Infrastructure Idiocy Abounds Among New York Politicians

It's astounding the sheer gall of Gov. David Paterson in calling on New Jersey to assist in financing the rebuilding of the Tappan Zee Bridge on the New York State Thruway.

At a time when New York couldn't be bothered with coming up with financing for the ARC tunnel to make sure that the interstate project gets completed - such as covering the potential cost overruns that might total anywhere from $1 billion to $5 billion, New Jersey is now being asked to help finance a project that is fully within New York's borders?

It's little wonder then that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went postal on the idea.

Christie blasted Gov. Paterson's proposal to split the cost of rebuilding the deteriorating Tappan Zee Bridge - even though it doesn't extend into the Garden State.

"I can't make this any clearer to New York than this: Stop screwing with us," Christie told reporters. "You're not going to come and pick our pockets. New Jersey is not going to permit it anymore."

Under Team Paterson's proposal, responsibility for the bridge would be taken from the state Thruway Authority and transferred to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

No dice, Christie cried.

"I'm not inclined to extend the port region further into New York just to bite off a monstrous expense," Christie said.

The Paterson administration was "simply offering" an idea, a spokesman said.

The construction work is estimated to cost up to $16 billion.

He said New York officials years ago deliberately kept the bridge out of the Port Authority's control so the Empire State could keep the toll revenue.

"You want to keep all the money to yourself, then you pay for the cost yourself," Christie quipped.

Paterson recently reached out to Christie to discuss the idea, but wound up making his pitch to Jersey's lieutenant governor.

In pushing the idea, Paterson said rebuilding the bridge "might be too much for New York's finances and it might be too much for New Jersey."

The Tappan Zee bridge is operated by the Thruway Authority and the bridge is structurally deficit and in need of replacement. The state has known of this situation for years, and hasn't determined the replacement cost or the design of the replacement span, but they're looking to transfer it to the Port Authority? Is this a tacit acknowledgment that the Thruway Authority's bonding ability is tapped out? That's troublesome enough, but it isn't as though the Port Authority is in much better shape.

The difference here is that the Port Authority is a bistate agency and is supposed to handle joint projects between New York and New Jersey.

It also shows the limitations of the Port Authority as a development agency when the political interests of the two state governors differs. Expect a different position to be taken when Andrew Cuomo is sworn in as Governor in January as Cuomo and Christie are both on the same page regarding reining in the costs of governance and state spending that are crippling both states. If both governors can build on a working relationship, bistate projects are much more likely to get proposed and backed through completion.

UPDATE:
Gov. Paterson has to explain how the Port Authority is in a position financially to assist in the rebuilding of the Thruway Authority's Tappan Zee bridge when the Port Authority is cutting jobs and still trying to rebuild the World Trade Center.

President Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan today although a proposed meeting between the President and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was unable to go forward due to inclement weather and security concerns.

President Barack Obama slipped unannounced into dangerous Afghanistan on Friday, one year after widening an ever deadlier war and just days before a pivotal review about the 9-year-plus conflict.

Under intense security, Obama landed in night's darkness after a clandestine departure from the White House on Thursday, where plans of his trip into the war zone were tightly guarded.

The White House said rough weather forced Obama to abruptly drop plans to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. The White House determined the wind, dust and cloud cover made it unsafe for the president to fly by helicopter from the huge military complex here to the presidential palace 30 miles away.

In a rapidly changing sequence of events, the White House then said they would speak by secure videoconference — but later said that, too, was dropped. Instead, the two leaders were expected to speak by phone.

While the meeting with Karzai didn't go as planned, the President will get to meet and greet and thank the troops at Bagram air base, and that's worth the visit all by itself.

House Censures Rangel 333-79

Rep. Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat, met his comeuppance today with a vote of censure of 333-79. It's still a slap on the wrist and Rangel still thinks he's done nothing wrong.

