Chronic cynicism
Yes, a visitor or two has told me that I sound cynical. But then, how can I help it? Adviser on 'pay-to-play' has two roles: Lawyer works with governor on new campaign rules and helps his clients deal with them

While Essex County attorney Angelo Genova was helping the governor rewrite the ground rules for political contributions in New Jersey, he was also launching a private venture to steer law clients through campaign finance regulations.
His law firm, Genova, Burns & Vernoia, began marketing a corporate political activity law practice group this summer, designed to help corporations and individuals hew to both state and federal regulations on campaign donations.
Genova also serves as attorney for the New Jersey Democratic Party, and according to numerous sources, he helped Gov. James E. McGreevey come up with tough new limits on campaign contributions by state contractors. McGreevey enacted the rules by executive order on Sept. 22.

And here's the punch line:

Genova's dual roles violate no ethics laws.

Neither does this,

A financial windfall awaits McGreevey when he leaves office. Under state law, outgoing governors are allowed up to $500,000 for a six-month transition covering staff salaries, office space, travel, postage and printing costs.

McGreevey thus will be riding out of office on taxpayers' coattails.

Don't see much reduction in my chronic cynicism in the near future . . .

Dames for Dubya
Following my post on being a dame, WhatsAPundit has come up with a perfect alliteration, Dames for Dubya. Brilliant!
Will have to see about getting a t-shirt done. I'm partial to that "W" line.

New-Jersey-on-Iberia?
Barcepundit has the scoop on the latest Spanish budget"

CREATIVE ACCOUNTING: Oil prices will remain high "for quite a long time", says Spain's Industry Jose Montilla. How come then Pedro Solbes, the Finance minister and Montilla's colleague in Zapatero's cabinet, has just presented the budget proposal for 2005 in which the macro-economic picture relies on a 3% growth of GDP, a 6,2% increase in spending, provided the price of oil is a maximum of 33,5 USD a barrel, which is more than 15 dollars off its current price? (this last link in Spanish)

You would think McGreevey was doing the numbers.

No Rutgers for McGreevey
A devastating article by a former Rutgers University Board of Trustees chairman McGreevey won't be landing paid job at Rutgers: If the governor is called upon to speak at the state university, let him do it for nothing. He could set an example for other faded politicians who keep looking for public handouts

Disgraced Gov. McGreevey, who last year was ready to sell Rutgers' body, soul and 1766 birthright in a costly, poorly conceived, politically inspired research university merger scheme that would have left Rutgers irrelevant, is not going to get a paid job at the state university after he leaves office Nov. 15. Free lectures would be something else at a university that wants to hear all views.

Then there's an Appeal set for lawsuit seeking special election, and New Jersey voters should decide lieutenant governor, report says.

In other news, totally unrelated to NJ, but a nice headline Fox Orders Pilot Starring Barenaked Ladies.

Dames for Bush
I just saw in the Instapundit a photo of a girl wearing a Babes for Bush tank top. Nice alliteration, too. However, since I'm not 29 years old anymore, I propose a Dames for Bush version. No alliteration, but I've always wanted to be a Dame. Unfortunately, I believe that in order for the Queen to pronounce me a Dame, I'd have to become either a British citizen or marry a Brit. The Husband's not British and I'm happy with him. Therefore, I'll be a dame. After all,

There Is Nothin' Like A Dame, Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
Sailors, Seabees and Marines:
We got sunlight on the sand,
We got moonlight on the sea,
We got mangoes and bananas
You can pick right off the tree,
We got volleyball and ping-pong
And a lot of dandy games!
What ain't we got?
We ain't got dames!

We get packages from home,
We get movies, we get shows,
We get speeches from our skipper
And advice from Tokyo Rose,
We get letters doused with perfume
We get dizzy from the smell!
What don't we get?
You know darn well!

We have nothin' to put on a clean white suit for
What we need is what there ain't no substitute for...

There is nothin' like a dame,
Nothin' in the world,
There is nothin' you can name
That is anythin' like a dame!

We feel restless, we feel blue,
We feel lonely and in grief,
We feel ev'ry kind of feelin',
But the feelin' of relief
We feel hungry as the wolf felt
When he met Red Hiding-hood
What don't we feel?
We don't feel good!

Lots of things in life are beautiful, but brother,
There is one particular thing that is nothin' whatsoever
In any way, shape or form like any other.

There is nothin' like a dame,
Nothin' in the world,
There is nothin' you can name
That is anythin' like a dame!

Nothin' else was built the same,
Nothin' in the world
As the soft and wavy frame
Like the silhouette of a dame!

There is absolutely nothin' like a frame of a dame.

So suppose that dame and bride
Are completely free from flaws,
Or as faithful as a bird dog,
Or as kind as Santa Claus,
It's a waste of time to worry
Over things that they have not,
We're thankful for the things they got!

There is nothin' you can name
That is anythin' like a dame!

There are no books like a dame,
And nothin' looks like a dame.
There are no drinks like a dame,
And nothin' thinks like a dame,
Nothin' acts like a dame,
Or attracts like a dame.
There ain't a thing that's wrong with any man here
That can't be cured by pullin' him near
A girly, womanly, female, feminine dame!

Maybe a Dames for Bush lettering on this shirt . . .

Orange alert
Via Drudge

Not even the fish are safe
. . . from the reaches of McGreevey's Lego legacy, so now

Bolstering New Jersey's recreational fishing industry with open space funds, the state announced Monday that it has spent a total of $16.8 million to provide access to 30 waterways

With so much special interest, is anyone surprised that Wall Street gives state bond sale low grade?

UNScam today
French bank scrutinized over oil-for-food deals. Congress seeks map of program to aid Iraqis

The BNP bank, which held the escrow account through which all of the U.N. program's oil money flowed, maintains investigators sought its documents as evidence targeting other companies and individuals. But several congressional panels say the bank also is under scrutiny.

"The subpoena for BNP Paribas stems from concerns expressed about the bank's compliance with existing 'know your customer' rules and similar laws enacted as part of the Patriot Act," said a spokesman for Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who chairs the House International Relations Committee

The UN "in consultation with the Iraqi government, named BNP to hold the sole escrow account. During the program, over $60 billion passed through the account."

It won't be the first time Banque Paribas has been linked in a corruption scandal. The ELF (oil company) investigation comes to mind:

Commissions and corporate bribes for foreign officials were legal under French law at the time - indeed, they were tax deductible. But it was illegal to kick money back to France through these so-called retro-commissions, which nonetheless are thought to have been widespread on major oil and arms deals.

Mr. Auchi has denied any wrongdoing, and defense attorneys said he had offered to buy Ertoil back and repay any commissions he received. But he has refused to appear in France before the magistrates, who have issued an international arrest warrant for him. Although Mr. Auchi's name is almost unknown to the French or British public, he is sometimes described as the eighth-richest man in Britain, with a broad portfolio of assets grouped under his holding company, General Mediterranean. At one time, he was also reputed to be the largest individual shareholder in the French bank, Banque Paribas, and a member of its international advisory board. According to press reports, the French government last year seized his shares in Paribas, said to be worth $500 million. Queried about his holdings Thursday, Paribas failed to respond.

BNP was also involved in the provision of oil-backed loans -- a very risky investment-- to Angola in the 1990s at a time when Banque Paribas was near bankruptcy, which caused Global Witness to raise questions in its detailed report. Not that BNP has shied away from bad loans, especially if the loans are backed by the French government

It was widely reported that BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole, three big French banks that are among Alstom's leading creditors, made the preposterous suggestion to the government that the firm's collapse could undermine the French, or even the European, financial system.

