Milbrook price cut

52 W. Brother Drive, priced at $5.495 million a year ago February, is down to $4.195. MLK's birthday holiday usually marks the beginning of Greenwich's spring market, so the timing is propitious; if only the owners had been quicker to cut their price earlier, they'd probably be done with this house by now, and on to other things.

That original price sat unchanged from February to September, when a $500,000 was taken. But well before September the owners should have realized that they'd overpriced their home. Then, after missing the spring market of 2017, they let the house sit through the entire fall market. Bad idea.

But the house and its location are fabulous, and while I can't vouch for $4.195 being the right price, surely buyers who may have passed it by at those first two prices will want to give it another look.

One more price cut

34 Baldwin Farms N., originally listed at the aspirational price of $5.8 million, has dropped its price again, to $3.395.

It's actually two lots, so that's approaching a reasonable price. And if you like the house — I do, but so far, n buyer has — you pretty much can get it for free.

Contract reported

647 Lake Ave (more Woodale, actually), asking $2.795 million. It's a pretty, older home on two acres and relatively close to town. 

Nice place.

Hawaii's nuclear missile emergency warning system's password pasted to the computer via sticky-note

Someone came up with this picture from last July, 2017. Given the leaks in the past decade, I'm guessing the NSA employs the same security system.

Well, at least it was NY taxpayers who paid for this "study"*

Clearly, what's called for here is a massive injection of long island traffic

New York paid some Canadian consultants $5 million to devise a way to get traffic off Long Island, and their solution? A $55 billion tunnel to Connecticut. That's billion with a "B" — talk about DOA. These geniuses also had an alternative "solution": three new bridges to Connecticut, which would deposit Long Island traffic on I-95, so that drivers could sit in traffic here, rather than there.

We won't be seeing a $55 billion tunnel built, of course, but I would have told Governor Cuomo that for just, say, fifty-cents, rather than $5 million. 

* Upon reflection, it occurs to me that the consultants' fee was probably foisted onto the federal government, so we did pay for it, after all.

The left, always a collection of shaken brains, has truly gone nuts

Convicted traitor Bradley Manning has announced his candidacy for Congress and Glenn Greenwald welcomes him back to the fight:

While her whistleblowing made her a hero around the world, Manning has also now become an icon of LGBT equality and trans rights with an act of profound bravery that at least matches, if not surpasses, her whistleblowing. She announced her transition, and demanded the dignity and treatment to which she was entitled, while she was imprisoned in the middle of a sprawling U.S. military base, in a brig at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Since her release from prison, she has become a visible and outspoken advocate for the rights of trans people. She has used her position as a Guardian columnist to stake out a wide range of positions, includingdrafting a proposed law to provide protections for whistleblowers. She certainly has more political experience and activism than many other Senate candidates previously supported by the Democratic establishment (Al Franken comes to mind as one example). If elected, Manning would become the first trans woman ever, and the youngest woman ever, to serve in the U.S. Senate.

May her campaign prosper and flourish

Trump supporter? Er, no, this Silicon Valley lady denounces middle America as "shitholes" of bigotry, stupidity and violence

So glad to see you!

Melinda Byerley, MBA and founder of Timeshare CMO, a Silicon Valley-based tech start-up, tweeted out Saturday afternoon describing what middle America could do to “get more jobs in their area.”

Byerley says that the first thing those in middle America need to realize is that “no educated person wants to live in a shithole with stupid people.” Particularly, in a “shithole” filled with people who are “violent, racist, and/or misogynistic.” In Byerley’s opinion, “big corporations,” do not consider moving to the heart of America because “those towns have nothing going for them.”

The towns have “no infrastructure, just a few bars and a terrible school system.”

The MBA claims that “we,” the educated people, like herself, “would like to live a more rural lifestyle,” but they “won’t sacrifice tolerance or diversity to do so.” Especially, these folks do not want to live in “states where the majority of residents are voting for things against their own interests,” solely, because these voters “don’t want brown people to thrive.”

She declares that if middle American towns can begin fixing their schools, and, essentially, “clean up their act,” then people like Byerley will “want to live there.” She even says that the fixing these problems would bring the “best and brightest” of our youth who “would rather scrape by in SF than live in a huge house somewhere if it meant dealing with with bigots and backwards ideologies every day,” to middle America.

My guess is that middle America is as eager for Miss Byerly to stay put where she is as she is reluctant to move.

UPDATE: A reader informs me (with link) that Byerly spewed this venom a year ago: do you upped The Donald picked up his potty-mouth from her?

This won't end well

He's as dumb as I am, promise! You're gonna love it.

New Jersey's incoming governor Phil Murphy promises higher taxes, a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, and higher spending.

Maybe there's hope for CT after all: the stream of refugees from that shithole state might just keep us going for another decade.

“This state, under the current leadership, has gotten into the belief that if I give something to you, it comes at my expense,” Murphy said. “That’s a myth. Raising the minimum wage does not take from growth, it adds to growth. Earned sick leave gives workers a lot more confidence and adds to their participation in the economy. Equal pay for equal work isn’t, ‘Here, I’ll give this to you.’ It’s confidence, it’s participation.”

“This state used to be a progressive beacon,” he said. “In many respects, that soul has been ripped out of us. We can put it back.”

OPDAT: We're Number One! California, according to U.S. Census Bureau, now has the highest percentage: 20%, of citizens living in poverty. The state has surpassed former titleholders W. Virginia and New Mexico..

Thank Trump: liberals are rediscovering the 10th Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

The Guardian reports on California's rebellion against the national government's attempt to assert its authority to regulate everything from immigration to pot to offshore oil drilling. One might question whether states can decide immigration matters for themselves — I think not — but  a return to federalism and individual rights is a wonderful trend. For more than a century, "progressives" have promoted the idea that a central government can and should control every activity of every citizen. Now they're rebelling, and good for them. 

Next up: a new appreciation for the right to secede. Let cry the Rebel yell!

Why didn't she just self-identify as a strong male?

Newly-approved test dummy for k-9 female candidates. weight, 12 oz

Police K-9 candidate awarded £15,000 because her dog was too heavy to carry. 

A female police officer has been awarded £15,000 after failing a grueling fitness test to become a dog handler - and now the rules are changing.

Constable Kim-Louise Carter was up against a ten-mile run before she had to carry a dog over a course known as 'The Long Walk', in wet and muddy conditions.

She claimed that the test put women at a disadvantage because it was too physically tough to pass as she struggled to keep up with her male equivalents.

Miss Carter, 31 won a landmark sex-discrimination case proving that the system to become a dog handler was too demanding for some women.

Miss Carter told the tribunal that she became exhausted while carrying a dog that weighed 35kg, appropriately named Hulk, up a hill.

The female police constable, who began her policing career as a community support officer in 2005 before becoming a constable in 2013, said the test favoured men more than women.

The tribunal heard that out of 48 dog handles in the Gloucester force just four were women. While Avon and Somerset had three women out of 24 handlers and Whiltshire had four women out of 12 in total.

However the defence for the forces said that in order to succeed as a dog handler it is vital to be phyiscally fit as tracking criminals over long periods of time in debilitating conditions and then arresting the criminal was especially challenging.

The judge agreed women were at particular disadvantage compared with men and awarded Miss Carter a total of £14,930 for indirect sex discrimination.

The (new) "settled science" says that gender is something to be decided by the individual itself, so I don't understand why this claim wasn't dismissed on the court house steps. As it is, I'm sure those in need of police assistance will be relieved to know that, though rescue may not come, persons self-identifying as women-K9 handlers have secure jobs.