Follow up to Tuesday's post on tin can arbitrage

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welcome to connecticut, home of the ten cent deposit!

CT’s Democrats were blindsided by news that people, including organized crime rings, are collecting 5¢ deposit bottles out of state and cashing them in here in CT for 10¢. Who’d have ever thought that could happen?

Well, someone did, and this morning a reader/friend sent me the picture shown above, with this observation:

This was actually north of exit 4… must be some heat right over the border these days although Friday night we went to dinner just north of the river from  portchester and they were unloading a truck that put the operation in this pic to shame. 

I believe this is what's meant by being "known to the police"

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Mad Micturator Faces Multiple Trespassing Charges for Expressing his Opinion of Whole Foods on East Putnam Ave

Greenwich Police charged a man with trespassing three times in the past week.

  • Oct 7: Grant Sneddon, 65, was charged with Criminal Trespass 1st degree and Disorderly Conduct around 7:30pm after officers responded to Whole Foods at 90 East Putnam Ave on a report of a man urinating on the side of the building and sitting on one of the tables outside.

    Officers spotted Sneddon’s belongings scattered on the walkway outside the building and a puddle with the odor of urine next to the belongings. Sneddon related he had been there for about two hours and acknowledged the puddle was urine but said he didn’t do it and did not know who had. Further investigation revealed Sneddon had previously been trespassed from the address on May 23, 2025.

  • Oct 9: police received a report of a male urinating in public view in the area of East Putnam Ave and Lockwood Lane. Upon arrival officers located Mr. Sneddon seated on the property at 1137 East Putnam Ave. They said Sneddon had previously been formally trespassed from this property as well.

    The reporting party was interviewed and related that she had been stopped in nearby traffic when she observed Sneddon exposing himself and urinate in public view, causing her alarm and prompting her to call police


  • Oct 12: Sneddon was arrested and charged with Criminal Trespass 1st degree around 9:00pm after officers responded to Whole foods on a report of an individual following people around.

  • Police recognized Mr. Sneddon from numerous previous contacts. It was believed that Mr. Sneddon had been previously advised that he was not allowed on the Whole Foods Plaza property and that previously, on May 23 he was formally trespassed there at the request of the property manager. Further police noted Sneddon was previously issued a misdemeanor summons on Sept 22, 2026 for Criminal Trespass at Whole Foods. He was released on a promise to appear in Stamford Superior Court on Oct 26, 2026.


But wait, there’s more!

  • Back in 2025, Sneddon was charged with trespassing at Riverside Commons twice in one week – on January  28 and 29.

It’s been a while, but I do believe that I’ve been reading about this serial poisser since well before 2025; slow learner.

Brace yourself, Bridget

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After $15 TRILLION spent on the fight, Al and Greta can finally celebrate the rescue of the world as we know it

It worked!

Millions face ‘winter storm battleground’ as new models predict heavy snow blasts in 19 US states.

Millions of Americans could see a harsh winter with multiple snowstorms and freezing temperatures that turn several states into an Arctic ‘battleground.’

A recent long-range forecast model from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed a massive shift in the bands of heavy precipitation between December 2026 and February 2027.

That map shows a growing chance that the entire US East Coast will see above-average precipitation this winter, from southern Maine to the tip of Florida and stretching across the country into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas as well.

On the West Coast, California is also expected to see above-average precipitation this winter, which likely means feet of snow in the Sierra-Nevada mountains and other high-altitude areas out west.

While more precipitation than usual does not always guarantee snow, several independent forecasters have predicted that at least 19 states should be bracing for a potential blockbuster storm season.

Greta’s protests and Al Gore’s PowerPoint charts worked; the Green New Deal has been a smashing success, but ending global warming comes with unfortunate side effects.

None so blind ...

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especially when blindfolded

Punish the citizens, reward their replacements

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you talkin’ to me?

NY rejects 16,000 Trump ICE detainers for illegal migrants accused or convicted in over 52,000 crimes

Between the DHS’s hyperbole and New York Post’s sensationalism, the article itself is unreadable, but the numbers are apparently real enough.

ICE detainers are requests made to state and local law-enforcement agencies asking them to detain a suspected illegal migrant for as long as 48 hours so that the feds can have enough time to take custody of them.

But Albany lets local governments throughout the state set their own policies, turning places such as the Big Apple into … “Sanctuary Cities” that refuse to honor the requests.

There were 52,503 criminal charges or convictions associated with the ICE detainers that the municipalities across the Empire State have rejected so far under Trump, according to DHS.

Crimes allegedly committed by the illegal migrants included 131 homicides, 132 kidnappings, 1,017 sexual offenses, 1,561 counts of driving under the influence, 1,631 burglaries, 1,776 robberies and 2,198 weapons infractions.

The alleged crimes against [sic] the migrants also included 9,502 assaults and 4,324 counts related to dangerous drugs, according to data from DHS.