For all his talk about markets and despite previous warnings from the European Commission's competition authorities, Mr Chirac could not resist the pressure to intervene. While denying that this was illegal state aid, his government declared that it would buy half of the €600m in shares the firm is about to issue in return for a stake of about 30%. This will be financed by the government's recent sale of shares in Renault, a French carmaker.

The state will also provide further disguised subsidies in various forms, among them financial guarantees. The French government's move immediately incurred the wrath of the European Commission, which said it must first approve the deal.

Interestingly, Jacques Chirac was named in the investigation on the arms trafficking and state looting in Angola, while at the same time being investigated for corruption during his tenure as mayor of Paris. Immune from prosecution for as long as he stays in office in his current post, he keeps a checking account at BNP, as many other people do. BNP's a very large bank.

As for current EUropean politics, News you may have missed at EU Referendum has the details.

Presidential Debate
MadTV's edition (link sent by a friend).

Uncle!
Will anyone please stop those photo-ops of political candidates throwing footballs?

I realize I didn't grow up in a football culture (neither American football nor soccer are popular in Puerto Rico), so the mystique of football is lost on me unless I'm in the audience watching a good game that has been preceded by a tail-gate party, or at a nice Super Bowl party.

But surely I'm not the only person out there that finds silly and inane the endless stream of photos of a middle-aged man tossing footballs. Especially if the middle-aged man can't catch and is not photogenic to begin with.
To make things worse, the candidate feels it necessary to point in the air, interfere with street traffic, and bring Secret Service agents, entourage, and news photographers to a public park, therefore imposing on the public who might be there simply relaxing, so the photo op can take place.

For pity's sake, if you're running for President, look presidential. You're not in middle school anymore.

So, if anyone wanted to continue the football tossing until someone said "Uncle!", here you have it: "Uncle!"

The wrong publicity
Back in the 1960s there were a number of airline planes hijacked to Cuba. Financially this was huge business for Castro, since each plane that landed in Havana was "ransomed" by large amounts of cash. I don't know how much the TV networks played the news since I was a) too young and b) living in Puerto Rico at the time, but I do know hijackings on flights to the Caribbean became common enough that one of my cousins ended up spending several days in a hijacked plane in Havana -- by all accounts an awful experience that he didn't like talking about. After several hijacking incidents, legal measures were agreed upon, and the news industry placed a moratorium on the reports. The hijackings were mentioned, but on page 15, and no longered featured as "the day's top story" in the TV news. The publicity factor was gone.

Today Jeff Jarvis, Safire, and Putin weigh in on the subject. Safire:

But responsible journalists should consider the wisdom of allowing media-savvy terrorists to play them like a violin.
Sensationalism sells; on TV, "if it bleeds, it leads." Audiences are surely drawn to tearful interviews with worried spouses and children. Bloggers get "hits" from posting the most gruesome pictures. Cable ratings rise by milking the pathos in the drama created by the Zarqawi network: first comes the kidnapping report; then televised pleas from the kneeling, doomed innocents; then coverage of marches and vigils to plead for the payment of ransom; finally, in one case out of four, the delivery of dismembered bodies and gleeful claim of blame.
Do we have to become conduits for this grisly, real-death kidnap choreography? We are obliged to report it, but we need not go along with the terrorist propagandists in milking the most horror out of it.

Jarvis:

All this is quite counterintuitive -- you'd think that the terrorists would realize that this should hurt them, make them look like the murdering slime they are. But this is a counterintuitive world with the most countercivil people: They don't care about bad PR. They don't care if we hate them for they hate us; in fact, if we hate them, it's a badge of honor. So the worse we think of them, the better it is for them. And playing their videos accomplishes that goal.
But playing their videos too much eventually desensitizes us to the horror of their crimes. The sameness of the videos and of the reports of terrorist bombs killing civilians in Iraqi marketplaces or outside Iraqi police stations is becoming numbing. And that, too, suits the terrorists just fine; it dilutes our resolve to fight them.

Putin:

Putin lashed out at some media's choice of terms, such as "rebels" and "siege," in describing the Beslan school seizure.
"If a person seeks to achieve his goals by means like these, we should all have the same definition of such a person -- a murderer and a terrorist," he said.
"If we don't learn to speak the same language, we won't achieve our common goals and won't be able to protect our people," he said.

For starters. It would also be a good idea to realize that in the terrorists' own words, "What is laughable is the insistence of the ministers of all infidel nationalities on the phrase ‘no negotiations’. As if there was any question of negotiation. Far from it - they must obey the demands of the Mujahadeen. If you refuse, we slaughter."
For the past month France has been attempting to negotiate the release of two men currently held hostage. The initial reports in the France2 TV news repeatedly assured viewers that there was no threat of killing them, something that changed within a few days. In an interview for Front Page Mag (via Barcepundit), Bat Ye'or points out the repercussions of France's trying to negotiate with terrorism:

FP: What have you to say about the French journalists taken hostage and France's reactions?
Bat Ye'or: Chirac hoped that they would be liberated as a favor to French Arabophile and pro-Palestinian militancy, a dhimmi service for Arab policy that deserves a favor not granted to others. This tragedy has revealed France's good relations with terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and others. It has also uncovered France's dependency on its considerable Muslim population for its home and foreign policies, as it appeared earlier that their advocacy would determine the liberation of the hostages. But the incredible conditions subsequently put by the terrorists prove that Islamist terrorists apply the same rules to all infidels. It also demonstrates the inanity of a policy of collusion and denial that has always whitewashed Islamic terrorism to avoid confronting it and has constantly transferred its evils onto its victims.

France's situation illustrates, in fact, what threatens the whole of Europe through its demographic and political integration within the Arab-Muslim world, as promoted now by the Anna Lindh Foundation. France with Belgium, Germany and perhaps Spain is ahead of the rest of Europe. Britain, Italy and to some extent the East European countries are less marked by the subservience syndrome of dhimmitude which consists in submission and compliance to Muslim policy or face jihad and death. Dhimmitude is linked to the jihad ideology and sharia rules pertaining to infidels and represents the complex historical process of Islamization of the Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Hindu civilizations across three continents.

America has the choice of forgoing its liberty and adopting the European line of dhimmitude and supplication, or maintaining its resolve to fight the war against terrorism for freedom and for universal human rights values.

She concludes by stating: The war will be won if we name it, if we face it, if we recognize that it obeys specific rules of Islamic war that are not ours; and if democracies and Muslim modernists stop justifying these acts against other countries. The policy of collusion and support for terrorists in order to gain self-protection is a delusion. Rarely have I agreed with anything Putin says, but he's right in making clear that we must speak the same language.

Name it, face it, fight it, defeat it.

Words worth reading:

Kuwaiti Humanitarian Operations Center, for example, has provided almost $9 million dollars in aid to Fallujah between March and August this year and is currently undertaking studies of how to manage a $5 million grant for Najaf. And help comes from Bahrain, too

Arhtur's got Good news from Iraq, and it's Part 11

What WMDs?
Syria brokers secret deal to send atomic weapons scientists to Iran

Syria's President Bashir al-Asad is in secret negotiations with Iran to secure a safe haven for a group of Iraqi nuclear scientists who were sent to Damascus before last year's war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Western intelligence officials believe that President Asad is desperate to get the Iraqi scientists out of his country before their presence prompts America to target Syria as part of the war on terrorism.
. . . Under the terms of the deal President Asad offered the Iranians, the Iraqi scientists and their families would be transferred to Teheran together with a small amount of essential materials. The Iraqi team would then assist Iranian scientists to develop a nuclear weapon.

Read also Saddam, the Bomb and Me, by the head of Saddam Hussein's nuclear centrifuge program.

