Even for a state that repeatedly re-elects Senator WhiteClub, this is shocking. Shocking and disgusting

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Naama Levy. 19, raped, tortured, and imprisoned for 15 months. Hail, Hamas!

The girl in the widely circulated video from the October 7th Hamas attack, seen with blood-soaked pants being dragged and forced into a vehicle, was identified as Naama Levy. 

She was a 19-year-old Israeli surveillance soldier at the Nahal Oz military base when she was kidnapped by Hamas. She was held captive for 477 days, enduring harsh conditions, before being released on January 25, 2025 as part of a ceasefire deal. The image of her abduction became a symbol of the suffering of female hostages and the brutality of the Hamas attack. 

Market shifts in Greenwich real estate (Updated)

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here’s what it looks like today

I saw a new rental listing just now for 12 Druid Lane in Riverside, asking $25,000 per month. I couldn’t locate an online link to it, but what interests me is the window it opens to the recent swings in real estate values.

The original house that stood here (owned by the parents of a childhood friend of mine, just as a irrelevant nugget of information) was a 1945 Cape;

  • it was listed in 2006 for $1.695 million and was immediately bought by a builder for $1,737,042.

  • The resulting new build was put up for sale in March, 2007 for $3.695 million, but that was just as the market was cooling and then plummeting into the crash; it finally sold in December 2008 for $2.835.

  • It was resold to the current owners in 2012 for just $2.9 million.

I couldn’t find any recent sales on Druid, but there have been several one street over on Bramble and, judging from those, I’d guess (top of the head) this would sell for some number in the high $3s, possibly more.

None of which really says anything of earthshaking significance, but I thought it might be of interest.

here’s what it replaced in 2007

And here’s the price history:

UPDATE: A reader reminds me that 35 Druid Lane is still pending, but entered a bidding war immediately back in March and is going for far more than its asking price of $2.550. It’s reported to be an absolute dump inside, so it matches its exterior. Here’s what I said about it back in March:

Riverside: 7 days, sealed bids, what else is new?

March 14, 2025 Chris Fountain

35 Druid Lane, $2.550 million and going for more. The owners paid $1.850 for it in ‘22 in another bidding war that had begun at $1.650), tidied it up and painted (although they appear to have retained for their rustic appeal the patched roof and crumbling driveway) and are ready to move on. 41.7% appreciation at the asking price, and sure to be more when the dust settles.

(Update: heard from an agent whose clients’ offer of $2.7+ “wasn’t even close” — sheesh. $2.850? Higher? Send in your guesses: winner gets to seal the drive, if not the deal.

Back when it sold in 2022 I predicted it was destined for the dumpster. That didn’t happen then, but I’m even more confident that it will now. That’s going to be one expensive house someone’s planning to put up.

Land sale? It wouldn’t surprise me.

July 18, 2022 Chris Fountain

Colorado is determined to beat California to the bottom, and, from way behind in the 70s, it's caught up and is about to pass it

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The Colorado I spend time in the early 70s was filled with young people my age with ambition — they all wanted to start their own businesses, and were working every odd job they could to accumulate savings — and older, tougher men and women who seemed to know what they were about. Then the Californians and eastern hippy refugees came in. The state is rushing towards oblivion, and the aging hippies and their spoiled spawn are cheering, because they’re idiots.

Stephen Green:

THE NEW DARK AGE: Colorado’s forced march to energy uncertainty.

“Energy isn’t a luxury,” Colorado Springs Utilities CEO Travas Deal recently told my Power Gab co-host Jake Fogleman and me. His concern? The direction of Colorado’s energy policy—away from affordable, reliable baseload power and toward costly, intermittent wind and solar.

He’s right. Reliable power is not optional. It’s a matter of life and death. We saw that in Texas during 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, where 246 people died amid rolling blackouts that nearly triggered a catastrophic grid collapse.

We’re seeing blackouts in Colorado, too. At the same time, the cost of power in Colorado is skyrocketing. Residential rates have increased over 85% since 2003, higher than inflation.

Yet Democrat Governor Jared Polis is doubling down on this dangerous trajectory to enshrine his unrealistic campaign promise of a grid powered by 100% “renewables” into state law. A draft bill circulated at the Capitol earlier this year mandates a 95% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 and 100% by 2040. This far exceeds the ambitious targets codified in 2019: 80% carbon emissions reduction by 2030.

The only way to meet this emission goal is to shut down the remaining coal and natural gas baseload, blanket the state with industrial wind turbines, utility-scale solar installations, and industrial batteries, force Coloradans into electric vehicles, require heat pumps, and drain Coloradans’ bank accounts.

That last part is key.

Previously: ‘F’ Is for Democrat: Colorado’s Collapse Under One-Party Rule.

Contract on the peninsula (Updated)

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459 Field Point Road, of the Belle Haven peninsula but not in it, has been on the market for 33 days @ $5.1 million, and reports a contract today. Nice house.

UPDATE: My friend Suzy Armstrong, who represents the buyer here, reminded me that this was the house the late David Ogilvy bought, renovated and lived in after he remarried. I visited there a number of times, and Suzy’s right: it’s a beautiful house, superbly redone, as you’d expect from anything David set his hand to.

And some family members, sadly

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Poll: college-educated women end friendships over politics

Your experience of losing friends since the 2024 election is absolutely real

If you wanted to drill down to the biggest dividing factor here, it’s the portion of the coalition made up of college-educated women – a cohort that now dominates the politics of the Democratic coalition. In their circles, they say differences of political opinion have led to broken friendships with friends and neighbors at a more than 40-point rate – 67 percent to 24 percent.

One factor here could be an underlying belief that your friends and neighbors are just flat-out racists over their political opinions. Of Kamala Harris voters, Cygnal’s poll found that 62 percent say race relations have gotten worse in the past five years (since the summer of George Floyd), while 55 percent of Trump voters say race relations have improved or stayed the same. And again, the same cohort shows up to double-down on that belief: fully 75 percent of white female Democrats with a college-degree say race relations have gotten worse since 2020 – compared to just 41 percent of black men.

It’s the allyship that matters most, you see – not friendship.

Just as a reminder of how ephemeral most tribal political battles are, the late Charles Krauthammer wrote:

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

Very much related:

March 2021: Pew Study: White Liberals Disproportionately Suffer From Mental Illness.

October 2024: There Is a Mental Illness Crisis Among Liberals