But we’ve got windmills – we fart in your general direction!

Your mother was a hamster!

Putin hints at gas shut-off for Europe this winter. At least he can’t threaten them with fracking, they’ve banned that.

And while you were tanning on the beach…

We were up solving the world’s problems

David Yudain explains his solution for permanent peace in the Middle East

At sea in Vermont

Your blogger attempting to identify the mountains he’s observing (Mt. Mansfield’s one of ’em)

Photo, Lily Dowling

Corporate greed? How about short-sighted government stupidity?

Heap trouble

Third casino in Atlantic City closing this week.

“We’re all feeling a little betrayed,” Showboat cook Curtis Wade said. “We’re all walking around in a fog today. We worked really hard to try to keep it operating, and we’re still profitable. We still don’t understand why we were the one targeted to close, and nobody has given us an answer on that. There are too many jobs being pushed out of Atlantic City due to corporate greed.”

Wade will be among the thousands of workers showing up at the Atlantic City Convention Center on Wednesday for a mass unemployment filing.

The Showboat’s owner, Caesars Entertainment, closed the still-profitable casino to reduce the number of casinos in Atlantic City, which has been struggling with plunging revenue and increased competition in the saturated northeastern U.S. casino market.

Connecticut’s been “balancing” its books for decades with accounting gimmicks and casino profits. Another year or so, and all we’ll have are the gimmicks.

Thank goodness we have resourceful government accounts here in the Nutmeg State.*

 

*The Nutmeg State is so named because Connecticut Yankee peddlers were known to work the frontier selling wooden “nutmegs”, and skipping town before angry housewives discovered they’d been had. We continue to earn that sobriquet.

Well I certainly hope that there’s one casualty, and that it dies in Cos Cob

Blechh

“Juice war” starting in Greenwich.

The town is becoming something of a mini mecca for juice bars that sell a variety of health-focused food and drink. There’s Elixir on East Putnam Avenue and two branches of Green & Tonic — one on Railroad Avenue and one in Cos Cob. Big-chain Robek’s is also a player in Cos Cob. The town is set to get even juicier in a few months, as New York-based Juice Press is slated to open on Greenwich Avenue in November.

Among the owners of these businesses, there’s some concern about competition, but not from everyone. Jeffrey and Cai Pandolfino, owners of Green and Tonic, said even with so many juice bars in relative proximity, they aren’t worried about getting squeezed out by the competition. “Greenwich is a big market,” Jeffrey Pandolfino said. “There’s room for everybody.”

[The] Pandolfinos remain hopefully that their core of customers will stick with them.

“I think this is a great opportunity for everybody,” Jeff Pandolfino said.

Screw ’em. A year or so ago, the Pandolfino’s were advertising for help, and my daughter Sarah stopped in to inquire. Assured by Mrs. Pandolfino that they were indeed still hiring, Sarah filled out an application on the spot, but when Pandolfino saw the name, she demanded, “are you related to that blogger?” “This usually goes one of two ways,” said Sarah, “but yeah, he’s my father.” Only the hydraulic hinge kept the door from hitting Sarah in the butt as Paldofino tossed her out of her store.

I’ll admit to having a little fun with Green & Tonic when I saw Mr. Pandolfino quoted as saying, “food should be like medicine” – that didn’t sound appealing to me, then or now, but visiting the sins of the father on the child is petty, mean and, in the great cosmic world of karma, unwise.

 

Whatever did they do without global warming to blame it on?

Today in history, 1954: Carol, third hurricane of the season, hit the east – here’s an article and video from the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette.

(Speaking of which, turns out that the global ice cap, which Al Gore and other settled scientists said would be ice-free by this summer, has been growing thicker, and there’s now more ice than when he made his pronouncement, not less)

Country fair dining at its apogee

Doesn’t anyone want a carrot?

Twinkie wrapped in bacon with a Twix bar inside, battered, deep-fried and dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

“I can say with strong conviction that there aren’t any health benefits to eating a concoction like this,” said [nutritionist Vanessa] Stasio.

She may be right.

Gobsmacked in Seattle

Who knew?

“Java Juggs” and other topless coffee shops were actually places of prostitution, prosecutors allege.

