This should do the trick

Portland Maine will allow outdoor dining to continue through January 1st. All music venues are shuttered and either closed permanently or hanging on, barely, by the kindness of strangers. Bars closed, restaurants limited to 25% capacity, if indoor dining is allowed at all, and retail has gone belly up. Sitting outdoors at 20-below may prove to have limited appeal, especially if there’s no longer a reason to visit the city or go out at all.

Maine ruined its economy, destroyed businesses, and unleashed a wave of depression, suicides, alcoholism relapse and increased drug use in order to fight an almost mythical disease. So far, the total numbers, from the start of the panic until today, are:

Cases: 5,989 (“Positive COVID tests” would be more accurate, since the tests don’t necessarily reveal active infections — most aren’t)

Deaths: 146 (80% in nursing homes)

Active cases: 637

Currently hospitalized: 9

Worth it? Some say not.

Those aren't thugs tearing apart your city, they're "young suburban adults caught up in the moment'"

Or so says the Associated Press (and the rest of the media, actually). Here are some pictures showing the Mall after a massive Tea Party rally, Washington after the Obama inauguration, Washington after the Women’s March, and Hong King protesters — real anti-fascists — cleaning up after themselves after hundreds of thousands had rallied against the CCP. See if you can tell which is which.

Being a spoiled, self-indulgent, irresponsible pig doesn’t make one a terrorist, but it certainly doesn’t suggest a person of any worth, let alone an otherwise decent suburbanite “caught up in the moment”.

Bidding war in Old Greenwich

8 St. Claire Avenue, listed for $2.995 million, went immediately into a bidding war and has sold for $3.068. I can see its appeal to NYC refugees: almost no yard to bother with, modern interior, and all the things young Nea York couples worry about: sustainable flooring, low-volatile paint, and geothermal heating (which isn’t a bad thing at all).

The lot is 65-wide in front, 58-feet at the rear, but again, what do New Yorkers want with a yard? Less is more, in fact.

Speaking of which, the listing claims 4,830 sq.ft., the tax card, 3,472. One of them’s bound to be right.

Stanwich contract

59 Stanwich, which is one of those small houses up on the hill across from Fairfield Road’s intersection with Stanwich, reports a contract. It was put up for sale exactly a year ago Monday and never dropped its price from $1.395 million. And now, it seems the seller’s patience has paid off.

UPDATE: What a difference a year makes. Something about this house looked familiar so I searched the blog and lo, I wrote about it On October 18 2019, the day it hit the market, It was a flip-project, with the owner buying it for $860,000 that March, doing some quick and dirty improvements and returning it to the market. At the time, I didn’t think much of its prospects, but no one was expecting the Spanish Inquisition back then. Allowing, say, $200,000 put into improvements here (a guess), and 7% transaction costs, there was still money to be made on this deal. And these days, there just isn’t much out there in this price range.

Well, Toobin may have choked his chicken, but at least he didn't screw it — at least he didn't do THAT!

Gettin’ to know you ….

Unlike this Britisher.

Rehan Baig, 37, was busted after a tipster told the UK’s National Crime Agency that he had child porn — with officers finding “a number of indecent images of children” at his home in Bradford, prosecutor Abigail Langford told his sentencing hearing, according to the Sun.

“Also located among the devices interrogated were moving images showing the defendant engaging in penetrative sexual intercourse with a number of chickens,” Langford told Bradford Crown Court on Monday.

“The defendant caused the death of the chickens on each occasion,” she said — with one of the videos even showing Baig having sex with one of the animals in his basement after it had died.

No further comment necessary

A rising flu lifts all old listings

5 N. Crossway, in OG’s Lucas Point, has sold for $4.250 million. It was rented during 2019 but otherwise, it’s been on the market since 2015, when it started at $5.4.

Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses

(Not really relevant, but I’m inspired by this home’s silo and besides, it’s one of my favorite Toby Keith/Willie Nelson songs)

34 Richmond Hill Road has sold for $4.5 million. It’s been a long time (before it was) gone. The builder tried for $6.975-$6.5 from 2006 through 2009, then gave up until 54 days ago and listed at $4.995. That did the trick, though the trick may be on the buyer: I wouldn’t pay in the $4s for any house on Richmond Hill.

Just when you thought they’d passed into that great stagers’ warehouse in the sky, the Zebra and the Orange are back!

Who ya gonna believe, Biden, or our state's super-sleuth?

I have the hat! I have the hat to this day!

While the Biden campaign admits that Hunter’s emails are the real thing (Biden spokeswoman Jenna Arnold: “I don’t think anyone is saying they’re inauthentic”) Connecticut’s version of George Smiley, Senator Chris Murphy, knows better, and he insists he has proof that they were planted by those pesky Russians. Planted all the way back in April 2019, when Biden was dying in the polls? They are sooo smart!

Setting up post-election fraud

Gone but not forgotten

Supreme Court rules 4-4 to overrule Pennsylvania law and permit mail-in votes to be counted up to three days after the election, even when the postmark is illegible. Roberts joined the (other) liberals.

If election night shows Trump in the lead and that changes when a flood of “new” ballots come in to change the result, it won’t be pretty.

Swear in Barrett, soon.

Those who care about fraud, and there are no Democrats who do, will remember that Al Frankin became a senator by a margin of 312 votes out of 2.9 million cast. Investigations showed that some thousands of voters were convicted felons, ineligible under Minnesota law. 341 were prosecuted. The Bush administration sued the state, but Obama won control of the government and the investigation was dropped and the Minnesota courts dismissed the suit.

The Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan refused to enforce the federal law, and the Bush administration sued. Yet, in March 2009, the Obama administration dropped the case and it has not brought any others.

J. Christian Adams, a former career Justice Department lawyer, told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last week that Obama's Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes ordered Justice Department lawyers to drop all these cases.  According to Adams, on November 30 last year Fernandes told 40 Justice Department lawyers: "We're not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it."