

Qatar (QA) 9

Lebanon (LB) 9

Cayman Islands (KY) 9

Panama (PA) 8

Ghana (GH) 8

Nigeria (NG) 8

Kenya (KE) 7

Guadeloupe (GP) 7

Honduras (HN) 6

Tunisia (TN) 6

Guam (GU) 6

Aruba (AW) 6

Macau (MO) 5

Montenegro (ME) 5

Moldova, Republic of (MD) 5

Antigua and Barbuda (AG) 5

Algeria (DZ) 5

Uganda (UG) 5

Oman (OM) 4

Grenada (GD) 4

Albania (AL) 4

Kazakstan (KZ) 4

Tanzania, United Republic of (TZ) 4

Brunei Darussalam (BN) 4

Reunion (RE) 4

Paraguay (PY) 4

Cambodia (KH) 4

Saint Lucia (LC) 4

Virgin Islands, British (VG) 4

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY) 4

Mongolia (MN) 3

Mozambique (MZ) 3

Mauritius (MU) 3

Syrian Arab Republic (SY) 3

Palestinian Territory (PS) 3

Djibouti (DJ) 3

Nicaragua (NI) 3

Zambia (ZM) 2

American Samoa (AS) 2

Myanmar (MM) 2

Belize (BZ) 2

Belarus (BY) 2

Isle of Man (IM) 2

Gibraltar (GI) 2

Zimbabwe (ZW) 2

Senegal (SN) 2

Suriname (SR) 2

Iraq (IQ) 2

Azerbaijan (AZ) 1

Cote D’Ivoire (CI) 1

Liberia (LR) 1

El Salvador (SV) 1

Cook Islands (CK) 1

New Caledonia (NC) 1

Faroe Islands (FO) 1

Lesotho (LS) 1

Ethiopia (ET) 1

Armenia (AM) 1

Botswana (BW) 1

Namibia (NA) 1

Martinique (MQ) 1

Sudan (SD) 1

Rwanda (RW) 1

Northern Mariana Islands (MP) 1

Congo, The Democratic Republic of the (CD) 1

Yemen (YE) 1

Nepal (NP) 1

Afghanistan (AF) 1

Monaco (MC) 1

Bolivia (BO) 1

Jersey (JE) 1

Bhutan (BT) 1

Maldives (MV) 1

Pope: Abuse stories are just “petty gossip”

Can’t touch me here!

“None so blind …” Look, you filthy bastard, you and your ilk were complicit in a world-wide scandal of molesting small boys for what appears to be at least a century. You approved it, hid it, and now claim it’s “petty gossip”? I don’t believe in Catholic Hell but just this once, I’d like to, and hope you go there. Good God.

(Walt, you’re right – almost anything sets me off on a lunatic rant).

Nothing I haven’t known since I graduated law school and tried to maintain a middle-class living

WSJ: The new ruling class: Government workers and their 45% salary premium. I first stumbled on this truth in, perhaps, 1987, when I first made $60,000 ( I started at the wonderous sum of $22,000 in 1981) and discovered that $20,000 of that was going for taxes. You can’t maintain a family of five, in this area, at that level and also save, and I realized then that there were people running our government determined to keep things that way. It’s only gotten worse since.

Maiden Lane – name origin?

The Fly Market on Maiden Lane

News that a crane crashed into a building on Wall Street’s Maiden Lane stirred me to try to confirm what I’d thought I knew: the street was named in ironic tribute to the street’s reputation, in my Dutch ancestors’ time, as a place of prostitution (we’ve been unsure of our lineage ever since). But no such confirmation is readily at hand. This Wikipedia article hints at it, with its mention of actors (the other illicit side of my family) but nothing more. Brother Anthony? Hiram? Can anyone out there provide the true origin of its name?

Destroy Wall Street in the name of equality?

