Down the memory hole

Breaking news story on children in confinement disappears when it turns out to be about Obama, not Trump

A left-wing doofus at the United Nations did an analysis of how many children are “in detention” in countries around the world, and concluded that the U.S. has more than anyone else–presumably as a result of the flood of illegal immigrants at our Southern border. Pretty much every news organization in the world jumped on the story: the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC News, NPR, the Huffington Post, all the usual suspects. 

But then a funny thing happened. The U.N. guy explained that his number for children detained in the U.S. was not current, but dated from 2015. That is, during the Obama administration. So news organizations were faced with a dilemma. What to do? As Ed Driscoll notes, some, like AFP and Reuters, simply deleted their articles.

No mention who was president in 2015, and Reuters et al didn’t print a retraction, they just erased it.

UPDATE: This Tweet from the DNC has also disappeared; apparently detaining 100,000 children of illegal immigrants isn’t disgusting after all, if Obama did it.

A cautionary tale for remodelers everywhere: choose your location wisely

3 Meadow Wood Drive, a property we’ve treated with loving derision here over the years as it slowly sank from $6.375 million to $3.495, has finally sold, for $3.4.

The sellers paid $3.425 for the house in 2006, gutted it and renovated from the studs out, and placed it back up for sale in June 2015, for $6.375. Sadly, despite that labor, and a number of tries at professionally filmed sales videos, no one stepped forward to take the place off their hands until this buyer, and he proved unwilling to pay for the improvements.

There’s nothing wrong with the house itself, and Belle Haven is usually a safe space to park your money, but this location, immediately next to the Thruway, made for a tough sell. Everyone loves songs about trucks; the entire library of recorded country-western songs would be reduced by half if truck songs were excluded, but not many people want to live next to them.

Especially not if they’re paying three-million-plus for the privilege.

So crazy, it just might work

That’s a line from McHale’s Navy, usually uttered by McHale in response to Ensign Parker’s latest lamebrain scheme. The scheme always did work, of course, because the show was, believe it or not, entirely fictional and not really based on fact. But perhaps the new owner of 57 Center Drive didn’t realize that, or maybe he’s just crazy like a fox. Either way, he paid $450,000 for the place last week, and has now relisted it as a to-be-renovated home at $795,000. I think he might just get it.

No one will claim that this portion of Center Drive, jammed up against and in the shadow of I-95 is the garden spot of Old Greenwich, but $795 for Dundee and Eastern, and walking distance to the Village hits a sweet spot in the market. I think an end-user might have done better here, without the need to generate a profit, but depending on how cheap this contractor can source the “stainless steel appliances, granite counters and rain shower and soaking tub” he promises, he might pull it off.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 20: I just noticed that this builder got two lots for his $480,000. Tiny — 0.14 acre each — but many of the houses on Center Drive are similarly cramped, so that should work. And at $240,000 per lot, how bad can it be (for him)?

Priced at $1.699 million and now under contract, but at what price?

Bombs away!

A contract has been reported for 8 Sunshine Avenue, NoPo Riverside and bank-owned, It’s technically two lots, but building on the first would place this POS (a technical real estate term) in the rear, and while that would improve the streetscape considerably, the virtues of the existing structure would be further diminished.

Best course of action would be to bulldoze what’s here and start anew, so what’s this package worth? To me, nada; to an ambitious, perhaps reckless builder, I dunno — $900,000?

I’ll be interested to see the final number.

In the rush to recognize and applaud Florida Man, we've neglected the great state that started it all

Baby Daddy/Hubby, pride of W. Virginia

Florida Man, you’ve been challenged

West Virginia man marries his daughter after the two of them murder her ex-boyfriend

The legal definition of a West Virginian virgin is a girl who can run faster than her brothers; does this apply to daughters, or did this fine specimen of femininity not wear white?

"Free press" colludes on global warming "reporting"

And here are your marching orders!

(Or, per Google translator, “Och här är dina marschorder!”

Gå hem liten flicka

Massive, joint effort to put global warming and little Greta front and center

Over 250 news outlets and journalists partnered with Columbia University School of Journalism’s flagship magazine to shape control of “climate crisis” coverage in the lead up to the United Nations climate conference. The coverage-coordination initiative included directing how much time, space and prominence should be devoted to the coverage, and asking that climate “news” be added to seemingly unrelated stories.

