Codey holds off on giving SCC any more money

Governor Codey has decided to not commit an additional $2 billion for the SCC. Instead leaving the situation for the new administration.

"Despite pleas from lawmakers at a Statehouse rally yesterday, acting Gov. Richard Codey said he does not expect any action on a bill that would pump $2 billion into the state's troubled school construction program during the lame-duck legislative session." link

Now if we could only get Corzine to stop funding that corrupt monster.

The cost of corruption

Governor Codey thinks the UMDNJ scandle will cost taxpayers
millions

"When the final tally is taken, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey may have defrauded the federal and state government of at least "tens of millions of dollars" in Medicare and Medicaid funds, acting Gov. Richard Codey said yesterday. "

Where does it all end. Here!

I know I've been beating the spy story to death. i'm going to let it go now, however, I wnat everyone to see what I'm afraid of. In england they're not even complaining. link

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

Remember where it leads!

The apologists keep on keeping on

Virtually every conservative website I read is doing a knee jerk defense of the Bush administration on the spying issue. I've seen defenses ranging from Clinton and Carter did it, to what if there was an imminent threat, to they didn't break the law. Boulderdash! Everyone else does it doesn't work with my teenager and it shouldn't work with a President. Imminent threats are covered under the current Patriot Act and if Bush didn't technically break the law, he pushed it further than he should have and surely violated the intent of current laws.

My contention on this issue has been that the Bush administration has seriously overstepped its authority. One, the Patriot Act allows for the Government to get warrants in arrears for emergency situations. In effect, start spying and then get the warrant. Two, the administration has offered no information of imminent terror activity that was thwarted, nor have they explained why, if they needed to move fast for tactical reasons, they didn't go to the FISA court afterwards. All of this leads me to believe that they could have gone for a warrant (and legally needed to go for a warrant) but didn't. I question why. Today the Star Ledger's editorial staff agreed.

Warrants aren't hard to get. A special FISA court has always granted them quickly and has rarely turned down a request. Bush's insistence that even a delay of a couple of hours is too much, hence his secret 2002 order to the NSA, doesn't stand up. The rules allow him, in an emergency, to order the spying first and then go to court for permission.

Where the Ledger is on target is their recitation of the many administration's indiscretions that have led someone like me, despite my conservative leanings, to distrust this administration.

"Spying on Americans' phone calls. Shipping foreigners to secret overseas prison camps where torture may be routine. FBI surveillance of environmental and anti-poverty organizations. Keeping a Pentagon database on the activities of peaceful antiwar protests, including one at William Paterson University.

The revelations of President Bush ignoring national and international law and civil rights in the name of combating terrorism keep growing and are bound to continue unless the courts and Congress begin to take seriously their constitutional duty of oversight."

For the past five years this administration has consistently pushed the boundaries of the law to get its way and expand the power of the executive. Bush's poll numbers show that the American people are looking at this administration and have found it wanting.

I'm feeling like John Kerry. Filp-Flop....

In the times today spying was domestic to domestic

A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."

Telecommunications experts say the issue points up troubling logistical questions about the program. At a time when communications networks are increasingly globalized, it is sometimes difficult even for the N.S.A. to determine whether someone is inside or outside the United States when making a cellphone call or sending an e-mail message. As a result, people that the security agency may think are outside the United States are actually on American soil.

Vice President Dick Cheney entered the debate over the legality of the program on Tuesday, casting the program as part of the administration's efforts to assert broader presidential powers. [Page A36.]

Eavesdropping on communications between two people who are both inside the United States is prohibited under Mr. Bush's order allowing some domestic surveillance.

I'm right, I'm right.... Help me, I'm getting dizzy.

Actually, I stand by my original contention that the reason the administration didn't get a warrent was because they had no evidence.

Maybe I'm Wrong

According to Drudge:

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SECRET SEARCH ON AMERICANS -- WITHOUT COURT ORDER

CARTER EXECUTIVE ORDER: 'ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE' WITHOUT COURT ORDER

Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval

Clinton, February 9, 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order"

Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: "Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."

WASH POST, July 15, 1994: Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also -- in the delicate words of a Justice Department official -- to "places where you wouldn't find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen... would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order."

Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes."

Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames's office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I dont' have to like it.

A brief reprieve

"The State Supreme Court yesterday declined to order an immediate infusion of cash for school construction in New Jersey's neediest districts, but required the Department of Education to supply an estimate of future costs for its cash-strapped program by Feb. 15." link

The first part of the quote sounds good. At least we don't have to put money into the corrupt SCC immediately. I hope the Legislature stands up to the court and refuses to appropriate any more money in the future. It's time to take on a court that is bankrupting the state.

Now playing, The Apologists

I was reading Fausta's BHB link and I noticed a link to Rush Limbaugh's web site and the title "Rush Limbaugh takes on the NYT on spying accusations". I happened to hear Rush today and I have to say that I wasn't impressed. The gist of Rush's argument is;

-George Bush is trying to fight a war and this is the type of activity that must go on for the war to be won.
-Anyone that questions the above premise is trying to undermine the President.
-The Clinton administration used a software program called Echelon to indiscriminately spy on communications world wide.
-Bush did indeed inform Congress that this activity was taking place, on more than one occasion.
-The Times' only motivation is to sell a book for Simon and Schuster which is owned by the Times' parent company Viacom.

Rush's argument doesn't hold water. For starters the President doesn't have to trample the constitution to win a war. We elect a President to protect our liberty not subvert it. Second, anyone can question the President on his actions. Questioning a President isn't undermining him it's keeping him honest. Third, the Clinton administration had no right to use Echelon to spy on Americans any more that Bush had the right. Fourth, The motivation of the NYT is not central to the issue.

The central question of this issue is a simple one. Why not get a warrant? The Patriot Act specifically allows for the Government to get a warrant in classified courts. What is the administration afraid of? The only conclusion that one can draw is that the administration didn't have enough evidence to obtain a warrant. To make matters even more difficult to judge, the administration hasn't shown that these actions were necessary to stop an imminent attack.

We are fighting a war against Islamo-Fascists. We have been told by the Bush administration since 9/11 that the "evil doers" want to harm us because that hate our way of life. Trampling on the Bill of Rights does more harm to our way of life than anything the terrorists have done.

All Americans must take care to examine this issue very closely. The road to losing your liberty, like the road to hell, is paved with good intentions.

Confirmed by the LA times

Last week I wrote about the myth that poor blacks in New Orleans were killed in disproportionate numbers during the flooding. Remember Anderson Cooper and Kayne West on that NBC special. Well the LA Times, a noted liberal newspaper, has confirmed the information that I presented last week. The Times article begins with this indictment of the hysterical reporting by the MSM in the days following the flooding.

The analysis contradicts what swiftly became conventional wisdom in the days after the storm hit that it was the city's poorest African American residents who bore the brunt of the hurricane. Slightly more than half of the bodies were found in the city's poorer neighborhoods, with the remainder scattered throughout middle-class and even some richer districts.

I know we won't see this reported adnausium on CNN this week.

But does it make the original act right?

This morning I wrote about the NSA spying on Americans without a warrent. A news flash from Drudge was just released:

NYT 'SPYING' SPLASH TIED TO BOOK RELEASE
Fri Dec 16 200 11:27:16 ET

**Exclusive**

On the front page of today's NEW YORK TIMES, national security reporter James Risen claims that "months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."

Risen claims the White House asked the paper not to publish the article, saying that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny.

Risen claims the TIMES delayed publication of the article for a year to conduct additional reporting.

But now comes word James Risen's article is only one of many "explosive newsbreaking" stories that can be found -- in his upcoming book!

The paper failed to reveal the urgent story was tied to a book release.

"STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" is to be published by FREE PRESS in the coming weeks, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

The book editor of Bush critic Richard Clarke [AGAINST ALL ENEMIES] signed Risen to FREE PRESS.

Developing...

OK, the Times should have disclosed this information, but that doesn't justify trampling on the constitution.

So dishearting

From MND

"And rather than a simple seamstress who dared to ‘Think Different,’ Mrs. Parks was a longtime NAACP activist, who went to the famous Highlander Folk School to learn about social change and lunched regularly with Mr. Gray, the civil rights lawyer.”