That mindset is joined by 77 Democrats and 2 Republicans, including Rep. Peter King, another New York Congressman who thought that Rangel lacked the mindset worthy of the sentence of censure.

How sweet. Let's just ignore the tax evasion and failure to pay taxes on income over a period of a decade. Rangel and those who voted against censure would like to ignore or excuse the unjust enrichment caused by the failure to pay taxes even though Rangel was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

New Studies Reveal That MRI Testing Could Scan For Autism

While the study's scientists caution that the study involved only boys and those with high functioning autism, the fact that MRI testing revealed those with autism 94% of the time shows that MRIs may have a place in determining whether an individual has autism or another illness.

The new test is based on a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) screen. In its trials, it was able to distinguish between people who have autism and others by changes in their brains. However, the findings were preliminary — researchers tried out this method of diagnosis on only two groups of patients; both groups were males with high-functioning autism.

But this test brings "the potential for younger people to have their autism diagnosed" earlier, said study researcher Nicholas Lange, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Neurostatistics Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.

Experts say the earlier that autism is diagnosed, the better the intervention by health care experts. Right now, autism can be diagnosed in patients as young as age 3. The disorder involves having trouble communicating and interacting with others, and behaving inappropriately in social situations.

Previous work has suggested MRIs could be used to diagnose autism. A study published in October in the journal Cerebral Cortex found that changes in oxygen levels in the brains of people with autism were less synchronized than in the brains of people without the disorder, meaning areas of the patients' brains weren't signaling properly. These oxygen changes can also be seen in an MRI of the brain, according to University of Utah researchers.

Who has it, and who doesn't?
In Lange's study, 30 men ages 8 to 26 who had been subjectively diagnosed with high-functioning autism, underwent MRI scans of their brains, as did 30 men without autism. The researchers also conducted an imaging test that let them observe how water flows throughout the brain.

They examined six parts of the brain's circuitry and found one observable difference in the men who had autism. In a typical, healthy person, water flows in an organized manner in the left side of the brain and flows in a disorganized way in the right side of the brain.

But in the men with autism, water flowed in a disorganized way in the left side of the brain and in an organized way in the right side of the brain, he said.

Right now, there is quite a bit of confusion over the diagnosis of autism and the DSM has provided guidance based on symptoms along a spectrum, which means that some individuals may be getting misdiagnosed. The MRI can help distinguish those who are truly autistic from those who aren't.

Iran Gets PWNED By Israelis

It only took the Iranians a couple of decades to realize that an Israeli design and construction firm included a Star of David on the roof of the Iran Air National Headquarters in Tehran, just outside the international airport. The revolutionaries didn't notice since 1979 when they flew out of the airport?

Nope, it took a Google Maps search to find this one out.


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Iranian officials are absolutely incensed over this, and are in the process of destroying it (which is a whole lot easier than their usual calls to actually destroy Israel). It's not the first time that the Star of David has been featured on Iranian architecture either. A Star of David was featured on the roof of a building overlooking Revolutionary Square in Tehran, but that too has since been removed.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Bilked Out of $3.8 Million in Printer Scam

This is just unbelievable and sucks in a big way. Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, which is one of the premier cancer research facilities in the world, was ripped off to the tune of $3.8 million by a clerk who ordered on the hospital's dime and then resold printer cartridges for personal gain.

A former worker at Memorial Sloan-Kettering stole nearly $4 million from the cancer center in a massive scheme that involved ordering a boatload of unnecessary printer cartridges and reselling them, authorities said.

The loot from the elaborate scam was used to fund a lavish lifestyle that allowed $37,000-a-year receiving clerk Marque Gumbs to move from a Bronx housing project to a luxurious Trump high-rise in the suburbs.

Gumbs, 32 -- who was arraigned yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property -- allegedly began his scheme in 2004 by ordering extra toner cartridges and reselling them.

In one astounding stretch from October 2009 through August 2010, Gumbs ordered $1.2 million worth of toner that wasn't usable for any machine at the hospital, authorities said.

