Profiles in courageous idiocy

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If these bold, “Speak truth to Power” judicial paragons had any backbone they’d identify who they are and which of their own decisions they felt were unfairly criticized. Then we could all read them, line-by-line, and tell them where they erred. Clearly, they don’t want to risk the embarrassment.

But at least one of these judges agreed to appear on FWIW’s video post, albeit under a pseudonym:

(For a more sober analysis/debunking of this non-story, try John Sexton, over at HotAir. He does a good job)

The New Jeffersonian Democrats: “your so-called rights are bestowed on you only by the grace of us, your rulers” (Updated)

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Senator Tim Kaine Tells Americans Their Rights Come From Government

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, in a hearing on Wednesday, told the room:

The notion that rights don't come from laws, and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator... That's what the Iranian government believes... So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.

Senator Ted Cruz blasted Senator Kaine's comments.

So, Senator Kaine said in this hearing, that he found it a radical and dangerous notion that you would say our rights came from God and not from government. I just walked into the hearing as he was saying that and I almost fell out of my chair. Because that radical and dangerous notion in his words, is literally the founding principle upon which the United States of America was created. And if you do not believe me, and you made reference to this Mr. Barnes, then you can believe, perhaps the most prominent Virginian to ever serve, Thomas Jefferson who wrote in the Declaration of Independence: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator' not by the government, not by the Democratic National Committee, but by God...

...with certain unalienable Rights.

Senator Kaine didn’t misspeak; he simply revealed the chasm between today’s Democratic Party and the very principles that founded this great nation. If believing rights come from a higher power is “troubling,” then Kaine’s quarrel isn’t with Ted Cruz. It’s with Jefferson, Madison, the Declaration, and America herself.

If you wish to be alarmed/distressed over the state of the nation, read some of the comments in that X post: there are a lot of people out there who agree with Kaine.

UPDATE: Just saw this. Forget Jefferson, the new Democrats have even jettisoned their former hero, JFK

Tidy little profit here, looks like

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The owners (until yesterday) of 160 Stanwich Road, picked it up via bidding war two years ago August, paying $3.710 million on an asking price of $3.295. They immediately rented it out — never moved in — for $18,500 per month, collecting $440,000 over the ensuing two years, then listed it this past July for $4.195 million and sold it yesterday for $4.410. Not bad.

No fences, no cops, but yes to boys in girls sports and in their showers; you go, Democrats!

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awwww

You get what you pay for

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disembarking from vento di flatulenza

Brand new $940,000, 85-foot luxury yacht tips over and sinks just minutes after launching — forcing crew to jump overboard

Dramatic amateur video shows the vessel, named Dolce Vento, ease into the waters off the coast of Zonguldak in northern Turkey’s Eregli district Tuesday before lurching to one side and slowly sinking into the depths.

It was the first time the approximately 85-foot boat, worth around $940,000, was launched after being delivered to its owner from Istanbul.

Even assuming Turkish boat laborers are paid, say, three-cents an hour, $940,000 for 85 feet of “yacht” suggests a ship built of snot and bubble gum using a design found on the back of a cereal box.

AI Overview

Building an 85-foot custom luxury power boat in the United States would likely cost between $20 million and $40 million, though this can vary significantly based on the level of customization, materials, and specialized features desired. This range includes costs for the hull, specialized engines, navigation systems, and high-end interior finishes, with more extravagant features like helipads pushing the price even higher.

Rememembering when Old Greenwich and Riverside were filled with successful, modest people like this

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20 Meadow place, Old Greenwich, is new to the market today (listed by Raveis’ Liz Smith), and priced at $4.150 million. Built in 1935, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2,286 sq. ft. but — and this explains the price — direct waterfront, with dock.

Owned for the past 50 years by the late Graham Whitehead, and his wife of 67 years, Gay, Mr. Whitehead retired in 1990 as President of Jaguar North America. Born in England in 1928, he and his family moved to the United States in 1958, and stayed. He died in 2015, aged 86.

He was from a time when even top corporate executives mowed their own lawn (well, many of them did, or they told their kids to do it), walked to the train, drove old cars, and lived lifestyles and in houses that weren’t remarkably different from their neighbors. Riverside/Old Greenwich comprised a wide range of people in different income brackets and in different occupations, from policemen to teachers, to writers and musicians, to some of the best-paid corporate executives, and it all blended well. There are, of course, still a large number of very nice people here, but the houses are bigger, some of the egos are larger, and the mix is more homogenized, even, perhaps, a tad bland.

