As it turns out, there IS a bit of real estate news to report

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75 Loughlin Avenue, Cos Cob, has sold to a couple from NYC’s financial district (10038 ZIP) for $2.180 million on an asking price of $1.795 million. That premium might possibly be attributed to the generosity of a pair of New Yorkers flush with cash, or the increasing appeal of Cos Cob, but it’s more likely because of listing agent Amanda Miller (Hooligans & Lawyers)’s staging genius; or that’s my guess, anyway.

Nothing new here, but it's real estate-related, and there's no local activity to report, so ...

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This feed from The History Channel showed up in my mailbox and I found it interesting. Feel free to change the channel if you don’t.*

What Did a House Cost During the Baby Boom?

The baby boom was a global increase in the number of births in the years following the end of World War II. In the United States, the time frame is generally defined as between 1946 and 1964, when around 76 million people were born. It coincided with a period of economic prosperity that also saw a boom in home ownership. Census data shows that 43.6% of Americans owned a home in 1940; by 1960, that number rose to 61.9%, an increase of more than 18%. We took a look at the average cost of a house during this boom time, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and inflation calculations from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index. 

The 1950s

At the onset of the baby boom, the housing stock was still in a state of stagnation due to the wartime conservation of building materials. As a result, in 1947, 6 million households saw families sharing living space with extended relatives, and approximately 500,000 households were living in make-do spaces such as detached garages, trailers, or otherwise temporary housing. But a few key programs reshaped the housing market: the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (better known as the GI Bill), Veterans Administration (VA) home loans, and the already-established Federal Housing Authority (FHA).

In the prewar era, mortgages were commonly structured as “balloon loans,” which were relatively short-term loans (five to seven years, on average) with a substantial down payment (normally 20% to 50%). The VA and FHA programs flipped the convention to long-term loans with low down payments. The ability to spend less up front and pay back the loan over 25 to 30 years significantly eased the barrier to home ownership for many Americans, though not everyone: The practice of redlining meant that a vast majority of Black veterans were shut out from receiving home loans. 

In 1950, some 1.53 million new homes were built, and VA and FHA loans comprised 51% of buyers. Another 2.4 million new homes were started between 1953 and 1957, using a total of $3.6 billion in loans. According to U.S. Census data, the national median price of a single-family detached home in 1950 was $7,354. That equates to $97,740 in today’s money, though it’s worth pointing out that the average house in 1950 was much smaller: 983 square feet and an average of 4.6 total rooms, as opposed to 2.264 square feet and seven to eight rooms today. The average family income was $3,300, the equivalent of $43,859 today, which goes to show how much the housing market has outpaced regular inflation in the 21st century: Though the value of the average home in 1950 equates to $97,740 today, data from 2018 to 2022 shows the modern-day median home value is almost triple that, at $281,900. The price of a home in 1950 was approximately double the median household income; considering today’s median household income of $74,755, the price of a home is now nearly four times the median household income.

The 1960s

The development of the Interstate Highway System with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 made the areas surrounding cities more easily accessible than ever before. This, along with the wide availability of empty land for developers to build on, and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation discouraging mortgage lending for central urban properties by identifying those areas as “hazardous,” contributed to the creation of the suburbs as we know them. By 1960, 15 million U.S. homes were under construction, and 75% of them were in suburban areas. 

The median single-family home size in 1960 rose to 1,500 square feet and gradually increased throughout the decade to just under 2,000 square feet. The median number of rooms increased from the 1950s average of 4.6 to six rooms in the 1960s, and that number held steady throughout the decade. It’s tempting to attribute the increased home size to the space that was available in the suburbs, but the numbers don’t exactly bear out that explanation: The median lot size throughout the 1950s and ’60s was steady at just over .20 acres, and it didn’t significantly increase until the 1970s.

As home sizes increased, so too did home prices: In 1960, the median value of a single-family detached home was $11,900 — that’s $126,852 today. However, the median family income kept pace, increasing to $5,600($59,695 today), so the median annual family income still comprised approximately half the cost of a home. The least expensive state for home ownership was Arkansas, with a median home value of $6,700, while the most expensive state was Hawaii, with a median home value of $20,900 — or $71,4210 and $222,790 today, respectively.

