Category Archive 'New Jersey'
11 Nov 2019

Boy! I’d Like to See What He Could Have Done With a 911

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A red Porsche Boxter crashed into the second story of a Realty building at 1466 Hooper Avenue in Toms River, New Jersey on Sunday, November 10, 2019.

USA Today:

Braden DeMartin, 22, and Daniel Foley, 23, both of Toms River, were deceased when emergency units arrived on scene, police said.

Police said the sports car driven by DeMartin was traveling at a high rate of speed when the vehicle lost control, hit the median and went airborne into the second story of EXIT Realty Elite. The accident happened around 6:30 a.m. Sunday, police said. …

The red Porsche Boxster was clearly visible upside down in the second story office building. There was a gaping hole in the brick building with debris scattered on top of the car. Toms River building inspector John Gerrity deemed the building unsafe, police said.

The road was closed for roughly seven hours between 6:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., police said. The accident remains under investigation by Toms River traffic safety officers.

20 Feb 2019

Yesterday Was John Basilone Day

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From Quora:

Gunnery Sergeant Manila John Basilone was the only Marine in WWII to receive both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross.

A guy who holds a machine gun in his bare hands killing the enemy all night is pretty bad ass, but he was even more then that.

Guadalcanal was a fierce clash of national wills. Bloodied and humiliated by the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, American armed forces were on the comeback trail less than six months after the debacle. At Guadalcanal, a disease-infested island, two superb military organizations met each other for the first time in land combat — bayonet to bayonet — in a contest only one army could win.

The United States Marines were determined to keep their small foothold of Henderson Field and the Japanese were equally determined to drive them into the sea. During the protracted battle which lasted for six months, the struggle to “own” Henderson Field came to a bloody climax on Sunday night 25, October, 1942.

At Lunga Ridge — about 1,000 yards south of Henderson Field it was raining torrents, creating miserable, bottomless mud — typical Guadalcanal weather. The MARINES manning the main line of defense were exhausted. For two days Japanese human wave assaults had been flung against them. Each time the charging enemy had been driven off — but the weary MARINES knew their tough adversaries weren’t through. The Japanese would gather reinforcements and return.

About midnight, from the gloom of ink-black darkness came hundreds of screaming Japanese troops. Throwing themselves on the flesh-cutting barbed wire, the first of the waves formed human bridges for their comrades to leap across. One of the Marine section leaders facing them was Sergeant “Manila John” Basilone. An experienced machine gunner, Basilone knew his guns would be tested to their mechanical limits. It would be up to him to keep them firing.

During the attack when grenades, small arms and machine guns were ripping the night and exploding human flesh splattered friend and foe, Sergeant Basilone stayed with his malaria-ridden men.

Repeatedly repairing guns and changing barrels in almost total darkness, he ran for ammo or steadied his terrified men who were firing full trigger to keep a sheet of white-hot lead pouring into the ranks of the charging Japanese.

Bodies piled so high in front of his weapons pits they had to be reset so the barrels could fire over the piles of corpses. Not even the famous water-cooled heavy machine guns could stop all the assaults and one section of guns were overrun. Two men killed, three others wounded.

Basilone took one of his guns on his back and raced for the breach in the line. Eight Japanese were surprised and killed. The guns were jammed by mud and water and a few yards away the Japanese were forming for another charge. Frantically stripping mud from the ammo belts men fed them into the guns as Basilone cleared jams and sprayed the fiendish troops rushing at his positions with razor-sharp bayonets and hands full of grenades.

Sometime after 0200 the firing died down. No one relaxed. At 0300 the final remnants of the Sendai Regiments with their officers prepared themselves for a final Banzai charge. The full weight of the fanatical Japanese seemed to fall on Basilone’s men. But he had set up a cross fire which smashed the charge. Dropping to the mud, still screaming Colonel Sendai’s remnants crawled forward trying to reach their tormentors. Depressing the muzzles of his weapons — Basilone destroyed them. Nash Phillips lost a hand fighting next to his Sergeant. He was surprised to see John Basilone appear next to his bed a little while after dawn.

