Sun Myung Moon dead at 92

 

Time’s up!

Always good for a laugh, but what wasn’t so funny was the government imprisoning him for 18 months after a conviction for failing to pay an $8,000 tax bill. If an annoying personality and megalomania justifies the full weight of the government crushing an individual, watch out, John Travolta, beware, Barry.

The boys in the bubble

 

Iowans for change

Obummer lands in Sioux City Iowa and is undaunted by cold welcome.

This time around, the president’s campaign believes it can turn the Sioux City region blue by appealing to middle class values and highlighting the administration’s record of tax cuts for small businesses and families.

What “middle class values” do you suppose Obama will be appealing to? The elimination of a workfare requirement for welfare recipients? Gay marriage? Amnesty for illegals? Expanded food stamps? Corporate bailouts for favored friends? A carbon tax that will cost every “middle class” family $3,000 per year? The degradation of our military power?

Obama and his advisors probably think that Clint Eastwood’s empty chair routine was , to quote the major media, “bizarre” and didn’t speak to all non-coastal Americans. I’m beginning to smell a major upset, one unpredicted by the press because they simply don’t get it. Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones?

Despite your suspicions, this really does happen, all the time

Greenwich Realtor explains the game

A client of mine has been eying a beautiful but overpriced house for the past couple of the years but she never took the initial step of viewing it, and why should she? It remained overpriced. It finally dropped down a couple of million and was at least in the reasonable range but still, no activity.

So last week, the call came: “let’s go see it” – I called to make an appointment and learned that just the day before the owners had accepted one offer and had a backup offer behind that. What are the odds, no interest for nearly three years and then three interested buyers in one week?

In my experience, the odds are pretty good. This particular house happens to be near the New York border and when I asked, I learned that Westchester tax bills were just sent out; that undoubtedly was the final straw for this group of buyers, but I’ve witnessed the same phenomenon occur in all parts of town. It’s not a conspiracy between brokers, it’s just one of those weird things that happen in real estate.

So the moral is, just because a house has sat forever, unloved, don’t assume no one else is watching it: sometimes, they are.

What’s a whole-house generator cost?

 

Post apocalypse living, Greenwich

Figure $10,000, according to this article from last year (published in the Courant right after the latest power outage, or outrage). The article uses normal houses and non-Greenwich prices in its estimates so you’ll probably have to quadruple the cost down here but it’s still a good summary of the various costs you’ll incur and who you’ll have to hire.

The WSJ discovers (a mythical) Cos Cob

Vocational training, Cos Cob School

Reader 2112, who wisely prefers to remain otherwise-anonymous, sends along this link to a WSJ article on the joys of Cos Cob.

Residents of Cos Cob, which stretches along the Mianus River, enjoy the rustic qualities of their neighborhood, where wild turkeys, deer, fox and coyotes might roam [they might if they hadn’t been turned into cacciatore – Ed], particularly in the northern section, where the lot sizes are larger. But they also prize their tightknit community, with smaller yards and closer quarters than those in some other areas of Greenwich. Cos Cob also has its own library and post office as well as a quaint commercial strip on East Putnam Avenue, lined with a mixture of long-standing mom-and-pop stores and chain establishments.

“It’s a happy medium,” says Renee Gallagher, co-founder of Round Hill Partners, a Greenwich real-estate firm. “You can walk to things in Cos Cob—in Greenwich proper you only have a couple of places to walk.”

Hmm – fine dining provided by Chicken Joe’s Grease Pit and the enormous selection of snacks at CVS, a “quaint commercial strip” comprised of a liquor shoppe, a vacuum cleaner store and a defunct barber joint and, of course, sixteen banks. I’m also not aware that Renee has been in Cos Cob since 1968, when she dropped her son Graham off at a Midget League game on Bible Street, and she probably doesn’t know that residents there walk instead of drive because their donkeys all succumbed to hoof-and-mouth disease years ago. But whatever: this is a good article to remind us all that, when reading a reporter’s coverage of something you actually know about, take the time to reflect on how much they must be getting wrong about subjects you aren’t familiar with.

If Malloy is going to spend our money to make us think better of him, I can think of better ways

Here to serve you: your government at work

Malloy orders state agencies to churn out massive public relations campaign to improve his image.

With Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy’s approval rating steadily below 50 percent in polls, he and his lieutenants have embarked on an unusual media-management effort — directing dozens of officials to produce “communications plans” to put out a steady stream of positive news.

The administration says this is an effort to help the public understand why further improvements in government operations are needed and not merely a political plan to polish up Malloy’s image for the 2014 election campaign.

But not everyone is buying that.

Documents obtained by The Courant under the Freedom of Information Act show that in recent months, a lot of time and effort by state employees has been put into an initiative to convince taxpayers that they are being well served.

Having spent a good portion of my summer standing in line at the DMV and thus having the opportunity to speak with many of my fellow oppressed citizens, I think that the most effective thing Malloy could do for his image is to reform and clean up the DMV, which is the only face of government most of us see. Imagine, Dannel, if one of your subjects could suddenly walk into DMV and be met by helpful, courteous employees, short lines and a computerized record system that was accurate and up to date, allowing him to transact his business and leave, all within, say, a half-hour. Such a wondrous experience would, I promise you, convert tens of thousands of government-haters into Malloy fans and could perhaps even convince them that government can work for them, not serve merely as a full-employment service for low-intelligence, lazy beneficiaries of political patronage.

Can’t be done? Oh pshaw – imagine if two private companies were competing with each other and trying to make a profit running the DMV – the one that alienated its customer base and left everyone who came in contact with it loathing the company and its employees would be out of business within the year. Only a state monopoly could survive such a business plan; Connecticut is pushing that model to the breaking point.

Keep your state agencies busy doing something else, Dannel, or, better, send them home, and turn your attention to making the DMV work. Don’t tell us government works, show us. You’ll see a bang for your buck beyond your wildest dreams.

Bowel game over, movement at last?

FDA approves constipation drug.