As of about 2:00 P.M., on April 17, 2008, I lost access to my MSN account and my security system was disconnected. I have restarted my computer. I will run scans all day, while doing my best to get back to Critique. Unfortunately, several essays at my msn group have been vandalized. At 1:48 P.M., I received one of many recent calls from 704-633-8373. Over the next days and weeks, I will struggle to make the necessary corrections of my essays, AGAIN. I am unable to access my own group at this time. I will spend the rest of the day trying to regain that access and repair the harm done. April 17, 2008 at 3:27 P.M. If I am unable to get back to my group today, then I will try again tomorrow. I am blocking:
http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1361549158-DL_1x1_tr... (NJ, AG?)
"Editorial: How Not to Develop New Jersey," in The New York Times, April 15, 2008, at p. A15.
Dorothy Samuels, "The Selling of the Judiciary: Campaign Cash 'in the Courtroom,'" in The New York Times, April 15, 2008, at p. A15.
"Anyone who drives around New Jersey should realize that the last thing the state needs is a return to the unregulated home-building boom that left it marred by scattershot housing and clogged highways. The Garden State is likely to get even more of this sort of misguided development, however, if the recently released draft recommendations of a housing task force are adopted. Gov. Jon Corzine must prevent that from happening."
The way N.J. politicians cover their asses when they adopt public policies that are really intended to benefit themselves and their friends is by first creating a committee to investigate an issue. This committee then becomes a "spot." In other words, a public job opportunity for one of the made members of the organization, who will be told what his or her findings should be long before any investigative effort is made.
These findings by committees will always involve an urgent need to spend public money on some project. Typically, the people serving on this committee or their "buddies" will benefit, financially, from the chumps' money. The chumps are the taxpayers -- in every sense. At the moment, New Jersey is $32 BILLION in the hole from the accumulated effects of all the scams of recent years. However, the boys don't care. They want to spend more public money, your money.
"With little public notice" -- that's the idea! -- "the state's new commissioner of community affairs, JOSEPH DORIA, Jr., [the same guy who wanted three jobs, the "political enforcer from Bayonne"!] set up the task force and loaded it with builders and their supporters, along with a few advocates of affordable housing. the result: a blueprint for rolling back environmental protections and allowing greater traffic congestion."
Given the soaring cancer rates, lead and chromium as well as other poisons in the earth and water in New Jersey, residents are NOT asking politicians to "roll back" environmental protections. More people will get sick and die. New Jersey's Senate says: "Who cares?" N.J. Supreme Court justices are busy posing for their portraits.
"The task force recommended, among other things, permitting sewer lines to be laid in environmentally fragile areas and making it easier for builders to construct access roads from their developments that empty directly into main roads, slowing traffic."
Great, additional traffic tie-ups, adding to the pollution problem.
"The recommendations would also make it easier to build homes close to rivers and even in flood hazard areas."
"The proposals closely match the building lobby's wish list. [No, really?] Although Mr. Doria larded the task force with developers, he did not include a single representative from the state's Department of Environmental Protection or other groups likely to resist the developers."
If you wish oppose this disregard for the public interest by people who are responsible for protecting that interest, the courts will provide little assistance. This is because judges are products of the same political clubhouses. In fact, Doria may wind up as a Superior Court judge -- in addition to his other jobs.
The campaign cash in New Jersey is paid to political bosses rather than spent on elections, but judgeships are for sale, just like everything else. In my day, the scoop on judgeships was: 10 years of experience, $25,000 in the right pockets, plus $15,000 more if you need to finesse the so-called "four-way check" because your brother "Cheech" is in organized crime. (One "error" inserted since my previous review.) I hear that little has changed.
Have prices gone up? The cost of living is outrageous. These days, it's not even cheap to bribe politicians and judges in New Jersey. Outrageous, I tell you. Geez ...