Another factor in the mothballing of the program was that Saddam Hussein was profiting handsomely from the United Nations oil-for-food program, building palaces around the country with the money he skimmed. I think he didn't want to risk losing this revenue stream by trying to restart a secret weapons program.
....
Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary. And there is no question that we could have done so very quickly. In the late 1980's, we put together the most efficient covert nuclear program the world has ever seen. In about three years, we gained the ability to enrich uranium and nearly become a nuclear threat; we built an effective centrifuge from scratch, even though we started with no knowledge of centrifuge technology. Had Saddam Hussein ordered it and the world looked the other way, we might have shaved months if not years off our previous efforts

(via Allahpundit)

Anderson Cooper, get out of the rain!

The time has come.
The time is now.
Just get out of the rain,
I don't care how.

and so I channel Dr. Seuss.
I like Anderson Cooper. He's cute, clean-cut and seems to have a sense of humor (I wonder how Dan Rather's career would have turned out if Dan had a sense of humor. Oh, never mind). I also like the working rich in general, particularly old-money people that instead of living off their trusts alone get an education, go out and get jobs: it gives the impression that they have common sense. So imagine my dismay when I turned on the TV and saw Anderson getting pelted with rain and sundry small flying objects. Even the Daily Kos came up with a funny post.
Val's done a postcard on the hurracaine, too.

The Lego legacy
From Charles Webster's article, McGreevey constructing bogus legacy

That’s all the big McGreevey pay-to-play banning executive order proved to be about -- building a bogus legacy for the governor out of Legos . . .
There are plenty more Lego legacy blocks to go around -- Taffet, Levinsohn, D’Amiano, Kushner, Chugh, Santiago, Watley, the FastTrack bill, Puerto Rico, Ireland, helicopter rides, and, of course, Golan Cipel.

The article also points out

But here’s the blockbuster part -- it was a planned scheme by some cozy Democrats -- McGreevey, Assembly Speaker Albio Sires and Democratic Party lawyer Angelo Genova. All were apparently involved in crafting out the scheme. So it comes as no surprise that Sires issued a cautious joint statement with Assembly Majority Leader Joe Roberts that afternoon.

while Codey seeks exemption from ban on pay-to-play all the same.

As Roberto said, Trenton pulls another fast one on the voters.

Life goes on, and The ever-vigilant Division of Highway Traffic Safety is sending two of its brass to a conference next week -- in Honolulu.

"There she is. . .
Definitely not Miss America via Cox and Forkum.
No further comment.

Allah's on a roll
. . . while William Kristol calls Kerry's behavior Disgraceful. Arhtur notices how Kerry alienates Poland, while Krauthammer looks at Kerry's dissing the Australians

This snide and reckless put-down more than undermines our best friends abroad. It demonstrates the cynicism of Kerry's promise to broaden our coalition in Iraq. If this is how Kerry repays America's closest allies -- ridiculing the likes of Tony Blair and John Howard -- who does he think is going to step up tomorrow to be America's friend?
The only thing that distinguishes Kerry's Iraq proposals from Bush's is his promise to deploy his unique, near-mystical ability to bring in new allies to fight and pay for the war in Iraq -- to "make Iraq the world's responsibility" and get others to "share the burden," as he said this week at New York University.
Yet even Richard Holbrooke, a top Kerry foreign policy adviser, admits that the president of France is not going to call up President Kerry and say, "How many divisions should I send to Iraq?"

As Mark Steyn puts it, Kerry's looking for American failure -- and he's it

What a small, graceless man Kerry is. The nature of adversarial politics in a democratic society makes George W. Bush his opponent. But it was entirely Kerry's choice to expand the field, to put himself on the other side of Allawi and the Iraqi people. Given his frequent boasts that he knows how to reach out to America's allies, it's remarkable how often he feels the need to insult them: Britain, Australia, and now free Iraq. But, because this pampered cipher has floundered for 18 months to find any rationale for his candidacy other than his indestructible belief in his own indispensability, Kerry finds himself a month before the election with no platform to run on other than American defeat. He has decided to co-opt the jihadist death-cult, the Baathist dead-enders, the suicide bombers and other misfits and run as the candidate of American failure. This would be shameful if he weren't so laughably inept at it

The Kerry campaign's disgraceful comments (echoed in Le Monde, via ¡No Pasarán!) about Mr. Allawi gave cause for Mr. Allawi to rebuke him in Congress. Of course, Mr. Kerry, whose attendance record in the Senate hasn't been all that good, wasn't there to listen (he was in Ohio, I believe). The Rocky Mountain News hears No soft talk for Heinz Kerry, either.

Through all this, Andrew McCarthy explains a few things about the war

Simply stated, this war is not a struggle to create stable democracies that, secondarily, might themselves keep our enemies at bay. It is a war to root out and destroy militant Islam, to vindicate the highest purpose of government: American national security. We should prosecute this war with the expectation that the accomplishment of our primary goal will produce conditions that make stability and, hopefully, democracy plausible — if the indigenes are willing to do the hard work needed to make that happen. We are not, however, guarantors of their future; it is our own future that has caused our paths to cross

Belmont Club analyzes that

Without the infrastrastructure of a state sponsor, terrorism is limited to cells of about 100 members in size in order to maintain security. In the context of the current campaign in Iraq, the strategic importance of places like Falluja or "holy places" is that their enclave nature allows terrorists to grow out their networks to a larger and more potent size. Without those sanctuaries, they would be small, clandestine hunted bands. The argument that dismantling terrorist enclaves makes "America less safe than it should be in a dangerous world" inverts the logic. It is allowing the growth of terrorist enclaves that puts everyone at risk in an otherwise safe world.

In Europe, Barcepundit points out to the links between ETA and Islamic terrorists in Spain, while a Eurosoc poll shows a great location for the European parliament.

More on academic fashion, updated Sunday, Sept. 26
Last night I was watching What Not To Wear (the American version, not the British version) as I was falling asleep. What the two brigthly-smiling, heavily unpleasant, bitchy fashion advisors do is publically humiliate a woman when introducing themselves, send her to their NY studio, make her bring all her clothes to the studio so they can throw away all the clothes while making (yet more!) humiliating snide comments. The 2 advisors then give her a debit card with $5,000 so she can shop in Manhattan for a wardobe of elegant flattering clothes.

Last night's victim was a woman that just finished her PhD in psychology who would be working as a psychology professor (isn't she a little young for that, I wonder?) in Canada. They sent her out to shop in nice SoHo boutiques where the average price of a pair of slacks is $300. They insisted she wear high heels to work. They told her she shouldn't wear bulky sweaters. They admired her long legs and told her she should wear short skirts.

Seems to me the advisors have been inhaling the heady fumes of the fashionista for too long.

One thing they forgot: it gets cold in Canada. That's one basic, unescapable fact: Cold. Cold like you can't imagine if you haven't been there. Cold enough that placing your bare warm hand on a cold piece of metal will remove the top layer of skin. It stays cold, too. Then it gets really hot for two weeks before it gets back to cold again.

At $300 a pop per garment, no way you can have an entire wardobe with only $5,000 if you live in a cold climate. You spend about that much in warm underwear alone. The bulky sweaters are only the top layer of what is an onion-like array of warm clothing. Long johns, flannel-lined trousers, socks with sock liners are the everyday "musts" of Canadian winter fashion. I lived in upstate NY for 3 years and can attest to the fact that a short skirt in winter is Not A Good Idea. Anyone in Canada vain enough to insist on wearing thin figure-flattering silk blouses and short skirts in winter gets a Darwinian award and either perishes or leaves for warmer climates. Even the geese have left Canada and are roosting in NJ. The Canadians think the geese are an endangered species because there are no geese left in Canada -- there are no geese left in Canada because the geese realized it gets warmer in NJ so they settled here. But I digress.

The high-heeled boots won't do too well in walkways covered with ice and snow. I have yet to see any professors wear high heels in class, either, but the world is full of possibilities.