Why do I think the numbers are accurate? Because Hochul doesn’t deny them, she deflects, instead:

“Governor Hochul has been clear: New York State is not and never will be a sanctuary for violent criminals,” Hochul’s spokeswoman, Alexia Nizhny, told The Post in response to DHS’s claims.

“By law, New York State always notifies federal immigration enforcement of any non-citizen serving a State prison sentence,” she said in a statement.

So, New York does not notify ICE when illegals are arrested (and immediately released) or even convicted; only when they are actually sentenced and are in prison serving that sentence — a rare event, and usually one that occurs years after the crime was committed, will they drop a dime on their new friends. Until then, the criminals are free to roam about the country, commiting new crimes.

Happy Columbus Day! (Not) brought to you by Minnesota’s next senator

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Just when you thought Minnesota’s Democrat Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan couldn’t get any more unhinged about basic American history, along comes a fresh batch of her deleted tweets to remind everyone why she scrubbed her timeline in the first place. 

It’s much too long to include all but a tiny excerpt on this blog but if you’re interested in the subject, here’s an interesting article on the subject written back in 2015:

Did America Commit Genocide Against the Indians?

[Spoiler alert: No. — Ed]

A shocking 80 to 90 percent of the inhabitants of the Americas were wiped out by disease, very early in their contact with Europeans. There were roughly 37 million natives in what became Latin America immediately prior to Columbus, including 6 million in the Aztec Empire, 8 million in the Mayan States, 11 million in what is now Brazil, and 12 million in the Inca Empire. There were probably about 7 million more to the north, in all of what became the United States and Canada.

While it is true that smallpox was a disproportionately large part of this catastrophe, other deadly diseases inadvertently introduced by the Europeans included typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, mumps, yellow fever, and pertussis (whooping cough). All of these were chronic in Eurasia, and while deadly there too, the natives of those continents had built up significant resistance over time. The Indians, far less numerous, far more spread out, and isolated to a great degree from each other and, up to that time, entirely from Eurasia, had developed no resistance whatsoever.

There is no disaster quite like it in all of history.

Taking a middle-of-the-road 85 percent figure, what's left is only about 6.6 million people, spread across both continents. That's the population of Indiana (36,418 sq. miles) or El Salvador (8,124 sq. miles), but spread out over a total of 16,428,000 sq. miles. And remember, the overwhelming majority of them remained in Spanish (and Portuguese) lands.

So our first question has to be whether this admitted catastrophe constituted a genocide. But if one posits this, who exactly should we hold accountable? Europeans did not even know bacteria existed (and wouldn't know they were linked to disease for another four hundred years). Does anyone believe that the Chinese should pay reparations for the "genocide" of the Black Death, which killed 50 million Europeans and something between 75 and 200 million globally in the middle of the preceding century?

Bonus material: Map of the Spread of the Black Death, c. 1346–1353

Gender studies or a decent salary and no student debt? Surprisingly, many otherwise bright teens are still choosing the former (Updated, with a warning) (and updated again)

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Mike Rowe says CEOs are 'freaking out' over barriers to recruiting skilled trades workers

Electricians, welders and HVAC technicians are commanding six-figure salaries as companies poach workers from rivals

Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which helps the next generation get training in the skilled trades, told FOX Business that it's "been very surreal for me to watch the skilled trades come back into something like favor."

"I don't want to overstate it, but I can tell you that not a week goes by that I don't hear from the CEO of some consequential company or some industry leader who is straight up freaking out over the barriers to recruiting," Rowe said, adding that many large U.S. companies are establishing their own training programs to attract workers to the skilled trades.

"A lot of companies are doing things to grease the skids to accelerate the whole learning process," Rowe said. "Everybody is hiring, and nobody is quite sure how to come at it because they're all competing with each other for the same worker."

Rowe said that a wide range of companies are seeking skilled workers, from tech companies building data centers and power plants amid the AI boom to defense contractors, home improvement firms, automakers, construction firms and more.

"The government's got a ton of skin in the game at this point, but so too does Ford and General Motors and every major Fortune 500 company. It's almost like a kind of singularity is happening around this issue — micro and macro," he said.

"To me, the most compelling stat is five-in-two: every year, when five tradesmen leave the workforce, two replace them. It's been that way for 12 years, so the math has caught up to us," Rowe added.

Rowe spoke with FOX Business after he visited DECKED's facility in Defiance, Ohio, where the company makes sliding drawer systems for pickup trucks. He added that the company is one of many that are hiring workers in the skilled trades.

DECKED shared an economic analysis comparing skilled trades workers, including electricians, HVAC technicians and plumbers, to bachelor's degree holders who don't have an advanced degree that found the trades offer a faster path to financial breakeven with less debt.

