Fast food as sin

My latest article is up at the Star Ledger's NJ Voices.

Corzine: Squeeze the towns for state trooper costs

Coalition of the Swilling has the story:

Rather than do something silly like, say, cut waste in Trenton or perhaps not add thousands of people to the state payroll our glorious bloated bureaucracy has instead chosen to charge people for what they already pay for.

Asbury Park Press has the details: As times change, so may NJ's free rural state police patrols

TRENTON — New Jersey State Police have patrolled the state's rural areas for 87 years at no extra cost to smaller towns that never created police departments.

In fact, the law that created the state police agency stated it would "primarily'' be used to protect rural areas.

But times have changed, and free rural New Jersey state police patrols may soon end.

As the state grapples with chronic state budget woes, Gov. Corzine has proposed requiring municipalities that get free state police patrols to pay a quarter of the estimated patrol cost to raise $20.5 million for the cash-strapped state.

"These are difficult times, and the decisions and choices we must make are difficult,'' state Attorney General Anne Milgram said.

Of course, reducing the bloated state bureaucracy would never cross their minds, would it?

Spare me the latest McGreeveysm

My latest article's up at the Star Ledger's NJ Voices.

For those of you not familiar with the latest on the former governor and his ex-wife, read this: I WAS MCG AND WIFE'S THREE-WAY SEX STUD: EX-DRIVER.

New Jersey politics: an endless cesspool.

New Jersey: Tolls up, whether you want them or not

My latest article's up at the Star Ledger's New Jersey Voices.

New Jersey Election 2007 Recommendations

Enlighten NJ has them, and a roundup, too!

And the survey says...

Last night I was sitting in the family room reading St. Augustine for the class I'm auditing and enjoying a glass of wine, nearly dozing off (Augustine's not quite the kind of reading I find exciting), when the phone rang.

It was the folks from the Fairleigh Dickinson University public opinion research center.

Imagine my surprise.

I've been eligible to vote for decades and this is the very first time any of the many surveys has called. I perked up and, seeing a blog post in the making, answered the many questions the lady asked.

First of all, it's amazing that people actually answer. The survey comprised a few dozen questions and took close to an hour. I really was looking for an excuse to not read St. Auggie.

Then there were the questions: everything from Iraq and foreign policy, to Hillary and the Democrats, President Bush's approval, New Jersey politics and tolls, and stem cell research. No stone was left unturned.

The questions were asked by a nice lady, not by a machine. A couple of years ago I got an automated "survey" and hung up immediately, not bothering to find out who had the brilliant idea to want my opinion without bothering with human courtesy and contact.

Unfortunately the lady asking the questions also offered unwanted feedback.

At one point the conversation went like,
"Is progress being made in Iraq?"
I answered, "Very definitely, yes."
"It is?"
"Oh, yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Most definitely. I've been talking to people who are actually in Iraq right now."

It's a good thing I passed Assertiveness Training class with flying colors.

Al-Qaeda in New Jersey under scrutiny

Al-Qaida associates in N.J.:

The FBI's elite Joint Terrorism Task Force in Newark says it is not only monitoring a number of North Jersey residents with ties to al-Qaida, but that agents have quietly "disrupted" their activities and even deported a few.
...
This unusual glimpse into the inner workings of North Jersey's primary counterterrorism force revealed the following:

• Task force investigators have discovered that every major terrorist group in the world, including Hamas and Hezbollah, has at least one North Jersey contact. The lone exception is Afghanistan's ultra-fundamentalist sect, the Taliban.
• The task force is currently conducting more than 400 counterterror investigations. These range from probes into Bin Laden's network to neo-Nazis to environmental terrorists.
• Each month, a task force "response" squad receives as many as a dozen new tips about possible nuclear, biological or chemical terrorism in New Jersey. These range from citizen concerns about a mysterious powder to the report that three ships were sailing to New Jersey with radiological material on board. Squad members were even dispatched to Emerson last month after school administrators received a threat to blow up schools.
• Undercover agents attend all professional football games at Giants Stadium. Agents also plan to monitor the upcoming Breeders' Cup at Monmouth Park Racetrack.
• Task force agents routinely travel overseas. One is currently in Iraq; another is in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, helping to question suspected al-Qaida captives at the U.S. naval base there. Newark-based agents also played a role in the investigation of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and provided information to assist the interrogation of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

In weighing his own fear of an attack, Cruise noted that northern New Jersey has a wide range of tempting and vulnerable targets, from tunnels and bridges to sports venues, shopping malls and chemical plants.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following this story over the years. LGF points to the Paterson area.