I can't tell you the results of the fashion advice (or wether they followed-up with her after one long Canadian winter) since I fell asleep before the end of the makeover. Then this morning I woke up and came across this makeover nightmare. One wonders if the What Not To Wear couple had a hand in that. Hopefully they had nothing to do with Cybill Shepherd's coiffure.
Update: Kathleen likes the British What Not To Wear.
A friend saw the Cybill photos and sent some hangover cures.

Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) protesting at the UN on 25 September 2004 between 5-8 PM
Just last Sunday I was hinting at the possibility of a nuclear Iran and a Mullah President Considered for UN Sec-Gen Post. Today, via Roger L. Simon, the SMCCDI is issuing an invitation

Thus, the "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI) beseeches you people of conscience, you freedom loving compatriots, you decent citizens of America, you human rights activists to protest or to come out in force to be seen and to be heard.
Come and let the world see and hear you, on 25 September 2004 at the New York's "Dag Hammarskjold Plaza" located at 47th Street and 2nd Avenue; Between 5-7 PM, denounce the Terror Masters of Tehran and every vile thing they stand for.
Come and let the world see and hear your solidarity with the oppressed Iranians who are longing to establish a democratic and secular country that wants to be a bastion of stability in the region and a proud member of the civilized world once again.
Come !!!

The SMCCDI website states, "The Hezbollah regime is planning to announce the candidacy of the demagogue Khatami as the next UN Secretary General".
Don't let it happen.

Born-again reformer
. . . is what the Trenton Times calls McGreevey this morning, pointing out he's "had one epiphany after another in the waning days of his self-curtailed term", which has led to the executive order, (short-lived as the order is)

Effective Oct. 15, the order bars vendors seeking state contracts of more than $17,500 from giving money to candidates for governor or to state or county party committees beginning 18 months before contract negotiations start and extending through the life of the contract. It goes well beyond the loophole-filled bill that the governor signed into law in June, which applies only to no-bid contracts, doesn't bar contributions by state contractors to county parties and doesn't take effect until 2006.
But the executive order leaves numerous gaps. It doesn't prevent businesses from giving to the campaigns of county or municipal officials who award contracts at those levels. It doesn't restrict contributions to legislators or to their leadership political action committees. It applies only to individuals who own or control more than 10 percent of a company or partnership, meaning that a big law firm could still influence a contract award by bundling donations from employees with smaller equity. It doesn't cover the "wheeling" of funds from one county to another during general elections. It doesn't undo the damage done by the June law, which in 2006 will pre-empt strong pay-to-play ordinances enacted by individual municipalities such as Hamilton, West Windsor and Hopewell townships.

The article points out that after McG's epiphanies, he "has begun acting like the governor many New Jerseyans had thought they elected three years ago before discovering, to their disappointment, that he was just another stereotypical New Jersey pol."

McGreevey's epiphanies have also led him to quote scripture and resort to prayer, too, making some of us think of all of this being part of his apology tour, as Roberto named it. John, on the other hand, is slightly less skeptical.

Fashion report on The University's professors, updated
In case you wonder how the faculty look at The University:
I've been auditing courses at The University for the past few years. I'm pleased to report that none of the professors in the classes I've audited have digressed into political indoctrination. To the contrary, all of them, and I mean all of them, show great enthusiam and knowledge of their subject matter and so far haven't relied on politics to carry them through the 50-minute lectures I attend.

I'm also happy to report, that, unlike this woman's professors, The University profs are clean, well-groomed and nicely dressed. Professor Craig -- as befits Modern Fiction -- wore a casual but well groomed black outfit, architect (Ms) Ponte wore nice women's clothes, the engineering men wore well-pressed kahkis and dress shirts, and both medievalist men, Smith and Fleming, wear suits with dress shirts and ties. Uniformly, all wear nice and comfortable-looking shoes (not surprisingly, since they're on their feet most of the day).

For which I'm grateful. Wouldn't want to be distracted by thoughts of ambush makeovers.
Update: 'Tis a warm day, so Fleming wore polo shirt and chinos.

UNScam today, updated
Via Friends of Saddam, the Heritage Foundation questions the cedibility of the Volker Commission. The article points out that

The Commission’s operations are shrouded in secrecy, with little transparency or external oversight. For a commission designed to unearth corruption and malpractice on a huge scale, it is strikingly opaque. Its spartan official website contains little information of value, not even a mailing address.

The article also raises questions on staff appointees, and demands full transparency and accountability if it is "to avoid becoming yet another example of mutual back scratching at the UN".

While on the subject of mutual back scratching at the UN, Helen at EU Referendum remarks on the Spanish Prime Minister's speech

Zapatero’s big idea is perhaps less nauseating than either Annan’s or Chirac’s but equally daft. He wants Kofi Annan to set up a high level group to study an alliance of civilizations. Oh goody. Another high level study group to eat up the money that could be used to invest in all those poor countries to help eradicate poverty.

What’s the betting the group will travel round the world with large entourage, stay in the best hotels in the pleasantest spots, have lots of meetings, dinners, parties, receptions and decide … well, what? Probably that the West had better start sending a great deal more aid to the Muslim world (that, incidentally, contains some of the richest people, families and countries) to stop terrorists from feeling isolated and, therefore, murderous.

Helen comes to the conclussion that Zapatero was "just sounding off, as one does at the UN General Assembly."

Will the Volker Commission head in that direction?
Update Victor Davis Hanson's asking, The U.N.? Who Cares? Kofi Annan & Co. might as well move to Brussels or Geneva. If only they would move!

Yesterday Governor bans 'pay-to-play'. Order toughens law but leaves some loopholes
Here's some background information:

The law passed last spring allows generous donors to county political parties to win lucrative state contracts. It also allows donors to the state party in control of the governor's office to win contracts awarded through a "fair and open process," which need not select the lowest bidders. Critics such as Common Cause have called the new law "a sham" because of those and other loopholes.
And while the law does not become effective until Jan. 1, 2006, McGreevey's order will go into effect Oct. 15. Although a new governor could rescind the executive order when McGreevey resigns Nov. 15, Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex), who is in line to become acting governor, vowed to keep it in effect.

Long-term NJ residents like myself don't put much faith in politicians' vows, especially when we hear "As long as the sun continues to rise in the East and set in the West while I am acting governor, this executive order will remain in place." Roberto, for instance, even questions whether this is just another McGreevey maneuver to keep himself in office after November 15. Never mind that anything that starts with "As long as . . . " reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara vowing never to go hungry again.

The NJ government fiscal year ends on September 30, and next year's budget has already gone through. The new executive order (not a law) doesn't come into effect until October 15. There's plenty of reason to cast doubt on an executive order that
a. doesn't affect the current budget or next year's
b. is issued by a lame-duck governor, and
c. has built-in escape clauses, such as

McGreevey's order bars contributors to gubernatorial candidates and state or county parties from getting any state contract worth $17,500 or more unless it is awarded to meet an "immediate need."

Will an "immediate need" be more powerful than "the sun continu[ing] to rise in the East and set in the West", IF there's an acting governor? We'll see.

Cat Stevens?
In case you were wondering, Robert Spencer knows a couple of things about Yusuf Islam.
Update The British Pickle rode a wave, too. Best of the Web looks at the money.

Draft bill proposed by Democrats in Congress, used as an anti-Bush campaign tool
Via Betsy's page: Betsy received an email implying that that Bush wants to draft college students to fight in Iraq. As Betsy clarifies,

the bill in the e-mail HR 163 was introduced by prominent Democrats like Charlie Rangel, Jim McDermott, John Conyers, and John Lewis. There aren't any Republicans involved in the bill. They are introducing the bill to make people think just what the e-mail is trying to make them think. They are also using the bill to drum up opposition to the war.

