And I have seven more

le grand comédien

Business Insider: 7 French customs Americans don’t understand

Here’s my own list:

1. Unshaved armpits

2. Love of stinky cheeses

3. Cowardice

4. The 30-hour work week

5. The 9-week vacation

6. Socialism

7. Insisting on speaking a dead language

I could go on, but in the interest of symmetry, I’ll stop here. Feel free to add your own.

Thatcher Rule: The trouble with communism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people’s lives

Crowd control

Kim Jung-un reappears, six more generals have been erased. Third purge in the three years since he took power.

Six of North Korea’s high ranking officials have ‘disappeared’ in the latest blood-thirsty purge of the regime, it has been reported.

The officials – including the commanding officer of North Korea’s air force, the minister of posts and telecommunications and a key official in the North’s sport programmes – have not been present at a series of important events in recent months.

An intelligence source told South Korea’s respected JoongAng Ilbo newspaper that ‘six minister-level officials were executed’.

 

Just saying

I’ve got mine, Jack

67-year-old shoots home invaders after they try to rape his granddaughter.

A North Carolina man exchanged fire with three home invaders after they tried to rob his house and rape his granddaughter, reports the Fayetteville Observer.

At his Lumberton home on Monday, Kenneth Byrd, 67, was approached by an individual claiming to have car problems. When Byrd invited the man into his home, he was rushed by two additional assailants wearing black clothes and ski masks.

The home invaders — all three brandishing handguns — corralled Byrd, his wife Judy and their 19-year-old granddaughter and demanded money and other valuables from the family safe.

Byrd initially complied with their demands, but when the men began to beat Judy and attempted to rape his granddaughter, he grabbed a hidden firearm and let loose a flurry of shots at the assailants.

After a brief firefight, Byrd drove the men from his home but not before receiving several gunshot wounds.

Major Anthony Thompson of the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office identified two assailants as Brandon Carver Stephens, 28, and Jamar Hawkins, 17. Authorities at McLeod Medical Center in Dillon, S.C. alerted the Sheriff’s office after the two sought treatment for multiple gunshot wounds.

Authorities found Jamie Faison, 20, — the third assailant — dead in Byrd’s stolen Cadillac, some six miles from the Byrd residence.

The three are also linked to several other home invasions in the area.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

How to stretch out a foreclosure

12 Butler Street (center)

12 Butler Street, Cos Cob, has reduced its price to $845,000 . The court-appointed appraiser thinks it’s worth $693,636, Zillow estimates $1 million, so feel free to bid up. What I find interesting about this property is not so much Zillow’s optimistic pricing, but the fact that the underlying foreclosure has been going on since 2007.

Suit was filed, a default and “final” judgment entered that same year, then came motions to reopen, more defaults, more hearings, another “final” judgement in favor of the lender, an appeal, a bankruptcy petition when the appeal was denied, and on and on and on. There was an auction scheduled last month but that was postponed, too, so here it sits.

Imagine how long it takes to foreclose on a house belonging to a person with real assets.

Why worry about future global warming when the hurricane danger is now?

Before Gore, there was 1926

Miami wants to secede from the rest of the state due to Tallahassee’s indifference to the supposed coming of higher sea levels. While the city residents have the basic truth: the state government has ignored the impending disaster, it’s far more likely that catastrophe will arrive via the next hurricane, rather than a melting iceberg fifty years from now. Miami, in the words of at least one hurricane expert, “is a sitting duck”.

And has been since the first skyscrapers arose from its swamps.

Worrisome, if true (update – it is true)

Dr. Craig Spencer dressed for work

Doctor may have has returned from Africa with Ebola

(confirmed last night – and he wandered around the city for days as he grew sicker)

A 33-year-old doctor who recently returned from the disease-wracked West African country of Guinea was rushed Thursday to Bellevue Hospital with symptoms of the deadly disease.

Preliminary results of tests done on the doctor, identified by sources as Craig Spencer, are expected later Thursday, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.

Spencer, who was one of the medics working in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders, had been back for 10 days and quarantined himself after developing nausea and a high fever, sources said.

We keep hearing stories of doctors, who presumably know and follow the protocols of dealing with Ebola, becoming infected anyway. Scary.

UPDATE: Scary to hospitals too, which are now considering establishing Ebola “death panels” to decide which Ebola patients, if any, to admit.

Mr. President, tear down this fence!

Obama at play along our southern border

We’ll caddy for you – forget minimum wage!

Speaking of lack of principles

Mozilo, Mozilla, same difference; a thug’s a thug

Silicon Valley now trumpets government censorship and regulation. Once you get big, you want protection against upstart competitors, and government is big business’s best friend for that.

In 2012, for example, the browser company Mozilla warned that the Internet “is just too fundamental to our lives to leave it to governments to decide its fate.” Now, Mozilla—along with other fair-weather friends of the open Internet such as Facebook, Netflix and advocacy groups such as Public Knowledge—is busily lobbying Washington under the “net neutrality” banner to regulate Internet companies under telecommunications laws designed in the 1930s for the AT&T monopoly. They want the Internet to become a utility, with regulators setting prices and rules. Silicon Valley’s embrace of regulation at home undermines its case against the ITU.

Robert McDowell, who served on the Federal Communications Communication for several years, made this point in Senate testimony last month: “Expansion of the government’s reach into the operations of the Internet is only providing cover and encouragement to foreign governments, as well as multilateral and intergovernmental institutions, that want to have, as Vladimir Putin said, ‘international control of the Internet.’ ”

As always, it’s not about principle

I am woman, hear me hate

Thought liberals were concerned about violence against women? Not if it happens to a woman who deserves it.