Never mind the Fort Dix six earlier this year, and anthrax letters that were sent from a mailbox two miles away from my house six years ago.


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Sunday Hsu, Sunday shoes, Sunday book and Sunday Carnival

Several readers have asked me when will I post about the Atlantic City revolving mayors. You can read my article Forget it, Jake, it's Atlantic City at Pajamas Media today.

I'm sure you all remember that line from Chinatown.
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Sunday Hsu, via Instapundit:
Hsu's love of wine and Clinton on display:

Until recently, Hsu, 56, traveled in glittering circles as one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's most prolific supporters, raising more than $1.2 million for the New York Democrat and other Democratic candidates in the last three years.

In August, however, The Times revealed he was a fugitive, wanted in connection with a 1991 theft case. Since then, federal prosecutors have accused the Hong Kong native of masterminding a $60-million Ponzi scheme and breaking election laws by reimbursing associates for political donations made in their names.

Hsu also has been sued by investors in Southern California and New York who say he defrauded them and, in some cases, pressured them to make campaign contributions.

What I want to know is, who was bankrolling Hsu?
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Sunday shoes:

The Delman Xosa pumps in patent leather, available in red or black. A classic style that will carry you through every ocassion from the office through the weekend.
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Sunday book:

Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and Why

Anecdotes on cricket matches and beach houses aside, this is a very entertaining book explaining the when and how of ettiquette without lapsing into metrosexual/henpecked/women on pedestals mannered foolishness. Post (Emily's great-grandson) is especially good in explaining the why for manners (page xxi):

Etiquette is governed by three principles: consideration, respect, and honesty. These provide the framework for defining every manner that has ever been formulated. Each of these principles is timeless. These principles transcend cultural boundaries, cross socioeconomic boundaries, and apply equally to all ages.

In today's world, where everybody's life is laid bare on the internet, cell phones and emails, this is most valuable advice.

While the book is aimed at men, women need to learn how to behave appropritately, too, particularly towards men. I recommend this book to women not so they find fault in men's behavior and go nagging them into propriety, but to understand that there are limits to a man's forebearance (which many women tend to forget), and that it is appropriate for a man to not want to be with a woman who only demands (but can't deliver) consideration, respect and honesty.

May we all live by all three.
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This week's book selection at the WSJ is by Michael Barone, who says, "These books illuminate the shared heritage of America and Britain." I also include a link to Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples.
Churchill won a Nobel for Lit (1953), not for peace.



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Dr. Sanity has the Carnival of the Insanities

Just another day in New Jersey

FBI Makes 11 Corruption Arrests In N.J

Sources told WNBC.com that several of the officials were allegedly caught in a sting operation accepting payoffs from undercover agents. Officials said the officials took bribes to steer insurance contracts for schools and municipalities. The officials charged serve in at least three counties including Essex, Atlantic and Passaic.

The FBI set up an undercover insurance company and used cooperating witnesses to catch the officials on tape demanding payments ranging from $1,500 to $17,000, investigators said. And the suspects were demanding ongoing payoffs from the undercover insurance brokers, authorities said.

The charges are just the latest in dozens of corruption-related arrests across New Jersey in recent years.

Nowhere in the article do they mention the suspects' party affiliation.

Fellow Jersey blooger Lawhawk noticed, too.

MS-13 and the Newark murders

I have blogged in the past about the MS-13, a.k.a. the Mara Salvatrucha gang. Back in 2005 there was a huge nationwide crackdown leading to arrests of gang members around the country and here in NJ.

On Saturday August 4 four young people, including three students at Delaware State University, were shot in the head at close range in a school parking lot in Newark. Deshon Harvey, 20, Terrance "T.J." Aeriel, 18, and Iofemi Hightower, 20, were killed that night. The surviving victim is helping police with the case.

Newark is a "sanctuary city",

According to 'Lou Dobbs Tonight', "Newark's sanctuary policies protect illegal aliens, even those charged with commission of crimes."

Jose Lachira Carranza, a 28 yr old illegal immigrant from Peru, has been charged with the murders. At the time of the murders Carranza was out on $150,000 bail in a child rape case of a girl who had been in his care since she was four years old.