Betsy also links to this article on why there isn't going to be a draft.

Is the Kerry campaign running on empty?

UN Scam, and Jacques's speech, updated
Just two days ago Jacques was at the UN, proposing a global tax to "fight hunger and poverty and to increase funds for development".

The France2 news last night didn't dwell much on Pres. Bush's speech at the UN yesterday (where he proposed grants instead of loans to disadvantaged countries, for instance), but instead reported that Chirac says that Bush didn't comment on Chirac's global tax proposal "because it's an election year, and there's time to discuss it after the election". France2, however, reports that (my translation)

UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan caused more enthusiasm that the president of the United States by exhorting the leaders of the world, including those of the first power, to conform to international law. "Again and still, we note that the basic rights are shamefully ignored, namely those which require the respect for innocent lives, for civilians, for vulnerable people and in particular for children's lives"

Such respect has Annan shown for the lives of children that Claudia Rosett brings up the subject just this morning: What's 'Illegal'? Kofi Annan helped Saddam Hussein steal food from babies. So concerned is the UN's Secretary-General with the plight of the poor that

When Oil-for-Food was launched in 1996, it was advertised by the U.N. as a response to such horrors as pictures of starving Iraqi children and alarming statistics about infant mortality in Iraq, released by one of the U.N.'s own agencies, Unicef.

Much to Mr. Annan's advantage, the Secretariat collected more than $1.4 billion in commissions on Saddam's oil sales. Ms Rosett briefly explains what details have come to light so far (since, as Ms Rosett says, "many of the vital details of these contracts remain smothered in the continuing secrecy imposed by the U.N.-authorized investigation into Oil-for-Food"), and comes to this conclusion:

Translation: In late 2002, while Mr. Annan was lobbying against U.S.-led removal of Saddam, he was running a U.N. program in which money meant for baby formula, among other goods, was very likely flowing into the pockets of Saddam and his sons and cronies.

Somehow, that was the kind of problem that Mr. Annan's office managed to miss, although according to a November 2002 statement to the Security Council by Oil-for-Food director Benon Sevan, U.N. staff in Iraq had by then made 1,187,487 total "observation visits" to ensure the integrity of Oil-for-Food. More than one million of those observation visits were devoted to checking on food and nutrition (and all of them were paid for out of the U.N. Secretariat's 2.2% oil sales commissions from Saddam).

Of course, people like Chirac are willing to impose taxes that would benefit a corrupt organization such as the UN. As The Economist said, (link via Kathleen), rather than pursuing a free-trade agenda that would benefit the underdeveloped countries,

Given his own rather cavalier attitude to the cost of food, it is perhaps unsurprising that Mr Chirac is unmoved by pleas to reform the European Union's notorious common agricultural policy (CAP). Why should the fact that the CAP adds EURO 600 a year to the food bills of the average European family weigh heavily with a man who can eat his way through that amount, in fruit and veg alone, in just four days?. . .
A lesser man than Mr Chirac might blush to pursue such a venal policy, while protesting his desire to help the world's most impoverished people. But, as his grocery bills (among other things) delightfully illustrate, France's president is not a man who is easily embarrassed

Neither is Kofi Annan.

Update: Too bad more people aren't paying attention to the Oil-for-Food scandal, because it is the center of it all, the beating heart of global corruption.

And the survey says . . .
No party favors for Jersey: Poll: Bush, Kerry dead even among voters: As presidential consultants track red and blue states in search of Electoral College votes, New Jersey has mixed into a shade of purple.
Jane has a theory,

New Jersey, a bluest of the blue states, in a tie. McGreevy effect? naw. Really good employment figures? probably not. Seeing our neighbors vaporized and 736 funerals? I think so.

The Dem reaction surprises no one: Jersey, Ohio polls put Dems in a tizzy.

As far as McGreevey goes, Roberto says it all: Generalisimo Jim McGreevey is Still Governor, Part 5.

Bad-hair-causing cars
Taxes give me a bad hair day. According the the TaxProf Blog, the people in the audience of the now-famous Oprah car giveaway show will have to pay

the federal tax liability at around $6,000, coupled with a state tax liability of several hundred dollars

I guess they'll have to sell the Pontiac G6 to pay the taxes, and buy a cheaper car for transportation?

Chirac wants to raise your taxes, updated x 2
I couldn't make this one up had I tried.

Jacques Chirac, arguably one of the most corrupt politicians of all time, yesterday gave a speech at the UN (that paragon of transparency) proposing to harness globalisation with a new "ethic for globalization". The new ethic takes the form of a proposed $50 billion global tax on financial transactions, greenhouse gas emissions, arms sales, airline tickets and credit card purchases.

Together with Brazilian president Ignacio Lula da Silva, Jacques, trying to convince what the France2 article calls "a hostile or skeptical audience", said (my translation)

"Such instruments (i.e., an international tax) can be designed according to methods guaranteeing the absence of economic distortion, the sovereignty of the States, as well as the transparent management of the funds. . . We shouldn't delay in finding new balances between capital and labor, private interests and the common good, freedom and the law".

Going along with the scheme are Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and President Ricardo Lagos of Chile.

To their credit, the France2 news TV broadcast (which normally repeats Jacques's point of view uncontested) interviewed a gentleman that pointed out that such taxes are undemocratic and uncollectable to the point that in France they have had to resort to taxing real assets, such as real estate, in order to be able to enforce any tax.

Helen at EU Referendum has a few things to say about the UN:

But the Security Council is not a legal body. It is merely a very uneasy political grouping, whose moral stature is doubtful. Two of the permanent members are Russia and China, whose own record in either legal or moral terms, is not worth examining. (Think Chechnya, Tibet, Falun Gong, media control.) Another one, France, is being revealed to have been so anxious to prevent the deposition of President Chirac's friend Saddam Hussein that it forged documents to discredit the American operation.

Other, non-permanent members of the Security Council are often failed states with disgusting human rights records whose governments are dependent on Western hand-outs.

There are several problems with the U.N. The fact that it is a political organization in which individual nations' interests predominate, while pretending to be the bearer of to torch of international legality and morality is one.

Another one is the principle of buggins' turn on which positions are allocated. This leads to quite breathtaking examples, the best known of which is the Human Rights Commission, which is chaired by Libya and of which Sudan is a member, re-elected until 2007.

The fact is that the United Nations was created largely by liberal democratic states to promote liberal democratic ideas. This was immediately sabotaged by the Soviet Union and its many satellites. As time has gone on, the U.N. has become an organization the majority of whose members neither believe nor practice its supposed basic principles. The idea of elevating it into a supreme arbiter of world legitimacy and morality is not only preposterous, it is criminal.

And now those criminals want you to pay more taxes. Guess who's going to profit.

In not totally unrelated news, Twelve French soldiers on peacekeeping duties in Ivory Coast have been arrested in connection with a bank theft there last week.
Update The NY Times must have not found either the Chirac speech or the French soldiers' news "fit to print" since both were missing from today's paper. The Times, however, sounds (unintentionally?) reassuring: U.S. Declines to Back Poverty Declaration, and says the "final declaration didn't focus on a specific proposal".
Update 2 Kathleen finds a bone to pick with Jacques's grocery bills.

Parking-garage-built-on-the-stream is back in the news!
Group wants redevelopment case reopened. Here's a little background:

On June 30, a three-judge appellate panel ruled that state law and legal precedent give municipal officials wide discretion to decide if a property should be designated "in need of redevelopment."
That label gives local governments more freedom than they generally have to shape the financial arrangement and design of a development project.
That was the case with the ongoing Spring Street plan to convert 2.13 acres of borough parking lots into a downtown square with a garage, plaza and two new five-story retail/residential buildings.
The borough is financing the costs for the public portion of the project through a $13.7 million bond. Officials have said that money will be recouped through garage parking fees and annual payments from developer Nassau HKT Urban Renewal Associates on the project's privately owned two mixed-use buildings.