Snohomish County prosecutors charged Carmela Panico, a 52-year-old former nude dancer who owns several Java Juggs and Twin Peaks espresso stands, with promoting prostitution and money laundering, alleging that she operated drive-thru brothels throughout the county north of Seattle, The Everett Herald reported Thursday.

Her baristas made money mostly on tips, saying they could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, authorities said. The women said they could make up to $14 for baring their breasts or genitals and charged more for sex acts, according to charging documents.

Breaking news from Genesis 4:1-2

Relax, Eve, little Cain’s enjoying broccoli ice cream!

Children won’t eat their vegetables

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows children are eating far more whole fruit than they used to and drinking less juice. But the amount of vegetables they eat hasn’t changed.

On the other hand, maybe charred is more valuable than brown

Up in smoke

404 Round Hill Road burned down yesterday. Nice old house on 6 acres, the owners before these tried to get $8.5 million for it in 2005 and finally sold it for $5 million in 2010. After some 2012 renovations, it was put back up for sale in 2013 for $5.750 million, and gradually fell to $4.695 before yesterday’s unfortunate incident.

$3 million mortgage, $361,399 lien.

UPDATE: Not for nutting’, but the GT article on this fire has been amended to note that the first firemen to respond to the scene were from the North Mianus  Street station and it took them ten minutes to arrive. The Round Hill crew, 300 yards away, took longer. Is Round Hill staffed solely by volunteers? That would explain the lag but otherwise, huh?

Friday, August 29, 2014

 

Brown furniture’s demise

Old and in the way

A friend of mine likes to refer to the old, 1900’s homes and their furnishings collectively as “brown furniture houses”, and points out, accurately, that the new generation of buyers doesn’t want them. As further evidence of that, he sends along this story of the permanent closing of New Canaan’s “Silk Purse”, a consignment  shop that succeeded for decades selling brown furniture to decorate brown houses.

Widmann, an 85-year-old Norwalk resident, said the store’s best years were between the 1980s and 2008. “Those were very good years,” she said.

The store’s most profitable section, according to Widmann, is the jewelry counter.

“Our jewelry department has held up,” she said. “We’re still having very good jewelry sales, and silver, and small things. But furniture is not (selling well).”

Widmann said the new generations generally are not looking for consignment services.

Tucker Murphy, the Chamber of Commerce’s executive director, agreed, saying the consignment business is no longer as popular as it used to be because people either buy and sell antiques on Craigslist or just are not as interested in antiques.

So who would you believe?

Aug. 29, 2014: The president arrives in Warwick to discuss the world situation with his top Rhode Island advisors

Times of London reports that Obama dithered for a month before approving Foley rescue attempt, White House says t’aint true.

Pentagon sources said Foley and the others might well have been rescued but Obama, concerned about the ramifications of US troops being killed or captured in Syria, took too long to authorise the mission.

Anthony Shaffer, a former lieutenant-colonel in US military intelligence who worked on covert operations, said: “I’m told it was almost a 30-day delay from when they said they wanted to go to when he finally gave the green light. They were ready to go in June to grab the guy [Foley] and they weren’t permitted.”

In a later tweet that was widely circulated, Harnden said a senior Pentagon official confirmed to him “that ‘hesitation’ by President Obama” delayed the mission.

The NSC tweeted that the attack was mounted “as soon as the President was confident of success”. That’s neither a denial nor a comfort. How long did it take the White House to gain that confidence – 30 days? No wonder the intelligence was stale, and Foley no longer there.

“It took a while for us to locate the President,” White House spokesman Sylvestro Stallone conceded to FWIW, “what with him all over the country at fundraisers and golf courses, but once we did, and he found the time to listen, it couldn’t have been more than 15 days – 20, tops.”

Weasel Words

 

And we’re back. Surprise! Nothing’s changed.

The spirit of Chicago, union head Karen Lewis inspires her Greenwich peers.

Town and Greenwich teachers union engaged in secret negotiations over next contract.

The GEA is looking for a three-year contract, which would run from 2015 to 2018. The union’s current three-year pact ends June 2015. It has approximately 900 members and represents almost all district teachers.

Neither side has disclosed what teachers are seeking, citing a need for confidentiality.

As always, the BOE will cut a deal and present it for rubber stamping by the RTM, claiming “it’s the best we could do.” Somehow I doubt that; refusing to disclose the union’s demands seems to me to be a deliberate policy to keep the taxpayers in the dark until the dirty work’s been done.