I never knew.

Liberty vs. Security

It was reported in the NY Times today that President Bush has allowed the NSA to spy on certain US Citizens and others within the United States, (reading emails and listening to phone calls) without getting a warrant.

Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A. monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.

At what price are Americans willing to trade liberty for security? As Franklin once said "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

I've had people make the argument that if the Government knew there were a nuclear device planted in a city that the suspension of civil liberties would be warranted. But would it? At what number of people at risk do we allow the suspension of civil liberties? One, five hundred a million?

I'm of the mindset that it's never ok for the government to suspend civil liberties. It's much too easy for the target group to move from being Islamo-facisits to people with red hair and freckles or maybe bloggers that say the wrong thing or maybe just people that are overheard at a bar.

I say no to the wanton disregard of the constitution by the Federal and State government. No matter what the threat, the government must act to protect every citizens rights regardless of the consequences.

Is another Katrina Myth Falling?

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this information from the web source cnsnews , but it seems to me that most of the initial information about New Orleans and Katrina reported by the MSM was wrong.

"...the state's demographic information suggests that whites in New Orleans died at a higher rate than minorities. According to the 2000 census, whites make up 28 percent of the city's population, but the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals indicates that whites constitute 36.6 percent of the storm's fatalities in the city.

African-Americans make up 67.25 percent of the population and 59.1 percent of the deceased. Other minorities constitute approximately 5 percent of the population and represented 4.3 percent of the storm's fatalities.

Overall for the state, 658 bodies have been identified. Forty-seven percent were African-American and 42 percent were Caucasian. The remaining bodies were either non-black minorities or undetermined."

I guess Jesse and Kanye West won't trumpet this news, if true.

Liar, liar pants on fire

Corzine reneges on pledge. link .

After vowing during his campaign that he would not raise the gas tax, Gov.-elect Jon Corzine said yesterday he will reconsider the idea now that gasoline prices have eased and the state's budget gap has ballooned to more than $5 billion.

The funny thing is that you could see this coming for miles. Even though in one speech he pledged not to raise the tax, he kept backpedaling on that promise through out the campaign. I wrote about this exact subject and what was going to happen once Corzine was elected in July and September . This is a man that will say anything to pander to whomever he is talking to.

Step by step, the closer they get

Over in Iran the rhetoric gets stronger while the weapons get stronger and stronger. link

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday the Holocaust was a myth, reiterating a view that has caused international uproar and drawn a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

"They have fabricated a legend under the name 'Massacre of the Jews', and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves," he told a crowd in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

His speech was broadcast live on state television.

Ahmadinejad accused the Israeli government and its allies of hypocrisy and repeated remarks that Israel should be moved from "dear Palestine" to Europe, America or Canada.

"If your civilization consists of unjust acts, oppression and poverty for the majority of the globe to provide your own people welfare, then we shout at the top of our voices that we hate your frail civilization," he said, to rapturous cries of "God is Greatest" from the crowd.

This lunatic is giving Israel virtually no choice, but to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Wasn't it just a few months ago he said that Israel should be wiped from the map? It's like watching a slow motion car wreck. You can see it coming but can't do a thing about it.

Spending like drunken sailors

The ledger reports today link

In all, lawmakers are considering at least $35 million in appropriations and tax breaks this week, even as state treasury officials warn of a $5 billion budget shortfall awaiting Corzine.

Those bills, most introduced since Dec. 1, would add spending to the $28.3 billion state budget that passed in June. Forecasts show the state is on track to completely wipe out that spending plan's $600 million surplus.

Actually, that would be insulting drunken sailors. Pigs feeding at the trough.

Hell no we won't go. Hell no...

I see that a few Rutgers students are trying to re-live the sixties. link

Rafael Greenblatt, a Rutgers graduate student and event organizer, told a crowd that marched from the school to downtown Monument Square the solution is "to starve the military of the recruits they need to keep this war going."

Speaking in front of a Christmas tree, Greenblatt said, "The only way to resolve these human rights abuses in Iraq is to bring the troops home."