His alleged ruse cost the hospital $3.8 million.

Gumbs, who first started working for Sloan in 1999, instructed delivery drivers to call him when they were close to the East 53rd Street site where he worked so he could personally receive the packages, officials said.

Sources said Gumbs was caught on surveillance video taking the parcels -- which never went through the mailroom -- to a garbage area.

That's $3.8 million that could have gone for patient care, infrastructure maintenance/upgrades, and research.

I donate there regularly, and am shocked that the hospital didn't have sufficient controls over its expenditures to notice the discrepancies. How could no one have noticed that printer/toner cartridges were being ordered that were not usable by any of the hospital printers? It would appear that the accounting, billing, and facilities budgets aren't nearly as scrutinized as they should be.

Happy Chanukah 2010

When Lego and Star Wars Meets

It's a humorous take on the original films and features some loved (and one much reviled new) Star Wars characters.

Proposed NJ Legislation Would Kill Wind Power Projects Across State

A proposed bill by a South Jersey Republican State Senator, Sean Kean, would have the effect of killing wind power projects around the state because of its overly restrictive language that would prohibit the construction of wind power projects within 2,000 feet of a residential zoned property.

Considering that the state is the most densely populated in the nation, finding properties that would be ideal for wind power projects that aren't within 2,000 feet of a residential zoned parcel would narrow the number properties to such an extent that it would essentially kill the industry.

I don't think that this bill has much of a chance of being passed in New Jersey, and it again highlights that NIMBY trumps everything including environmental concerns. Opponents to wind power projects routinely cite the potential damage to migratory birds and the noise generated. Some will even claim that the wind power turbines cause all manner of mysterious ailments:

The bill (S2374) would not affect proposed off-shore wind power projects, which would usually be a longer distance from shore. While the state Energy Master Plan calls for the lion’s share of wind power to be generated off shore, environmentalists say everything counts in developing clean, renewable energy.

"Our off-shore wind potential is much greater than our on-shore wind potential, but beggars can’t be choosers," said David Pringle, political director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "We shouldn’t be putting unnecessary restrictions on this resource."

Kean (R-Monmouth) drafted the bill after a proposed 325-foot windmill by Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at the National Guard training center in Sea Girt drew protests from hundreds of residents concerned it would threaten birds, cause noise, pose health risks and decrease property values. The Sea Girt council in September passed a resolution opposing building the turbine on the state-owned land.

While his bill faces an uncertain future — Assembly Environment Committee Chairman John McKeon (D-Essex) says he doesn’t plan to give the lower house version a hearing — Kean says it shows there can be considerable blowback from wind projects.

The bill says it is meant to prevent "wind turbine syndrome," in which close proximity to a turbine allegedly causes a host of health problems, including insomnia, headaches and learning disabilities. But the science behind the phenomenon, first published in a study by Dr. Nina Pierpont, is heavily debated.

"I don’t know what wind turbine syndrome is. I don’t think there’s any scientific basis for that claim," said Fred DeSanti, a consultant for The Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority, which is building a windmill slated to begin operating in January at a treatment plant in Union Beach, Monmouth County. "It’s a fan that blows in the wind and creates electricity. This is not some alien device."

The article uncritically claims that a study found close proximity to wind turbines caused wind turbine syndrome, but a search of medical literature found no such references. Instead, it's from a woman who opposes wind power projects near her Western New York home and came to her conclusion after studying all of 38 people in her area (10 families). If this were truly a study that found causality, it would have been conducted according to rigorous protocols. Other studies have found that while a segment of the population is sensitive to certain low sounds (infrasound), wind power projects do not produce those sounds in sufficient volume to cause the said problems.

This is yet another attempt to kill an industry and deployment of technologies that improve air quality, reduce pollution, and reduce reliance on foreign sources of energy.