It found that trade trainees can break even in less than a year by starting to earn right after high school or after half a year to two years in trade school, given median entry-level wages. By contrast, a college graduate at the median starting salary who didn't work during school would break even in about three and two-thirds years.

TRUE STORY

About 20 years ago I had a client shopping for a house in town. Byram-bred, he was by his own admission “not a book person”, so, on the verge of flunking out, he left GHS and transferred to Wright Technical High School ,just across the Stamford border. Upon graduation, found work at Greenwich Mercedes as a mechanic, rose to Service Manager, and was then lured away by Mercedes Manhattan as its service manager. When I met him, he was still a young man in his 30s, overseeing 80 mechanics.

Even then, there was huge shortage of mechanics in the New York area, and “Ralph” — we’ll call him Ralph because that was his name — told me of his frustration at trying to recruit more. He and one of his top mechanics would travel to inner-city and borough high schools and tell assemblies of students what Mercedes of Manhattan was offering: Free training, with a $30,000 salary while learning, and a rapid rise to $75,000 — $80,000 a year.

Back then that was real money, but the students wouldn’t bite: “they all said they were going it make millions as basketball stars”, Ralph recounted sadly, “and I don’t think any of them ever did.”

Who knows whether even one of them went on to stardom, but I do know that the Byram mechanic who became my friend bought a house on Indian Field Road for almost half-a-million dollars, renovated it himself, and eventually sold it for almost a million. Not bad for a kid who never went to college (and would have hated it if he had).

Greenwich High School, I’m told, has a good industrial arts program, and to give former Governor Dan Malloy (who had previously been Mayor of Stamford) and the CT legislature their due, Wright Tech, which was closed in 2009, was reopened during Malloy’s administration and vastly improved; more schools around the country should do their students a huge favor and follow suit.

Grok:

J.M. Wright Technical High School (commonly called Wright Tech) in Stamford, CT, closed temporarily, but it was later reopened as essentially the same institution (upgraded), not permanently shut down or replaced by a different school.

It is a state-run technical high school in the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System (CTECS). It is a full four-year high school (grades 9–12), not primarily a two-year program. Students take a mix of academics and intensive career/technical education (CTE) in a chosen trade, graduate with a high school diploma plus a certificate in their field, and can pursue jobs, apprenticeships, or college. Current/recent offerings include Automotive Technology, Carpentry, Culinary Arts, Digital Media, Electrical, Health Technology, HVAC, Information Technology, and Plumbing & Heating (with some variation over time; it has also offered facilities management and others). Students from towns including Stamford, Greenwich, Norwalk, and others in the region can attend.⁠

Closure and Reopening

  • Operations were suspended in 2009 under then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell amid state budget pressures, years of declining enrollment, lower academic performance metrics, and an aging facility. It was framed as a temporary two-year suspension to save money, but it stayed closed longer (about five years total). Teachers largely left or transferred, and enrollment had already been low relative to capacity.⁠Stamfordadvocate

  • Local and state advocates, alumni, business interests, and legislators pushed to reopen it. Under Gov. Dannel Malloy, the state invested roughly $85–90 million in a full renovation/gut rehab of the building (about 200,000 square feet of modernized shops, labs, and facilities).

  • It reopened in fall 2014 starting with ninth graders (phasing in one grade per year until it was a full 9–12 school). It was promoted as a modernized “flagship” technical high school with updated programs and partnerships.⁠Stamfordadvocate

It continues to operate today at 120 Bridge Street in Stamford as part of CTECS, with roughly 500 students in recent data, sports/activities, work-based learning options, and pathways that prepare students for careers or further education. Official site: wright.cttech.org.

UPDATE: I’ve been reading about this recently, and it’s a problem:

THE AI ECONOMY STILL NEEDS BEGINNERS. This strikes me as very true: “The result is a difficult paradox: AI can make experienced workers more productive while it could reduce the number of opportunities through which beginners can acquire experience.” We need to figure out how to fix this, fast.

We can probably suffer through a shortage of experienced social worker supervisors, but welders?

UPDATE II

A friend and former boss writes in to report on what one institution is doing to give poor kids a opportunity to escape their hopeless situation:

Check out Williamson College of the Trades. Started in 1889 by a rich Philly Quaker who saw poor young guys hanging around. Since then the school on a beautiful campus offers poor males a 3 year college training, 1/2 day classes and 1/2 day learning a trade. Room, board and tuition ALL free. BUT it is paramilitary: up early, clean room, coat and tie, go outside and salute the flag, 15 minutes of chapel, no drugs or booze. Everyone has a good job upon graduation and some end up starting their own business. Current chairman is an alum and ended up running a NYSE company.  I have given a number of scholarships. Five years ago I started a 1 week summer camp for high school boys after their junior year. It gives them a chance to use their hands to build a gazebo with masonry, carpentry and electrical and to see a different world. Truly an amazing place that forges fine men. Its President is terrific and a retired West Pointer.