Wednesday afternoon, CNN anchor Carol Costello hyped newly released audio of Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol tearfully recounting her being physically assaulted during a fight the family was involved in last month by saying it was “quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across.” She grinned during the entire setup.

The anchor went on to say “sit back and enjoy,” before playing the audio, in which Bristol says she confronted a man who had allegedly pushed her little sister, only to have him shove her to the ground, then drag her by her feet while calling her an obscene name I cannot republish here that refers to the female anatomy.

MSNBC writer Joseph Neese described the scene in such a way that teemed with glee and downplayed the assault.

“A lady with gray hair apparently wanted to punch Willow. Bristol was in the limo. A guy dragged Bristol across the grass. They took her $300 sunglasses and shoes. And she was left there,” Neese wrote, before referring to the “expletive-laden audio.”

And he made sure to point out that Bristol was a “former ‘Dancing with the Stars’ contestant.” The only quotes included from Bristol’s audio was her saying she would defend her little sister. While describing the video, Neese allotted just one sentence to the attack on Bristol.

Radar Online, an entertainment news website, used the headline: “‘Drunk’ Bristol Palin sobs to cops […]”

E! ran with “See bloody photos from Bristol Palin’s drunken fight in Alaska.”

Hey! Come see this woman whose mom we don’t like injured after getting assaulted by a man and dragged! Hilarious.

These are the people who feel free to call Clarence Thomas a “house nigger” and Condoliza Rice “Bush’s slave girl” – hey, we’re liberals – we can’t be racist misogynists!

He must be talking to Democrats, because the rest of us have no reason to vote for any of them

Time marches on, voters wise up

William Jefferson Clinton: “Don’t let your dislike of Obama keep you from voting.”

Remember when people believed in Obama, and politicians would admit they voted for him?

Back country price cut

170 Old Mill Road

170 Old Mill Road, 13,000 sq. ft. of builder excess that sold new in 2006 for $8.850 million, has cut its price again and can now be yours for just $6.7. Owner tried, without success, for $7.8 million in 2012.

Elder commune? Nursing home?Surely there must be some use for these buildings.

Jordan Saper never saw a space he couldn’t make too large for human scale.

Grand Central Terminal, North

Nobody home

Alone in a vast universe

Last year’s disgraced Greenwich Democratic candidate demands investigation into this year’s

Stephie says, “this is just not FUNNY!

Stephanie Paulmeno,who was forced to withdraw as First Selectman candidate last year after being outed for claiming that “there’s date- rape and then there’s rapey-rapey rape” wants her fellow Dems to look into how Marc “Gimme’ a Blowjob” Abrams passed the scrutiny of  the Democratic’s nomination panel.

In a motion presented at the Democratic Town Committee’s meeting Wednesday evening, Stephanie Paulmeno requested the formation of a task force comprised of DTC members to research conditions of Abrams’ nomination and recommend changes to the party’s vetting process. However, the proposal was tabled until the DTC’s November meeting without debate.

Hunter Biden’s success explained

Executive consultant and banking expert and son of a senator demonstrates his attention to detail

Hint: it wasn’t his talent.

After recounting the Biden scion’s scummy career of influence peddling and living off his daddy’s political connections (and with Dad helping, every step of the way), the article concludes,

Meanwhile, Just Like You Joe was whipping up class envy in South Carolina last week. “Corporate profits have soared,” he railed, thanks to “these guys running hedge funds in New York,” who are to blame for “income inequality.” You know, like his son and brother and their Beltway back-scratching patrons.

Price cut

104 Husted Lane

104 Husted Lane, which sold in a bidding war ($1.729 asked, $1.805 paid) back in 2002, has cut its price, again, to $1.950. Owner tried to sell it in 2008-2009 for $2.495 but couldn’t, so she picked up a half-acre from a neighbor to bring its lot size to 2 acres (it’s in the 2-acre zone) and tried again. I thought it was a very nice house back then, but it’s being marketed as land, wisely.

Pending sale reported – not exactly proof of a booming market

31 Boulder Brook Rd

31 Boulder Brook Road, mid-country, asking $3.075 million, has a buyer.  Looks as though the debt here is greater than the asking price, which makes sense: it sold for $3.6 million in 2006.

And I’m an Indian, too

Children of Oppression

Elizabeth Warren, perpetual victim, says she’s suffered sexism in the Senate, but will name no names.

Well she based her phony Indian claim on the fact that her grandfather had prominent cheekbones, so perhaps she saw a terrifying bulge in Harry Reid’s pants.

Sounds like every other government subsidy program, including Obamacare

Farm lobby dines with its elected representatives

Bumper corn crop may end up costing taxpayers $8 billion, twice the forecasted amount.

Josh Sewell, a policy analyst for the group Taxpayers for Common Sense, told Bloomberg that the farm bill was “based on false premises of fake savings,” because “the prices Congress used to calculate the bill’s cost were divorced from reality.”

God spare the country

Rumor: Michelle being urged to run for senate. Her sole “qualification” is this: “she’s a Harvard-educated lawyer.” Hahahahahahah

The more realistic reason is, as one observer noted, ““It’s a shoo-in. A ham sandwich could get elected on the Democratic line in California.”

What a difference an election cycle makes

In 2006, when the Democrats were expected to take over the House and the Senate, our national network news triad was all over the story. This year, when Republicans are expected to prevail, the reporters have disappeared into Gore’s secure lockbox”.  “What midterms? And who’s this Obama character you keep asking about?”

Walt’s kind of church

Aboard HMS Raging Queen – “Please, sir, may we have some more discipline?”

Minister arrested for employing “Christian “Domestic Discipline” on his female parishioners, a practice that involved him stripping them naked and spanking them.