Scenic road designation for Binney Park loop?

/
Our highway department’s idea of civic improvement

Our highway department’s idea of civic improvement

I’m against over-regulation of property, as a general rule, but the awful proposed redesign of the rotary in front of Perrot Library did catch my attention, and the attention of neighbors. They have now suggested that the town designate the area a “scenic highway”, which seems a bit of a stretch, but I understand the sentiment.

Over at Greenwich Free Press, owner/publisher Leslie Yager reports on what’s going on, and includes a thorough discussion of the issues, pro and con. Yager and I don’t have even a cordial relationship; her choice, not mine, and it’s all over politics, which is silly, but she’s the only one in town willing to sit through interminable planning and zoning meetings and report on them. We owe her.

Thank you, I prefer a dumb home

/
Alexa, bring me the body of this girl’s pet

Alexa, bring me the body of this girl’s pet

Hacker breaks into “Ring” and into little girl’s bedroom

A creep hacked a Ring security camera and taunted an 8-year-old girl in Tennessee, telling her “I’m your best friend. I’m Santa Claus” through the security camera system, her parents claimed.

The Ring camera had only been set up for four days in little Alyssa LeMay’s bedroom when she heard Christmas music randomly playing in her Memphis home, news station WMC-TV reported.

“First, what happened I was in the hallway I thought it was my sister because I hear music,” Alyssa said. “So I come upstairs and I hear some banging noise and I was like, ‘Who is that?'”

The voice, which appeared to be male, responded, “I’m your best friend. I’m Santa Claus.”

When she called out to her mother for help, the hacker spoke to her again.

“I’m Santa Claus,” the person can be heard saying. “Don’t you want to be my best friend?”

Her alarmed parents watched footage on the device, discovering the same strange voice had been encouraging their daughter to engage in destructive behavior, the outlet reported.

“They could have watched them sleeping, changing. I mean they could have seen all kinds of things,” said her mom, Ashley LeMay.

A Ring spokesperson said the app’s own security system was not compromised and encouraged users to use a two-factor identification system.

“While we are still investigating this issue and are taking appropriate steps to protect our devices based on our investigation, we are able to confirm this incident is in no way related to a breach or compromise of Ring’s security,” the statement said. “Due to the fact that customers often use the same username and password for their various accounts and subscriptions, bad actors often re-use credentials stolen or leaked from one service on other services.”

Do ALL liberals lack a sense of humor, or just the most rabid branch of the family?

/
Funny, eh? But she’s Canadian

Funny, eh? But she’s Canadian

Snopes “fact checks” Trump’s use of a Babylon Bee story.

It all started when Jenna Ellis, senior White House legal counsel, tweeted out a Babylon Bee story with the comment, "The Bee mocking the Dems: 'We have found Trump guilty of absolutely nothing, but we already started this whole process and it would look bad to back out now, so here we are.'" She added several lighthearted emojis and everyone thought it was hilarious, including President Trump, who retweeted Ellis, along with four thousand other Twitter users.

So everyone had a good laugh and moved on with their lives.

Nah, just kidding. Let me rephrase that: Everyone but Dan Evon, an intrepid reporter for Snopes, had a good laugh and moved on with their lives.

Adam Ford, founder of the Bee, reported at Disrn (his recently launched news site), that Evon actually emailed the White House to ask about the tweet.

"Snopes' Dan Evon, who has previously collided with The Babylon Bee when he assigned nefarious motives to a satirical Bee article in a supposedly objective fact-check, prompting a threat of legal action from the comedy outlet, sent his concerns to the White House in an email reviewed by Disrn," Ford explained.

Here's what the breathless crack reporter from Snopes had a burning desire to know: "President Trump recently retweeted a post from @JennaEllisEsq containing a fake quote from an entertainment article. Was President Trump aware that this quote was fake when he sent it? If so, why wasn't it accompanied by a message labeling the quote as fiction?"

Uh, yeah, Dan, everyone (who doesn't work for Snopes) is "aware" that the ubiquitous Babylon Bee is a purveyor of satire, and no one except the boring old scolds at Snopes the very earnest and sober-minded journalists at Snopes believes all jokes must be explained and labeled with a disclaimer for humor-impaired liberals those who have been diagnosed with a humor-related psychological disorder.

Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, told Disrn: "I'm not surprised by this at all. They don't like conservatives, so they're intent on painting us as a fake news outlet, rather than the well-known satire publication that we are."

Long ago, one knew better than to expect share a good chortle with some unshaven chick in Birkenstocks and granny glasses, but otherwise, liberals were okay to hang out with, and even decent company, most of the time. Now they all seem to froth at the mouth about everything, and their response to any attempt at lighthearted humor is “that’s not funny!” What unpleasant lives they must be leading.