According to the NY Times

An illegal immigrant from Peru, Jose Lachira Carranza, 28, possessed of a temper and a growing rap sheet, appears to have directed the group of a half-dozen or more — answered to like a boss. The group pulled off petty stickups in the elevators and parking lots of the sprawling Ivy Hill Park Apartments in the West Ward, according to interviews with relatives, friends and victims, who say the crew extorted people for quick cash, sometimes slipped through apartment doors cracked barely open by frightened residents.

Over the years, Mr. Carranza and Rodolfo Godinez, 24, who is Ms. Gomez’s other son, were each arrested at least twice on serious charges. But together they also carried off crimes under the radar, their victims say. On one occasion, they shook down Anglade Montel, a 33-year-old father of two babies, for $30, he said, adding that he was too terrified to ever call the police.

Godinez is an illegal alien from Nicaragua who had been ordered deported on May 5, 1993.

Newark's police director goes through great pains to emphasize that

"At this point there is nothing in this case that indicates that this has to do with a gang angle, gang initiation, or gang violence,"

However, Dan Riehl (via Larwyn) has been looking at one of the suspects' MySpace page, and the connection is clear. The suspect is a 15-yr old living in Morristown. At least one of the victims in the Aug. 4 attack in Newark was sliced with what the lone survivor told police was a machete, a "trademark" of the MS-13.

New Jersey is among the places where local authorities aren't required to check the immigration status of someone arrested. Mike at Flopping Aces points out that Jon Corzine, the governor of NJ, announced a few days after the murders, that "we have a responsibility to look after the human rights and civil rights of each and every immigrant." As Mike points out,

Corzine's emphasis on "civil rights" which apparently shielded child raping mass murderers must have left mourners at the funerals of the victims somewhat hollow when they heard him say "These children deserved better."

Radioactive in Jersey City, Hitchens, and other items

Via Pamela by way of Larwyn, Radioactivity at accident site in Jersey City? Conflicting reports...

13 August 2007: A minor accident that took place at Hoboken and Summit Avenues in Hoboken, New Jersey Sunday night - a mere 6-mile drive from the Empire State Building in Manhattan prompted the response of police to the scene as the driver of one of the vehicles fled on foot after the accident. But the police were summoned for another reason – the vehicle from which the suspect in the hit-and-run fled contained a “box” in the trunk containing “radioactive” symbols. According to a law enforcement source close to the Northeast Intelligence Network interviewed shortly after 5:00 this morning, sensors carried by police that measure radioactivity sounded an alarm that indicated higher than acceptable levels of radioactivity, prompting a response from HAZMAT and other officials. Police, fire and HAZMAT officials established a safe perimeter around the accident scene, and the driver of the car containing the box or device emitting radioactivity was caught several blocks from the scene.

This event took an unusual twist, however, when Fox Channel 5 news reporter from New York City was reporting live from the scene. As he was describing the event, a voice coming from the reporter's ear piece was picked up by his microphone: "TELL THEM NO RADIOACTIVITY" was the message clearly heard as isolated as a sound file HERE. Viewers can clearly see the befuddled reaction by the news reporter to the message from his ear piece in the video clip below, and the confused response to the complete change of information by the television anchor.

You must read the rest of that report.
Here's the video of the TV newscast mentioned in the report

The incident took place less than 72 hours from the NY city "dirty bomb" threat.
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Thomas Barnett has a Nice analysis of the sub-prime "crisis"
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Hitchens lays to rest the Foolish myths about al-Qaida in Mesopotamia:

To say that the attempt to Talibanize Iraq would not be happening at all if coalition forces were not present is to make two unsafe assumptions and one possibly suicidal one. The first assumption is that the vultures would never have gathered to feast on the decaying cadaver of the Saddamist state, a state that was in a process of implosion well before 2003. All our experience of countries like Somalia and Sudan, and indeed of Afghanistan, argues that such an assumption is idiotic. It is in the absence of international attention that such nightmarish abnormalities flourish. The second assumption is that the harder we fight them, the more such cancers metastasize. This appears to be contradicted by all the experience of Iraq. Fallujah or Baqubah might already have become the centers of an ultra-Taliban ministate, as they at one time threatened to do, whereas now not only have thousands of AQM goons been killed but local opinion appears to have shifted decisively against them and their methods.

The third assumption, deriving from the first two, would be that if coalition forces withdrew, the AQM gangsters would lose their raison d'être and have nothing left to fight for. I think I shall just leave that assumption lying where it belongs: on the damp floor of whatever asylum it is where foolish and wishful opinions find their eventual home.

A must-read!

Via Gateway Pundit by way of Larwyn, The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe. The astonishing part about this headline is that it comes from Der Speigel.

