Some call it murder. Democrat Congressman: "I misspoke when I described the killing of a National Guardsman and the critical injuring of another an 'unfortunate accident' — I meant to say 'incident'”.

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unfortunately, sarah beckstrom is dead, died mysteriously in an accident witnessed by a Mr. Rahmanullah Lakanwa of Afghanistan

First This:

“Murder” is the deliberate premeditated killing of another; an “accident” or “incident” is merely an acknowledgement that, as the Democrats’ favorite Somali bigamist said of 9/11, “something happened”. Bennie Thompson surely knows the difference, and chose his terms deliberately and consciously.

Aiken Road sells

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21 Aiken Road, $6.2 million. Started off in May at $7.250 million, but Krissy Blake held the listing and found the buyer, so she’s probably already over her disappointment on not getting that full price, or soon will be.

The house is surprisingly nice, but its 10.3 acres are the draw here: it’s easy to look over the meadows and feel as though one is in Vermont. The late owner (died in 2002, held in trust since) was Harry Keefe, who was quite the man: founder of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, philanthropist, horseman, even added a bit of combat to his resume by serving three years in WW II —the ship he was commanding was sunk by enemy fire off Omaha Beach on D Day, “and didn’t lose a man”. I continue to be humbled by the men and women of the preceding generation.

Brutalism comes to Byram

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Six-Unit Residential Building Proposed to Replace 2-Family House in GB Zone

A pre-application has been filed with Greenwich Planning & Zoning for a site plan and special permit for “The Post Modern,” a six-unit development at 43 Old Post Road #2, where currently there is a two-family house built in 1900.

The property is located in the GB zone. Across the street is the back entrance to the office building at 411 West Putnam Ave. To the west is the office building at 55 Old Post Rd #2.To the east is a surface parking lot for 411 West Putnam Ave.

The proposed building would be four stories high and contain six residential units, with a total of 12 bedrooms. There are two parking spaces today. That would increase to 15 (10 in a parking garage and 5 outdoor).

The proposal is being submitted pursuant to the town’s workforce housing reg 6-110, with one unit proposed to be an affordable housing unit.

The Democrats send one of their flying monkeys out to do battle, and she promptly sinks

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Which of these is a fishing boat?

Which place

Well, I can think of one immediate difference

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begging for company?

CNN: Somalis on Welfare Are No Different Than Poor White Folks in Appalachia

Beege Welborn, HotAir:

Feast your eyes on these numbers out of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) concerning the number of Somali households on welfare compared to the native US households in Minnesota. And, for giggles, they even broke out a third column that quantifies the number of Somali households who remain on welfare in the state after they've been residents for at least TEN YEARS.

One of the main critiques of post-1965 immigration to the U.S. is that it has worsened the problems of poverty, school dropout, and welfare dependency. Allowing in immigrants who struggle with these problems adds to the social burden and makes helping impoverished Americans more difficult.

The burden added by immigration varies widely across the U.S., but there is perhaps no starker case than that of Somalis in Minnesota. As Figure 1 indicates, there were virtually no Somalis in Minnesota in 1990, but over 10,000 appeared over the following decade, largely as refugees from Somalia’s clan wars.1 The Somali-ancestry population in Minnesota would triple by 2010 and continue to grow. In 2024, in the wake of the immigration surge of the preceding four years, people of Somali ancestry in Minnesota numbered over 75,000. The population has become especially visible because of its concentration in Minneapolis, where tension between rival Somali clans is rumored to have influenced the city’s recent mayoral election.2

The contrast between Somalis and native Minnesotans could hardly be greater. The human development index — a composite indicator of health, income, and education — routinely ranks Minnesota among the top states in the U.S., comparable to the Scandinavian countries from which a large share of Minnesotans derive their ancestry.3 Consequently, the arrival of impoverished Somalis has created large disparities. Based on 10 years of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), the analysis below details those disparities.

