Selling it

White House state dinner crammed with top Obummer campaign donors. It’s not about the United States, it’s about Hussein and his squeeze Michelle. Michelle gets the vacations around the world and half-million dollar shopping sprees, Hussein sells off the White House in exchange for truckloads of cash. Hey, I’m a libertarian – someone wants to operate a bordello, go for it. Probably shouldn’t use property owned by the taxpayers to do it, though.

If they weren’t busy making up silly quizzes they could attend to real stories

Beats swabbing toilets for 150 years

Inagua sends along this link to the New York Post’s latest scoop on Ruth Madoff’s new life in Old Greenwich – she takes out the trash! Must we really rely on New York City reporters to cover this story-that-must-be-told?

Silly, but pretty accurate

Our local rag has a 33-picture essay entitled “You Know You’re From Greenwich If …” Against my better judgement I started clicking through and with just a few exceptions  – I don’t own a jet, and was thrown out of prep school before they could establish a rowing team – it’s close to spot on. Drinking in Port Chester at 15? Check. Shuffleboard at Bruce Park bar and Grill? Check, or at least I think so – usually stopped off there after Port Chester so who can really say? Look both ways when crossing the Avenue?Only occasionally now, but I did for years after it went one-way. Know Baba Booey (who is not from Greenwich)? We’ve emailed each other (he’s a reader!).

I do believe the jet ownership, the “popped collars”, whatever they are and a couple of other categories reflect “new” Greenwich, not “old”, and they left out, “had sex with Tina Pray” but it’s otherwise fairly complete and offers a harmless, fun little romp. Get out your seersucker and give it a try.

A reporter’s responsibilities

I demand a job at Goldman Sachs!

Does the Hartford  Courant owe its readers a duty to check the back story of people it quotes? I’m thinking, of course, of the bit of dirt I dug up today on a Mr. Edward Culligan, who the Courant merely identifies as  “one of the protesters” before proceeding to give him a paragraph of fame. It took less than a minute for me to Google the guy and discover that he’s a convicted child molester, living across the street from the New Haven Green. The Courant could have done the same thing and, had they added that bit of color it would have provided readers with a better insight into who some of these demonstrators are and what their goals are.

So far, the press has treated the Occupy group as representative of some amorphous class of deserving poor folk, yet every time you dig into their individual stories you find rapists, drug addicts, drunks and unemployable college graduates with degrees in Women’s Studies. I suspect the press has done the same investigation I’ve done and came up with the same results and hence its silence.

You have to pass it to know what’s in it

That much?!!

ObummerKare now estimated by CBO to cost $1.76 trillion dollars, twice the amount projected.

A cult of personality

But at Demerkrat headquarters in Florida, not Peking.

Still waiting

I keep hearing about sales activities and as I’ve said, I’ve run into a couple of pending accepted offers myself but another day has ended with nothing to report: two A/Os, one that asked $1.150 million and will almost certainly sell for the less and the other asking $645,000. I hope this isn’t a case of “wait’ll next year”.

This isn’t all that complicated, unless you make it so

Ho hum, another price cut for that old Belle Haven listing at 98 Glenwood Drive. This place has been looking for a buyer since May, 2007, when its broker put it on the market at $16.8 million. Even I could figure out that $17 million for a dated house overlooking the Belle Haven parking lot and its scrap of (noisy) beach was just laugh-out-loud stupid but no one asked me, they asked the market. And boy, did the market answer. So now, five years, 1,741 days, twelve price “adjustments” and three brokers later, it’s been cut to $8.995 million. Had the house started at that price back when there was still a demand for houses in this price range it might at least have received an offer. As it is, the listing looks old and stale. That’s not an inducement that will spark a buyer’s interest.

Occupy New Haven celebrates Ladies Day on the Green

Occupy New Haven Designated Rapist Edward Culligan

Just one day after an Occupier is arrested for raping a fellow “demonstrator”, Federal Judge Janet Hall has ruled that the entire unsavory mob is engaging in protected speech, if not protected sex.

Child rapist and Occupy New Haven spokesman Edward Culligan is delighted.

“I think this is awesome,” said Ed Culligan, 45, one of the Occupiers, who were planning a march through downtown for later Wednesday. “I knew this was going to happen…I just had a gut feeling.”

UPDATE: I googled “rapes at Occupy encampments” and discovered a plethora of incidents. And of course, the obligatory denunciations of such stories as lies invented by Andrew Breitbart and the right. Don’t confuse them with the facts when there’s a vast, right-wing conspiracy to track down!

UPDATE II: Another Occupy camper interviewed by the Hartford Courant was one Roger William Card III, of West Haven. Mr. Card is an unemployed  vocational school graduate whose skills are limited to operating trucks and fork lifts and thus unlikely to be qualified for one of those high-paying Wall Street jobs he’s demanding (although there is, as of today, an opening at Goldman Sachs). But I find it curious that he’s been able to camp on the New Haven Green since October 15th. I am convinced to a moral certainty that the guy’s collecting unemployment payments, thus forcing those with jobs to endow his vacation, but I’d like to see proof that he is actively seeking work, as required by the Unemployment relief laws. Book ’em, Danno.

Remember when I suggested that we lay down a Slip and Slide in Byram and call it quits? Looks smarter every day

Peter Tesei Memorial Pool

DOJ now demands fixed elevators for public pools.