Davids Medienkritik says,

We would speculate that SPIEGEL editors have finally reached the realization that the version of reality they have painstakingly crafted for the German public since the conflict began - one of failure, disaster, debacle and quagmire for the Americans in Iraq - is no longer tenable when compared to the facts on the ground and will ultimately collapse on their heads like a flimsy house of cards. But with many American Democrats still in full irrational disaster-mode on Iraq (despite obvious recent improvement with the surge) this seems a somewhat unusual and perhaps premature move.

Don't expect the NYT to wake up any time soon, though.---------------------------------------------------------------
Phyllis Chesler has an excellent article on how The Legal Jihad Is Already Underway
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Moron in Macon.
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Exclusive: Hillary's first TV ad debuts
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More from Matt: 4 Million Muslims Marching for an Imam
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Behold the Trunki:

Welcome to the Garden Salad State

As if NJ didn't have enough bureaucrats:
Welcome to the Office of Nutrition and Fitness:

The new office will coordinate the department's existing obesity prevention programs. There are programs to promote breastfeeding, promote sports and physical activity at all ages, encourage fruit and vegetable consumption, and provide fresh fruits and vegetables to eligible women, children and seniors. The new Office of Nutrition and Fitness is expected to open this summer.

Of course the state's spending your money faster than you can burn calories:

The $15 million Safe Routes to School program helps communities create safer walkways, bikeways and street crossings near schools. It is part of Governor Jon Corzine’s $74 million initiative to improve pedestrian safety statewide.

but there's still plenty of opportunity to make a buck or two:

The Academy encourages healthy changes at the community level by training participants and offering mini-grants of up to $10,000 that can be used for such projects as starting walking clubs, creating walking maps, offering swimming lessons or water aerobics, or even starting a community or school garden, for example. So far, 20 communities have received mini-grants.

Garden (Salad) State Launches $2 Million Futile Fat Fight. That's $2 million just on the ads. Then there's the bureaucracy. And yes, it'll cost plenty.

But back to those mini-grants. I'm willing to apply for one and start The Principality Blogger's Walking, Mapping, Swimming and Gardening Club. I'll contact the other blogger in the township and see if he's willing to do the paperwork.

After all, all that walking, mapping, swimming and gardening will be taking up all my time.

Update: NJ resident and dear friend Maria sent me this, asking, "The fittest senior citizens of the world?"

Let's hope the Office of Nutrition and Fitness doesn't get any ideas and start promoting ice skaing.


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Les enfants du paradis communiste

The title refers to an old French movie but the post has to do with the current propaganda trend in central New Jersey, which implies that the viewer should take it all in, in an attitude of child-like innocence.

First we had the Princeton "Human Rights" Film Festival, now there's the Che show at the Mason Gross Galleries in New Brunswick (emphasis on gross), gloriously promoted in the local paper as,

The continued power of Che Guevara as a symbol of hope and opposition across cultures is examined at Mason Gross Galleries.

I'll give you some data on the "symbol of hope and opposition": here's a list of 216 documented victims of Che Guevara in Cuba, 1957-1959 (pdf file). Here's another list compiled by Dr. Armando Lago for his book,

EXECUTED BY CHE IN THE SIERRA MAESTRA MOUNTAINS
ARUSTIDIO
MANUEL CAPITAN
JUAN CHANG
EUTIMIO GUERRA
DIONISIO LEBRIGIO
JUAN LEBRIGIO
EL NEGRO NAPOLES
CHICHO OSORIO
DOS "NO-IDENTIFICADOS'' EN EL 04/57

EXECUTED BY CHE IN SANTA CLARA CITY
RAMON ALBA
JOSE BARROSO
JOAQUIN CASILLAS
FELIX CRUZ
HECTOR MIRABAL
J. MIRABAL
FELIX MONTANO
CORNELIO ROJAS
ALEJANDRO GARCIA OLAYON
ALEJANDRO ROJAS
VILALLA