So it goes.

Probably because the sellers insist on taking the lightbulbs and toilet paper with them

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57 Lockwood Avenue, Old Greenwich, has dropped its price, again, from its original ask of $4.895 million and is now looking for $4.3 million. It’s a nice enough house, and Lockwood Avene, though busy, is a decent street in a very convenient location, but I’m always baffled by sellers who, demanding millions, still insist on stripping the house of items they want to keep, from pizza ovens to zebra dung to … well, thigs like this:

Exclusions: Dining room sconces, kitchen lights over center island and chandelier in stairway

If you’re already down $595,000 from what you were hoping for, why not strive to make your house more attractive, rather than insisting on nickle-and-diming potential buyers?

Guinea Road, revisited

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My mention yesterday on a new, $12 million listing at 21 Guinea Road drew an interesting critique from reader “Behind the Library”. It’s a tad critical, but, while I agree with his dislike of the modifications that have made it “look like every one of those hideous faux farm white boxes with black windows that they build now”, I can also sympathize with the remuddlers; there’s not much else you can do with a mock-English Manor design or its cousin the faux-Tudor (except, as the reader suggests, razing them and starting anew).

The house I grew up in on Gilliam Lane was built in 1948 by a wealthy woman, a Mrs. Little, who, accompanied by her architect, toured New England looking for inspiration from antique house designs. She found one she liked in New Hampshire, I believe, had her architect take its measurements, and so armed ,“duplicated” it, sort of, in Riverside. She doubled its size and, conceding to lot limitations, sited it on an east/west axis; the Fountains took over ownership in 1954. We were a family of readers, and the combination of the home’s old, narrow colonial design, small windows, and its orientation, meant that there were no rooms in which one could read without turning on a lamp, even in daylight. Growing up under such horrendous conditions and deprivation, I vowed to never own a house that dark myself, and for the most part, I’ve succeeded.

But how to lighten the interior of these houses while avoiding the faux-farmhouse look eludes me. My personal “solution” would be to just give such a house a hard pass, and find something else. In any event, here’s Behind the Library’s review:

Well, I finally tried to open a disqus account to comment, but it chose to give me an email address that ain’t mine and it insists it should send a verification email there.

So I’ll just share here instead. When I was at EJHS, in the early ‘70s, I used to do yardwork at that house, for something close to $1.00 an hour, as I recall. I used to ride my bike up there from OG to weed gardens & rake leaves out of the gravel driveway. I got the job because the owner’s girlfriend (I will leave them both nameless, though they’d be in their nineties if still alive) lived on my street & I cut her lawn ($2.50). The guy drove some non-descript American luxury car until I persuaded him to get a Mercedes 450SL. He bought a bright red one and I was probably his first passenger.

That guy had taste and the interior looked like a house of that vintage should look. Real wood, quality craftsmanship, excellent and beautiful Asian carpets. What has been done to the interior by subsequent owners is nothing short of criminal. There’s nothing classic or unique about it. It looks like every one of those hideous faux farm white boxes with black windows that they build now. This house might as well have been torn down - the destruction is no less, and the insult the same. What a shame.

Goodbye, French Kitchen? Pelosi Vineyard?* Hello, Zimbabwe!**

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Tell it to the California Water Authority and the smelt preservation society

‘Stolen Land’: Gavin Newsom’s ‘Agricultural Equity’ Advisers Prepare Plan To Redistribute Farmland to Racial Minorities

California has 'the responsibility' to help 'rebuild the wealth that was stolen,' task force says

Leaving aside, for now, the state’s annual, increasingly- drastic curtailment of irrigation water to its farms – this year’s decision to shut it off has come just before harvest, rendering useless a year’s toil — my admittedly limited knowledge of farming tells me that it’s hard, year-round work, demanding knowledge of agricultural practices, hard, hard work, and constant attention 7 days a week, all performed in rural, isolated areas, far from friends and neighbors. None of that sounds as though it will be appealing to, say, Los Angeles’ or Oakland’s inner-city denizens. Wanna bet that, just as in Zimbabwe and South Africa, the confiscated land ends up in the hands of a few politically-connected thugs and charlatans? Wanna make another bet, that the vineyards of the wealthy will remain in their hands, inviolate?