“He was barefooted and his eyes were red as fire. His face was dirty black from gunfire and lack of sleep. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders. He had a .45 tucked into the waistband of his trousers. He’d just dropped by to see how I was making out; me and the others in the section. I’ll never forget him. He’ll never be dead in my mind!”

With dawn the battlefield was strewn with dead and wounded Americans and Japanese — but Henderson Field still belonged to the Americans and its ownership would never be seriously challenged again. At least 38 dead Japanese were credited to Sergeant Basilone — many were killed with his Colt .45 at almost arm’s length. Just 26 years old, Manila John Basilone had entered the ranks of the Marine Corps pantheon of heroes — and shortly America would take the big, handsome Marine with jug ears and a smile like a neon sign to their hearts. The legend of a “Fighting Sergeant” was born.

When the battle was over and his squad members interviewed, Sergeant Basilone was credited by his men for his will to fight and ability to inspire them in a night of cold fear none ever forgot.

Within a short time the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal and prepared to meet other Marine invasions of their strongholds elsewhere in the Pacific. American fighting men had proven they could beat the best of the best, the most experienced troops Japan could throw at them. After Guadalcanal the Japanese high command had a fresh respect for the MARINES. They would be forced to meet time and time again as America pressed across the Pacific toward their homeland.

When he received the nation’s highest decoration, John Basilone replied modestly, “Only part of this medal belongs to me. Pieces of it belong to the boys who are still on Guadalcanal. It was rough as hell down there.” On the 1943 War Bond Tour Sergeant Basilone was to say, “Doing a ‘stateside tour is tougher than fighting Japs.”

When Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone voluntarily returned to the Pacific war it would be on the sands of Iwo Jima 19, February, 1945. At the head of another machine gun squad, he would drive hundreds of frightened raw troops off the beaches toward their assigned objectives. Iwo would be his toughest fight. Barely on the island two hours, he was killed leading his men.

… John Basilone is still remembered in his hometown of Raritan, New Jersey. Every year there’s a Basilone Day celebration and small parade and at the park at the edge of town there’s a life sized bronze statute of him in fatigues with his machine gun in his hand and a plaque telling his story. His family still lives in town.

His Wikipedia entry.

11 Feb 2019

NJ About to Tax the Rain

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Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me

‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all

‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.

Don’t ask me what I want it for
If you don’t want to pay some more

‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman

Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me.

–Taxman, the Beatles.

NY Post:

Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is poised to sign a “rain tax” bill passed by the state legislature Jan. 31 — and Republicans and lots of taxpayers are howling with rage.

“Every time you think there’s nothing left to tax, we come up with something else,” Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-Morris-Sussex) exploded during a debate on the measure.

“It’s just never-ending down here.”

The law allows each of the state’s 565 municipalities to set up its own public stormwater utility. The new bureaucracies will build and manage sewer systems to treat pollutant-filled stormwater runoff.

The infrastructure could cost billions, state authorities say. Under the law, the utilities can levy steep fees on properties with large parking lots, long driveways, or big buildings — which create the most runoff.

The state would scoop up 5 percent of the proceeds.

The idea for the new fee goes back to 2010, when President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency ordered states whose rivers and streams flow into the Chesapeake Bay to drastically cut sediment pollution.

Maryland was the first to fall into line, with a 2012 law that charged cleanup costs to property owners — and sparked taxpayer fury. Republican Larry Hogan’s promise to repeal the “rain tax” helped sweep him into the governor’s mansion in 2014.

12 Jul 2017

Old Madeira Found in New Jersey Mansion, Now a Museum

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CNN:

Museum workers in New Jersey broke through a Prohibition-era wall and a locked wooden cage to discover over 50 bottles and 42 demijohns of rare Madeira wine dating back as early as 1769.

Liberty Hall Museum at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, says the discovery yields the oldest known collection of Madeira in the United States.

“We had no idea the old bottles were there,” said John Kean, first cousin to New Jersey’s former governor and president of the museum. “We knew there would be wine, but had no idea as to the date. That was a major surprise.”