Concerned Citizens of Princeton have asked Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg to reopen the case and reverse her March 2003 ruling against them because proof that borough officials misused New Jersey's local redevelopment law to push the project through without competitive bidding.

Teresa, please, measure your words, updated.
While we all can understand why one would like to say

At the surprise party that Heinz organized for her fiftieth birthday, she, in turn, surprised the guests by telling them that she had "paid my dues and I wasn't going to put up with any more stuff I don't want to. Finito. It was the most liberating thing in the world."

the reason most of us don't is because we can't afford to. It is EXPENSIVE to not "put up with any more stuff I don't want to" -- expensive not only in the personal sense (because people will avoid telling you the truth), but particularly, financially. I'm sure the average visitor to this site knows exactly what I mean without my having to go into lengthy descriptions of disagreeable jobs or distasteful chores.

Yes, the voters don't vote for the First Lady. But please, this won't do:

Despite her linguistic prowess and her worldliness, Heinz Kerry has, at times, a deaf ear for the nuances of slang, code, condescension, and vulgarity in English—for the emotion of the language. "There are these bizarre moments that make you shudder," the Kerry adviser said. "Like calling herself African-American to black audiences." She dismissed voters skeptical of her husband’s health-care proposals as 'idiots,' and, in a television interview with a Pittsburgh anchorwoman, employed the word 'scumbags' to describe some of her detractors. I doubt that she knows the literal meaning of 'scumbag,' but perhaps, after forty years in America, nearly thirty of them as a political wife, observing how the flaws and contradictions of a personality as complex as hers are melted down for ammunition by the other side, she should have learned it.

Not being in the same expense bracket as you, I'm still willing to bet that people who make less money in a year than what you spend on cosmetic procedures in a month will smile and not waste their time contradicting you when you claim you "could be 'perfectly happy' living under a thatched roof", but they aren't going to vote for the husband of anyone that calls them names. The reporters don't like it when you tell them to shove it, either. But you won't be able to tell for sure until after the election, would you?

While you're at it, "Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while, at least the kids," doesn't go over too well with the needy. Just so you knew.

And, by the way, nice job by Avedon with the photo.
Update, September 21: Via Tigerhawk, it looks like the New Yorker misquoted Mrs. Kerry's use of the word scumbag. Nonetheless, I stand by my advice.

------------------------------------------------

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Blogs go mainstream, and an update
It's taken a week, but CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say. The article points out that a " document specialist who inspected the records for CBS News and said last week that she had raised concerns about their authenticity with CBS News producers, confirmed a report in Newsweek that a producer had told her that the source of the documents said they had been obtained anonymously and through the mail." If it weren't for blogs, the CBS memos possibly would never have been shown to be fake.

Yesterday Jeff Jarvis, who is a journalist, points out in hsi blog the five items of the blog reformation:
• Big Media has owned the printing press for centuries – but now the people have the power of the press
• News becomes a conversation
• Citizens’ media challenges the authority of Big Media – and establishes the authority of the audience
• Big media is about institutions, while citizens’ media is about people
• This isn’t a competition

The press is catching on. Just this morning the NY Post has op-ed articles by John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson & Edward Morrissey on Kerry's activities as Antiwar Activist, where they ask,

Why has Kerry been unable to point to any evidence that he resigned from VVAW prior to the Kansas City meeting? If Kerry was there, why didn't he tell the authorities that some members were plotting political assassinations?

and The Mysteries Of John Kerry's War Record, with focus on "Christmas in Cambodia, First Combat . . . Maybe, False Memories Of Fighting Together", and "One Medal, Three Citations".

Arthur, who's now become a syndrome,

the syndrome in question being, I gather, a condition of supposedly unfounded and unrealistic optimism that things in Iraq might not actually be all going to hell in a basket

points out that

To say that the mainstream media will not be publishing a compilation of good news stories out of Iraq because "experienced foreign correspondents on the ground underst[and] that the news [is] not, in fact, very good" is tantamount to saying that the media, instead of performing their task of providing us with all the facts, has instead decided to skip one step and assumed the responsibility of making our minds for us

and he continues his series on good news from the war zones. Today's is in the WSJ and at his blog, Chrenkoff.

The presidential campaign in Afghanistan has officially commenced on September 7. Perhaps it would have been more symbolic had it started two days later, but the very fact that a country which for a quarter of a century has been successively ravaged by the Soviet occupation, a bloody civil war, and a theocratic dictatorship is now embarking on its very own democratic journey is an achievement in itself and a cause enough for celebration.

The good news includes the recontruction of the "giant world-famous Buddha statutes destroyed by the iconoclastic Taliban", the "200,000 Afghans have returned home from Pakistan, bringing the total for repatriations from that country to 2.2 million since 2002", and others, including a link to a photo essay on women doing something that would have brought them the death penalty four years ago.

This is the fourth installment of Arthur's Good News from Afghanistan series. What's interesting is that all of the information Arthur posts has been in the public domain, ignored by the news broadcasts. As Jeff Jarvis said, "Big Media has the reporters, resources, access, and experience. Citizens’ media complements Big Media with fact-checking and challenges and with new sources of news, information, and diverse viewpoints. Together, they will improve news".
That they do.
Update Dan doesn't continue vouching for [the documents] journalistically.

Separated at birth
Mr. Potato could not be contacted for his opinion.

UNScam today
This evening at 9PM EST on the Fox News Channel Claudia Rosett reports on the Oil-For-Food program's connections:

Following Saddam’s overthrow, the U.N. finally shut down Oil-for-Food last November. But the U.N.-condoned mess it created it still with us. Billions in funds grafted out of the program by Saddam have yet to be accounted for. Oil-for-Food tainted the Security Council debates over Iraq, in which the U.N. never disclosed that fat deals under Oil-for-Food had gone to such pivotal U.N. Security Council members as France, China and Russia. To whatever extent Oil-for-Food corrupted politicians and businesses who dealt with Saddam — and that was evidently part of the problem — some of the figures involved may now be ripe targets for blackmail by anyone with inside information on Saddam’s U.N.-condoned secret deals. And tucked away in those confidential records are enough overlaps between Saddam’s network of dirty finance and Al Qaeda to warrant worries that money he filched from Oil-for-Food may be funding terrorists today.

The connections between the Oil-For-Food and terrorisim exist; one instance is MIGA, the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber:

But even with that secrecy — and shortly after the Sept.11, 2001, attacks on the United States — both MIGA and its chief founder and longtime president, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, landed on the U.N. watchlist of entities and individuals belonging to, or affiliated with Al Qaeda.
Nasreddin is a member of the terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood

yet

One of the big questions is whether any of the money skimmed from Oil-for-Food also slopped into terrorist-financing ventures such as MIGA.
It's important to note that in tracking terrorist financing, the simplest starting points are the visible links, the potential connections through which money might most easily have flowed. Proving that funds actually coursed through those conduits is far more difficult.

I applaud Fox News for following this story.

and speaking of the UN . . .
Picture an nuclear Iran, and an Iran Mullah President Considered for UN Sec-Gen Post.
(via Roger L Simon).

Clean your closet day
The Barista's on the money on that! The Jazz Feast was scheduled for today, but that downpour doesn't look promising.