Pool owners claim they were led to believe that, as long as they had one device that could be wheeled out whenever someone needed help getting into or out of a pool or spa, there would be no need intrusive permanent fixtures.

But then industry leaders began hearing rumors last year that Obama’s DOJ would require permanently fixed lifts for each pool and spa. They began to write letters to DOJ asking for clarification on the issue.

On Jan. 31 of this year, DOJ granted the industry’s call for a clarification: But it was not the answer they wanted. All 300,000 public pools in the United States must install a permanent fixed lift. The deadline for compliance is tomorrow, March 15. Call it “Poolmageddon.”

There is no way all 300,000 pools can install permanent lifts by Thursday. There simply are not enough lifts in existence or enough people who know how to install them, according to industry spokesmen. Plus, each lift costs between $3,000 and $10,000 and installation can add $5,000 to $10,000 to the total.

So what happens tomorrow when a disabled individual checks into a Holiday Inn and finds no lift at the pool? The Obama DOJ has said it will not be enforcing the new guidelines right away. That means no fines from the government, for now.

But the ADA also empowered citizens to sue businesses that are not in compliance with DOJ guidelines. The result will be a huge payday for enterprising trial lawyers everywhere.

“The enforcement is going to be by litigation,” said Kevin Maher, senior vice president of governmental affairs for the American Hotel & Lodging Association. “A lot of drive-by lawsuits against business by law firms that are set up file to file spurious ADA claims.”

These firms “often file lawsuits against every business in the community. A lot of times they are not even looking for businesses to comply with the ADA, they are just looking for a quick cash settlement to go away,” Maher explained.

By the way, trial lawyers gave President Obama more than $45 million in 2008.

A Slip and Slide laid on the grass also won’t disturb toxic soils, leaving us more money to spend on the high school Performing Palace.

Why should New York politicians be any better than our national ones?

Kicking the can down the road, the New Yorkers have rejected their fellow Democrat Cuomo’s pension reform proposals.

The Assembly refused Cuomo’s suggestion to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 even though the governor stressed that his plan would save hundreds of billions of dollars in costs toward a pension plan expected to consume 35 percent of the government’s budget by 2015. In 2001, it was 3 percent.

This pathetic performance is being repeated in all 57 states and in Washington, where last year during all that talk about deficit reduction, Congressmen proposed an additional trillion dollars in new spending. Social Security and Medicare payments are projected to consume 70% of all federal spending in 2030 and if you think that something will be done about that before then, you haven’t been paying attention.

UPDATE: This article, penned in 1995, says entitlement payments will consume 100% of all federal spending by 2030.

Still not much reported but …

There is more activity out there than has been reported so far. This morning I put in two offers, two different clients, two different properties, and was informed that each had “pending” offers – that’s not quite an accepted offer but if I hit two out of two, it’s certain that larger firms are encountering the same thing. Look for a bunch of reported activity either by the end of this week or the beginning of next, is my prediction.

Clown college?

On the other hand, one property that just won’t sell is the behemoth at 309 Taconic, 22,000 sq. feet of eclecto-European-contemporary on 23 acres. Owner tried $31 million in 2006, sold off 7 acres and dropped the price to $25 million to no avail. Since then he’s tried public auction (all three of the bidders’ checks bounced), price drops, free popcorn and soda, etc., but no one seems to want all this house, all this land, on the eastern side of town. How’s that?

In any event, it’s still available and as of today, it’s asking $9.750. It’s possible that someone will want this castle at some price – it really is a fun place, but it’s also possible that it will eventually sell for land value, be scraped off the face of the earth and its buyer will start again. Keep posted.

One A/O so far this morning, on Linwood Ave

6 Linwood

6 Linwood Avenue in Riverside started at $1.395 million in April of 2011, dropped to $1.150 this past February and has a buyer or at least an accepted offer. I like Linwood – low traffic street in the Dundee and Eastern school district and some small, but charming houses. This one was expanded/renovated in 2010 to 2,524 sq. ft – an original one next door, #8, still at 1,624 sq.ft. sold for $1.115 milliopn ($5,000 over ask) in 2006, but that was a different market. I sold a bigger, newer and, I think nicer house just up from this one in 2010 for, if I remember correctly, $1.165, which wasn’t reported on our MLS because it was a bank owned property and was never listed.

If they’re paying something a bit below this one’s asking price, I think the buyers will have made a reasonable bargain.

Joe Biden: speaking truth to power

On the Chesapeake

“Stand up, middle class, and let’s have a look at you!”

Vice President Joe Biden addressed 87 wealthy Democrats last night attending a fundraiser at the home of Sen. John Kerry in Georgetown. As they dined on grass-fed New York strip steaks and white truffle mashed potatoes underneath an outdoor tent, Biden criticized Republicans for being out of touch.
“These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there,” Biden said according to the pool report, “They don’t know what it means to be middle class.”
87 guests paid a minimum of $10,000-per-couple to attend the dinner.

Say what you will about the Italians, at least they aren’t blind

 

Ralph Nader visits the old homestead

Fiat looks at future of the electric car in America and pulls the plug

We could have a huge fleet of super-efficient diesels in this country by now if the Greens hadn’t fought so hard for two decades to prevent diesel and natural gas from being used to power cars. “We want propeller beanies!”

Of course, we’d also have a lot more oil if, ten years ago, the Greenies and their Democrat allies hadn’t prevented that by claiming, “it’ll take ten years for it to make a difference, so why start?” Ten years on, oil production still stalled, how’d that work out?