Mountain Wood Sale

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Sold: 9 Mountain Wood Drive, $12.2 million. Sold: 9 Mountain Wood Drive, $12.2 million. Gardiner Larson paid $3.3 million for the existing 1979 house in February 2025, expanded it from 5,244 s. ft. to 11,555, and were obviously rewarded for their efforts. No interior shots of the renovated house are on line, so I’ll give some from the previous incarnation. I don’t remember why I was on this property a decade ago, either for a price opinion or on behalf of potential buyers, but it was, as these pictures suggest, already past its sell-by date.

At some point ...

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There’s an entire judiciary out there at war with America, and, while New York City voters are apparently going to elect a man who promises more of it and harder, other parts of the country are probably not so eager to see it continue.

NYC transit slasher cut loose by judge, then knifes stranger in deranged subway attack: cops

An unhinged slasher who randomly attacked a stranger outside a Manhattan subway station was free to walk on the streets despite a separate transit knife attack, officials said – as his disfigured victim raged the lax criminal justice system nearly got him killed.

Ex-con Demitri Marshall, 32, was nabbed several hours after he cut the 27-year-old man across his face without warning outside the East Broadway train station, cops said.

It was just the latest transit attack from the unhinged repeat offender, who was arrested for slashing a stranger on board a Bronx train last month – but was cut loose on supervised release in court. 

His latest victim, who only provided his first name, needed seven stitches for a gash across his top lip and nose – but lamented that the seasoned perp could have taken his life.

“It’s wrong what the city of New York [did],” Fernando, who is originally from Ecuador and works as a painter, told The Post by phone in Spanish. “He’s a criminal who got released by a judge and he could’ve killed me. I don’t know why the justice system lets him go free.”

Fernando said he had just gotten off the train on his way home from work and was waiting to cross the street when the blade-wielding man ambushed him. 

“I came out behind him, but I didn’t pay any attention to him,” the victim said. “I stopped on the corner, on the street. I couldn’t cross because the light was red, so I looked to the left and to the right, and I felt like a blow to my face. He grabbed me, and I was going to fight him but then I saw all the blood.

“He didn’t say anything. I was in shock,” he added. “I didn’t do anything to him. I told the police, ‘Thank God he didn’t hit me in the neck or something. I could’ve died.’”

….

Marshall, of the Bronx, was busted around 5:30 p.m. about a half-mile from the scene and charged with first-degree assault, a felony, according to cops and prosecutors. 

He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on Rikers Island without bail during his Tuesday afternoon arraignment. 

The move to keep Marshall behind bars came about a month after he was granted supervised release in connection to a subway slashing in the Bronx, prosecutors said. 

In that case, he allegedly knifed a 21-year-old man across the left side of his face for no reason on board a No. 6 train passing through the Zerega Avenue station around 11:45 p.m. Aug. 28, cops and prosecutors said. 

The victim was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where he had been listed in stable condition, cops said. 

He was arrested on Sept. 15 and was charged with first-degree attempted assault, assault in the second and third degrees, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment, according to that criminal complaint. 

Judge Ralph L. Wolf granted Marshall supervised release – despite prosecutors’ request for him to be held on $50,000 cash bail or $150,000 bond, the DA’s Office said. 

Marshall had racked up seven busts before his latest unsettling attack. He had also been arrested back on Jan. 26 for allegedly punching a 27-year-old man – a stranger – on board an MTA bus at Allen and Grand streets on the Lower East Side, cops said. 

“Get my sister’s name out of your mouth,” he snarled during the senseless attack, according to police. 

The disposition of that case was not immediately known. 

He was also arrested for allegedly punching a 33-year-old man in the side of the head on the northbound F train platform at Second Avenue back in March, law enforcement sources said. 

That attack was ruled a hate crime – but he was still released with “non-monetary conditions” during his arraignment, according to online court records. 

Marshall also served slightly over a year in state prison – from March of 2023 to June of 2024 – on a Manhattan robbery conviction, state Corrections records show. 