I'm assuming that he is refering to the human rights abuses of Sadam and sons.

There's nothing to see. Move along....

I'm starting to think that maybe the Government isn't telling us everything. Last night a massive explosion at an oil storage facility rocked London and was felt as far away as 40 miles. link In the article the famous disclaimer is found as always after these type of events.

"The cause of the explosion is not yet known but no third party - a plane or a terrorist - was involved."

It amazes me that MI5 and the FBI always know immediately that it wasn't a terror incident.

This reporting on this incident reminds me of last week's story about a missile that an American Airlines pilot reported shot past his aircraft in California. I wrote about this the other day because it struck me as odd that the FBI called it a bottle rocket or flare that missed the plane at 7500 feet in the air.

I wrote about this and forgot about it until I read this post on
WND the other day. I followed the instructions that Cashill provide to see the radar images from that day;

using the LAX airport monitor. Those interested in doing the same can enter Nov. 26, 12:49, 20-mile range, and then click on "start."

You will see every airplane aloft in the Los Angeles area on the map. In about a half minute, "AAL612" appears as a green aircraft crossing the shoreline. If you click on the aircraft, it will turn red, and the flight data will appear in a box to the right. Over the next few minutes, the aircraft turns south. At approximately 6,000 feet and off the coast of Redondo Beach, a new target will appear.

"The unidentified targets altitude does some funny things," observes Glenn Schulze, "from a constant 1,500 feet to suddenly showing 7,500 feet where it remains, which is the same altitude as AA FL 612 at this point in AA FL 612's climb-out."

A radar expert I'm not, but it sure looks funny. I ran this site looking at real time data from Newark (it's pretty cool to look at a plane fly over your house and be able to see what its altitude, origin and destination are.) and have not, to this point, ever seen a ghost image or anything that looked like this.

I don't know. I guess we all need to make up our own minds.

The sorry state of higher education

Ann Coulter's speech at UConn was disrupted by loud music, jeering and yelling by student hecklers. She elected to do a question and answer period after she couldn't continue, asserting that "I love to engage in repartee with people that are a lot stupider than I am," link

The fact that free speech is dead in academia is sad and pathetic, but what is more disturbing is this quote from Eric Knudsen, a 19-year-old sophomore, who is studying the demanding social science of social welfare as well as being the head of a group called "Students Against Hate". The well indoctrinated Eric didn't attend the speech, but had this to say; "We encourage diverse opinion at UConn, but this is blatant hate speech". Eric is SO smart that he doesn't even have to hear what someone talked about to know what it is.

By the way, if I call Eric's comments idiotic, infantile and stupid, is that hate speech or the truth?

Big brother raises his head again. Sheeple don't cut it off

Big brother has reared his ugly head again.

Nestor Traffic Systems photographed more than 2,600 alleged speeders this fall -- snapping as many as seven cars a minute -- in and around Akron school zones.

The take in fines in that 19-day period: nearly half a million dollars.

The tripod-mounted mobile cameras nailed the most drivers in the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Copley Road, near Erie Island Elementary School in West Akron. Nestor nabbed more than 1,000 drivers there and issued $182,000 in fines, nearly 40 percent of the total.

Let's get this straight. We just place a camera anywhere we want, to catch you poor unsuspecting sheeple and we can raise revenues just like that at no cost to the town.

More than 100 people got more than one ticket. A half dozen of those got three tickets each, with fines totaling $450 to $650.

Many of those ticketed had no idea they'd been caught until they received a letter, or two letters, with a photo and the amount owed.

Hey, that's fair! Don't even let people know their doing something wrong and keep penalizing them over and over and over and....

I would think that the proper response to this sort of Governmental activity would be to break the cameras every time you see them.

"A little revolution now and then is a good thing." Long live the Sheeple.

Which Einstein Thought of This

I just read this blurb on Yahoo about a hotel that is using your fingerprint for room keys and room service.

... This hotel is equipped with a fingerprint authentication system which eliminates the need for room keys. Upon arrival, guests will be invited to place their fingertips on a fingerprint scanner.They can also pay bar and restaurant bills in this way.