Some of the biggest media outlets in the country, such as CBS and Bloomberg, joined the effort. But others, such as The Washington Post and The New York  Times, declined to participate in a project they reportedly feared appeared activist in nature. More troubling, a number of the major outlets that joined did not disclose participation to their readers.

“We believe that every news organization in America, and many around the world, can play a part,” CJR posted May 22. Sometimes that will mean committing your newsroom to important and high-impact stories. Other times it will mean sharing your content, engaging your community, or adding a few lines of climate information to stories that wouldn’t otherwise have them.” [emphasis added]

Much of the group’s coverage leading up to the U.S. climate summit focused on Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old girl who traveled to the U.S. in August on a racing yacht. Her visit was designed to galvanize American support for policies that seek to tackle climate change.

Nearly 40 of the articles on the list of 128 failed to mention the project. The list included pieces from CBS News, Bloomberg News and The Nation, all of whom produced pieces that failed to mention their participation in an outside project designed to direct their editorial bent. Many of the articles on the list bore labels containing the words “Covering Climate Now” but do not otherwise explain what the project entails or which groups are involved.

And so on.

See post below: they're coming for the unwoke, and they won't stop

Your tax dollars, but to students, at work

SUNY Binghamton students shout down Arthur Laffer

Universities have long since morphed into administration-supported indoctrination institutions from centers for free inquiry and education. My solution: slash state funding, abolish all liberal arts departments, and, for private schools, tax their endowments.

Related: Syracuse University students demand right to select their roommates by race.

The Chancellor at Syracuse University has stated that he will actively work with a group of students who have issued several demands meant to address a racism issue at the school, including the institution of a new policy that would require students be offered an option to choose that their roommate share the same race.

You will accept your new political masters, or else

Young, reeducated Jacob

(NBC)

Sprite goes transgender

CREEPY NEW SPRITE COMMERCIAL SELLS TRANSGENDERISM AND BREAST BINDING, NOT SODA. At PJM, Megan Fox writes:

In an inexplicable move, Sprite has released a new commercial that has nothing to do with soda and everything to do with force-feeding the public transgender theology dressed up as love and acceptance. What this has to do with quenching thirst, I have no idea.

Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire makes an interesting point. “Someone please explain the ethical difference between an ad that promotes breast binding and an ad that promotes anorexia. I bet you can’t.” First, both conditions are mental disorders. Body dysmorphia is nearly indistinguishable from gender dysphoria. Both people look into a mirror and see something that is not there, but only one will be treated properly for it. The other will be sent off to butchers who will remove healthy body parts to indulge the patient’s delusion. Worse, minor children suffering from gender dysphoria are given sterilizing drugs that are not fully understood nor studied.

Meanwhile, Ricochet’s Brian Watt writes:

Coca-Cola, which owns Sprite, has launched a campaign of commercials that celebrate transgenderism for teens and depicts mothers lovingly helping their offspring to present themselves to the world as a false depiction of their actual sexuality and biological gender. I’m curious what the reason is that Coca-Cola executives felt they needed to push this message.

In 2019, Coca-Cola is using the left’s current zeitgeist, their obsession with transgenderism, in part to reposition Sprite away from its image as a strictly flyover country beverage, but primarily to illustrate to the leftists on Madison Avenue and in the Coke boardroom how woke the company is. As Glenn has written, “The problem is, too much of the political class — and of the business class for that matter — places virtue-signalling for peer approval above actually doing its job. And people have noticed.”

View video here

Related: 19-year-old now regrets his “Frankenstein hack job” that removed his genitals. Maybe Coca-Cola can use him in its next Super Bowl commercial

Harsh reality

The property once owned by some very good friends of mine at 104 Meadow Road has hit the market as a land listing (only), asking $2.795 million. While the listing verbiage does concede, “The property currently has a charming 1940's home that could also be updated and expanded”, the agent and her clients clearly see its highest and best value as a building lot.

As someone who spent many pleasant evenings in that charming 1940s home, it’s sad to think that it’s now fit only for dumpster fill. Personally, I think the sellers are wrong, but that’s probably just nostalgia speaking.

It's all out, unrelenting war, and they're winning

Disbanded

Chik-Fil-A caves and will no longer donate to the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army does more to feed, clothe and shelter the homeless than any leftist group I’m aware of, especially and including college campus radicals, but it doesn’t support gay marriage, and thus must go.

Let’s move those addicts and loonies into student dorms and dump the kids on the streets.