Historians and museum workers have been renovating Liberty Hall Museum, originally just called Liberty Hall, which was home to New Jersey’s first elected governor and signer of the Constitution, William Livingston.

The house was built in 1772, just prior to the American Revolution, and originally had 14 rooms. The estate changed ownership in 1811 to the Kean family and eventually became the 50-room mansion that stands today.

Its wine cellar was chosen to undergo examination and repair, but it was hidden behind a plywood and plaster wall built during the Prohibition.

“First we needed to get the wall down. We took the room apart and performed a complete analysis — paint analysis, mortar analysis, brick analysis to see what needed to be repaired and done to the room,” Bill Schroh, director of museum operations told CNN. “Lo and behold, we found this incredible collection of Madeira.”

The six-month renovation also led to discoveries of more wine in the attic, where demijohns of wine were found buried beneath piles of straw. Demijohns, or large glass vats, commonly held spirits in transit and for storage.
Bottles of Madeira created for the personal use of Robert Lenox, a millionaire and major wine importer from New York City, were among the bottles discovered in the renovation. Lenox died in 1839, according to the New York Historical Society.

“Nothing like this exists,” said president and founder of Rare Wine Co. Mannie Berk, referring to Lenox’s sealed, stamped bottles. “They could be worth up to $20,000.” Liberty Hall Museum would not say how much the total collection of wine could be worth.

RTWT

HT: Jim Harberson.

If you found a cache of 18th century Bordeaux, you could forget about drinking it, it would undoubtedly be cooked or simply aged into vinegar. Madeira, though, is different. Madeira is the wine variety capable of surviving both heat and age. An 18th century Madeira has a pretty good chance of not only being drinkable, but excellent. We have a bottle of 1796 and a couple of 1863s still in our home collection. Karen finished the last of the 1815 years ago, alas!

23 Sep 2015

Jersey City: Muslim Woman Boasts “We’re Going to Be the Majority Soon”

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Jersey City Muslims demanded that public schools make Eid-el-Adha a holiday. Officials refused to close the schools, but granted Muslim children a religious no-penalty excuse to take Thursday off. Muslims, however, were not satisfied.

Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.

17 Feb 2015

New Jersey Justice: Retired School Teacher Faces Ten Years in Prison For Possession of Unloaded 18th Century Flintlock Pistol

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Flintlockpistol

Legal Insurrection has the utterly outrageous story.

When a 72-year-old retired school teacher faces a 10 year felony sentence (a likely life sentence) for possession of an unloaded 18th century flintlock pistol, one knows immediately that we can only be talking about a handful of states in which such a travesty can happen. In this case, not surprisingly, it’s the “Garden State” of New Jersey. (h/t Sebastian over at the Shall Not Be Questioned blog.)

Gordon Van Gilder, who taught in the New Jersey school system for 34 years, is a collector of 18th century memorabilia. He acquired a genuine antique flintlock pistol from that era, and had it unloaded and wrapped in a cloth in his glove compartment when he was pulled over for an alleged minor traffic violation.

Van Gilder consented to a requested search of his vehicle, and when asked by the officer if there was anything in the car the officer should be worried about, Van Gilder informed him about the flintlock in the glove box. Although not arrested that day, the next morning several patrol cars woke him at his home and placed him under arrest.

New Jersey’s draconian gun laws explicitly include antique firearms such as this 300-year-old pistol. Indeed, possession of a slingshot is a felony under New Jersey law.

Van Gilder is represented by Evan Nappen, a well-known attorney specializing in gun law cases, and thus is as well-represented as could be hoped for in this case. It was Nappen who successfully represented Philadelphia nurse Shaneen Allen when she was charged with unlawful possession of her PA-licensed handgun in New Jersey. The mother of two small children was ultimately permitted to enter pre-trial intervention rather than be subject to trial and New Jersey’s mandatory minimum sentence of 3 1/2 to 5 years imprisonment. That outcome, however, took direct intervention by the state Attorney General, likely at the prodding of the presidential-aspirant Governor Chris Christie.

