Uh oh, fatal words

 

Jason Lee in a lighter moment

Goldman Sachs partner Jason Lee arrested for raping 20-year-old at Hampton’s summer party. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose, but here’s where you know Mr. Lee is doomed:

Lee’s lawyer, Edward Burke Jr., said his client denies the charge.

“He is very accomplished and he’s never been in trouble with the law,” Burke said.

”His wife and family fully support him. He denies the allegation against him completely and looks forward to defending himself in court.”

Since Cain slew Abel, every single accused criminal whose mouthpiece claimed was “looking forward to his day in court” has either pled out or been found guilty: little known fact.

As usual, James Taranto nails it

 

Please, Mr. Gore, won’t you just go away?!

From today’s “Best of the Web”

Life Imitates the Movies

• Nigel Tufnel: “The numbers all go to 11. Look, right across the board, 11, 11, 11 and–” . . .Marty DiBergi: “Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?” Nigel: “Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not 10. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at 10. You’re on 10 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?”–from “This Is Spinal Tap,” 1984
• “Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they’re stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6.”–Al Gore, interview with Washington Post, Aug. 21

Somehow I don’t really believe this is a Saul on the Road to Damascus moment

 

Okay, okay, you can take my credit card!

Obama: “at some point, the government will run out of money”. This would be startling, even alarming  news to Francis and his pals at Democrat headquarters, but they can relax: what appears at first blush to be  a breakthrough in our Dear Leader’s understanding of reality is really just his taking a breath before proceeding to take more of ours.

Price cut in the Back Country

 

900 Lake Avenue

900 Lake Avenue dropped to $3.195 from $3.295, after starting off back in 2010 at $4.125. I’ve liked this house since it first came on the market and although there’s not much left of the 1790 original house, it’s been added to and renovated in a very good way; to my taste, at least.

But it’s been around for a long time, and been priced at $3.450 and lower since May, 2011, without success. If I were strategizerizing with its owner, I’d probably recommend a more aggressive price cut than the one he took today.

Sales, contract

Two sales, one contract reported.

8 Dempsey Lane

8 Dempsey Lane (just off North Street) asked $8.495, sold for $7.375. Not a bad price for the seller, even with that $1 million disappointment. They paid $6.930 for the house in 2005 and thus came close to, if not breaking even, after deducting 10% for transaction fees and the various improvements like a pool and landscaping. Eight years in a beautiful house and most of your money back – not bad.

15 Od Kings Highway

Smaller in price, 15 Old Kings Highway sold for $816,000. It, too, has a pool so apparently the buyer of this place decided to settle for a smaller house and pocket the $6,599,000 difference between here and Dempsey – smart move.

542 North Street

And 542 North Street, $3.995 million, was reported here yesterday as rumored to be under contract. That rumor has been confirmed. Very quick sale – came on the market July 30th.

It’s 4:00 PM: do you know where your contractor is?

Noted Greenwich philanthropist “Dutch” Dozer waits for company in the A-Rod cheering section, Yankee Stadium, 8/22/2013

White House: President “not familiar” with Oklahoma murder

Don’t say another word

And sure as hell intends to stay ignorant. Besides, he’s too busy monitoring his DOJ’s investigation into Trayvon Martin’s civil rights case to attend to the death of some white cracker.

In a related story, the 15-year-old trigger man proclaimed his intention to kill a white man three days before he actually achieved his ambition.

One of the Oklahoma teens who allegedly gunned down an Australian student “because he was bored” tweeted “it’s time to start taken life’s” in the days before the murder.

James Edwards Jr., 15, tweeted the disturbing message three days before 23-year-old Christopher Lane was shot dead has he jogged down a Duncan., Okla. road.

“90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM.” Edwards tweeted in April.

In case you’re wondering, there’s been no real estate news reported today

Stables for us, the 0.01%

Broker open house tour probably has kept agents with activity to report away from their desks, so check in later. But must people are away or otherwise ignoring real estate and I don’t expect that to change umuch until after Labor Day.

I did receive an invitation to view the new listing at 429 Taconic Road but the pictures are now up, and since it (a) looks quite presentable and (b) I have no clients actively looking in the $23.5 million range (feel free to give me a call and change that), I thought I’d save the gas and send the money saved to the owner’s favorite charity, the federal budget deficit campaign. As I’m sure she’ll agree, the people in Washington can put my five bucks to use far more wisely than I can, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to let them do that.

We’ll just raise taxes on those still here

Last one out please turn off the lights

(From InstaPundit)

FINANCES: New York, California, Illinois Hemorrhage Tax Dollars.

Blue states like California and Illinois are struggling meeting obligations for their own public pension funds, so they certainly don’t need this latest bit of news—their tax bases are shrinking drastically. A new study on state-by-state income migration from the Tax Foundation (h/t WSJ), found that New York, California, and Illinois—the largest blue states in the country—led the country in income flight during the last decade. New York was hit particularly hard, losing $46 billion dollars of taxable income to people leaving the state over the past ten years. And these states were not alone: blue stalwarts like Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were not far behind.

Red and purple destinations like Florida, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina led the pack of states benefiting from this migration, each gaining over $10 billion in taxable income due to new migrants from other states. Although the red/blue divide breaks down somewhat towards the middle of the group—red states like Louisiana saw some minor losses while blue states like Vermont enjoyed modest gains—the overall pattern is hard to miss.

One of the trends driving blue boosters to despair is that the most extensive government programs require taxes hikes which tend to cause businesses to flee, eventually taking residents and their tax dollars with them. This erosion of the tax base forces states to hike taxes further to keep the system running which only accelerates the process.

Then there are the businesses — like gunmakers — who have left in the face of cultural/legal pogroms. Either way, bring your jobs to Tennessee!

Breaking news from 35 AD

Man declared dead comes back to life.

Here’s an inconvenient truth: Al Gore is the number one source of hot air on the planet

Al Gore’s newest home, Casa “Do Unto Others What I Would Not Have Done Unto Me”, Montecito CA

Equates his opponents with racists, homophobes, alcoholics and slave holders, then calls for “conversation”. Speaking from yet another of his mansions, this time his $8.725 seaside bungalow in Montecito (purchased in 2010), the leader of the band of warm profiteers has this to say:

AG: Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation.

The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned. It’s like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. Something like Chris Hayes’s excellent documentary on climate change wouldn’t have made it on TV a few years ago. And as I said, many Republicans who’re still timid on the issue are now openly embarrassed about the extreme deniers. The deniers are being hit politically. They’re being subjected to ridicule, which stings. The polling is going back up in favor of doing something on this issue. The ability of the raging deniers to stop progress is waning every single day.

Well, well well

 

Back Country well with problems

Greenwich health officials are sending out a letter to homeowners who rely on private wells to have them tested for the pesticide chlordane, a suspected cancer-causing chemical.  The verdict’s still out on the danger of chlordane, I believe, but it’s no longer used as a pesticide, and you may want to see what you’re drinking just in case.

Our town lab isn’t equipped to test for these types of chemicals nor should it be, in my opinion; the equipment is expensive, the instances of pollution are predicted to be rare, and we’d just be duplicating the service available from private labs, a list of which will be provided homeowners in that same letter.

The town can test for the more common critters found in well water and you, or your well service company, should already be taking the occasional sample for testing.