...Welfare. The U.S. has an extensive welfare system targeted at low-income families. Somalis in Minnesota are therefore likely to be major consumers of means-tested anti-poverty benefits, which Figure 2 confirms. While just 6 percent of native households in Minnesota receive cash welfare — including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplement Security Income, and general assistance — 27 percent of Somali households do. The disparities are even greater for food and medical care, with over half of Somali households receiving food stamps and nearly three-quarters using Medicaid. Altogether, 81 percent of Somali households consume some form of welfare, compared to 21 percent of native households.5 Somalis with 10 years of residency have welfare consumption rates that are only marginally lower than the Somali population as a whole...

And their findings are concise.

More than half (52 percent) of children in Somali immigrant homes in Minnesota live in poverty, while only 8 percent of children in native-headed homes are in poverty.One in eight children in poverty in Minnesota lives in a Somali immigrant home.About 39 percent of working-age Somalis have no high school diploma, compared to just 5 percent of natives.

Among working-age adult Somalis who have lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years, half still cannot speak English “very well”.About 54 percent of Somali-headed households in Minnesota receive food stamps, and 73 percent of Somali households have at least one member on Medicaid. The comparable figures for native households are 7 percent and 18 percent.Nearly every Somali household with children (89 percent) receives some form of welfare.

Although Somalis have recently been implicated in welfare fraud, any population with poverty rates as high as theirs will qualify for extensive means-tested aid. The best way to reduce immigrant consumption of welfare is not simply to crack down on fraud, but to reduce the number of new arrivals who have low earning power.

Unsurprisingly, to CNN's Abby Phillip, it's not fair to pick on the immigrants unless you have figures for the number of poor in Appalachia and Alabama who are also on benefits.

FWIW: Even if true, those are poor Americans — do we really want to throw open our borders to more people and further stretch our limited welfare resources?

Cultural appropriation on the Gray Lady of the Sea

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Wild street brawl erupts during ritzy Nantucket Christmas celebration

A ritzy Nantucket Christmas celebration erupted into mayhem as men decked out in “Ralph Lauren and Burberry” traded blows just moments after Santa Claus made his appearance, according to shocking footage.

The wild brawl broke out on Federal Street Saturday afternoon during the Massachusetts island’s 51st Annual Christmas Stroll, where hundreds had gathered to visit local businesses in one of America’s priciest small towns, the Nantucket Current reported.

In dramatic video shared with the outlet, about a dozen men — ranging in age from 20s to 60s — were seen arguing and shoving each other in the middle of the street before breaking into small groups, where the aggression continued to escalate.

We can only hope that few, if any Greenwich residents were involved.

We’re more accustomed to seeing this sort of thing in other venues, involving, er, people from a different culture.


A must view for anyone who uses (used, in my case) AI as a fact checker for sorting out the truth of political claims

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I don’t watch lengthy videos as a rule, because reading transcripts is so much faster, but Raymond Ibrahim’s takedown of GROK and forcing it to concede that it had initially given a politically popular, completely untrue answer to his question was an absolute eye-opener for me, and I watched it in its entirety. Watching the process unfold, seeing how the AI is forced back, step-by-step until it has to finally surrender and admit what it was up to is fascinating viewing. Well worth the time.

Ibrahim starts off by showing a one-minute video currently making the rounds about the wonderful gift of famine relief supplies and cash to the Irish in 1847, an act of charity still celebrated in Ireland today. Ibrahim then asks GROK whether the story’s accurate; “Oh, yes”, GROK affirms, “and thoroughly documented — an act of pure charity by the Sultan of Turkey”.

So that’s the first answer, and as Ibrahim points out, the casual reader would accept that and move on. I know I would have, but Ibrahim is a scholar of medieval Islam, and uses that knowledge to keep probing and asking pointed questions about GROK’s summary of this “modern” event. Over the course of 40 minutes GROK retreats, first to an acknowledgement that well, maybe it was 80% charity, 20% realpolitik, then grudgingly admits that 50/50 was more accurate, and then finally confesses that it was 100% a PR scheme, cooked up by Britain and Turkey to convince the British public to support their government’s aid to Turkey while the Russians were threatening.

Here’s a snap shot I took of GROK’s surrender.