Socialism in the "Good Intentions "Drawer"

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That’s a reference to the vegetable bin at the bottom of your refrigerator, but Mamdani’s given it new meaning.

Stephen Green adds, “If you’re going to spend $30 million just to not open one grocery store for three years — assuming no delays! — then the money isn’t going to a grocery store.”

Yup.

CNN has a new “expert” (I do like the description, “crisis actor”, and he's a doozy

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This has been a long running story, yet the FDA keeps funding usele$$ drugs to "cure" it

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What’s the deal with Alzheimer’s disease and amyloid?

“For decades, scientists have concentrated on what now looks to be a blind alley.”

They focused on it because that’s where the money lay, but I’ve been reading reports of the flaws of the so-called plaque theory of the disease — many scientists were theorizing that the plaques were a symptom, not the cause — for at least a decade, but (your) money keeps rolling in.

Tiny excerpt here from a lengthy article explaining the problem:

Many scientists were outraged by the approval [A “disgraceful decision:” Researchers blast FDA for approving Alzheimer’s drug] Even the FDA’s own advisers and statisticians didn’t think the drug should be approved.and their outrage looked justified once we saw how the drug would be marketed: with a cognitive test that no one could pass. A congressional inquiry into aducanumab’s approval found it was “rife with irregularities.” But at $65,000 per patient per year, the drug represented a potential $18 billion-a-year revenue stream for Biogen.

Aducanumab was approved by the FDA in June 2021. But by early July, the regulator had already narrowed the set of people it would allow the drug to be given to, restricting it to just patients with a mild form of the disease. Biogen ended up losing money on it and removed the drug from the market in January 2024.

But only so it could concentrate on another amyloid-β-targeting antibody, this one developed with a biotech company called Eisai. This therapy, called lecanemab, was half the price of aducanumab, at $26,500 per year, and it got the nod from the FDA in 2023. There were plenty of questions about the approval because, yet again, there was very little data indicating that patients were getting any better. And there were still nasty side effects; three patients died from brain swelling and hemorrhaging.

Another antibody targeting amyloid-β, called donanemab, made headlines in 2023 when its maker, Eli Lilly, published trial data that claimed to slow the progression of the disease “by about 35 percent in the early stages.” Again, this came with the risk of severe side effects like brain swelling and bleeding. Those side effects may have been the only way to tell someone was on the drug, given that it provided extremely mild cognitive benefits.

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The Amyloid Mafia

We would almost certainly know a lot more about those other potential causes had it not been for the so-called Amyloid Mafia. Scientists aren’t immune to groupthink, and the people responsible for deciding who got research grants and who didn’t have not been at all receptive to proposals that investigate non-amyloid mechanisms.

“You were just lucky when you weren’t beaten up by the amyloid-β or tau people if you would mention immunology,” said Michael Heneka, a neuroinflammation specialist interviewed by Nature in 2023. (Tau is another Alzheimer ’s-associated protein.)

Speaking to American Public Media, the former director of Alzheimer’s research at the National Institute of Aging said, “It became gradually an infallible belief system. So everybody felt obligated to pay homage to the idea without questioning. And that’s not very healthy for science when scientists… accept an idea as infallible. That’s when you run into problems.”

To make matters worse, it turned out that much of that confidence in amyloid-β as the one true cause was built on fake data.

That landmark 2006 Nature paper that claimed to show that a specific form of amyloid-β was the culprit causing the disease? It was retracted in 2024 after it emerged that the authors had faked some of the data, copy-pasting images of protein detections. In another case, a scientist at City University of New York was indicted last year for falsifying data that helped support the ideas behind an Alzheimer’s drug being developed by Cassava Sciences. (For a more comprehensive look at the Amyloid Mafia, check out Charles Piller’s work.) Sadly, this kind of scientific misconduct is more common than we’d like and can be hard to detect before publication.

Those FDA drug approvals have also been tainted. In addition to the aforementioned congressional investigation that found irregularities, the head of FDA’s neuroscience office was forced to step down in 2023 after it was found that he had an inappropriately close relationship with Biogen.

Despite this litany of clinical failures and research misconduct, it would be a stretch to say that the amyloid hypothesis is dead. Only one of the five FDA-approved therapies is independent of the amyloid pathway, and while work is conducted on other areas, amyloid-β research remains the lion’s share.

Close enough

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276 Otter Rock Drive asked for $27.5 million, got $25.

Here’s listing agent Joe Barbieri’s homemade video of the place — that’s Joe on the harmonium.

Speaking of Joe’s listings, Gideon toured 58 Shore Road today, new on the market at $23 million and discussed here yesterday, and reports that “I think Joe’s gonna get his price”.

And I think I’m growing closer to supporting a wealth tax for (certain) real estate agents.

(I’ve been corrected: Gideon informs me that the “Joe” he was referring to is 58 Shore’s builder Joe DeJesus, and Danielle Malloy is the listing agent; doesn’t matter, Joey B still has too much money)

Joe DeJesus at 58 shore road

I don't suppose it's likely that a sophisticated Saudi will exchange his Manhattan pied-a-terre for the joys of living above Greenwich Avenue, so no benefit for us here, but as trends go …

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Just one more shot across the bows for rich and middle class people in blue states, because there is never enough money to satisfy the looters, and when this latest tax proves insufficient, they’ll be back for more, and from more than just billionaires.

Related: up in Maine, the Democrat’s front-running senatorial candidate Graham, “Totenkopf” Platner is pushing for a “wealth tax” on everything state revenue agents can lay their hands on: real estate; closely held businesses; trusts; and, of course, unrealized capital gains, and he’s simply just one more voice in the Democrat choir demanding the same thing across the country.

Fun times.