Here's hoping that this bill dies a prompt death in the Senate.

US Slams Palestinian Nonsensical Claims, But Ignores Underlying Reality

It's nice the Obama Administration recognizes the craziness of Palestinian Authority claims that Jews do not have any historical claims to the Western Wall and Temple Mount.

The State Department said the US rejects the claim as "factually incorrect, insensitive and highly provocative." Spokesman P.J. Crowley said statements of that kind damage US efforts to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and could incite violence.

"We have repeatedly raised with the Palestinian Authority leadership the need to consistently combat all forms of de-legitimization of Israel, including denying historic Jewish connections to the land," he told reporters.

"As the United States has long maintained, the status of Jerusalem must be resolved in final status negotiations between the parties," Crowley said. "We recognize that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue to Israelis and Palestinians, to Jews, to Muslims and to Christians everywhere."

Last week, a senior Palestinian official endorsed a study stating that the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, is Muslim property and has no link to Judaism. The study has drawn fierce criticism in Israel but Al-Mutawakil Taha, deputy Palestinian information minister, said the document is the official position of the Palestinian Authority.

That bit about damaging the peace process is typical diplomatic speak. The truth is that these claims show exactly how and why Israel lacks a partner in the peace process and that until Palestinians accept Israel and a Jewish state at that, there will be no peace. The US can't broker a peace deal when one side - the Palestinians - refuse Israel's very existence and rights to the land.

As this is the official position of the Palestinian Authority it shows that the Palestinians are interested only in revisionist history to suit their propaganda purposes and de-legitimize more than 3,000 years of Jewish ties to Israel and Jerusalem.

What this shows is that despite the overwhelming evidence against Israel having a partner in peace, the US diplomatic corps will continue engaging in pseudoreality to try to keep a nonexistent peace process alive. It's time for the US and the rest of the world to stop with the charade and expose the Palestinian Authority for what it is - and that includes it not operating with the best interests of Palestinians in mind either.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 121

This has been something that has been bugging me for more than a year. Since the federal government enacted the ARRA of 2009 (the federal stimulus package), I've been saying that funds set aside by that package should be used to help expedite and complete the Ground Zero reconstruction.

It now appears that Silverstein Properties has recognized the funding source and may be applying for $200 million in Recovery Zone bonds to help finance 3 WTC. The New York region was entitled to $550 million in Recovery Zone bonds, but those bonds may go unused before they expire.

The bonding would be a lower interest rate than bonding and financing obtained elsewhere, which can further reduce the construction and repayment costs at Ground Zero.

At the same time, one has to wonder why the Recovery Zone bonds haven't been utilized in the ARC Tunnel/7 Line extension debate as a way to further the construction efforts at a time when infrastructure spending is considered a top priority by the Obama Administration. It would have come in handy to complete a mid-stop on the 7 Line extension to 34th Street at 11th Avenue, but yet the City and MTA didn't seek use of those funds.

Meanwhile, the NY Post is reporting on a rather old story - that the Port Authority is spending $600 million in upgrading the security on its PATH tunnels under the Hudson River. The Port Authority approved the upgrades several years ago and the purpose is to make the tunnels less likely to flood in a terror attack or natural disaster. It was spurred by the experience after 9/11 when the WTC tubes were flooded for months after the collapsing towers severed major water mains and severely damaged the tunnel infrastructure and then by thwarted terror plots targeting the PATH system. The upgrades include flood prevention doors and bomb proofing the tunnel lining, which are sensible steps considering the fact that the PATH system has been repeatedly targeted by al Qaeda.

On a happier note, it appears that the construction workers on 1WTC (Freedom Tower) have installed Christmas colored lights on some of the lower floors. Green and red tinted lights now mark some of the lower floors after dark.

New York Budget Situation Remains A Disaster

New York continues to be disgraced by its legislators, who once again kicked the issue of massive deficits into the future when it refused to deal with the latest deficit situation. New estimates figure that the deficit has grown by another $315 million, which is on top of the $9 billion deficit that incoming Governor Andrew Cuomo will have to deal with in short order.