For those whose closets are already clean, however, Jim's gone to the dogs, Arthur's pondering better uses for some NY real estate, and this week's Special Report from The Economist has something for your inner geek: How Google works

Corruption Junction's McGreevances continue to add up
as the headline shows: McGreevey's legal bills: $88,000 -- and climbing
Public will pay much more in end

Defending Gov. James E. McGreevey in a federal corruption case against fund-raiser David D'Amiano has cost taxpayers more than $88,000 so far in legal bills, according to records released by the state yesterday.
The invoices, submitted by Washington, D.C., attorney William E. Lawler and Westfield attorney Robert Stahl, are but a piece of what citizens will end up paying to defend the McGreevey administration in recent legal tangles.
The $74,159 in Lawler bills only covers his work through June, although he has continued to represent McGreevey in the six-month-old D'Amiano case. Lawler also has yet to submit bills for defending McGreevey against threats of a sexual harassment lawsuit by former aide Golan Cipel.
...In addition to putting in more work on the D'Amiano case this summer, Lawler spent several weeks defending McGreevey against Cipel, whose sexual harassment accusations led the governor to announce his resignation last month and concede he had an extramarital homosexual affair. Lawler has yet to submit bills for any of that work, according to Mark Fleming, McGreevey's deputy chief counsel.

Bob Ingle of the Asbury Park Press has a few pithy comments on Judge fails to recognize McGreevey's 'legacy' work on his exit. As for rumors, how's this for speculation: McGreeveys may be separating or divorcing, several sources report?

Good news in the jobs front
Jersey is working in record numbers again
State hits another jobs high in August, while unemployment rate drops below 5 percent The state unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent.

I'm old enough that I remember the olden days when 5% was considered (an idealistic and rather unreacheable) "full employment".

Bergen-Passaic, Middlesex and Jersey City in the top 10
. . . most overpriced places in 2004, but nobody beats Seattle.

Today is Constitution Day
On September 17, 1787, members of the Constitutional Convention signed the final draft of the Constitution.
Happy Constitution day!

Analysis on the war
Blemont Club has a series as to how The number, nature and geographical distribution of US combat deaths in Iraq provide a statistical indicator of its character. Don't miss it.

McGreevances roll along
The Star Ledger editorial today

Later, after the feds arrested D'Amiano, McGreevey claimed he often cited Machiavelli in conversation. Merely an innocent literary reference, he said. Yesterday, McGreevey's lawyer said maybe D'Amiano had prompted the governor to unwittingly use the word.
All of which suggests the governor left out an entire laundry list of reasons for why he should resign when he said he was quitting Nov. 15 because he'd had an extramarital affair with a man. If his lawyer is to be believed, one of the other reasons might be that he's too naive to be governor

John McLaughlin is asking

Lesniak contends that McGreevey has done a good job, especially controlling development in the Highlands and the price of auto insurance. He might have added straightening out the E-ZPass boondoggle and a few other achievements.
But isn't this what the governor gets paid to do? Or is his salary based on how many rebate checks get mailed out, how many focus groups he consults, how many voters he raps with, how many trips he takes courtesy of the taxpayers?
Maybe he truly was ignorant of the fact that his chief of staff and chief counsel, even before he took office, were using their connections with him to enrich themselves through the questionable sale of billboards, some of them on state land in towns that had previously banned them.
Maybe he thought the voters preferred he stay in luxurious digs as he celebrated himself in Ireland.
Maybe he wasn't aware of the policy on State Police helicopters -- that they're not to be used for political or private trips. The Democratic State Committee had to pay $18,200 for those rides after they were uncovered.
Maybe the governor didn't know all these things. Then again, maybe he didn't want to know.
But McGreevey knew what he was about as he set the tone for the voracious political fund-raising of the past three years, the no-bid and pay-to-play contracts. That's the same governor who promised "to change the way we do business in Trenton."
Lesniak discounted all of that. He said that McGreevey made just one "big mistake" and that was getting mixed up with Golan Cipel, the Israeli national with whom he had the affair. Putting Cipel on the state payroll, trying to foist him off as state director of homeland security in the aftermath of 9/11, which took the lives of 691 New Jerseyans -- that's not enough for him to leave office, said Lesniak.
It's not?

Political Party Fundraiser David D'Amiano Pleads Guilty, but McGreevey says it was an innocent "literary allusion" of the sort he often makes. I can't wait for McGreevey to recite the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales to the Feds one of these days.

Los desgraciados del periódico español El País
piden perdón. Apúntale una a la blogosfera. Thank you, Barcepundit.

Mrs. Bush's visit
Yesterday I was at the rally where Mrs Bush spoke. It turns out there was a heckler, who's now made it into the news. The heckler clearly positioned herself next to the media stand (there was a platform built in the center of the room for all the TV cameras and reporters) because one of the NY radio stations even had audio. I was standing (the reporters had chairs, the audience were standing) towards the front of the room close to the podium, and all I heard was that someone yelled something, but Mrs. Bush continued her speech. In total, the incident, if you want to call it that, lasted all of 3 seconds.
NJN has a video.
As to how Mrs. Bush did, The Trentonian says it: First lady a hit in Hamilton: Wows crowd at local rally.

Meanwhile, Corzine thinks "Bush’s visit is a head-fake by the Republicans, who would like to bait the Democrats into draining their resources in New Jersey".
Maybe.

Dan "Accurate But Fake" Rather (or is it fake but accurate?)
. . . last Wednesday was saying

Those who have criticized aspects of our story have never criticized the major thrust of our report

which of course is inaccurate, as you can appreciate from reading blogs like Ace of Spades, Captain's Quarters, Instapundit, and most particularly Power Line.

From my point of view, I have no desire to argue with someone who, viewing a mirage in the dessert starts wondering how pure the water is in that mirage. The WaPo, on the other hand . . .

Light blogging today
since I was in Hamilton this morning listening to Laura Bush adress 1,300 people at the firehouse. The visit was announced Tuesday and all the tickets were gone within two hours yesterday morning.

Mrs. Bush did a great job and the crowd was enthusiastic. The firehouse was filled to capacity.

The Philadelphia Enquirer quoted,

Republican Assemblyman William Baroni of Hamilton said today's event shows that the Bush campaign may not write off New Jersey after all.

After this morning's rally the Bush campaign is sure to notice NJ even more.

Los desgraciados del periódico español El País
han mandado un email anunciando subscripciones a cuesta del ataque del 11 de septiembre del 2001, con la divisa "Un día da para mucho", a lo que Barcepundit comenta,

Por ejemplo, para darse cuenta de quién es un verdadero impresentable.

El colmo de la desfachatez es el lema del periódico: "Entre en el club de los mejores informados". Tan mejor informado está el periodiquito español que ésas dos fotos dan la impresión que son de dos días consecutivos, pero si lo fueran, la segunda estaría llena del humo, ya que el fuego (que fué la pira funeraria para los miles de asesinados el 9-11) duró por mas de dos meses.

Pero por lo visto a los de El País no les contaron lo del fuego. Así de bien informados van.

Y si a Uds. le interesa buscar un enlace a El País, hagan un Google, que no me da la gana de enlazar. The Barcepundit does have a page in English.

No election for you!
Paraphrasing Seinfeld's soup nazi, A federal judge refused Wednesday to order a special election to replace Gov. James E. McGreevey
Just five hours ago Asbury Park Press posted this article: McGreevey nixes suggestion he should remain in office, yet "McGreevey has not yet submit-ted his resignation in writing to the New Jersey State Depart-ment, according to agency spokesman Michael Kinney."

The tour rolls on . . . and thus the voters are disnfranchised.

PajamaLand time
Via The Gantelope (who coined the PajamaLand name), a conspiracy theory on Rathergate from Rich at Shots Across the Bow that even includes NJ history:

What if it wasn't botched, but planned to occur exactly as it has?
Here are the two key bits of information needed to solve this puzzle:
In August, 1974, President Nixon was forced to resign for campaign dirty tricks and the following coverup.
In Oct. 2002, Bob Torricelli, tainted by scandal and losing his bid for the New Jersey Senate, withdrew, and was replaced by Lautenburg at the last minute. Lautenburg went on to win the election, saving a crucial Democratic seat.
The light begins to dawn, doesn't it my friends.