That seems to be the thrust of the Dodd bill and its supporters. I have no particular affection for Wall Street in its general sense – a bunch of over-paid egoists who pretend they’re creating wealth for the world when truly, they’re just putting money in their own pockets – but I have great faith in capitalism and market forces – get government out of the industry, let real risk/reward penalties apply, and capital will flow accordingly. And I have great respect for the individuals who have responded to the market signals and gone to work in the canyons. My Wall Street friends are incredibly smart, decent people and they’d succeed anywhere. But I’d prefer that neutral, non-political forces steer them, rather than odious politicians. Here’s the opposite take:

The obvious reason to re-regulate finance is to prevent the next crisis or at least to make it less damaging. But there are other potential benefits to reform. Consider what has happened to the American economy over the last three decades. Highly leveraged financial firms became a dominant part of the economy. Their profits allowed the firms to recruit many of the country’s most sought-after employees — mathematicians, scientists, top college graduates and top former government officials. Yet many of those profits turned out to be ephemeral. So some of the best minds were devoted to devising ever-more-complex means of creating money out of thin air, the proceeds of which then drew in even more talent.

A more serious approach to regulation could, if indirectly, have a big impact on this situation. By reducing financial firms’ profits, it could reduce the industry to a smaller and arguably more natural size. Re-regulation could remove some of the subsidies that Wall Street now receives. The cottage industry of hidden fees, ballooning interest rates and other misleading practices could be brought under control. Higher capital requirements and a bank tax could force financial firms to experience the bad times as well as the good. Above all, re-regulation could acknowledge that modern finance brings both benefits and risks.

It is worth remembering that Wall Street’s long boom has not exactly been shared by much of the rest of the American economy. Wage growth for most workers has been painfully slow over the past three decades. Economic growth over the last decade was slower than in any decade since World War II. Surely, one goal of re-regulation should be to loosen Wall Street’s grip on the country’s resources, both financial and human, in the hope that they might be put to more productive use.

So if we dump England and Israel, who do we ally ourselves with?

England declares the “Special Relationship” dead.

NPR reports (no transcript yet) that we’re no longer dealing with Israel as a trusted partner.

So if we’re losing our traditional friends, who does Obama want to be friends with?

A would-be Chavez in Honduras last year.

And, in general, every communist / Islamic dictator in the world.

It’s more likely that Obama is just a tail-wagging, wriggling puppy leftist who wants to be loved by our enemies, rather than a stealthy plotter determined to deliver our country to the slaughter house, but the effect is the same.

As the twig is bent ….

Portland State Graduate student

Portland State University encourages its students to go on Food Stamp relief – “it’s not charity, it’s your right!”. The more wards of the state, the more power to the state – gee, I wonder if they’ve thought of that already?

How much is that Energy Star rating worth? Just about nothing.

EPA Certified!

Boviana Bloviator has a nice take on the latest scandal, the EPA giving its approval to, literally, a space heater with a feather duster added.

Back in the ‘sixties Mad Magazine did a brilliant send-up of the ubiquitous little catalogs from mail-order outfits like Spencer Gifts and Lillian Vernon, which offered crappy, low-cost “gift” items. Mad, exaggerating only slightly, featured a catalog from the “House of Krudd (formerly Krudd Bros. Junk Yard),” peddling such items as the “Bent Coat Hanger Repair Kit: makes a great hobby for the senile and the stupid!” and, my favorite, the “Combination Tire Pump and Lemon Squeezer” which, as an accompanying illustration showed, was just that: a tire pump with a lemon squeezer attached to the handle with masking tape; the catalog copy advised it was “great for campers!” and that you could get it “personalized,” if desired.

All that came flooding back with news from Instapundit concerning bogus items submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency for certification for its “Energy Star” program. One item submitted and approved was a “Feather-Duster Fly-Strip Air Freshener,” which, according to Popular Mechanics, was a “standard space heater spangled in strips of flypaper, with a feather duster perched up top.”

Summoned to Rome by the Emperor

Democrats are furious at the corporations who have taken hundreds of millions (a cool billion, in AT&T’s case) off their books to cover the new requirements of ObamaKare – the play here is that the plan will save money, and anyone who objects to that is a racist hate monger. So Henry Waxman has demanded that the corporate heads come to Washington April 21st where he and his pals will whoop it up for television. If I were one of these guys, I’d tell the Congressman to go fuck himself but if they won’t do that, I hope they’ll at least ask Nancy Pelosi if they can borrow her jet.

Dang! I’m still out of luck, until they prefer just plain butt-ugly

WSJ: Women in richer countries prefer less masculine men.

UPDATE: Golf struggles to discover its feminine side