EXECUTED BY CHE AT LA CABA�A PRISON IN HAVANA
VILAU ABREU
HUMBERTO AGUIAR
GERMAN AGUIRRE
PELAYO ALAYON
JOSE LUIS ALFARO
PEDRO ALFARO
MARIANO ALONSO
JOSE ALVARO
ANIELLA
MARIO ARES POLO
JOSE RAMON BACALLAO
CEVERINO BARRIOS
EUGENIO BECKER
FRANCISCO BECKER
RAMON BISCET
ROBERTO CALZADILLA
EUFEMIO CANO
JUAN CAPOTE FIALLO
ANTONIO CARRALERO
GERTRUDIS CASTELLANOS
JOSE CASTA�O QUEVEDO
RAUL CASTA�O
EUFEMIO CHALA
JOSE CHAMACE
JOSE CHAMIZO
RAUL CLAUSELL
ANGEL CLAUSELL
DEMETRIO CLAUSELL
JOSE CLAUSELL
ELOY CONTRERAS
ROBERTO CORBO
EMILIO CRUZ
JUAN FELIPE CRUZ
ORESTES CRUZ
HUMBERTO CUEVAS
CUNY
ANTONIO DE BECHE
MATEO DELGADO
ARMANDO DELGADO
RAMON DESPAIGNE
JOSE DIAZ CABEZAS
ANTONIO DUARTE
RAMON FERNANDEZ OJEDA
RUDY FERNANDEZ
FERRAN ALFONSO
SALVADOR FERRERO
VICTOR FIGUEREDO
EDUARDO FORTE
UGARDE GALAN
RAFAEL GARCIA MU�IZ
ADALBERTO GARCIA
ALBERTO GARCIA
JACINTO GARCIA
EVELIO GASPAR
ARMADA GIL
JOSE GONZALEZ MALAGON
EVARISTO GONZALEZ
EZEQUIEL GONZALEZ
SECUNDINO GONZALEZ
RICARDO GRAO
BONIFACIO GRASSO
RICARDO GRAU
OSCAR GUERRA
JULIAN HERNANDEZ
FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ LEYVA (father of Pepe Hernandez)
ANTONIO HERNANDEZ
GERARDO HERNANDEZ
OLEGARIO HERNANDEZ
SECUNDINO HERNANDEZ
JESUS INSUA
ENRIQUE IZQUIERDO
OSMIN JORRIN
SILVINO JUNCO
ENRIQUE LAROSA
IGNACIO LAAAPARRA
JESUS LAZO
ARIEL LIMA LAGO
RAUL LOPEZ VIDAL
ARMANDO MAS
ENERLIO MATA
ELPIDIO MEDEROS
JOSE MEDINAS
JOSE MESA
FIDEL MESQUIA
JUAN MILIAN
FRANCISCO MIRABAL
LUIS MIRABAL
ERNESTO MORALES
PEDRO MOREJON
DR. CARLOS MUI�O
CESAR NECOLARDES ROJAS
VICTOR NECOLARDES ROJAS
JOSE NU�EZ
VITERBO O'RREILLY
FELIX OVIEDO
MANUEL PANEQUE
PEDRO PEDROSO
RAFAEL PEDROSO
DIEGO PEREZ CUESTA
JUAN PEREZ
DIEGO PEREZ CRELA
JOSE POZO
EMILIO PUEBLA
ALFREDO PUPO
SECUNDINO RAMIREZ
RAMON RAMOS
PABLO RAVELO
RUBEN REY
MARIO RISQUELME
FERNANDO RIVERA
PABLO RIVERA
MANUEL RODRIGUEZ
MARCOS RODRIGUEZ
NEMESIO RODRIGUEZ
PABLO RODRIGUEZ
RICARDO RODRIGUEZ
JOSE SALDARA
PEDRO SANTANA
SERGIO SIERRA
JUAN SILVA
FAUSTO SILVA
ELPIDIO SOLER
JESUS SOSA BLANCO
RENATO SOSA
SERGIO SOSA
PEDRO SOTO
OSCAR SUAREZ
RAFAEL TARRAGO
TEODORO TELLEZ
FRANCISCO TELLEZ
JOSE TIN
FRANCISCO TRAVIESO
LEONARDO TRUJILLO
TRUJILLO
LUPE VALDES
MARCELINO VALDES
ANTONIO VALENTIN
MANUEL VAZQUEZ
VERDECIA
DAMASO ZAYAS

Here's one instance of Che's modus operandi:

A Cuban gentleman named Pierre San Martin was also among those jailed by the gallant Che. A few years ago he recalled the horrors in an El Nuevo Herald article.

"Thirty-two of us were crammed into a cell," he recalls. "Sixteen of us would stand while the other sixteen tried to sleep on the cold filthy floor. We took shifts that way. Actually, we considered ourselves lucky. After all, we were alive. Dozens were led from the cells to the firing squad daily. The volleys kept us awake. We felt that any one of those minutes would be our last.

