Been driving without a front plate for a year and no problems yet. I bought a new small truck and the dealership didn't drill holes for the front plate bracket. They told me that they didn't have the brackets due to supply chain, and nobody ever gets pulled over for it. I found the bracket in a plastic bag in the back of the vehicle but don't know if I'm going to ask the dealer to drill the holes.

There is a Cove Island nature sanctuary that is more shaded and less overrun with geese. It is across the marina from the main park, and past the ice rink and baseball field.

Mianus is also great. If you go further up into Bedford there is an even nicer stretch at Mianus River Gorge.

Farmer's markets around here typically carry produce grown within a certain range of the market. There is currently nothing in season in terms of fresh vegetables unless they're being grown in greenhouses or something. There is a downtown farmer's market, another one on High Ridge Road south CT-15, and one at the Stamford Nature Center. If they are open at all, then they won't have produce for a bit.

I think this rule starts to break down a bit in 1) very high cost of living areas, and 2) people with high incomes. Spending 40% of your income on housing is not that big of a deal if you still have $10K+ after paying your housing costs. I'm not trying to be argumentative...Fairfield Co. is going to be a lot different than many other parts of the state.

I've gone there for free music events that were really great! It's a beautiful spot.

The aesthetic is definitely "new age cult" but they have never pushed anything when I've been there. The music host has described their mission as something about ending unethical practices in the architectural supply chain. Seems like more of a vanity project maybe?

Where did I say that the Norwalk victims didn't deserve justice?

The cases would be comparable if the Norwalk driver had run away from the scene of the accident and hid from police.

This case is not very comparable. The Norwalk crash was a single vehicle in which the people that died were passengers in the car that crashed. The driver also went to the hospital. In the Stamford case, the driver ran over two pedestrians, fled the scene, and hid from the police. A fatal hit-and-run is enough to arrest someone. Charges can be added later.

That would be fine for him to post bail, but to not get arrested? Reeks of class / race privilege. If he had to go to a bail hearing, then they could have placed restrictions: e.g. no driving, no fucking around out of state, etc.

OTOH, the article says it is not clear if he was allowed to be out of state, so maybe we don't know all of the details.

Good, but why does it take one month to arrest someone who mowed down two people at high speed, fled the scene, and was caught hiding to evade the police?

Agreed. Stamford has problems recruiting teachers because it is expensive to live here. Some teachers commute from towns like Danbury, Bethel, or Trumbull, but many ultimately end up taking jobs closer to where they can afford to live.

Stamford schools are not bad. Stamford is a large, diverse district with many students that have serious challenges due to poverty, immigration status, etc, as well as many students that are thriving. Are you talking to people with kids in the school system? The "schools are bad" narrative I hear mostly from people that sent their kids to private school and don't really know much about Stamford schools, or people who grew up here and think the schools are much worse than when they were kids (they are not, but they are much more diverse).

Magnet schools are simply public schools that are available through a lottery, and may have special programs and facilities. My daughter goes to one...it isn't really that much better than the non magnet options. There is a bit of a halo effect because not everyone is able to attend due to the lottery. The high schools have many excellent options if you are willing to look, e.g. IB program at Stamford high, state Agriscience program at Westhill, and others . There are a lot of different elementary schools.

The root of the problem is local property taxes that get funneled into local school districts, which then become known as the best district, which drives up the local housing prices, etc. It's all a feedback loop. We have no way of knowing if the instruction in New Canaan or Darien schools is actually good. When nearly all of the kids have wealthy parents that both have at least Bachelor's degrees (and in many households, both parents have advanced degrees), those students will do well regardless of the schools. I don't have an easy fix to propose, but honestly I wouldn't want my kids to grow up in these towns or go to these schools (we live in Stamford and kids go to Stamford public schools). They're little hothouses for wealthy, entitled people whose kids are all stressed out about being successful, and these kids leave school rarely having interacted with someone not like them.

It didn't get much airtime, but after the Senate Lieberman worked for a law firm that defended Donald Trump's various shady activities. He was something of a buddy of Trump's and was considered to replace Comey as FBI diretor.

Lately, he is a scummy lobbyist for Chinese telecom companies. That guy sucks.

Murphy is pretty good as a junior senator. He is involved in a lot of legislation, working very hard. He also walks across big chunks of CT every so often to connect with voters. He isn't nearly the media hound that Blumenthal is.

Stony Brook, Buffalo, New Paltz, Geneseo, and Binghamton at a minimum have good reputations. There are a lot of really local campuses that are similar to CSU though.

At your age, go where you can advance your career the most effectively. I would guess Boston would be better in this regard, but proximity to NYC might matter if you are in finance or something similar.

These assessments are supposed to be 70% of fair market value.

Stamford, like every other CT city / town, is required to reassess property values every 5 years. These assessments are aimed to be 70% of the fair market value of the property. Due to the COVID real estate bubble, house prices went way up the last few years.

Our assessment has been adjusted to 25% higher than the prior year, but that does not mean that property taxes are going up 25%. The Board of Finance sets the mill rate in May 2023. There will be an increase but it should not be that huge, especially since prices are likely to decline from these peaks given the change in mortgage interest rates.

Free advice: put that money in a low-fee index fund that is broadly invested in the market and don't touch it. Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity are all good choices. If you start now then you can be quite wealthy later in life. If you have retirement benefits through work, then definitely do whatever you need to do to maximize them (e.g. put in what gets you the highest matching).

Very few people beat the market when it comes to options trading and other types of "active" investing. You will probably lose money. Everyone thinks they will be in the very few.

It's not directly about Pakistan. It's about a Sikh separatist movement to form an independent nation of Khalistan. This movement is banned in India after a lot of violence in the 1980's but support for Khalistan still exists (a lot of it overseas among Sikhs in the US, UK, and Canada). Some Hindu nationalists believe Pakistan is funding Khalistan separatists to undermine India.

It's only mentioned obliquely in the article because it would be speculative, but this points towards Hindu nationalists rather than the typical white supremacists or Islam-haters.

Similar to the bulldozer at the India Day Parade in Edison, NJ earlier this year that was meant to intimidate Muslims:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/nyregion/bulldozer-indian-parade-new-jersey.html

It is one of the bobcats collared in this project https://ctbobcatproject.weebly.com/

You might be able to report the sighting if you want.

Bobby Valentine and his supporters really pioneered the sign blitzkrieg last year. They must have put out thousands and he lost despite being "Mr. Stamford" or whatever.

This guy and his supporters also spent election day trying to get in verbal fights with Democrats at Davenport Ridge. What a piece of work. If you dig a little, then you find he emerges from the toxic swamp of people interested in "parental rights", which is coded language for anti-vaccine, anti-LGBTQ, Trumper nonsense.

FYI, voter rolls and party registrations are public information, as is whether you voted in past elections (obviously not who you voted for, just that you signed for a ballot). There are companies that will send texts out for candidates, and identify whether people are registered R or D or independent, whether they voted recently, etc. How they scrape your phone number is a bit opaque. I always vote but never get the texts. My spouse gets the texts all the time.

There are nonpartisan sites such as this one (Stamford focused, but statewide races are on there). They provide short statements from candidates:

https://stamfordelections.com/

I don't love political parties, but sometimes without information one has to default to parties that represent your broader principles. Easy decision for me these days given Trump, January 6th, and election denying, but your mileage may vary.