So now when you get mugged, the mugger finds out where your staying, kills you, cuts off your finger, robs your room and eats and drinks for free all the while your in the morgue.

Doesn't anyone think this stuff through.

Fausta on Global Warming

Over at the Bad Hair Blog Fausta writes:

Snow on the ground, due to all that global warming
Excuse my scepticism, but I'm not all that sold on global warming, if only because weather trends encompass centuries, and back in the 1960s and 1970s some people were seriously worrying about the upcoming ice age. The Middle Ages were warmer than today, which brought about "a wonderful period of plenty for everyone," according to researchers and historians, so global warming per se might not turn out to be the disaster some are predicting.

Actually, the time period she is talking about is usually called the Medieval climate optimum. It is believed to have lasted from the 10th to 14th centuries. During this period wine grapes were grown in England and the Vikings colonized Greenland. The myth that the Vikings deliberately misnamed Iceland and Greenland is likely false as during this period of warm temperatures Greenland was most likely green. It is also believed that this was a northern hemisphere issue not a global issue.

It gets interesting after that. Although no one can really say when it started, somewhere in the 14th century the weather took a severe turn. Many scientist's believe that the average temperature of the hemisphere dropped up to 1-2 degrees centigrade. The effect was devastating. Most of Northern Europe's population was unable to farm as they had previously and many starved. Some historians posit that the plague was directly attributable to this cooling because people stayed inside longer and their homes were infested.

What Fausta is pointing out,however, remains true. Although the Eco's blame man for changing weather patterns, it is more probable that it is a natural cycle of the Earth and Sun than man.

Aghhh! He's a bad penny that won't go away

McGreedy just won't go away. I awoke this morning in a fine mood. No snow to shovel and an easy commute to work. I pick up my paper and what do I see splashed on the front page. Jim McGreevey. What was the occasion?

"McGreevey was a "guest of honor" along with actor Matthew Broderick at the Bergen County event, held to raise cash for "Claiming the Blessing," a national group that promotes a greater acceptance of gays and lesbians in the Episcopal church. "

Make it stop. Please!

The Hunt is On

Today begins the NJ Bear hunt. Last week an appeals court and the State Supreme Court ruled that the hunt could go on. The New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance and the Bear Education And Resource Group filed suits to stop the hunt but failed.

At least this time there isn't the hysteria that surrounded the last hunt. Let's hope for a successful and safe hunt.

Sounds like TWA flight 800

There seems to be a pattern. Whenever a suspicious event happens, a blackout, refinery explosion or even a missile being fired at a plane, the first thing the FBI says is "It's not a terror incident". As if the pilot mistook a missile for a bottle rocket. Cripes! He was out over the ocean. That's some bottle rocket or flare.

FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines plane taking off from Los Angeles International Airport.
Sources tell ABC News the pilot of American Airlines Flight 621, en route to Chicago, radioed air traffic controllers after takeoff from LAX. He told them a missile had been fired at the aircraft and missed.

The plane was over water when the pilot said he saw a smoke trail pass by the cockpit.

FBI agents believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket, but say they may never know if that's what it actually was. link

I fear for my nation

I fear for the future of my nation. It has gone weak. It has become a nation full of pampered Metrosexuals waiting to be gelded by those that would harm us. It has become divided by vitriolic speach. I see a nation that has leaders in congress, not just debating the validity and direction of an oversees action but, attacking with such venom that the enemy must be salivating at the opportunity left in the dissension. I see an executive branch that can not or will not explain their actions in clear terms. I see the media, whether right or left, MSM or alternative, becoming increasingly ludicrous in their assertions and acting more cartoonish with each passing day. I see an educational system that fails to educate many of our young. I see a government that is unable or unwilling to protect its own borders allowing an invasion of illegal immigrants. I see corporations dismantling the nation's manufacturing base and labor force by outsourcing jobs to Asian rivals.

The divisions that I see are fracturing the base of America's strength at a critical period in history. Rivals to America's position in the world are growing stronger in Asia every day as we get weaker whilst bickering amongst ourselves. Americans need to start holding their institutions more accountable. They deserve better.