This ought to get their attention

$22 million award for man held in solitary for 2 years after DWI arrest. Dona Ana County in New Mexico did it and they’re on the hook. Judging from appearances the last time I was in that county, this could bankrupt them. Seems like it serves them right. President Barry Obama was unavailable for comment, having flown to Guantanamo Bay to attend a fund raiser.

Indiana moves to restore its manufacturing base

 

No union for you!

House passes right-to-work law,  Senate expected to follow.

Clash of the eco-nuts

Don't blame me!

A reader sends along this story: Woman claims neighbor’s solar windows are melting her Prius.

Warren Buffet’s secretary makes at least $357,000 per year

That’s what she seems to be admitting. Nothing wrong with success, of course, but if the lady is really part of the 1% she shouldn’t be serving as a symbol of the downtrodden at the State of the Union address, she should be down with her fellow 1%, the senators.

Yeah, I do

From James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” column:

All right, one quick word about the SOTU substance. Look at this passage:

In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many [federally funded] construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

“The money we’re no longer spending at war” is a fiction. It is money that has never been collected or borrowed and won’t have to be because there is (touch wood) no war to fight. It’s like a wife demanding that her husband buy her an expensive gift with the money she saved by not buying herself something even more expensive. Does Obama really think Americans foolish enough to fall for this?

Would your government lie to you?

Without a leg to stand on

Sure, every day in every way. Here’s the latest from Bloomberg’s nanny state – it really went out on a limb with this ad depicting a sorrowful, diabetic,  fat amputee, but there’s a  problem: they’ve Photoshopped his limb away.  Hey, it’s all for the greater good so then it’s okay, right?

UPDATE: Oh, the few liberals who read this blog just make things so goddamned easy. Here’s JRH, confirming what I just said: if it’s for the greater good, anything goes. These guys like the TSA too, but that’s another story.

JRH. Not sure why public health campaigns bother you. You’re not making an argument here against a policy limiting citizens’ ability to consume soft drinks. This is a campaign to get people to drink fewer sugary beverages, which indisputably do lead to diabetes — a higher incidence of which indisputably strains the Medicaid and Medicare budgets that are already like a vice grip on the state’s fiscal health. So, the problem exactly is…?

Sale price reported

156 Taconic Road has sold for $1.6 million. Not bad for four acres of land (there is a house on it but the listing writes about building new so I assume the house isn’t worth anything. Looks okay to me, though.) but a come down from its 2009 asking price of $3.2 million. Why put your house up for sale at twice its value and then wait 2 1/2 years to move on with your life? Makes no sense, to me.

Remember, children, the poor have their troubles as well as the rich

Whoops! Dropped it.

Santana Moss’s $5.2 million home is in foreclosure. The guy just re-upped with the Redskins for $15 million, so I’d say he needs better financial advice. That, or Florida is one of those “walk-away” states, and he’s just tired of the place.

Does a new kitchen sell a house? We’ll find out

The sales history of 82 Halsey Drive in Havemeyer reflects what’s happened to the Greenwich market over the past few years. It sold for $815,000 in 2004, then sold again for $877,000 just a year later in 2005. In January ’09 it was again put up for sale, this time at $937,000 but the bloom was off that particular rose and it failed to sell. The owners tried again in early 2011 with a lower price of $895,000 and eventually dropped it to $849,000, without success. Now they’re back at $915,000 but with a brand new kitchen that looks very nice. Will that do the trick? I don’t know but Halsey is a nifty street and certainly a new kitchen is a lot more welcoming than an old beat up one. I’m guessing that the kitchen will at least help the house sell this time, even if not at the full new asking price – sometimes, even if you don’t get your money back on a renovation it produces a sale instead of nothing and that, after all, is the whole point of this exercise.

 

East Haven holds no monoply on stupidity

That's right, dress like me!

Elle columnist: The Obamas clean up good and have taught blacks how to dress like proper white folks. She meant that as a compliment, apparently.

Aw hell, I think it’s kind of funny

Who among us does not like a Chavez snack?

An outraged reader sends along this link to a story about East Haven’s mayor who, when asked yesterday what he “planned to do to help the city’s Latino community today?” said, “well, I might go home and eat tacos”. Now, the question was prompted by the FBI’s arrest earlier that morning of three East Haven cops for systematically violating the civil rights of Latinos by arresting and harassing them – a years-long pattern of behavior, according to the feds. Well screw those cops – if they did what’s alleged, and the evidence, at least as reported by the news, seems strong – then they should be hung out to dry.

But eating tacos might be a sensible response to the question. Tacos are delicious, after all, and what the heck else should he do? It’s the federal government’s lookout now. Still, he probably should have moved up the Cinco de Mayo celebration to this weekend, or something.