The legislature claims that they didn't have sufficient time to study the issue, even though they were four months late in passing this mess of a budget and it was out of whack from the moment it was passed.

Mind you that the state passed a bloated budget four months late that was billions more than the previous budget, which itself was a vastly bloated disaster requiring tax hikes that didn't result in additional revenues as anticipated.

New York has been well outside its means for years on end and endless tax and fee hikes have not generated the anticipated revenues, which means that the budget deficits swell.

It is past time to rein in the spending and to make far more conservative estimates of revenues particularly at a time when consumer confidence is shot and people are looking to keep their own costs down. The state government must do the same - and must budget accordingly.

Deep and sometimes painful cuts will be necessary and that includes sharply cutting the size of the state bureaucracies and dealing with unfunded pension obligations - both by making sure that existing obligations are funded and limiting the number of people who will be put into the pension system. It means fighting the very unions that help elect the legislators and governor who fight health care and pension reform every step of the way since it means that the compensation packages are decreased. Simply put, the state can no longer afford the compensation packages it doles out and taxpayers simply aren't able to sustain the revenues necessary to carry state obligations.

It is a system that is collapsing on itself because no one in the legislature was willing or capable of standing up and demanding fiscal responsibility to keep the spending flat during a recession. The state instead spent wildly above and beyond what its taxpayers were able to afford, driving up deficits further.

This is an unsustainable situation and Gov. Cuomo will have to pick up the pieces and put both the legislature and state workforce on notice that serious changes will be forthcoming.

Wikileaks' Anarchism Continues; Feds Ponder Next Step

Wikileaks, just days after releasing hundreds of thousands of classified State Department documents, is now claiming that they will release a similar number of documents about a major US bank.

Just what is Wikileaks intentions? It clearly seems that they are intent upon causing anarchy and upheaval in the US and world markets, on national security, foreign policy and business and economic grounds. Analysts are concerned that the document dump may lead to the loss of life and putting lives of Americans at greater risk. It further complicates foreign policy and diplomatic efforts on issues ranging from the Middle East to China and North Korea - flashpoints that could boil over into open hostilities in a heartbeat.

Army analyst Bradley Manning, who originally obtained the military and State Department documents had anarchy on his mind when he provided the documents to Wikileaks.

It's an organization that has placed itself just out of reach of US authorities unless the US gets assistance from foreign governments in tracking down and arresting those involved to be extradited to the US to face justice.

So, what is the US to do. They can issue stern warnings and attempt to placate and reassure allies, but the damage has been done. The military and State Department have to revise their methodologies to reduce the chances that a single person could do the kind of damage that Manning did.

Moreover, prosecutions of those who obtained classified documents and transmitted them to unauthorized persons for publication or retransmission must be swift and harsh. Prosecutors are looking at bringing charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his cohorts.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Justice Department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation.'' Others familiar with the probe said the FBI is examining everyone who came into possession of the documents, including those who gave the materials to WikiLeaks and also the organization itself. No charges are imminent, the sources said, and it is unclear whether any will be brought.

Former prosecutors cautioned that prosecutions involving leaked classified information are difficult because the Espionage Act is a 1917 statute that preceded Supreme Court cases that expanded First Amendment protections. The government also would have to persuade another country to turn over Assange, who is outside the United States.

But the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is rapidly unfolding, said charges could be filed under the act. The U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria - which in 2005 brought Espionage Act charges, now dropped, against two former pro-Israel lobbyists - is involved in the effort, the sources said.

The Pentagon is leading the investigation and it remains unclear whether any additional charges would be brought in the military or civilian justice systems. Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst suspected of being the source of the WikiLeaks documents, was arrested by the military this year.