Rich sees Hillary's hands in this. As The Gantelope says, "Colonel Mustard, in the Library, with an iMac".

One thing for sure, until CBS comes clean on this, even more far-fetched theories will continue to surface.

And yet, what the heck does this rehashing of 30 year-old memorabilia (with clearly fake memos, at that) do other than distract us from the war today? CBS has lost all its integrity.

The apology tour rolls on
As Roberto's been saying, McGreevey's on an apology tour. Singin' back-up, so to speak, is state Sen. Ray Lesniak, who says McGreevey should stay until the end of his term. The Star Ledger isn't buying it,

Sorry, senator, but that argument isn't even slightly persuasive. Most voters -- perhaps naively -- believe that a governor is supposed to do what's right for the public without any prodding, that his overriding responsibility is to work toward making the state a better place to live. A governor shouldn't have to undergo a catharsis for that to happen.
New Jersey's residents entrusted McGreevey with their future. He betrayed them by putting his personal wants ahead of their safety. Just months after the events of 9/11, he named as the state's security chief the person with whom he was having an affair, Golan Cipel, even though Cipel had no qualifications for the job.

Others in Trenton weren't all that pleased over the prospect: 'Don't quit' plea sends Trenton into tizzy.

As to the personal status, Wait just a darn second: Sources debunk rumors of McGreevey separation

This morning's AM talk radio from NY had Curtis and Kuby starting their ad for the Brother labelmaker by saying "I won't believe McGreedy's moving until I see a receipt for the Brother labelmaker -- he'll need it for the boxes!".

Jack sees the Apology Tour in these terms:

While the shaping of his legacy could be part of a scheme to un-resign in November, a more likely explanation is that it is designed to preserve McGreevey's respectability. No corporate board or cushy non-profit will touch him unless he can emerge from his resignation as a victim, rather than a criminal

Jack also has posted on McG's gargantuan stones, out of which McGreevey's built his (metaphorical) legacy "house".

The CBS fraud reward is now $$37,900. Updated x 2
One site is offering a "cashiers check to the first person who could exactly (and reasonably) reproduce the memos on technology available in 1972."
The WaPo article, Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers, focuses on three major discrepancies:
• Word-processing techniques
• Factual problems
• Stylistic differences
and concludes that "Questions about the CBS documents have grown to the point that they overshadow the allegations of favorable treatment toward Bush."

Safire's advising Dan to "recognize the preponderance of doubt. Call for a panel of old CBS hands and independent editors to re-examine sources and papers."

There's even an on-line petition at Rathergate.com.

To those visitors who wondered, I'm not a pajamas blogger. It's regular daytime clothes for me. Lileks, however, even has special slippers appropriate for typeface analysis.
Update Another memo surfaces over at Juliette's
Second update The bards exult over an Omlet at Lord Simon's.

Good news from Iraq
in its tenth! installment, Arthur covers a lot of ground, from good news on the real estate market, an aerobics show on Iraqi TV, Italy is donating 100,000 computers, photocopiers and lab equipment for Iraqi universities, improvements on midwifery techniques taught by British doctors, and some governments are doubling their military presence in Iraq. Most encouraging, "the Iraqi security apparatus is playing an increasingly important role".

As he said in the WSJ, The Caravan Moves On.

The Arabs have an old saying: "The dogs bark, but the caravan is moving on." The Iraqi caravan is certainly on the move, and here are some of the stories you probably didn't hear amid all the barking.

While today's headlines are bad, I find it most interesting that

Hundreds of recruits were lined up outside of the headquarters when the car exploded

and that the locals, knowing of the danger, are continuing to join the police. The expatriates are returning, too.

Omar appreciates "the efforts and dedication he's [Arthur] showing in spreading the missing part of the truth.

“From day one of the McGreevey administration, everything became a fix again . . .They were only interested in who the contributor was and who they had to take care of.”
You must read the entire New Yorker article, Jim McGreevey and His Main Man: Golan Cipel was only a plaything. It was developer Charles Kushner who speeded his passage through the swamps of New Jersey patronage politics—till Kushner was brought down in his own spectacular sex scandal.

On the one hand, McGreevey should not quit, adviser says. Lesniak, testing waters for an unlikely reversal, argues governor will still be needed past Nov. 15; on the other hand, Governor prepares to meet his future while searching for new office space, McGreevey's house-hunting, and could be your neighbor: Gov's friends say he's looking on waterfront and Mrs McG's looking in Cranford.

Birthday blogging: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?, updated
By buying a ticket, in my case, since my music skills are not Carnegie quality. I started taking piano lessons when I was 11-12 years old, in an old piano that, no matter how many times you tuned it, the small octave b-flat key sometimes worked, sometimes didn't. I really enjoyed playing the piano, and made good progress.

However, I truly hated having to play the piano for a parade of relatives and friends of my parents. The idea of playing the piano for the public was totally repellent.

When I left for college I packed up some of my music books and managed to practice at the rehearsal pianos of the music department, and years (and a lot of saving!) later I bought myself a nice Kawai baby grand that sounds really nice. Yes, the pesky small octave b-flat key works perfectly. So now I play for my own enjoyment. Most of my friends have never heard me play.

For which they are probably grateful. I'm particularly fond of Baroque music, which means the technique has to be in Good Shape. My technique isn't -- that's for sure.

I love listening to live Baroque music, and up until two years ago, The Principality had two top-quality opportunities for the Baroque fan. The easiest to get to was Sunday Mass at Trinity Church. Dr Andrew Shenton, who was the organist, has flawless technique and supreme musicianship. The postlude after mass sometimes included Tocata in D, which is available on CD. Unfortunately for us, Dr. Shenton was offered a job as head of the church music department at Georgetown University (I believe it was Georgetown), and so much for that. The other opportunity for listening to excellent Baroque music was the annual visits to The University by the Concert Royal group led by James Richman. Richman is a brilliant harpsichordist and every year did one solo concert that was (to me) the high point of the season. Richman also was offered a very tempting position -- in his case, in Dallas -- and now one has to travel to listen to him (most recently, this past Saturday and yesterday in the Fetes Venetiennes - a commedia show - at Florence Gould Hall in NYC, which I wasn't able to attend). So, for now I've been listening to CDs. Will have to pay more attention to the roster of visiting performers at McCarter Theater.

In the meantime, the quality of my own playing had reached a nadir such that I faced reality and dusted off my old practice books. It was time to get back to square one. Therefore, for the last couple of weeks I've been practicing

• two pages of Schmitt (Op. 16) Preparatory Exercises for the Piano. This has to be the most boring exercise book ever, so 2 pages is about my limit
  
• Two pages of Czerny (Op. 823) The Little Pianist, much more entertaining than Schmitt (but then, peeling wallpaper outdoes Schmitt on the entertainment values)
  
• Four scales and four exercises from Czerny's (Op. 299) The School of Velocity
  
• Four exercises of Hanon's The Virtuoso Pianist.

I'm sure those of you visitors who are purists are frowning that I'm not following the directions from any of the books, but the idea is to improve my technique while I'm enjoying the drills. With this menu, I've been managing a daily half-hour of solid, and enjoyable, practice.

Now I'm happy to report that last evening I managed to play (slowly) an easy version of Bach's Solfeggio in C Minor (original version here) without actually blundering anything. This I call progress. After that comes playing the original version AND working on the faster tempo.

Next thing you know I'll start working on the run-in sentences I'm so fond of when I write. But I'm not quite ready for that.
Update Robert says "often paraphrase Oscar Wilde when asked why I don't play for people: The trouble with sight-reading is that when one plays well, nobody listens. And when one plays poorly, nobody talks."