"The Dude" sells his house at half-price

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Jeff Bridges and his wife of 38 years (in Hollywood? Inconceivable!) have sold their Montecito home for just $15.9 million, after initially listing it at $29. Nineteen acres overlooking the Pacific, and a gorgeous house, too*. Some Wall Streeter just grabbed a bargain.

Venture capitalist Matt Harris has snapped up actor Jeff Bridges’s Tuscan-style villa in Montecito, California, which finally sold last week for nearly half the original asking price set a year ago.
The six-bedroom house on nearly 20 acres in Santa Barbara County closed on Friday for $15.925 million, according to property records. The Academy Award-winning actor and his wife, Susan, originally listed the home in March 2016 for $29.5 million.
Perched in the Montecito foothills, the property overlooks the Pacific Ocean and surrounding mountains. A long drive over a stream and past mature olive trees leads to the front of the 9,500-square-foot main house, according to the listing with Suzanne Perkins of Sotheby’s International Realty.
Santa Barbara architect Barry Berkus designed the home, which was completed in 1988. The entry opens into a double-height foyer with stone columns meant to invoke grand European cathedrals, according to the listing.

Besides my long-term admiration for Bridges - who couldn't like Sea Hunt's son? - and his great performance, years ago, in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, I'm awed by this house. I'm still trying to accumulate the cash to buy a house like this, but if I had $29 million, I'd have paid it.

* (From the original WSJ article a year ago):

Mrs. Bridges, 62, said the property has served as the couple’s primary home, where they raised their three daughters. The grounds include what she calls Mr. Bridges’ “fort”—a quiet spot with a hammock, swings and benches, where he occasionally makes pottery. Walking trails lead to a nearby natural hot spring and the property overlooks Montecito and the Channel Islands. A recirculating creek appears to flow into a pool near the home.
While living at the home, Mr. Bridges, 65, worked on many of his best known films, including “The Big Lebowski,” “True Grit” and “Crazy Heart,” for which he won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Actor.

Well there goes MY trip to Yulin - damn PC warriors

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darwin.jpg

Due to protests, Yulin, China won't sell dog meat at its dog meat festival this year. Yes, roast cats will still be available but somehow, it just won't be the same.

Dog meat will be banned at an annual Chinese festival after activists campaigned to stop millions of animals being stolen and bludgeoned to death each year.
The government is set to prohibit restaurants, street vendors and market traders from selling dog meat at the barbaric Yulin festival.
It is believed the ban will come into effect on June 15 - one week before the festival begins - and strictly enforced by fines of up to 100,000 yuan and risk of arrest.
Millions of helpless cats will still be transported to the festival to be brutally slaughtered in front of each other and sold for their meat, alongside other types of meat.

Our loss, and our former president's. Though the press excused Barack's occasional bite into hot dogs as a holdover from his childhood, it turns out that the claimed shared cultural heritage between his fellow Kenyans and the Chinese may not be as historical as believed::

Contrary to popular belief, the Yulin festival is not a traditional event but one invented in 2010 by dog meat traders to boost flagging sales.

Sad!

Then again, we're leading the race to the bottom

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Oregon scholars

Oregon scholars

Reed College, once a respected institution, is about to drop its Greco-Roman studies because it doesn't include great African philosophers of that era. The course was intended to introduce students to the foundation of western civilization, but now that that's forbidden, it will presumably focus on a continent's great thinkers who failed to discover the wheel.