He was released on parole, which expired in February, according to the records. 

His other busts, dating back to 2012, include raps for robbery, burglary and fare evasion, sources said. 

Marshall’s next court appearance on the latest case is scheduled for Oct. 30.

And then there’s this:

Od Greenwich Contract

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183 Shore Road, $9.990 million, 34 days on market. Long ago, my girlfriend was a summer au pair for a couple who lived in the rear cottage here. The girlfriend, the cottage and the cheap price the house once commanded are all (irrelevant) history now.

You can still enjoy the waterfront at a reasonable price, though, as long as you’re willing to live outside Old Greenwich. Here’s a $136,500 listing, for instance, right in Cos Cob Harbor.

Relax: you'll still be permitted to supplement your Tbsp — 15 grams — of hamburger with a full pound of locusts.

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where’s the beef?

Chris Morrison:

Ignorance of basic human biology and the woke propagandising of food ‘science’ to control global human behaviour lies behind the recently-published second version of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet (PHD). Produced by dozens of credentialled cretins around the world, it restricts meat and dairy consumption to levels not seen since the Second World War. Pasty-faced and possibly protein-starved researchers suggest around 15 grams of red meat a day and promote a mainly plant-based diet. ….

The few people still watching CNN were treated to the suggestion that the diet could feed 9.6 billion people “equitably” by 2050, save $5 trillion yearly and prevent 15 million deaths….

Needless to say, the EAT-Lancet report is not primarily aimed at the general population, since it is funded by the Green Blob to influence policymakers. Already in London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has signed up the City to implement the plan for all by 2030. [And so has NYC - Ed] Since the PHD first appeared in 2019, it has been extensively referenced, integrated into policies and endorsed in declarations by numerous international elite organisations. Various parts of the United Nations have framed the recommendations as a scientific blueprint for aligning food systems with climate and health priorities. Waffle about climate and social ‘justice’ is ubiquitous. The Green Blob-funded C40 network of 100 cities, chaired by Khan, is committed to climate bothering and is one of the PHD’s strongest supporters, driving action at the urban level.

…. But how will the State enforce such dietary requirements in a free society without stringent rationing and control? As it happens, and no doubt a complete coincidence, the UK Government is currently floating proposals for a nationwide identity card. Marketed as a possible help in mitigating the country’s open borders experiment, it is not difficult to foresee widespread future uses. Apart from providing right-to-work checks, the Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer has also let slip that it could be rolled out to access ‘”your own money”. Handy, of course, if the State wants to check up on your weekly rationed purchase of an egg, a couple of pints of animal milk and a small packet of planet-destroying sausages.

The EAT operation is awash with Green money. Co-founded in 2014 by the wealthy, private jet owing environmental activist Gunhild Stordalen, it seeks to transform the global food system to mitigate the overwhelming problems it imagines are caused by humans changing the climate. In common with many other such operations, the money buys influence, if not effective control over wide swathes of industry, politics, media, academia and science. EAT is based in Oslo and is backed by the Stordalen Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC).

…. [T]he latest list of cash investors in EAT-Lancet Commission 2.0 are said to include IKEA, Rockefeller, Wellcome Trust, Swedish Postcode, Novo Nordisk and Seedling.

[Coincidentally, no doubt, Novo Nordisk manufactures the hunger suppressant Wegovy, which will be of great help in calming otherwise hungry, rebellious peasants — Ed]

And there are plenty of Americans working for the same thing

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When Germans Happily Cut Their Own Throats - Hamburg VOTES to 'Deindustrialize'

Beege Welborne, HotAir:

I have probably done at least a dozen columns on the sorry state of the German economy with regard to the impact of their climate cult induced 'Green transition' madness. From prematurely closing functioning nuclear plants, switching to unreliable renewables at a frantic pace, mandating a switch over to hideously expensive all-electric household conversions, while destroying reliable and sufficient base generation power sources to run any of it, and adding additional drains on demand, was madness to begin with. But when the Ukraine War broke out, the Nordstream pipeline blew up, and the dunkelflautes became more common and sustained, once affordable electricity rates went through the roof. 