*The Surprising History of the Television Remote Control

D.C. Lawlessness — for the right criminals

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D.C. Sandwich-Thrower Not Charged With a Crime, Proving Not All Grand Juries Will Indict a Ham Sandwich

By streiff 

A D.C. grand jury has refused to return an indictment against a man accused of assaulting federal law enforcement during a confrontation in Washington, D.C. 

The story starts on August 10, when Sean Charles Dunn, 37, at the time a paralegal at the Department of Justice, hurled a sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol agent on duty at 14th and U in Northwest Washington, D.C. 

In fairness, the throw was lame, and the CBP officer treated it with the seriousness of any threat coming from a man approaching middle age wearing tight shorts and a pink shirt.

Dunn can be heard screaming, "F**k you! You f**king fascists! Why are you here? I don't want you in my city!" He was arrested at the scene and charged with assaulting an officer by the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. About the time he was being charged, it came to light that he was a Department of Justice employee, and he was promptly fired.

Problems emerged when the case was presented to a D.C. grand jury.

A grand jury declined to indict a man accused of throwing a sandwich at a federal agent in Washington, D.C., in a blow to the Trump administration’s attempts to prosecute crime in the city to the maximum extent, according to people familiar with the matter.

...

Dunn was charged by complaint with one felony count of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and employees of the U.S., because he had forcefully thrown the sandwich and struck the officer in the chest. The crime carries a maximum prison sentence of eight years when it includes physical contact.

Prosecutors have to secure a formal indictment from a grand jury within 30 days of an arrest in order to sustain a federal felony charge. It is unclear whether prosecutors will try again to indict Dunn. They could instead opt against pursuing felony charges and file a misdemeanor case, which doesn’t require an indictment from a grand jury.

….

This case appears to be the beginning of a trend rather than a standalone incident. On Monday, federal prosecutors dropped felony assault charges against Sidney Lori Reid on charges that she "forcibly assaulted, impeded or interfered with federal agents" as they sought to transfer two alleged gang members into FBI custody at the local jail in Washington. This included scuffling with an agent. The felony charges were dropped after three separate grand juries voted against indicting her.

Prosecutors almost never go in front of grand juries without obtaining indictments because they are in control of the information grand jurors hear and defendants are not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as evidence is presented.

But in a brief submission filed to Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey in Federal District Court in Washington, the prosecutors in Ms. Reid’s case acknowledged the extraordinary: that they had failed three times to secure an indictment within the 30 days given to them to do so after Ms. Reid’s arrest.

I’ll go along with Streif’s suggestion that this was probably a case of over-charging a silly act, but I also agree with his further observation:

Compare and contrast this with the alacrity with which D.C. grand juries handed out felony indictments for people merely walking into the Capitol on January 6. Had either Dunn or Reid committed those acts on January 6, 2021, they would have been facing a decade or more in prison.

…. The reluctance of DC judges and juries to support President Trump in tamping down violence in D.C. Former RedStater Bill Shipley, who goes by the handle @shipwreckedcrew on X, has a solid idea.

The case is building for eliminating the District Court for DC, and making it part of the District of Maryland.

You cannot have a District Court that has a juror pool so extremely partisan that objective evidence is simply disregarded based on politics. https://t.co/UiaGZovbNQ

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) August 27, 2025

Meet the Newscum, same as the old scum

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And then there’s this guy, from the capital of Somaliland

And speaking of scum, Greenwich’s Peppermint Patty has thoughts:

My friend the late Jerry Dumas would have so enjoyed this story

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sam and silo on patrol

I’d always assumed Jerry drew his inspiration for stupid cop tricks from our local Greenwich Police Department, but perhaps he was keeping an eye on the western branch of the Keystone Cops as well.

Fun stuff, but it gets even funner at the very end

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Loonie Attacks Couple Wearing MAGA Hats. Then She Turns Around and Wow.

Victoria Taft, PJ Media:

Imagine, if you will, a mature couple sitting in a restaurant munching on some chips and salsa and minding their own business. And then the crazy lady comes over and starts screaming at them. The red hat is all she needs to attack the unsuspecting eater sitting at the table with a long white beard. He sits across the table from an older woman who is likely his wife. 

