My new favorite country

 

From the grave to you, assholes!

Zambia won’t arrest former President Bush  (or Chaney either, I’m guessing)

Zambia will not arrest former US president George W. Bush during his African tour for violating international torture laws, the foreign minister said Saturday.

Rights group Amnesty International had Thursday urged Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia to arrest Bush during the five-day tour to promote efforts to fight diseases like cancer, AIDS and malaria.

“On what basis does Amnesty International want us to arrest Mr Bush? Tell them to hang, and also please ask them to create their own country and wait for Mr Bush to visit their country so that they can arrest him to suit their wish and not here in Zambia,” Foreign Minister Chishimba Kambwili told AFP.

Next you’ll tell me there’s gambling at Rick’s Cafe

 

Your winnings, sir, and there's a little boy waiting for you upstairs

Pedophilia rampant in Hollywood

Anyone wanna pitch in and buy the broad a pizza?

Power to the People, right on!

Darien “Occupier” (you’ve got to be kidding me) arrested for blocking traffic.

Home for the holidays?

Sixty-five Hunting Ridge, asking $10.750 million, has been withdrawn from the market. I’m guessing that like many homeowners, they don’t want their Christmas disturbed, but at this price range, how many buyers could they expect? Of course, it’s always possible that they’ve pulled it to regroup and reconsider their pricing strategy.

This looks like a fantastic house: 11,000 sq. ft., some of that surely buried, six acres, pool, tennis court and the works, but 2011 may not be the right time to break the price record on Hunting Ridge. Two very similar houses, built more recently than this one (2003-2005 vs. 1997) sold for $6.650 (’04) and $9 million (’06) but that was then, this is now. In fact, I doubt the $9 million house at 111 Hunting Ridge would fetch that sum today. So $10.750 may be exceeding the owner’s grasp, but what’s a heaven for, and all that?

Too cold for mortar to set, Cos Cob prepares for its next cash crop

Franklin Bloomer's ready

Peter Tesei sends out Grand Pa and his walker

Yankee go home

I want my MTV!

Big oil retreats from the Middle East and South America. Exxon to Saudis: pound sand. Now if we can just defeat Obummer, we’ll be on our way.

Big Oil is redrawing the energy map.

For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers.

And the change is reshaping the oil companies themselves, as they reallocate their vast resources to new areas and new kinds of fuel. Working in the rich world—with its more predictable taxes and investor-friendly policies—removes some of the risks about the big oil companies that worry investors, making them less vulnerable to the resource nationalism of petrostates like Russia and Venezuela.

“A company like Exxon Mobil can eliminate the technological risk” of developing unconventionals, says Amy Myers Jaffe, senior energy adviser at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “But it can’t eliminate the risk of a Vladimir Putin or a Hugo Chavez.”

I was just thinking, what this country needs is another dirty presidential campaign

Ask me about tuna packing!

Pelosi vows to pitch dirt at Gingrich “when the time is right”. For the queen of taxpayer jets, congressional sweetheart deals and just general dumbness, you wonder why she’d dare.

As previously noted, the best of the rest are beginning to shuffle off the stage

8 Hobart Drive

As the end of the year approaches, the best of the heretofore unwanted inventory is being plucked off at substantial discounts from their original asking prices. Eight Hobart Drive is reported as under contract today, with its last asking price set at $4.199. It probably is selling for less than that (records show that Summit Development paid Patriot Bank $3,963,590 for it in March of this year, so Patriot isn’t the only one to take a bath on this place). In 2008 its spec builder demanded $7.8 and isn’t he sorry now. Very well designed house but a postage stamp of a yard and it was never, ever going to fetch what the builder thought it should. Foreclosure, like one’s own hanging in a fortnight, tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully.

I mentioned last week that Summit unloaded another Patriot failure, 39 Boulder Brook, which was originally priced at $8.595 million.  Final asking price? $3.999.

83 Perkins, more of a land sale than residential (i.e., a teardown graces the property) dropped from $3.4 million in antediluvian days to $2.595 and has a contract.

And so it goes. I do warn my clients that, just because a house has sat unloved forever doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t want it too. My advice is to toss out an offer after a house has languished but before that drastic price cut that will bring out competitive buyers.There’s some fine timing involved, guessing when the seller is sick of a property and is ready to accept a reasonable, albeit cut-throat price, and when he’s still standing fast. Often these bids are met with a rude response but as I’ve mentioned here before, that always leaves the satisfaction of a year or three later watching the silly fool go down in flames. 8 Hobart being a perfect example, 20 Herron Vue being another.

New Listing

55 Hillside Rd

55 Hillside Road is back up for sale asking $2.850. The buyers paid $3 million for it in 2005 – in a bidding war, which is ironic because when we at Round Hill Partners had it at $2.895 we just couldn’t move it – sooner a later a buyer -buyers, in this case,  will appear. Usually.

Hillside Road is not a popular street because of the High School but this house is set way back on an acre and a half and I, at least, was never bothered by noise when I was there. It’s very nice inside and has a good back yard, with pool.

Here’s a decent house

22 Pond Place

Yes, it’s in dreaded Cos Cob (did you know that I sold the most expensive house in Cos Cob this year? As I hope you’ve figured out, railing on Cos Cob is just a running joke of mine with Cos Cobber) but Pond Place is a good, quite street in a good location and at $875,000, this house is priced well – around 2001 level, I’d estimate. I’d be tempted to negotiate its price a bit because it makes no mention of having been updated since it was built in 1959 but the pictures (open house is Thursday)  show a house in good, well maintained condition and the late owner (disclosure – her son was a friend of mine way back when we went to Eastern) was not the type to let things run down. If this is in your price range, I would definitely give it consideration.

Friends of Dodd

Friends of Angelo (Barney Frank and pal are bent over, out of sight)

Not much of a surprise, but a Countrywide executive was on 60 Minutes last night, telling all. Angelo disgorged $67 million of his ill-gotten gains ($470 million admitted to, who knows how much really), lied under oath to Congress and is enjoying life, free from worry. For a list of his friends, check out Wikipedia. Everyone’s there, from Barney and Chris to Republicans, Democrats and half the staff of Fannie Mae.

That statement is no longer operative, II

After “categorically denying” it on Saturday, the TSA now admits its agents strip searched an old lady. It’s not just the billions wasted on these petty dictators that bothers me, it’s the false sense of security they give to the unwashed public. The TSA is both worthless and dangerous and should be eliminated.

And the battle resumes

 

I smell a fat wallet!

Obama to formally declare class warfare today, citing TR as his model. I find much to admire in Theodore Roosevelt.  Obama? Not so much. Where’s Dan Quayle?

Who’ll notice?

Checking his email

Going postal down in Washington – USPS announces that mail delivery will be (even) slower in 2012. I can’t remember the last time I mailed a letter.