$12.550 million building lot in Byram?

81 Byram Shore Road has resurfaced, now with just 1.24 acres and thus without the building lot next door, and is asking $5.250 million. In 2008 the full 2.7 acres, with house, was listed for $17.8 million. I guess that means the land adjoining 81 is worth $12.5 million. Or it was grossly overpriced to begin with, you think?

Same as the New York Times. Coincidence? I think not

Going for the same constituency. Obummer’s SOU speech was set at an Eighth Grade reading level, third lowest score in the history of the speech (did Andrew Jackson ever give one? It’d be lower).  Not surprisingly, the New York Times sets its own writing at the same grade level although the editorial page is for Fourth Grade and below.

You know it’s true because the government said so

Department of Education admits that its study on repayment of student loans comparing whites vs. blacks  was flawed: it failed to include black folks in its data.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Education has acknowledged using flawed data in  a study on the impact of race on student loan repayment rates, having omitted  black students from its calculation. The analysis was conducted during the  debate over gainful employment regulations, in response to complaints that the  rules would hurt colleges that enroll relatively high percentages of minority  students.

You only wish you could make this stuff up.

Here’s a house that should be torn down before it’s finished

Sorry, Mr. Soprano has moved out

With the recent discussion of old estate houses being torn down by newcomer-barbarians, some thought might be given to the houses these same people are building. Yesterday I glanced down a very long driveway off Round Hill near Sabine Farms and saw, with the leaves down, a new house under construction that is replacing what was there. And to be honest, there wasn’t much there before: a mid-60’s contemporary by a local architect (whose name I forget – his was forgettable work) so who cares?

But what’s going up is one of those pseudo-French Normandy castle affairs, the likes of which I’d thought Greenwich had seen the last of when Gary Flyer fled to Europe in the ’80’s, leaving his creditors and his half-finished collection of building projects behind. No such luck, apparently, and I’ve seen this horrible idea resurgent all over town. We’re looking more and more like the suburbs of New Jersey and Westchester which, while doubtless is soothingly reassuring to former denizens of those areas who are now here, is hardly an improvement to our limited architectural stock.

Whacky Nowacki gets whapped

Greenwich Time photo

Nut job from New Canaan defends himself, is convicted. The amazing thing is, the jury deliberated for a full day.

Last week Nowacki, who had no trial experience before starting the trial, put himself on the stand for five hours asking himself questions as his attorney and then answering them as the defendant.

For part of the marathon direct examination of himself, Nowacki stood in the witness box to ask a question and would sit down to give the answer, calling to mind for some the courtroom scene of Woody Allen’s movie “Bananas” where Allen runs from the witness box back to the defense attorney’s table to question himself during a scene of the movie.

At times, when his rhythm was interrupted by Hudock’s frequent — at times constant — rulings that his questions had no relevance to the trial at hand and instructions to the jury to disregard, Nowacki would sit to ask the question and then stand while nearly yelling his answers into the witness box microphone.

Frequently, Nowacki would address himself in the third-person saying, “Mr. Nowacki, would you please tell the court…”

At one point while trying to steer Nowacki into a relevant line of questioning, Hudock said, “Mr. Nowacki, would you please ask Mr. Nowacki another question.”

 

Our Golfer in Chief pretends to be President so why shouldn’t he pretend to deliver a new speech?

Three years of blather, nothing accomplished (besides his ever-growing penchant for inserting the federal government into every human activity he, or his minions, can think of).

 

Don’t buy in fringe areas

And Hamilton Avenue is a fringe area, regardless of what your agent may have told you back then. This condo at 101 Hamilton Avenue is for sale for $775,900 and yes, it’s a short sale. Sellers paid $815,000 in 2002 and some dumb bank loaned $975,000 on it a few years back. Is it worth what the bank’s asking? Ask the owners – they obviously don’t want it at this price.

Riverside test case

(Architect rendering)

A house under construction at 16 Hendrie Avenue in Riverside has raised its price to $4.150 million; will it fetch that? There have certainly been sales in this price range on Hendrie Avenue before, including the house next door to this one and one across the street, number 17, put up by the same builder, that sold for $3.3  in ’05 but was resold for $3.775 in ’07.

But the most recent sale, at that part of Hendrie that overlooks Binney park, sold for just $3.3 million in 2010, down from its hoped-for price of $4.3. Has the market rebounded? We’ll see. Personally, I can’t imagine paying anything like this much money to live on busy Hendrie Avenue but I’m not buying houses right now.

We do this here, we’d cut our welfare rolls in half

Can we still get our Food Stamps?

From Ireland (and my brother’s email) comes this bit of welfare reform: Recipients are banned from the dole office while wearing pajamas.