Eight-plus years to foreclose on a worthless POS

99 Porchuck's price has been dropped by its new owner, Deutsche and, from $975,000 to $899,000. It's not worth anything close to that. Deutsche Bank began foreclosure proceedings against the then-owner of this property in 2009, and only finally got title the past October. I say, lucky them — had they asked, I'd have advised that they write off the debt and just pretend they never loaned money on this place.

The house was still inhabitable back in 1999, when it sold for $1.7 million, but by 2000 it was a pure scraper, and sold for one million to the defendant in this foreclosure action. He, in turn, returned it to the market in 2004 at the preposterous sum of $3.6 million, and eventually, in 2014, for $1.849 — still a ridiculous price, but I suspect it was a number picked to persuade the court that the owner was making an effort to sell it. I wonder at the wisdom of the agent who took the listing then and wasted his time on it.

Not only is the house useless and unsalvageable, the four acres it sits on are almost unbuildable: wetlands, ledge, below grade and in general, not worth much, if anything, to any builder. I suppose someone might be tempted— the greater fool theory at work — but if so, we can expect to see this property and any new house built  upon it back in foreclosure court in just a few years.

Shouldn't these people be protesting outside Mosques?

Women wearing costumes march around the streets protesting Trump, of all people. What gives?

This weekend, hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets to protest against President Donald Trump, and many of them donned costumes inspired by the Hulu series "The Handmaid's Tale." This echoed pro-abortion protesters who dressed up in similar costumes to oppose restrictions on abortion.

Leftists have increasingly adopted a "Handmaid's Tale" theme in their opposition to Donald Trump. Many have claimed that Trump's presidency represents a misogynistic regime not dissimilar to the dystopia in the Hulu series (and the book by Margaret Atwood on which it is based).

In the show and the book, a repressive government twists one particular Bible passage into an anti-woman regime, kicking women out of their jobs, removing their property, and forcing them to be systematically raped to bear children. This Leftist fantasy has no connection with what evangelical Christians actually believe, what pro-life activists push for, or what Trump himself has done in office.

This sounds exactly like the rules prescribed by the Koran, not the bible, nor The Donald. Ask a survivor of the Taliban, ISIS, or any resident of Pakistan. The only thing missing, and I'm sure the ladies will amend their complaint once reminded of it, is pederasty: Mohammad, peas be upon him, married a nine-year-old girl to add to his collection of wives, so surely that sin should be ascribed to Trump, just to complete these people's confusion of Islam with Christianity and Trumpism. 

From FWIW's Washington Pussy Hat monitor

(Actually, our correspondent passed it on from Twitchy)

Another puzzling price cut, this one on Old Mill Road

200 Old Mill road

200 Old Mill Road, to be specific, whose price has today been cut a princely  $100,000, from $5.795 million to $5.695. At this price level, does the seller really expect a-less-than 2% cut to make any difference to buyers? I think it won't, because potential buyers have surely already discounted the price by at least 15%, and probably far more.

Jordan Saper built the house in 2002, and finally sold it to the owner in 2004 for $6.3 million, who, in turn, returned it to the market in 2016 at $6.730 — That hasn't worked out very well, as attested to by today's price cut.

I personally have never liked Saper's house, with their huge rooms, especially the bedrooms: bedrooms should not, in my entirely personal opinion, feel like airplane hangars. This aversion may be shared by others, because the builder's houses have not done well on resale. 

Are those really propellers on the ceiling?

Richard Blumenthal on government shut downs, then and now: surprise! He had a different position back then:

Dumb and Dumber

Then:  2013:

These issues are real and tangible. The  harm is now and urgent. And I urge my colleagues to come together and resist the pressures and demonstrate the kinds of profiles in courage that we've seen on both sides of the aisle, standing strong, speaking out, resisting partisanship, coming together for the good of the country.”

Today Mr. Blumenthal and that lickspittle, pandering sycophant Chris Murphy voted to continue the government shutdown.

Now, I'm all for shutting down the government, or at least a large part of it, but I doubt our state's two senators converted to libertarianism overnight. What happened, I suspect, is that they knew that the funding bill would pass (Schumer caved, according to both left and right, which is rather satisfying) so they felt safe voting against it — their nay votes would make no difference to the bill's pasage, but would appeal to the most rabid of Murphy's "base".

What a pair of loathsome politicians.

Is there something about 7 Turner that inspires weird houses?

7 Turner Drive, circa 2018

New construction at 7 Turner Drive hit the market today at $6.495 (bet they don't get it). Nice enough inside, bit that front exterior would scare me off as soon as I turned into the driveway.

What's odd is that this house replaced the old quonset hut that was torn down to make room. I liked the quonset hut better than this one and in fact, had two clients who were intrigued enough to (almost) make abi, before moving on. But it, like its successor, was certainly unique.

Original. Once used for tennis, then for a car collection, then a house, then dumpster bound

Pending in Old Greenwich

21 Ann Street

21 Ann Street, asking $4.745. Not a crazy price for this neighborhood (and it's high enough to avoid flooding, unless Al Gore does a cannonball in the cove across the street). I'm a little surprised that it's sat on the market since September, 2016.

We used to have mental institutions in which to place people like this; now we make them university professors

She doesn't look empowered, she looks like her feet cant's reach the ground

Professor claims that using small chairs for pre-schoolers "disempowers women"

An Australian professor has taken aim at the “small chairs” used in early childhood education, calling them “problematic.”

Such furniture can haunt individuals, and they symbolize “the undervalued nature of teaching young children,” Jane Bone writes in her recent article published in the journal Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood.

“Chairs, as objects that furnish human lives, can also haunt those lives and give contradictory messages of power, comfort and suffering,” the senior lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne writes in the abstract of her paper, “Ghosts of the material world in early childhood education: Furniture matters.”

Mentioning her initial “encounter with the small chair,” Bone writes that she felt the piece of furniture was speaking with her and indicated that the preschool classroom is “a workplace that is gendered, feminised, child-focused and ultimately disempowering.”

The evidence mentioned by Bone in the article includes conversations in which students studying childhood education said they sometimes sit on small chairs during meetings and a teacher who says that most furniture for children is built for their size.

As part of her research, Bone even visited an IKEA furniture store so that she could sit in child-sized chairs. Included in the article are two pictures of Bone sitting in small chairs. The author also included a brief account of the experience.

“I lowered myself into a small wooden chair; once in position my knees were up by my chin and for some reason I felt like a young child. I was that young child again,” Bone said.

In her paper, Bone suggests that the chairs are a symbol that tell teachers they are “here to work and like women in retail, hospitality and catering, and at home, you will run around after others and not focus on what you might need for yourself.”

Completely,utterly batshit crazy.

There will be a slight delay in self-driving cars

Just give us time to rk out a few bugs

Drunk driver asleep at the wheel on San Francisco's Bay Bridge tells cops he'd set his Tesla on auto-pilot (and presumably told it to take him home. 

I don't believe the Tesla's current system is intended to replace a designated driver, but hey, this driver is undoubtedly a Google genius, and left the genius bar fully confident in the technology.

Spec house on Dairy Road is finally selling

38 Dairy Road, most recently asking $5.495 million, is reported as "pending". I personally am not wild about this house at this price, but at least the price has improved since 2016, when it was put on the market at $7.250.