German households are pinched, investment is drying up, and the once vaunted Industrial Giant of Europe is clanging, banging, and groaning under the costly weight of Green mandates into the Sick Man of Europe. Deindustrialization creeps along, as factory floors are silenced. Industries shrink, close, and, if they're lucky, leave for cheaper, less intrusive pastures.

Or they die.

[I’m rearranging the author’s article here by pulling the specific Hamburg action to the fore so that it accords with the headline, then we’ll get to what Germans have done to their entire country]

Then there are always those who dance as the house burns down around them, while still holding the lit match.

Such is the case with the city of Hamburg, a major industrial and shipping port on the Elbe River.

It will also be a sterling example of why one should vote in every election. It's always the one time you don't vote that your missing vote could spell disaster.

That seems to have been the case here, in this past Sunday's election. There was lackluster participation at 43%, but with an item on the ballot called the 'Hamburg Future Decision' to be decided.

What the 'Future Decision' boiled down to was whether Hamburg would take it upon itself as a city to mandate an even sooner transition to a 'climate-neutral' state - 2040 - than that which Germany had committed to, which is 2045.

 And wouldn't you know the darn thing passed?

All the Greenies and cultists in an already uber-Lefty area flooded out to vote to deindustrialize one of the last remaining industrial cities standing in the country.

...According to the Statistics Office North, 303,936 Hamburg residents voted in favor of the "Future Decision," corresponding to 53.2 percent. 46.8 percent, or 267,495 people, voted against. Voter turnout was 43.6 percent.

... A report commissioned by the city by the Hamburg Institute and the Öko-Institut concluded that Hamburg can become climate-neutral by 2040 – but only with drastic measures . For example, all gas and oil boilers in residential and non-residential buildings would have to be replaced by 2040 – while simultaneously shutting down the entire gas grid. In residential construction, renovations would have to be significantly accelerated, and the installation of heating systems powered by renewable energy, such as heat pumps, would have to be promoted more vigorously now.

...In terms of traffic, a 30 km/h speed limit would have to be introduced throughout the city, and car traffic would have to be significantly reduced. Furthermore, environmental zones would have to be established in the port. For industry, natural gas and fuels such as petroleum coke and refinery gas would have to be completely replaced with hydrogen and e-fuels.

One fellow tried desperately to explain the consequences of such an insane yet binding referendum:

Here I explain the emergence and the serious consequences of the Hamburg Climate Decision https://apollo-news.net/klima-entscheid-in-hamburg-das-ist-das-ende-fuer-die-industrie-prof-fritz-vahrenholt-im-interview/No more diesel-powered container ships, no long-term future for aluminum, steel, and copper production, shutdown of the oil refinery, shutdown of the gas networks, ban on gas and oil heating, 350 € more rent per month for average apartments in Hamburg. Why did the First Mayor, Peter Tschentscher, remain silent and not warn the citizens of his city about the devastating effects? How can such a mayor, who lets everything slide, remain in office? One word from him and the unsettled SPD voters would have gone to the polls and the referendum would have been rejected. In this way, the Greens and the Left have enforced the decline of Germany's largest industrial city.

This German blogger went into fits.

Hamburg is German’s leading industrial city. Its companies add 20 billion Euros in gross value every year. Much of this economic output is related to Hamburg’s happy location on the Elbe and the fact that the city is home to Europe’s third-largest port. All of this has made Hamburg extremely prosperous, which prosperity has filled it with rafts of clueless virtue-signalling morons who have no idea how anything works, why they find Hamburg attractive in the first place or how their hip urban lifestyles are maintained.