"One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging open startled us awake and Che's guards shoved a new prisoner into our cell. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. We could only gape. He was a boy, couldn't have been much older than 12, maybe 14.

"'What did you do?' We asked horrified. 'I tried to defend my papa,' gasped the bloodied boy. 'I tried to keep these Communist sons of b**tches form murdering him! But they sent him to the firing squad.'"

Soon Che's goons came back, the rusty steel door opened and they yanked the valiant boy out of the cell. "We all rushed to the cell's window that faced the execution pit," recalls Mr. San Martin. "We simply couldn't believe they'd murder him! Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched execution yard with his hands on his waist and barking orders � the gallant Che Guevara.

"Here Che was, finally in his element. In battle he was a sad joke, a bumbler of epic proportions [for details see "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant"], but up against disarmed and bloodied boys he was a snarling tiger.

"'Kneel Down!' Che barked at the boy.

"'ASSASSINS!' We screamed from our window. 'MURDERERS!! HOW CAN YOU MURDER A LITTLE BOY!'

"'I said, KNEEL DOWN!' Che barked again.

"The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. 'If you're going to kill me,' he yelled. 'you'll have to do it while I'm standing! MEN die standing!'

"COWARDS! MURDERERS! Sons of B**TCHES!" The men yelled desperately from their cells. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" HOW CAN ...?!"

"And then we saw Che unholstering his pistol. It didn't seem possible. But Che raised his pistol, put the barrel to the back of the boy's neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy.
"We erupted. We were enraged, hysterical, banging on the bars.'MURDERERS! ASSASSINS!' His murder finished, Che finally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! emptied his clip in our direction. Several of us were wounded by his shots."

To a man (and boy) Che's murder victims went down in a blaze of defiance and glory. So let's recall Che's own plea when the wheels of justice finally turned and he was cornered in Bolivia. "Don't Shoot!" he whimpered. "I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

Don't expect to find any of that at the Mason Gross Galleries in New Brunswick.

This is what happens to artists in present-day Cuba.

Saint Dymphna, and today's items

Before I start on today's items, I'd like my visitors to know that I'm not in the area affected by the brush fires. My thanks to the friends who asked, who actually learned about the fire before I did.
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Dymphna celebrates the feast of her patron saint,

Dear President Bush:

Not to worry. So another lunatic left-wing therapist has decided that you're looney tunes, and of course Newsweek swallows this malarkey and spits back out at us, but what does that prove beyond another manifestation of BDS?

Ace looks at Newsweek. (h/t Larwyn)-----------------------------------------------
Ich bin ein American... (h/t Maria)
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Doug Ross has a bright idea for a post.
Dr Sowell writes about The Anger Of The Left (h/t Maria)
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Fitness in Less Time Than You Think? Janet-my-personal-trainer had me doing 80 cruches yesterday.

It felt like a lot longer than it took.
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Did you listen to Thursday's podcast on Tony Blair, and Friday's on Israel yet?

More on the Fort Dix terrorist plot

Who are they?
The 6 held in N.J. terror plot

The six were arrested in coordinated raids Monday night and taken to federal court in Camden yesterday for initial hearings before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider.

Four, including three brothers, lived in Cherry Hill. Another lived in Buena Vista Township in Atlantic County, and the sixth lived in an apartment in the Bustleton section of Philadelphia.
...
Two of the suspects, brothers Dritan Duka, 28, and Shain Duka, 26, were arrested after arriving home in Cherry Hill, where they allegedly had arranged to buy AK-47 and M-16 rifles. One of the FBI informants had set up the deal.

A third brother, Eljvir Duka, 23, was arrested at the family home on Mimosa Drive in Cherry Hill. Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22, was arrested at his home in the 1000 block of Tampa Avenue in Cherry Hill.

The raids by federal authorities and state police also netted Agron Abdullahu, 24, in Buena Vista Township, and Serdar Tatar, 23, who lives in an apartment in the 2100 block of Tremont Street in Philadelphia.

The Duka brothers, Shnewer and Tatar were charged with conspiring to kill uniformed military personnel. The brothers were also charged with possession of a firearm by an illegal immigrant. All three were in the country illegally, authorities said.

Abdullahu was charged with aiding and abetting the Duka brothers in the weapons-possession offense.

The Dukas and Abdullahu were described as ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia. Abdullahu had legal resident status. Shnewer is a U.S. citizen born in Jordan. Tatar, born in Turkey, is also a legal resident.

