This explains why Facebook and Twitter keep "accidentally banishing ads by conservatives

WSJ: Political Reality: Buy Ads on Facebook or Risk Losing the Election

“In a sometimes-heated hearing in Washington last April, 55 U.S. representatives questioned Facebook Inc. FB -0.92% Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg about privacy concerns and leaked user data. In the week before the U.S. midterm elections, about two-thirds of those same representatives are spending campaign dollars advertising on Facebook.

Politicians’ enthusiasm for targeting potential voters and donors on Facebook cuts across party lines—as did their criticisms. Paul Tonko, a Democrat, told Mr. Zuckerberg at the time, “Users trusted Facebook to prioritize user privacy and data security, and that trust has been shattered.” Republican Tim Walberg expressed concern that Facebook was banning political content and advertising based on the views expressed in it.

Campaigns for both have subsequently sunk money into Facebook advertising, according to a tool Facebook recently released that allows anyone to look up ads for political campaigns and “issues of national importance.” Neither congressman’s campaign replied to requests for comment. ”

There have been literally dozens of reports (documented with Facebook and Twitter notification of their decision to block particular ads), most of which were reversed with an apology. zOf course, the reversals take a week or so, and the election is next week.

Here’s one: Facebook apologizes for blocking Tennessee (Republican) U.S. Senatorial candidate Marsha Blackburn’s ad.

And another: Facebook blocks ad by California (Republican) candidate.

And so on and so on. We don’t need the Russians to shape our elections: Silcon Valley monopolists are doing the job for them.

Fake news, chapter 5,000,347

CNN interviews “random” attendee at Obama/ Gillum love fest in Florida. She says Obama swayed her vote. She also turns out to be Gillum’s mother.

Fair is fair: judge this Milbrook house for yourself at tomorrow's open house, 1-3

I recently trashed a spec house at 248 Overlook Drive, disparaging its design. I based my comments on its photos, and readers, viewing those same shots, agreed. But this morning I received the following message from its builder, David VanHoeson, which made me think that I’d been unfair:

“David VanHoesen • 38 minutes ago

Hi Chris, and all others posting. Unfortunately, the photos don’t do this home justice. I would invite all of you out to see it in person on Sunday 11/3 between 1-3 during the public open house. Then, after one has walked through it, I will be happy to take any constructive criticism and engage in any meaningful dialogue. Feedback was the most positive I’ve had in 30+ years from the Broker Open House. So there is a disconnect here. Of course, I’m not looking to build a typical Spec house, but something special. Please come see it in person, I think you will be surprised. Best Regards, Dave Van Hoesen Builder/Developer”

I hadn’t realized that Dave built this house, or I would have mentioned that he builds houses of exceptional quality, and I have long admired his work. This blog is intended to be a report on current real estate activity in Greenwich, with a hefty dose of personal opinion tossed in. Tastes differ, and photographs can lie, so if you’re looking for a house in this one’s price range, by all means, go to its open house Sunday and decide for yourself. Which, of course, you should do for any property mentioned here, regardless of my opinion.

Mama Bear reacts

Mother of three shoots home intruder: “I’d have killed him if I’d had to”. Afterwards (the intruder fled, and was later captured, with non-life-threatening wounds), the mother told reporters that she’d never thought she’d use the family gun, “but I was calm”.

““So then he kicks the door in as soon as he kicks the door in and tries to take a step in my house that’s when I shot him and he ran off, she recalled. “Something just came over me, I got calm and my heart slowed down.”

The mother said she “would’ve killed him if I had to” if the intruder tried to come inside her home. She said she was thankful she had protection because she didn’t think she could fight off the man.

“Because if I didn’t have any kind of weapons I don’t know what I would have did. That guy was kind of big,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off. I never thought I would have to shoot that gun, ever,” she continued”

I’m grateful that the mother was black and the man kicking in her door was white, thereby sparing us all from the usual tripe TV news serves up on these incidents, and the story’s a nice testimonial to the adage that “when seconds count, the police are just minutes away”, but I was especially taken by the mother’s determination to protect her children. I’m friends with a retired special forces warrior and we once had a conversation where I expressed some doubt over my ability to shoot another human, even if I feared he was going to kill me. “If you’re protecting your child or your wife you’ll do it instantly”, he assured me.