The verbal onslaught begins before the camera rolls, but we open with the loon shrieking, "You're a sick, disgusting, f***ing, vile weirdo." As leftist rhetoric goes, this is an above-average verbal barrage for having used the word "vile." That beats "Hitler" any day. 

The loon begins to walk away, and then, with forefinger deployed, thinks twice and walks back to empty the garbage can of her mind on her new victim: the woman. 

"Oh, my God, you damn b***h, you don't think you're with this s**t. You think he's with you. He doesn't want me or you to have equality," The victim apparently says that she'll pray for the shrieker, who replies, "Oh my God!"

The victim stands up to tell the shrieker to "go away" as the woman threatens the victim with violence if the victim dares to touch her. 

Shrieker lady blocks the victim with her large body, hand on her hip, looking threatening and continuing her verbal barrage. 

Blocking the table, the shrieker orders the couple out of the restaurant. "Get out! You're not welcome here! You don't like these people here." The couple stands to square up on the plump, pretentious, pinhead as she continues, "You want me to be OK with you..." and unintelligible blurble ensues. But the next thing the man does is point to his hat and assert, "I'm proud of this man..." 

The police show up and the female victim greets them, "Thank you sir." 

Before she's shown the door, the loony lady screeches to someone off camera, "Why do you let this man in this restaurant wearing that hat?" To the cops, she continues, "That don't make any damn sense!" 

The police led her out, and if you hadn't seen it before, you see it now: her shirt. 

The crazy lady there, the woman who presumed to tell a Mexican restaurant owner to kick out a couple because they were wearing MAGA hats, wears this: a Luigi Mangione t-shirt. The shirt is the saintly depiction of the man who assassinated Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthCare, in cold blood on a New York City street. 

Squarespace doesn’t support direct links to TikTok videos, but it’s worth it to click on Victoria Taft’s page and catch it there.

By the way, the EBay page offering St. Mangione t-shirts also has this “uni-sex” T for sale — I’m thinking Susie might like one for a (late) birthday present.

The pendulum swings: back, and forth, and back, and ... (UPDATED)

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War in the boardroom: As usual, The Bee’s got the scoop:

Overcorrection? Cracker Barrel brings back the old man — at least temporarily

LEBANON, TN — Questions continue to swirl over whether perhaps Cracker Barrel went too far overcorrecting as it unveiled a logo featuring a Confederate flag and the new name "The South Will Rise Again."

While the public had roundly criticized the initial, modern logo update, many felt that displaying the battle flag of the Confederacy perhaps was a bit too much of a step backwards.

"We apologize for our overly hasty, modern remake and hope our new mascot, now named Robert E. Lee, will smooth things over," said the company in a statement. "We have listened to our customers and turned the clock back - way back, to the good ol' times of Dixie Land. Come on in and enjoy our all-new "Stonewall Jackson Platter" and "Confederate Combo". You'll feel like you're right back on the plantation."

Customers have responded favorably to some new dishes like the "'Gettysburg Grits" but overall felt like the rebranding had gone overboard. "I'm just not sure about how they replaced all the decorations with statues of J.E.B. Stuart," said local man Roger Samuelson. "And employing actual slaves? I think they may have overdone it."

At publishing time, Cracker Barrel had reversed course again and changed their name to "Black Lives Matter Barrel."

no longer operative

UPDATE: OK, this is pretty funny:

Well, this isn't good

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Stephen Green has it right, I thinK …

Because their voters are angry, they are energized, and they keep scoring wins whenever Trump isn’t on the ticket.”

We saw this same thing when, just a few weeks before the 22 mid-term elections, Lindsay Graham introduced his futile, going-nowhere bill to ban abortions nationwide just to please his hometown crowd: the pro-abortion crowd came out in droves and seriously weakened the Republicans, thereby allowing the Democrats to continue their damge (with the support of a few RINOs).

Get out the vote.

Know your customers — or despise them, whatever

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(Not AI-generated — actual picture)

Bud Light; Cracker Barrel; effeminate NFL cheerleaders: all three of these blunders are the natural result of companies turning their corporate suites over to the Woke Elite, people who know better than the chumps who buy their product. Mel Brooks addressed the subject 51 years ago, but his take was hilarious, and profitable; not so these modern idiots.