Immigration Customs Enforcement agents also arrested the Dukas' father on immigration charges. His name was not released.

Fox 29 news just mentioned that one of the men arrested worked at the 7-11 at the Temple University campus.

The timeline:
The Philadelphia Inquirer has a timeline; its most important item is this:

Jan. 31, 2006

A shopkeeper alerts the FBI about a "disturbing" video he was asked to copy onto a DVD. The video shows 10 young men shooting assault weapons at a firing range earlier that month. The group calls for jihad (a holy war) and shouts "Allahu Akbar" (God is great).

Awareness:
If you think 'This doesn't happen in Gouldsboro, Pa.', think again.

OF COURSE, the papers and TV stations always follow reports on arrests with the customary friends and families of the arrested bearing witness to what great guys they are, and this case is no exception: "They're good people," said one friend at the courthouse, a man who declined to give his name. "They provide for their families."

Fortunately there are people who are more realistic:

'This is definitely a reminder that we are at war," said Carolee Nisbet, a Fort Dix spokeswoman. "We're trying to encourage everyone to be more aware of their surroundings."

Dan Riehl has a question.

And more:
A Jacksonian has detailed information on the lawyer to terrorist suspects

Today we have a lawyer Sohail Mohammed kept on by the 6 men who were preparing to attack Ft. Dix. Luckily the 6 were caught before their plot could come to fruition. Now we have Mr. Mohammed who has previously been an advocate for other detainees on terrorism, especially after 9/11.

Sohail Mohammed is counsel for the American Muslim Union, which is connected to Hamas. (h/t Larwyn)

Pajamas Media has a huge round-up.

Update National Review Symposium

While most Muslims have never met militants like those arrested, Muslim organizations should understand that only Muslims hold the keys to the way to overwhelm and counter the ideology which fuels these radicals

Update 2 Repeat after me...

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Fort Dix plot averted

Philadephia Inquirer: Six men charged with plot to attack soldiers on Fort Dix

Six foreign-born Muslims are accused of scheming to attack the Fort Dix Army post and massacre U.S. soldiers , a plot investigators say was foiled when the men took a video of themselves firing guns to a store to have the footage transferred onto a DVD.

The Star Ledger

The alleged plot included conducting surveillance of the Army base and purchasing multiple firearms, including hand guns, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons, according to the federal complaint released this morning.

The bust came after several of the suspects were lured by a secret informant to a meeting with an arms-seller, according to the complaint.

Some of the would-be attackers have been living illegally in the United States, while others are legal immigrants, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Four are ethnic Albanians, one was born in Turkey, and a sixth was born in Jordan, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Officials identified the men as Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka, Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Shnewer and Agron Abdullahu. They are described as being in their early 20s.

The six had been under FBI surveillance for 15 months and prepared for their alleged plot by shooting paintball guns and real weapons in Gouldsboro, Pa., 30 miles southeast of Scranton, officials said. One had experience as a sniper in Kosovo, according to the complaint.

The men also allegedly watched jihadist videos in which Osama bin Laden urged them toward martyrdom.

The Star Ledger also has the Federal Complaint (PDF file), which also Michelle Malkin has at her blog.

In the complaint: the United States of America vs. Dritan Duka, the United States charges that Dritan Duka "did knowingly and willfully conspire and agree ... to kill officers and employees in the Executive Branch of the United States Government."

The complaints against the other four accused - Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka, Serdar Tatar and Mohamad Shnewer - are similar.

The sixth suspect, Agron Abdullahu, is charged with aiding and abetting.

The press conference is scheduled to start in a few minutes.

Hightstown looks the other way

At the WaPo this morning, Looking the Other Way on Immigrants
Some Cities Buck Federal Policies

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. -- After federal agents launched a massive raid on an apartment complex here two years ago, other illegal immigrants in this quiet town near Princeton University grew so wary of the law, authorities say, that many began hiding behind headstones in a local cemetery when patrol cars approached.

But these days, the immigrants of Hightstown are more likely to be the ones calling the cops.

In the aftermath of a series of raids in 2004, the town council in this historic borough of 5,300 -- transformed in recent years by an influx of at least 1,300 Latin Americans -- unanimously approved a sort of immigrant bill of rights. Joining a growing list of cities enacting a no-questions-asked policy on immigration status, Hightstown now allows its undocumented residents to officially interact with local police and access city services without fear of being reported to federal authorities.

By doing so, Hightstown is subverting the principle of the rule of law.