What he said rang true to me, and this woman’s reaction seems to bear him out. Which interests me: for some of us — me, at least — the instinct for self-preservation might be just weak enough to cause me to hesitate before pulling the trigger on someone I perceived as a direct, immediate threat to my life, but threaten one of my kids, or a loved one like their mom, Pal Nancy? You’re dead, MF.

Bears and other animals seem to react the same way, which makes me think it’s all part of our genes.

Fascinating.

I actually own this shirt, as well as a .45 Long Colt revolver. Beware.

You can't say that!

That’s what I was told, repeatedly, by some people back in 1994 when I was trying to find an agent for my first novel, “Stocks and Bondage”, based on the true story of a transvestite stock broker who’d murdered a client he’d defrauded. One offended agent took the trouble to call me and lisped (really) “In my thirty years in business, I have never been so offended in my life!” “Does that mean you don’t want to represent me?”, I asked, but rather than answer, he hung up.

I eventually got to a major publisher, thanks to the intervention of the late Warren Cassell of Just Books, but alas, while an editor there loved the story, publishers had by then turned all decisions over to committees, and committees have no sense of humor and certainly no taste for the off-beat. Hence my move to brain-dead career of real estate peddling.

My failure at establishing a writing career was due, at least in part — I will humbly concede that lack of skill was a perfectly plausible alternative — to the emerging political correctness movement. I regret that I didn’t start my quest to be published back in 1979, when I was wasting my time in law school. Here, for instance, is a snippet from Monty Python’s “Life of Bryan” from that year; a movie that could never be made today. Indeed, BBC’s current management has assured its audience that the Monty Python show itself would never be allowed to air today. “Six Oxford white blokes” would never pass the stern humor committee’s requirements. And so this would never has seen the light of broadcast day, even though it’s the perfect riposte to the current idiocy afflicting our world:

“Judith: Why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
Stan: I want to have babies.
Reg: You want to have babies?!
Stan: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
Reg: But you can’t have babies.
Stan: Don’t you oppress me.
Reg: I’m not oppressing you, Stan – you haven’t got a womb. Where’s the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?… What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can’t have babies?
Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
Reg: It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality.
”

Decent price on Cognewaugh

323 Cognewaugh, which has sold for $2.550 million. A spec house built by an individual who builds a good house but tends to be aspirational in his pricing, it was originally put on the market at $3.495 in 2016, which proved to be the wrong price.

But at almost a million less, not bad.

Old Greenwich waterfront sale

189 Shore Road, $5.750 million. Original price last February was $6.495, so not bad. My older brother John worked on this house when it was being (custom) built in 1979, and I used to visit during its construction and admired it.

Definitely not a conventional house for the typical Old Greenwich buyer looking for a family house, because it has pretty much no yard and only three bedrooms, but it offers fantastic views down Long Island Sound and, for OG, some decent space from neighbors.

Nifty house, to my taste. Old timers may remember the old converted PT boat used as a residence and moored alongside the peninsula this house perches on. I wonder what happened to it?

Smartest man in Hollywood

And the only humble one.

Steal of the week — maybe the year

33 Pleasant Street, bank owned, asking just $1.399 million. I’ll confess, a reader brought this to my attention, but checking out yesterday’s price cut, I have to agree: it’s a huge bargain.

A failed spec house — I don’t know why more inexperienced speculators don’t consult me — it was once listed at $3 million, way back in 2005, but as recently as 2015 it was still asking $2.770. Obviously, those were both optimistic prices, because no one bit, but gee, $1.4 for this house? Best buy in Riverside.

Some !-95 noise, but 33’s on the “right” side of the road, buffered by houses on Leonard Street and then the houses on the north side of Pleasant, and the noise is entirely tolerable, especially at this price

Meghan Lynch: Greenwich's next Olympian?

Meghan’s the daughter of a friend of mine, and I’ve been following her “career” since she was eight-years-old, when she started setting records and beating national competitors two-years her senior. She’s a sophomore at GHS now, and continues to break records and whup everyone who comes up against her.

Keep an eye on Meghan.