Lies, damned lies, Democrat politicians

I just pulled those numbers out of my ass

Up in Hartford, hysterical Democrats are whooping up the lies to justify banning guns. Here’s just one of them, from Beth Bye, D., West Hartford:

“She said that in the weeks since the new Congress convened in January, 3,754 children have been shot in the United States.”

Uh huh.

According to this anti-gun site, 45 children have been killed by guns since Newtown, and none in Connecticut.

According to USA Today, 110 children were killed by guns in 2010.    (181 were killed in DUI car crashes, just for bit of perspective – no concern from Bye on that one)

If the 2010 death toll holds true for this year, 22 children should have been killed by this, the 75th day of the year. But Beth Bye states that 3,754 have already been killed – really?That would make the year’s toll 18,770 children, almost twice the number (11,000) of all people of all ages killed in an average year. My GOD, what has happened?

Just once, I wish a reporter would question a statistic invented by a politician.

Betsy Warren hits the warpath and demonstrates, again, that she’s an idiot

 

The dunce stool is right over there, lady

“Why not a $22 per hour minimum wage? “she demands. This Harvard affirmative action hire (balances nicely with a Harvard affirmative action student we know) points out that average worker productivity has increased since 1960 and the minimum wage should match that figure and rise to $22. “Where’d that money go?” she asks in befuddlement.

Well let’s try to help the lady out. First of all, while the “average worker’s” productivity has risen, minimum wage employees are not average – in fact, they’re the lowest, most unskilled labor in the workforce. Second, one of the reasons productivity has increased is that as the cost of unskilled labor rose, the ranks of those expensive idiots were replaced by smarter, cheaper machines. Every notch upwards in the cost of a floor sweeper encourages further substitution.

The hope for minimum wage workers is that they will learn skills and good work habits and become valuable enough to their employers to merit a real wage. When deprived of that opportunity because they’re too expensive to hire: cost of minimum wage, $12,000 health insurance policies, paid sick leave, you name it, liberals have piled it on, then they remain unemployed. Why do black teenagers suffer from a 50% unemployment rate? Because almost all of them are illiterate and offer little to no value to an employer. Elizabeth Warren says that the answer to this is to raise their wages 300%, though she doesn’t explain why a $100 wage wouldn’t be even better.

Harvard should be ashamed.

Two sales

12 Salem Street, Cos Cob, $835,000 and a bidding war for 4 Gisborne Place, OG, asked $1.775 million, got $1,810,555.

12 Salem Street

12 Salem tried for $1.249 in 2008, $1.149 in 2009 and finally must have gotten tired of the place because it was listed in 2012 at $895,000, and sold.

4 Gisborne Place

4 Gisborne was purchased for $1.915 million in 2006, so we’re not necessarily back from the highs of five years ago, but getting closer. The owners listed it without success in 2008 for $2,065,000, tried again in 2010 at $1.875, rented it out ($7,500) for a couple of years and brought it back now at $1.775, with the results you see here.

Not much of a house (not a bad house, just bland and average builder quality) but then, there’s not much for sale these days.

Another defeat for Bloomberg

 

Damn

Judge approves sale of Twinkies.

Shameless

Seven Marines dead in training accident, Harry Reid blames sequestration. Tar and feather him, drag him out of town. Or hire a hit man Easter Bunny.

He’d surely be welcome in the current administration

French minister in charge of catching tax cheats fired when his secret Swiss bank account is discovered.

The value of a pool in winter

 

 

Bidding war, here we come!

WSJ reports on a study that shows buyers pay more for a house with a pool in August, less in January.

Another mystery of human behavior: Home buyers will pay a premium for a house with a swimming pool in August—even though soon it may be too chilly to sit poolside.

“When it is sweltering outside, a swimming pool just looks attractive. There’s an emotional connection because it reminds us of fun times we have in the summer,” says Jaren Pope, assistant professor of economics at Brigham Young University.

When swimming-pool homes go into contract in the summer, they sell for an average 0.22 percentage points more than the base-line price determined by researchers. For a $1 million house, summer adds roughly a $4,000 premium.

In just a couple of months, however, “the home buyer is left scratching his head and wondering why he paid extra for a pool,” he says. Conversely, a swimming-pool home that goes into contract in January sells for 0.15 percentage points below the researchers’ base line.

Jim Getzinger, a real-estate agent with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, says he sees an uptick in interest in homes with pools in the summer.