The greatest problem I see, the most fundamental problem involving illegal immigration is that it subverts a basic principle on which the USA is founded: the principle of the rule of law.

I can not stress enough how erosive to our society is having,supporting and countenancing a group of people whose entire existence is predicated on evading the rule of law.

While the immigrants are calling the cops on those who break the law, they themselves are breaking the law. The message is clear: the immigrants are taught that the law applies to someone else.

The article continues,

It has opened new lines of communication here, officials say. One illegal immigrant at the complex where the raids were staged called on the police recently to help place a family member in alcohol rehabilitation; others have reported domestic abuse, extortion, theft and other crimes. Some are calling the town's pro-immigrant mayor for advice on City Hall weddings and landlord troubles. Hightstown has added services aimed at immigrants, including free bilingual computer classes last month. Noting the shift, one Spanish-language newspaper recently dubbed Hightstown the "Paradise Town" of New Jersey.

For pity's sake - when one's speaking in Spanish, half the terminology one uses in computer and internet is in English, and the other half is anglicisms. Are they using new, Spanish, keyboards? Or are they avoiding Insert, Home, Page Up, and all those other keys? Computer classes would be the perfect setting on which to teach English as a second language.

The best-paid professions in the world use English.

If the mayor and the people involved in implementing these policies really had in mind the well-being of the newcomers, they would have free computer classes in English. As I have mentioned time and time again, India's become an economic powerhouse in globalization because Indians speak English. Every person who comes to the USA should work hard to participate in all of our country's opportunities. Learning English is only the first step.

Additonally, there's the issue of integration:
In yesterday's Blog Talk Radio podcast, Pieter Dorsman mentioned how Holland failed to integrate immigrants:

Most of the immigrants who were brought in during the post war years when Holland became such an economic success was for lower-skilled labor jobs. Immigrants were brought in from Morocco, from Turkey, and there was a very strong belief that if let this people to their own devices and let them have their own culture, they would naturally fit into Dutch society and become a part of it, and not be too confrontational.

But what has happened is that there has been no integration at all, and we have created a group of people who are completely disconnected from mainstream Dutch society who have very little opportunities to climb the social-economic ladder.

That's exactly what we're setting ourselves for.

What it comes down to is: Every immigrant into the USA should be taught, in English, what it means to be an American.

Not doing so condemns those very immigrants who come here in search for a better life, to the same second and third-tier existence they tried to escape.

The "Paradise Town" of New Jersey? More like a fool's paradise.

Update, Wednesday 11 April Don't miss Sigmund Carl and Alfred's post Viva la immigracion
Enlighten NJ posts on New Jersey’s Boom in Illegal Immigrants

Smadanek posts on the NJ budget

It's annual budget time at the state house, and Smadanek has the post on New Jersey 2008 State Budget - Municipal Aid. The bottom line?

The budget does not, as the governor said in his address, provide "an across-the-board two percent increase in municipal aid." It provides additional aid at less than the 2% he claims, and in the most divisive and partisan manner possible. If he had any shame, Governor Corzine would resign after submitting this garbage.

Enlighten NJ has more.

What's the matter with New Jersey?,

asks The Wall Street Journal (by subscription; emphasis added)

The idea of financing state services without an income tax is hardly radical. Nine states today - Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennesse, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming - manage well without them. With a few exceptions, the non-income tax states are America's most prosperous. Meanwhile, the high income states, which tend to be congregated in the North East, keep surrendering jobs, people, and voters to the South and West.

State lawmakers also seem to have learned from two of the most recent states to adopt an income tax: New Jersey and Connecticut. As recently as 1965 New Jersey had neither an income nor sales tax, but managed to balance the budget every year. Now it has both taxes - its income tax is the 5th highest in the nation -

And let's not even think of the highest property taxes and school taxes, too,

but the state is facing what Stateline.org calls a "staggering budget deficit." Allied Van Lines reports that the Garden State is one of the leading places for people to flee.

I first started this blog out of frustration with NJ taxes. While my frustration hasn't diminished, I've become so fed up of the subject that I'm posting about it because The Husband asked that I do.

The National Center for Policy Analysis has more on the "ferocious competition to attract jobs and businesses" among the states.

New Jersey is entirely out of the competition.

Update In the comments section, Francis Porretto recommends Robert Higgs's excellent book, Crisis and Leviathan

I read this book several years ago and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in fiscal policy, economics, or how their hard-earned money is spent by the politicians.