...Consider just some of the consequences: All gas and oil heating systems in every last building in Hamburg will have to be changed out in the coming years. The cost to landlords will be reckoned in the billions. Hamburg’s entire natural gas network, constructed over generations and extending to nearly 8,000 kilometers, will soon have to be decommissioned entirely. The city will probably have to impose on all of its streets a strict speed limit of 30 kph (19 mph) and take drastic steps to reduce traffic. Municipal industries must transition from petroleum coke and gas entirely to hydrogen and e-fuels, although there is hardly a market for either of these alternatives or even the hope of one. If this law is not reversed, Hamburg will become a wasteland. First industry will leave, and then all the people will.

Auf Wiedersehen, Hamburg.

In a referendum, Hamburg has made a legally binding commitment to becoming climate-neutral by 2040. In an interview with Apollo News, Hamburg energy expert and SPD member Fritz Vahrenholt takes issue with the parties responsible and calls for the resignation of SPD mayor Tschentscher. This is the end of the industry, he warns, also with other German cities in mind.

And now back to Deutschland as a whole:

This is a chart showing the state of industrial production in Germany as of the August numbers.

It's a catastrophe! Industrial production in Germany fell further by 4.4% in August A deindustrialization and destruction of prosperity of this magnitude has never been seen in the country before. The reasons are homegrown and could be revised at any time, if one wanted to. When will politics finally wake up?

You'll see the high point of their national output was actually back in 2018. It's all been downhill (dramatic COVID break in between, naturally) ever since. They're now where they were in 2005.

It's all self-induced. They purposefully shut off functioning, safe nuclear reactors after the Fukushima accident - no tsunamis were anticipated or blamed in Germany. 

They did it because 'green.'

In April of 2023, they shut down the country's remaining three nuclear reactors. Eins, zwei, drei - dark.

It's not only nuclear, either.

German electrical costs for industry and households have increased by over 245% since 2000. German automakers have just announced 120K job cuts over 6 weeks (equating to 520K in the US if scaled for population), and luxury performance car maker Porsche(!) has been dropped from the German stock exchange's index.

Porsche kicked out of the German stock market index DAX and being replaced by a digital real estate marketplace is indeed a sad symbol of our decline. https://t.co/S5siEoDrDu

— Swen Roschlau 🦁🗽 (@SwenRoschlau) October 14, 2025

The climate cult mandated Green Transition has moved Germany one step shy of the Dark Ages, and it's a late and very rude shock for believers who are just now waking up.

Never rely on a 'futurist' to plan your energy system. Physics is unforgiving. This would be laughable if not so tragic - to see a great nation decimated by its own green-blinkered leadership. Look at the date. It only took a decade.
The Architect of Germany's Third Industrial…

— Friends of Science (@FriendsOScience) November 5, 2024

Gee, who ever could have seen THIS coming?

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Almost as stupid an idea as a high-end vegetarian restaurant

Pay people to buy an otherwise unwanted product, force manufacturers to produce that product, and you can create an artificial market with artificial demand. Take away that coercion, however, and normal market place rules will return. As here.

GM Takes $1.6 Billion Charge on EV Pullback

Automaker cites end of government-funded subsidies and regulatory mandates that fueled electric-vehicle growth

General Motors said it is reducing its electric-vehicle manufacturing capacity and booking a $1.6 billion charge on its EV business as demand sinks.

In a regulatory filing, the company said that EV sales are expected to fall with the end of government-funded subsidies and regulatory mandates that fueled EV growth.

The automaker has dramatically scaled back EV plans after spending billions on the technology. In 2021, GM had said it was committing $35 billion on EVs and autonomous vehicles. Money went toward new models, EV battery development and converting traditional auto factories into EV plants.

GM has been among the most active automakers lobbying for relief from some EV rules, saying that consumers aren’t ready to switch from gas-powered vehicles. The policy changes give automakers more years to improve their money-losing EV fleets and sell profitable gas-powered vehicles.

