It's mighty strange

A week ago, Justice Arthur Engoron released his decision on the penalties for the Kleptocrat’s civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General. This is for years of him and his companies systematically filing false statements of financial condition in order to receive billions of dollars in loans at favorable interest rates.

Rates he wouldn’t have got had the banks known what his true financial situation was.

Cadet Bonespurs was assessed slightly less than $355M and banned from holding any executive position at a New York-based company for three years. His two adult male spawn were fined $4M each and banned for two years. CFO Allan Weisselberg has to pony up a million and is banned for life (I think).

Here’s the deal, tho: interest for the various counts that led to the $355 Very Large has been accruing for years, because the clock starts ticking as of the time(s) of the crime(s). And New York’s interest rate for criming is a statutory 9%.

Now, the Kleptocrat and his lawyers have vowed on their mothers’ graves that they’ll appeal the decision. But if they want to do that, they have to put the full amount of the judgment ($355M for the big guy), plus the interest that’s been accruing since the teens, plus something like an extra 10% to cover the interest during the appeal period. That means, in effect, the guy who’s just been adjudged to be worth considerably less than the billions he’s touted is going to have to hawk up about half a billion dollars within 30 days—either from his own assets or paying a bonding agency. (If he can find one to take him on, since he’s been known for decades for stiffing, well, everyone.)

This is on top of the $88.3M he has to post for his appeal of the E. Jean Carroll cases and the tens of millions he’ll owe his various attorneys this year. (Last year’s legal bills topped $50M.)

So, of course, today’s earworm is Eric Clapton’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”.

FAFO, baby. FAFO.

 

 

Pine bouquet

A few storms ago, a pine tree blew down on the neighboring golf course. It wasn’t on the course itself; on what’s called the rough, I think. Anyway, after a couple of days someone sawed it into chunks and it’s been there in a heap ever since.

Well, last week, after the Monday dusting of snow we got, I rather fancied that it looked like a bouquet:

And then a few days later, in different light:

They don’t seem to be in any hurry to haul it away.

 

 

Checking us out

I popped over to the library yesterday, to check some things out, and what should I see milling about in front but this gaggle.

I imagine they didn’t go inside because they none of them seemed to have a library card, so no point.

 

 

Circles

I shop at the Wegman’s in the People’s Republic even though it’s not as good as the store in Fairfax or even Dulles. It seems to have about 75% the size and inventory as those others, but it’s three miles away from my house as opposed to about 12 or 10, respectively.

I suppose that’s because it’s located on the ground floor of one of the apartment blocks that are popping up around here like fungus after a storm and therefore just has to make do. There was a big flapdoodle about where Wegman’s will build, something about needing X number of square footage for the actual facility plus about 3X for parking. Which is weird, because parking for this location is two layers of garage under the store.

To get to the upper parking level, you can take either an escalator or an elevator down. (There are no stairs. I suppose you could exit the store onto the sidewalk and then walk around to the driveway in to the garage, but that seems extreme.) The other day, the escalator was out of service, so I had to take the elevator.

I’m assuming I’m not the only person who’s unsure of which button to push to call the lift, because:

 

Gratitude Monday: under-performance

Weather forecast for the District They Call Columbia last week called for a winter storm Friday night. Prediction was two to four inches of snow, I think.

I do not hide that I was freaked out. Not because of the snow per se; if I don’t have to drive anywhere, I’m fine with it. Until I have to shovel my sidewalk.

But I’d volunteered to help with the setup Friday afternoon for the annual Presidents Day weekend book sale at a friend’s temple in Alexandria. Which is across Fairfax County from me in the People’s Republic. And my time slot was 1400-1600. Frankly, I was quadruple freaked out at the thought of having to drive back in DC rush hour traffic in a snow storm. Because everyone here (including me) does not know how to drive in snow.

However…

The book sale prep didn’t take as long as expected. I was on the road before 1500 and traffic was only normally insane. Got home by 1600. Snow didn’t start until after 2200 and turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. Nothing stuck to any paved surface and I was able to take my usual walk without danger of striking ice.

You have no idea how grateful I am for all of this.

 

 

Sing a psalm

As you’re no doubt aware, the Valentine’s Day celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs’ win in last Sunday’s sporting event ended with—quelle surprise—a mass shooting. One dead and at least 21 wounded; 11 of the victims are children.

God bless the NRA.

At time of writing, three people have been arrested; it seems to have originated in some kind of "personal dispute" among the perps. Which might have ended in a fistfight except military-grade weapons for everybody! Before learning this, I posited that, this being the land of Mah Freedumb, it could well be “I hate Taylor Swift;” or “There were all those targets;” or “It’s Wednesday.” And then it turns out that it was as close to motiveless as you can get and still send people to the hospital and the morgue.

So today’s earworm is Randy Rainbow’s “Thoughts and Prayers”. He recorded it in 2022, but it is, sadly, evergreen.

 

All in one day

A nor’ easter swept across the Mid-Atlantic states earlier this week. The forecast in the District They Call Columbia was for rain Monday night, possibly turning to the dreaded wintery mix and snow.

I wouldn’t have called what we got Monday night a storm—more like a soft drizzle—but here’s what I discovered when I got up Tuesday morning:

That turned to this:

But by mid-afternoon here’s what we had (with nothing left on the ground):

And the sunset was gorgeous:

 

 

 

Romance is all around

Not sure whether this heart is connected to the declaration of like I noted earlier, but it’s only a few meters away and appeared around the same time.

Regardless, seems like an appropriate thing to post on Valentine’s Day 2024. Happy whatever to all who celebrate.

 

 

Church & state

Let me preface this post by stating that no real estate in the People’s Republic of Reston is cheap.

So some years ago I was interested in a building calling itself Reston Study Center, next to a Kinder Care on one of my walking circuits.

“What is this?” I wondered. “Is it some kind of tutorial center? What do they study?”

Well—turns out that it’s a 21,000SF facility that supports that most endangered of demographic in the United States—White Christian men. Actually, it’s devoted to the Roman Catholic teachings of Opus Dei, those lovable whackjobs who brought us Leonard Leo, head of the Federalist Society, and his minions John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanagh and Amy Coney Barrett of SCOTUS.

The center seems to hold some kind of event every Saturday morning. And what I’ve noticed about the men who show up is that their vehicles are often covered in forced-birth stickers and they can’t be arsed to park on the street when their parking lot is full. They just line up on the clearly-marked no-parking yellow curb.

(Sorry about the video; I'm still learning this whole mobile phone thing.)

Seems like maybe they should be studying something besides Opus Dei living.

And they should be paying property taxes on that prime parcel of the People’s Republic.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Thirty minutes

Last week I reconnected with one of my recent colleagues; we had a 30-minute video call.

AS was one of the first people in the company to welcome me by introducing me to many of the basics of threat intelligence. He gave me private tutorials and translated many of the concepts so I would be able to understand at least 17% of the conversations I heard on conference calls.

He also introduced me to the daily digest emails, an aggregation of news reports of activities by threat actors, along with brief analyst takes on what was happening. Those emails became my daily devotionals, and I learned so much from reading them.

Our half hour last week whizzed by in seconds as he gave me the gouge on what it’s like as part of the software megalith that acquired our company 15 months ago. Rounds of layoffs (mostly timed for a couple of weeks before bonuses would be paid) weigh pretty heavily, and that makes it a bit of a challenge to carry on. But he’s doing okay.

And I’m grateful to have had that 30 minutes, to see him, listen to him and laugh with him. That is such a gift.