Remember when Greenwich had a "Community Chest" (no, not Brandi Branderbreck in 9th Grade) to address local issues? It was subsumed into the United Way, and I miss it

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That was then. now ….

I saw the below ad on Greenwich Free Press’s page this morning, and was curious who was behind it. It took few click-throughs (beginning here), but it eventually leads back to the United Way.

Connecticut United Ways are committed to creating a state where economic well-being is a right, not a privilege. That is why we advocate with and for ALICE families – the growing number of Connecticut families who are living paycheck-to-paycheck despite working hard at the jobs available to them.

When 2 out of every 5 households in Connecticut can’t afford the basics, it’s not just a personal struggle, it’s a crack in the foundation of our economy and community.

And so on. Next time you’re tempted to contribute to the United Way — I’m not — in the naive belief that your dollars will go to support the Boy Scouts, or Grannies for Greenwich, or some other worthy local cause, know that instead, you’re paying the salary of paid Hartford political operatives.

15 seconds of inanity — sufficient to remind us of the quality of our elected officials. Do click the video, it’s fun.

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“This is why we have cooking instructions on Pop-Tarts”

I looked at the biography of this moron, and was struck by not only her lack of qualifications to do anything except conduct a failed election campaign subsidized by her rich husband (she was appointed to her present position), but also a reference to her “service” at the Air War College; that aroused my curiosity, so I turned to Grok.

Question posed to Grok:

what, if any were Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski's qualifications for and duties at the Air War College where, according to her bio, she served as a national security fellow ?

Answer:

Sarah Godlewski's official and campaign biographies consistently state that she served as a National Security Fellow at the Air War College (part of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama). This is listed on her Wisconsin Secretary of State page, her campaign site (sarahforwisconsin.com), Wikipedia, and other profiles without specific dates or program length.

Publicly available information provides limited details on the exact program, her selection process, specific qualifications required for her participation, or her day-to-day duties. No official Air War College or Department of the Air Force documentation names her or describes a civilian "National Security Fellow" slot tailored to her background. Air War College primarily runs senior-level programs (e.g., Master of Strategic Studies) for military officers (O-5/O-6 rank) and some federal civilians selected via service boards, but it also supports various fellowships and professional development for national security professionals.

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Duties

No sources—including her official bio, campaign materials, LinkedIn, news articles, or Air War College descriptions—detail her specific duties, projects, or outputs as a fellow.

General context for such fellowships at Air War College (or similar Air University/DoD programs) typically involves:

  • Advanced study in national security strategy, joint/multinational operations, air/space power, leadership, and policy.

  • Seminars, research, wargaming, or field studies.

  • Networking with military officers, faculty, and other fellows.

Her fellowship is often described in broad terms (e.g., one profile notes she "gained in-depth knowledge about national defense strategies and public safety"), but nothing more specific is available. It does not appear to have been a full resident master’s program (those are selective and usually longer-term for active-duty personnel).In short: The fellowship is listed in all her official biographies and appears tied to her Booz Allen Hamilton/Pentagon consulting background, but no public records detail the exact selection criteria, timeline, or her individual responsibilities/duties there. If you have access to additional private records (e.g., her full resume or program alumni lists), more specifics might exist.

Follow-up comment from FWIW to Grok:

Hmmm. She just went public with a complaint that the hail falling on her backyard was clear proof of global warming, causing me to worry that we had nitwits at the War College actually helping shape policy, but I guess that fear was unfounded - just a resume-polishing position, apparently. Thank you.

Reply:

You're welcome. Yes, that recent video from April 14, 2026, where she posted golf-ball-sized hail in her yard and directly tied it to climate change ("Republicans say climate change doesn’t exist... This is not normal") has drawn a lot of mockery online for treating a common severe thunderstorm event as unprecedented proof of global warming.

Hail of that size (and larger) has long been a normal feature of spring and summer severe weather in Wisconsin and the Midwest—tornado watches, large hail, and damaging winds are routine in thunderstorm season, driven by atmospheric instability, not a sudden shift in baseline climate. Single weather events like this don't equate to long-term climate trends; that's basic meteorology, and critics (including meteorologists) have pointed out the disconnect.

On the Air War College part: From what’s publicly available, her "National Security Fellow" listing appears to be more of a short-term professional development or networking-type slot (possibly tied to the broader Air Force Fellows/DAF Fellows ecosystem or the National Security Forum hosted by AWC) rather than the full resident senior-level program that shapes strategy for high-ranking military officers. Those longer programs are selective for field-grade officers and equivalent civilians with substantial national security portfolios.

Her background at Booz Allen Hamilton doing DoD consulting gave her plausible entry, but nothing indicates she was in a core policy-shaping role there. It does read like classic resume enhancement—common in politics—rather than deep immersion in war college-level strategic thinking.

Your updated take seems reasonable based on the lack of specifics around her duties or outputs from the fellowship. Politicians on all sides sometimes reach for dramatic weather = climate narratives; this one just landed particularly awkwardly.

They aren't mobs of black teenagers, they're "teen takeovers" and "teen trends"

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Sorry, but it’s a cultural thing, and sanitizing the name won’t solve the problem.

Police flood Orange Crush island hot spot, warn of teen takeovers as beach bash madness returns

"In recent months, stories of so-called 'teen takeovers' have popped up across the country," Tybee Island police said in a Facebook post Tuesday. "This phenomenon hit home just over a week ago, when an unpermitted event on the beach was interrupted by the sound of gunfire. Now, as we approach the return of Crush Reloaded, members of our local and online communities have expressed concerns."

The move follows a surge in nationwide "teen takeover" events, a trend that hit home last week when gunfire disrupted an unpermitted beach gathering on the island.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Passes Along Credible Reports of a 'Teen Trend' Forming