EV growth stagnated in the U.S. partly because of high sticker prices but consumers raced to buy the vehicles ahead of the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit at the end of September. GM recorded a record level of EV sales in the third quarter. Without that incentive, automakers have forecast that EV market will crater in the absence of the credit.

…

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said in 2021 that the company planned to have an all-electric lineup by 2035. At the time, EV maker Tesla’s sales were soaring and the industry anticipated rapid growth for years to come, buoyed in part by government mandates to reduce vehicle emissions and improve fuel economy.

Sales last year fell well short of expectations, leading GM and other carmakers to pare back plans. EV ambitions took another big blow this year as the Trump administration and Congress eliminated a string of regulations that for decades have pushed carmakers to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Rival Ford lost $5 billion last year on its EV business.

And last year to the day, this:

October 14, 2024:

GM To Reach Variable Positive Profit With EVs In Q4 2024

GM anticipates that its growing lineup of electric vehicles will achieve positive variable profit during the fourth quarter of 2024, according to statements made during the Investor Day presentation by General Motors CEO and Chair Mary Barra.

Notice this fudgework:

This does not mean that EVs are profitable for GM overall, but it does indicate that profit will soon be higher than variable costs such as labor and raw materials. Positive variable profit means EV units are now covering the variable costs needed to produce them and are beginning to contribute to covering fixed costs as well.

Mary Barra remarked that “this inflection point in EV profitability is arriving much faster than many people thought.” In fact, it arrived slightly faster than Barra herself predicted in 2022. At that time, during that year’s Investor Day presentation, she forecast profitability would be achieved by The General’s electric vehicles in 2025.

Overall losses for GM’s EV portfolio should shrink by about half in 2025, dwindling from $4 billion to $2 billion, thanks to the transition to positive variable profit. Paul Jacobson, the automaker’s Chief Financial Officer, remarked that the company predicts the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) “benefit to be approximately $800 million in 2024 and only expanding from there.” He also pointed out that the goal is “long-term profitability without any IRA benefits.”

The General expects its North American EV production to top 200,000 units in 2024. Against this backdrop and the planned unveiling of the next-generation, 2026 Chevy Bolt EV, GM President Mark Reuss said “we don’t need to create a skunkworks to create affordable electric vehicles,” apparently taunting Ford.

HAHAHAHAHAH

I have a number of friends who own Teslas, and without exception, they love them. All, however, have at least one other vehicle, and it’s an ICE. Here in Maine, that ICE is often a heavy-duty pick up, used to tow camping trailers, boats and just plain old stuff up to summer camps in the northwoods, 5-10 hours away. I posted a road test here earlier this year that reported on a car magazine’s editors endurance test of GM’s largest EV pickup, with the largest battery available, towing a 7,000 lb camping trailer; the best range they could achieve was half the claimed range, approximately 125-175 miles. That would translate to 2-3 hours — maybe — before stopping to recharge for 1-8 hours (there are practically no Level 3 chargers north of Portland), turning a trip up to camp into a multi-day journey; not happening.

A national policy of forcing every driver into an EV might be unobjectionable to rich Americans with garages allowing indoor installation of chargers (and whose longest recreational drive is to the golf club) but for the poor schnooks who don’t have garages, park on the street, and, like some of my friends, commute 60 miles to work at the Boston or Bath shipyards, it’s an impossible, oppressive burden, dreamed up by city dwellers and liberal arts majors, and to hell with them.

Making Dining Great Again

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One NYC Fine-Dining Restaurant Learned the Hard Way That Virtue Signaling Doesn’t Pay

Chris Queen PJ Media:

One of New York City’s most prestigious restaurants made a decision to become even more exclusive a few years ago, and its chef has finally realized that it was a bad choice. It took four years for the tony Eleven Madison Park to see the error of its ways.

In August, Eleven Madison Park’s Chef Daniel Humm announced that the restaurant was bringing meat back to the menu after a little over four years as a completely plant-based establishment. That’s right: a $375-a-plate restaurant spent nearly half a decade as a vegan joint.