It’s probably a different look in Atlanta

During winter months, sellers need to pay extra attention to make the pool look appealing, he says. He advises sellers to keep pools as clean as possible and set up cushions and décor “even if it’s 20 degrees.” He also recommends dressing up a pool area with Christmas lights and heaters to draw attention. “A pool can look just as attractive in the winter on a clear, cold day if you put the right elements out there to enhance it,” he says.

Not much going on on this snowy day

584 Riversville, clouds by Sotheby’s

Open houses were pretty much cancelled, though the intrepid Heather Platt held one for 584 Riversville Road. Last renovated in 1983 so you can figure that out, but asking just $1.525 – whaddaya want? Some wetlands but there is a yard, plus privacy and a useful layout for a ranch. Your call.

35 Shore Road

One sale reported, 35 Shore Road, Old Greenwich, $2.550 million. New construction that started off asking $2.995, I’d thought that $2.45 or $2.5 might take this because its builder had another unsold one next door. $2.550 is close enough, and a reasonable deal for a well-built but small house on this crowded road. Worked for someone.

50 Indian Head

50 Indian Head Road, Riverside, is a new listing, brought on at $4.1 million. Pretty much the same house, 21 Indian Head – 1930s, recently renovated, blah blah blah, just sold for $3.750 million so this one, with 0.7 acre vs. 0.5, pool vs. no pool, would seem to be in the ballpark.

Don’t send him off for sensitivity retraining

So what’s in the package, big guy?

Disband the entire TSA instead. Active duty, double-amputee Marine forced to remove both prosthetic legs by TSA agent.

“Security Administration inspectors forced a wounded Marine who lost both of his legs in an IED blast and who was in a wheelchair to remove his prosthetic legs at one point, and at another point to stand painfully on his legs while his wheelchair was examined, according to a complaint a congressman has registered with the TSA.

Rep. Duncan Hunter said in his letter Monday that the Marine, who is still on active duty and showed TSA agents his military identification, was still forced to undergo that scrutiny.

“A TSA office asked the Marine to stand and walk to an alternate area, despite the fact that he physically could not stand or walk on his own. With numerous TSA officers sitting and unwilling to assist, an officer then made him remove his legs, then put them back on, only to advance to a secondary screening location where he was asked again to stand, with extraordinary difficulty, while his wheelchair was examined for explosives,” Mr. Hunter said.”

In the panic following 9/11 politicians created a goon squad of ignorant bullies who delight in harassing their fellow citizens while contributing exactly nothing to airline security. Fire the lot, hire the Israelis to devise a real screening process and apply the savings to daily easter egg hunts on the White House lawn.

Striking a blow for all-American labor

 

 

Charged with prostitution, let’s hope it was for providing administrative services

Massage parlor workers busted in Fairfield and not a single Korean among them.

Bringing Hartford back home

Food fight at Democrat Picnic (Dollar Bill, center)

“Wealth should hurt”* Greenwich Democrat Chairman Francis Fudrucker proclaimed as he announced his candidacy for the Board of Estimate and Taxation yesterday. “And while I certainly appreciate the efforts of my fellow Democrats who have served on our BET for the past three decades, it is time to thank them for their service and move on. I’ll be running with John Blankley to replace two of those dead-wood pansies, members, and we expect to win. Like me, John too has been rejected by the voters of Greenwich so we both know pain, we both know humility, but we also know that BET seats are assigned, not contested, so here’s our chance to smack you people in the face and make you pay, for past indignities and future swimming pools. In fact, I believe the appropriate expression here is nananananana.”

Fudrucker and Blankely’s palace coup left the present Democrat incumbents shaken and miffed: “We’ve tried to spend like Democrats, William Finger wailed, “we’ve tried so hard! But those Republicans wouldn’t let us! Oh what could we do, what could we do?”

As he shuffled off, defeated, Finger said there is no debate among Democrats about incurring more debt.

“Every member of the Democratic caucus is supportive and in favor of long-term bond financing,” Finger said. “We are now and have always been. For anybody to say otherwise is making an inaccurate statement.”

Too bad BET seats aren’t contested, because this would otherwise make for a fun election. As it is, there will be no chance to debate spending and how much to increase it (Republicans say, “a whole lot”, Democrats say, “a whole, whole lot, and let’s pile on debt to do it.”). But because the parties have split the job into twelve non-elective appointments, six for each side to distribute as it sees fit, there will be a certain amount of climate-threatening hot air released at the parties’s respective clam bakes but nothing of substance will be discussed, or done. Which, presumably, is how we like it here in the land of steady habits.

*Our lawyers suggest we mention that we made this quote up – Ed.