(We covered the Allen story here PA Nurse Arrested on Gun Charges Given Reprieve and here The Memo that let Shaneen Allen — and Chris Christie’s political future — off the hook.)

Van Gilder will be fortunate indeed if Nappen can win him a similar arrangement. Even a plea agreement that avoids jail time but convicts Van Gilder of a felony would likely jeopardize the teacher’s pension he spent 34 years earning.

As Van Gilder states in the video [below]–”Avoid New Jersey. Don’t come here.”

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Via Bird Dog.

02 Nov 2014

Bear Fight in Jersey Suburb

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Don’t miss the comments by really dumb liberal girls who live a statist and Disneyfied dream world.

Example:

This is a blatant case of animal cruelty. The person filming this video is clearly goading two very distressed bears into fighting for the internet’s amusement. The appropriate bear authorities should have been called and the bears given a nice warm bowl of milk to calm down.

02 Feb 2014

The Saddest Super Bowl

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Joshua M. Brown, aka The Reformed Broker, at Business Insider, deplores the judgement of whoever decided on this year’s Super Bowl location.

This Sunday, Super Bowl XLVIII (48) will be played in an open-air stadium, built atop a New Jersey swamp, in 2 degree weather, while pretending it’s actually taking place in New York.

I don’t know what confederacy of dunces within the NFL thought this was a good idea. It might be the worst idea. It’s shaping up to be the saddest Super Bowl ever.

For starters, it’s certainly going to be the coldest. Weather guys are talking about 2 to 7 degrees. Ticket prices are dropping by thousands of dollars. People are trying to get rid of their seats rather than sit through the pain of a sub-arctic February night outdoors. Not to mention the shlep. If it snows that day, the highways and byways between NY and NJ will become so impassable you’ll need to leave your family permanently and start a new one somewhere around Teaneck Township off of the I-80.

As far as the pre-game festivities, if there were ever a city that couldn’t give a f*** about something the rest of the country is excited about, it’s New York City. Specifically Manhattan. When the Super Bowl hits other cities, like Miami or New Orleans, all the stops are pulled out and the week-long party literally takes over the town. The locals get into the spirit, businesses play it up and people from around the country (along with their tourism dollars) are welcomed warmly. …

The two main focal points for the [“New York”] pre-game “party” are located at Times Square and Herald Square. There are two places in Manhattan that no native New Yorker will ever set foot in, for any reason, ever: Times Square and Herald Square. I know people who’ve quit jobs or broken up relationships because their route involved traipsing through either of these places. Times Square is essentially a petting zoo New Yorkers have set up so that they can see real-live Americans up-close in a protected environment and maybe feed them something. Herald Square, the triangle anchored by Macy*s, is what your town’s main strip mall would look like if they were to airlift unnavigable crowds and an aggressive traffic snarl right smack in front of it and slather the pavement in a gauzy layer of perma-grime and chewed gum.

Read the whole thing.

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And it’s not only the weather, the characteristic obnoxia of New Yorkers, and the lack of suitable locations to party in Manhattan that represent unpleasant aspects of the situation. If you choose to attend, you are going to have the endemic chickenshit fascism of rustbucket Northeastern governments to put up with as well.

CNS Sports
warns:

It doesn’t matter if you’ve dropped thousands of dollars on tickets. It doesn’t matter if you’ve traveled 3,000 miles to get there. And it doesn’t matter if you offer to shovel the snow that’s sure to come to the Meadowlands.

You will not be allowed to tailgate at Super Bowl XLVIII. Unless you literally stay inside your car while you do it.

“You will be allowed to have food in your car and have drink in your car,” game committee CEO Al Kelly said during a Monday news conference. “And provided you’re in the boundaries of a single parking space, you’ll be able to eat or drink right next to your car. However, you’re not going to be able to take out a lounge chair, you’re not going to be able to take out a grill, and you’re not going to be able to take up more than one parking space. And it’ll all be watched very carefully.” …

Don’t even think about hiring a taxi or limo to drop you off at the front gates. If a car doesn’t have a parking pass, it won’t get near the stadium.