Sold on Pecksland

/
85 Pecksland.jpg

(Edited to reflect that the property has closed)

85 Pecksland Road sold yesterday for $3.275 million. (started at $3.995 back in April). The 1900 house could use some serious updating, so the price strikes me as a bit surprising, but the land: 4.3 acres of beautiful grounds in the R-2 zone, close to town, is very special, and that’s worth a lot to some buyers (it certainly would be to me).

Establishment Republicans are wrong, if this report is correct

/
We’ll just let us grownups handle this

We’ll just let us grownups handle this

It’s from CNN, so it almost certainly isn’t true, but supposedly Trump and McConnell are at loggerheads over whether to hold aa quick or an extended, drawn-out impeachment trial.

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are both looking ahead to the Senate impeachment trial, but there is a growing divide between the two over what that trial should look like, CNN has learned.

In conversations with the White House, the Kentucky Republican has made clear he hopes to end the trial as soon as he can, an effort to both get impeachment off his lap and protect his conference from potentially damaging votes should the process break out into partisan warfare. ….

But the show is exactly what Trump wants. He's made clear to advisers privately that rather than end the trial as quickly as possible, he is hoping for a dramatic event, according to two people familiar with his thinking. He wants Hunter Biden, Rep. Adam Schiff and the whistleblower to testify. He wants the witnesses to be live, not clips of taped depositions. And he's hoping to turn it into a spectacle, which he thinks is his best chance to hurt Democrats in the election. ….

But Trump's position is the opposite of what some Republican senators, including some of Trump's closest allies on the Capitol Hill, are advising at this point. In closed-door meetings and phone calls over the course of the last month, several Republican senators have warned Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, not to "turn the Senate into a circus," according to one Republican senator. A source familiar with the matter said there was no daylight between Trump and Cipollone on the trial.

Instead, there has been a concerted push to allow both sides -- the House Democratic managers and the White House defense team -- to present their case, then quickly move to a vote to end the proceedings. It would give enough time for moderate Republicans to see it as a fulsome and fair process, while shielding the conference from divisive votes on potential witnesses, one person involved with internal GOP discussions said.

“Circus”? “A fulsome and fair process”? I’d say that’s exactly what we have already, especially the fulsome praise being heaped on our constitution by these charlatans. Trump and his voters recognize it, and Trump is smart to want to keep the farce going as long into the election year as possible. It’s understandable that the very people he was elected to do away with, Democrats and Republicans alike, would like to shut this down quickly to avoid further exposure of the nature of what’s been going on in Washington these past decades, but Trump would be a fool to go along.

And he’s no fool. Get the popcorn ready.

I'm so old, I remember when the Babylon Bee was a satirical news site

/
Tell your voters I didn’t mean it!

Tell your voters I didn’t mean it!

“Help! I am being held hostage by the Squad and forced to impeach Trump against my will”, Pelosi blinks out in Morse code

WASHINGTON, D.C.—As Nancy Pelosi held a press conference along with other House Democrats to announce that they would be introducing articles of impeachment against President Trump, Pelosi reportedly blinked out a cry for help in morse code.

Observant viewers noticed Pelosi was blinking out some kind of pattern.

"Hey, it's morse code!" said one Fox News reporter. "Let's see what she's saying." Investigative journalists wrote down the complex series of dashes and dots blinked out by Pelosi, and sure enough, a message emerged.

"I am being held hostage by the Squad, STOP." she blinked out. "I am impeaching Trump against my will, STOP. They are currently holding my family in a warehouse down by the docks, STOP. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is standing right behind this curtain holding a fully automatic 30-clip assault rifle revolver handgun, STOP. If I try to get off the impeachment train, who knows what they will do, STOP."

"Please send help, STOP."

So where’s the satire? Seems plausible to me.

Christmas screw up

/
Is there a return slip for this?

Is there a return slip for this?

Wise man who brought myrrh thought they’d agreed on a spending limit

“We all said before this, since we’re buying gifts for God among men, that there would be a temptation to go overboard,” said Caspar, the wise man who brought myrrh. “That’s why I distinctly remember us setting a denari limit on the gifts. What happened?”

“Well... I thought she’d like gold,” replied Balthazar, the wise man who brought gold.

“Of course she’d like gold!” shouted Caspar. “That’s not the point. We weren’t supposed to try to show each other up here. But instead, she’s like ‘Wow! Gold!’ right before she opens my gift where she’s all, ‘Oh. What’s this?’”

“She seemed to like the myrrh once you explained it to her,” Balthazar said.

“Yes, she was very polite about it,” Caspar responded. “But do you know what you don’t have to explain to people? Gold!”

“Hey, I got showed up too,” said the wise man Melchior, who gave frankincense.

Caspar pointed an accusing finger at him. “You were also over budget.”

They did all agree the baby was very cute.

We avoid this sort of trouble in the Fountain family: everyone gets a pass on gift giving except individuals who happened to sell $50 million in real estate this year. Gideon, we’ve posted our wish lists on Amazon for your convenience.