Who knew? Upon learning that Cuba has a golf course, Obama schedules a visit

Having lost his golfing partner Che, Fidel awaits Barry O

“The president’s busy schedule just doesn’t allow him to spend time at an enemy’s funeral,” White House spokesman Bull Connor told reporters, “but friends like Castro? And golf? It’s a no-brainer.”

Another blogger labelled this “class all the way”, and I can’t do better than that

Please just go away

Obummer refuses to attend Scalia’s funeral.

A president leads by example, and Obama has divided the country by his racism and vicious partisanship. Ruth Ginsberg could completely disagree with Anton Scalia on legal principles and law, yet called him “her best buddy”, and meant it. Obama is too wrapped up in his anger at the world to ever achieve that level of decency and tolerance.

What a truly disgusting human being, what a disaster of a president.

Further thoughts: With Obama and his dreadful Princeton Princess, there is no respect or even recognition of the importance of the office of the presidency itself. It’s all about them – if he’s angry at a Supreme Court justice, he’ll just skip the man’s funeral, blow off showing respect for the institution of a third branch of our government he doesn’t think should exist anyway, and go off and do what he, Barry, wants to do: in this case, as in so others, golf. If Michelle doesn’t feel like dressing up for a flight on the Presidential Air Force One, why should she? It’s a plane put at her disposal by the stupid taxpayers and she’s free to use it whenever she wants, dressed any way she wants.

The First Lady of the United States returns from Martha’s Vineyard

 

Lower Cross

85 Lower Cross Rd

85 Lower Cross Road has closed, $1.290 million. As a home for a family of four, say, it’s surely too far out and too small, but what a weekend/summer house for city dwellers. Manageable size, great privacy on 4 acres and even a guest wing with a separate entrance. Nice price, for that use

Price cuts in Old Greenwich, Riverside

12 Heusted Dr

12 Hoisted Drive,  Old Greenwich, listed at $1.795 million, has dropped to $1.695; that still seems like a lot of money for a tiny cottage in the flood zone, at least to me. Owners bout it in a bidding war back in 2008 for $1.305, but that was before Irene and Sandy blew into town and reminded people about storm surge and, of course, that price was paid via a bidding war, when logic and reason often go out the window.

9 William Street

And lest you think I only report on other people’s discomfort, my mother’s property at 9 William Street in Riverside has been reduced to $1.995 million today, a full million below its first price. I disagreed with that first price, but I did think $2.450 would be a good ask. I was wrong.

It’s a good illustration of what happens when sentiment edges out objectivity, I suppose: we Fountains remember great, cool summer evenings on the deck, watching the creek activity, the sailboats and kayaks we launched from here, and the pleasure of the company of our “creek neighbors” on both sides, Riverside and Old Greenwich. All those memories are useless to buyers, who don’t have them and won’t pay you for them.

All that said, a 1/2 acre of tidal waterfront, way above the worst flood waters, and a FAR of 6,000+ feet (that’s above ground FAR, not basement), still seems like a bargain, to me.

Cos Cob contract

29 Indian Mill Road

29 Indian Mill Road, asking $1.595 million. Owners paid $1.550 million for it in May, 2014, painted the interior and then put it back last year at $1.625 (I assume it was put up for sale due to a change n plans, rather than some inane attempt to emulate the characters on “Flip the House”.  That wasn’t a crazy amount, and I’d have thought that it would have elicited bids in the original purchase price range, but apparently not. Dropping it below $1.6 did the trick, though. If I were to guess, I’d see this going for $1.550-$1.565.

Interesting possibility here

125 Hillcrest Park Road

125 Hillcrest Park Road, a 1960 ranch on 0.38 acre, has been dropped from $979,000 to $899,000. It’s in the R-12 zone, so there’s plenty of FAR room here. Good neighborhood, too.

ACLU: Don’t restore a requirement of criminal intent to criminal law.

Defending the right of Nazis to march in Illinois; at the time, people thought the ACLU was protecting the right to free speech, not fascists

The ACLU once defended individuals’ rights and freedoms – no longer 

Criminal intent, or mens rea, was the cornerstone of common law in prosecuting bad acts, but it has eroded  in the past decades as regulatory agencies took over defining bad acts. While “ignorance of the law” has never been an excuse, some showing of bad intent was required. Now, with tens of thousands of new regulations thrown onto citizens each year, it has become impossible to even guess at the current law (a law professor has pointed outfit the average American unwittingly commits three felonies a day), and selective prosecution is the law of the land.

And the American Civil Liberties Union likes it that way, as do all centralized power believers. When Ayn Rand had a character in “Atlas Shrugged” boast that his peers in Washington passed so many conflicting laws that they could prosecute anyone, at any time, she was accused of hysterical over-exaggeration. Like so much in that book, her worst fears are now the norm.

Hollywood isn’t the only refuge for twits

Looks European alright – a Serbian refugee.

British actress Emma Thompson lashes out at the land of her birth.

The outspoken darling of the Left sparked outrage yesterday by deriding Britain as a ‘tiny cake-filled misery-laden’ island which must stay in the European Union.

She was accused of ‘doing our country down’ after telling journalists that the UK was nothing more than a ‘little cloud-bolted, rainy corner’ of Europe.

The Oscar-winning actress said she felt ‘European’, even though she lived in the UK and said it would be ‘madness’ for Britain to leave the EU.

She suggested we should want to ‘take borders down, not put them up’.

‘I feel European even though I live in Great Britain, and in Scotland as well, you know,’ she said.

There’s an irony here, because Thompson starred in the fantastic BBC mini-movie, “Fortunes of War”, playing the wife of a feckless, naive husband (Kenneth Branagh) who couldn’t see the rise of Nazism as a threat to them, or to Europe. In the script, it was the husband who was the dolt, the wife a hard-headed realist. Obviously, while Thompson memorized the script, she didn’t read it.

“Fortunes of War” was set in the Balkans, the very source of today’s present source of trouble, where the natives slaughter, rape and pillage each other and their enemies, which are any people not from the village. That’s Europe, and that’s what Thompson and her ilk are inviting in. But of course, that’s not the “European” Thompson sees herself as – just as Hollywood stars who spout on about reincarnation only remember past lives as royal concubines or Queens, and never one as a peasant toiling in pig sty muck, Thompson’s crowd envisions the European lifestyle to consist of sitting around Parisian cafes, sniffing each other’s unshaven armpits and stinky cheeses while sipping rustic country wines.

Dolts and idiots.