“Nobody’s going to be dropped off by black car,” Kelly said. “You can have a black car, a green car, a white car, a red car as long as you have parking, and the car needs to stay on the premises the entire time.”

Oh and by the way, there are only 13,000 parking spots for the use of fans.

Don’t even think about walking to the Super Bowl either.

“You can get your hotel to drop you off at one of the New Jersey Transit locations or get the shuttle to take you to a Fan Express location, but you cannot walk,” Smith said.

-Here’s one thing you can do. Take public transportation, or as ESPN New York explains, you can take a charter bus called the Fan Express, “which will cost $51 and pick up and drop off passengers at nine locations around the region.”

If it snows, it’s every man for himself. Hunger Games style.

10 Jan 2014

Road Closed

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18 Dec 2011

Places to Go, Things to Do

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These local festivities are characterized by a prominent humor site as insane, but I think several of the are of distinct historical or anthropological interest and the ones where you throw fiery things around sound like fun.

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Once you’ve finished attending all of the above list of seven events, you’ll want to get right to work on Figaro’s list of 100 things you need to do in Paris during your life.

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Demographic map of New Jersey. (I have been pretty successful in avoiding that state myself.)

17 Mar 2011

Humor-Impaired Authorities in New Jersey

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CBS local news in New York reports that police and high school authorities in Woodbridge, New Jersey recently lost all sense of proportion.

It was supposed to be a senior prank, but now three students in Woodbridge said they’re facing criminal charges — and may not be able to walk through graduation ceremony and take part in other senior activities.

Does the punishment go too far?

It wasn’t the T-shirts that got two 17-year-olds in trouble, but the actual chickens they said they released into their high school as part of a senior prank back in February.

“So we confessed. We told the truth. Now we’re getting charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, not allowed to go to prom, not allowed to go to graduation, and all that,” Anthony Cesareo told CBS 2’s Christine Sloan.

Cesareo and Tyler Bruno said they bought live chickens from a store in Newark and pushed the chickens through a window at Woodbridge High School in the middle of the night. A janitor found them in the morning before school started. …

It may have been a joke to them, but police said it wouldn’t have been so funny if a student got hurt.

I think myself that the principal and police chief of Woodbridge, NJ badly need the trees in front of their houses TP’d.

Hat tip to James Coulter Harberson III.


Well I was born down south on a chicken farm near Nashville, Tennessee
T’weren’t nobody there, but a sky full of air, 17 billion chickens, and me
And then one day I said “Hey, hey, hey, think I’ll drop a little LSD.”
Well, it blew my mind,
I got real kind,
And I set my chickens free.

And there was
Chickens in the pasture,
Chickens in the barn,
Chickens in the cauliflower,
Chickens in the corn,
Chickens driving Cadillacs to Washington DC,
When I set my chickens free. –Gilbert Shelton

04 Feb 2011

New Jersey 7-Year-Old Charged For Bringing Toy Gun to School

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More Hoplophobic insanity

NBC Philadelphia:

A 7-year-old child allegedly shot a Nerf-style toy gun in his Hammonton, N.J., school Jan. 18. No one was hurt, but the pint-size softshooter now faces misdemeanor criminal charges.

Hammonton Police began an investigation into the “suspicious activity” at the Hammonton Early Childhood Education Center Jan. 18 after school officials alerted them to the incident.

The “gun” the child brought to school was a $5 toy gun, similar to a Nerf gun, that shoots soft ping pong type balls, according to the school’s superintendent.

Officials also say that there was no evidence of anyone being threatened. The child’s mother told school officials that she didn’t know her son brought the toy to school.

Dr. Dan Blachford, the Hammonton Board of Education superintendent, said the school has a zero tolerance policy.

“We are just very vigilant and we feel that if we draw a very strict line then we have much less worry about someone bringing in something dangerous,” said Blachford. …

Police charged the 7-year-old with possessing an imitation firearm in or on an education institution – a misdemeanor and a minor juvenile offense in New Jersey.

Hat tip to Walter Olson.

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