 Humm spoke to the New York Times:

“I very much believed in the all-in approach, but I didn’t realize that we would exclude people,” he said. “I have some anxiety that people are going to say, ‘Oh, he’s a hypocrite,’ but I know that the best way to continue to champion plant-based cooking is to let everyone participate around the table.”

The restaurant has had varying levels of financial success since introducing the vegan menu, Mr. Humm said, but over the past year has found it increasingly harder to sustain the level of creativity and labor required. Bookings for private events, an essential stream of income, have been particularly sparse. “It’s hard to get 30 people for a corporate dinner to come to a plant-based restaurant,” he said.

Translation: We can’t keep up the stunt.

Eleven Madison Park swept into veganism around the same time that other well-meaning leftists fell head over heels for radical social causes. Reviews were mixed at best, and larger parties refused to book at the expensive restaurant. Still, Humm kept a firm grip on the plant-based menu for fear of his fellow virtue-signalers labeling him a hypocrite, despite the difficulties of sustaining it.

“Couching hard-nosed business calculations in a moral epiphany feels apt for Humm, now more celebrity food guru than elite restaurateur, who spends his time whining about the fragile ‘global food system’ and ‘social inequalities’ in between sherpa-guided meditations in the wilderness,” writes Gage Klipper at Spectator World. “There’s an implicit dig in the framing — how could I expect that my clientele just wouldn’t be as socially conscious as I am? — but Humm was about the only one surprised.”

….

Naturally, leftists decried Humm’s move to re-incorporate meat into Eleven Madison Park’s menu. That epithet of “hypocrite” that he feared came around.

“Yesterday, you were the owner of the world’s most famous vegan restaurant. An inspiration. Somewhere vegans could aspire to visit for special birthdays and special occasions,” someone commented on one of his Instagram posts. “Today, you are the owner of just another restaurant. I fell for your act. I thought you cared. You didn’t.”

….

Chef and TV host John Mountain took a different tack from his “culinary hero” Humm. At his Australian restaurant, Fyre, Mountain has banned vegans. In another Spectator World piece — which ran alongside Klipper’s article in the print edition — Mountain says that he knows “a thing or two about what people want to eat — and what they don’t.”

Which is why, two years ago, I banned vegans from my restaurant. I still stand by the post I made on Facebook at the time: “Sadly all vegans are now banned from Fyre (for mental health reasons). We thank you for your understanding. Xx.”

A diner was not happy that I didn’t offer her a vegan option. Things escalated and I banned her tribe. They’re quite a nasty bunch and they’ve been leaving a lot of one-star reviews online, trying to ruin my business. But now I appear to have been vindicated.

Mountain writes about how a friend of his checked out Eleven Madison Park’s vegan menu. When he asked the friend, the man was speechless. Mountain said that the disappointed look in the man’s eyes — as well as his description of everything but the food — told the whole story.

I thought I’d seen a similar tale of a carrot-rejection by a regretful restauranter out in Oh-so-special LA, so I asked Google to find it. Sure enough …

AI Overview

The popular Los Angeles vegan restaurant, Sage Plant Based Bistro, has brought meat back onto its menu, rebranding to Sage Regenerative Kitchen and Brewery. The shift is due to a desire to support regenerative farming practices, which its chef believes are more sustainable, though the restaurant also faced financial struggles after the pandemic. The change was met with criticism from some vegans. 

Reasons for the change

  • Regenerative agriculture:

    The owner believes regenerative farming, which includes animal products like bison and beef, is a more effective way to sequester carbon and improve the environment than a purely plant-based diet. 

  • Financial viability:

    The restaurant had been struggling with profitability since 2020 and saw adding meat as a way to attract more customers and survive, according to this article from Fox Business. 

  • Chef's changed perspective:

    The owner, Mollie Engelhart, stated that she initially believed a vegan diet was the best approach but has since changed her mind after learning more about regenerative agriculture, reports this article from Business Insider.