Holder was asked Monday how the United States could prosecute Assange, who is an Australian citizen. "Let me be very clear," he replied. "It is not saber rattling.

"To the extent there are gaps in our laws," Holder continued, "we will move to close those gaps, which is not to say . . . that anybody at this point, because of their citizenship or their residence, is not a target or a subject of an investigation that's ongoing." He did not indicate that Assange is being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others, called Assange and Wikileaks terrorists for exposing the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and documents.

I'm not quite sure that Wikileaks fits that definition. They are anarchists because they are trying to overturn existing geopolitical structures and undermining the US by any means possible. Terrorism has a specific definition for US law: 18 USC 2331. Providing material assistance to terrorist organizations has a specific definition. I'm not so sure that prosecutors can prove that Wikileaks and Assange conforms to the meanings of the statutes. That doesn't mean that prosecutors can't find other relevant statutes to work with.

Julian Assange and the other people working for Wikileaks must be held to account for their supernational effort to undermine US national security. Their actions are fully within the scope of 18 USC 794 and 18 USC 798, which relates to the disclosure of classified information.

I'd also expect prosecutors to take a closer look at Wikileaks as a criminal enterprise/racket and treat it under racketeering statutes (RICO).

As the damage from the document dump fallout continues, US allies may be more than willing to arrest and extradite Assange and his cohorts to the US to stand trial for their activities. Australia is looking into whether Assange broke Australian law (Assange is an Australian citizen).

Feds Come Calling On New Jersey For ARC Tunnel Money State Doesn't Have

This is a rather rich and ironic situation. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killed the ARC tunnel project because of anticipated cost overruns in excess of $1 billion (and which could have been as much as $5 billion) because the state couldn't afford the overruns. The federal government attempted to salvage the project by telling New Jersey that it could further mortgage its future and take on still more debt rather than the federal governmnet assuming the risk of overruns itself - or calling on New York to kick in funding for the project.

So, the project died and certain expenditures already spent are now being claimed by the feds for reimbursement. The feds want $271 million back from New Jersey and have given the state a Sopranos-style deadline to make the payment.

New Jersey doesn't have $271 million to reimburse the feds. Its budget is already maxed out and stressed to the limits but the feds don't care one bit about New Jersey taxpayers. New Jersey taxpayers were going to be on the hook for overruns. So, the feds would rather see the state hike taxes further to pay off the initial sunk costs - like real estate acquisitions, planning, and other expenses.

Moreover, if work was already done then the money can go towards any future project that may end up utilizing the planning and acquisitions. Certain funds weren't spent, so were excluded from the calculation that New Jersey owes $271 million. The federal government can much easier write off the costs than the state - it was stimulus for the construction firms that handled the initial phases of preparing a tunnel right of way for inevitable use down the line.

Instead, this is the federal government's passive-aggressive way of trying to get back at Gov. Christie and his fiscal prudence in killing a project that was going to be a massive hit for New Jersey taxpayers who are already the most heavily burdened in the nation.

New Jersey's congressional delegation doesn't seem to be in a hurry to deal with this matter either - hoping that the situation causes political discomfort to the Governor. Instead of making sure that the money goes to a better alternative - the 7 line expansion that would be able to utilize much of the infrastructure and same right of way and at a fraction of the cost, they're hoping to make a mess of the state budget because Sen. Lautenberg and Gov. Christie don't get along.

Rangel Wants Opportunity To Lobby House To Give Even Lighter Wrist Slap

The truly sad part is that the House might go along with this nonsense and give Rep. Charles Rangel, the disgraced Harlem Democrat who was found guilty on 12 of 13 ethics charges, an even lighter slap on the wrist than the Ethics Panel had suggested as punishment. Rangel wants the opportunity to lobby the rest of the House to plead his case for a reprimand, rather than censure.

Neither means a bit of difference to Rangel or his constituents who reelected him to yet another term in office despite being a tax cheat and scoundrel.

Rangel and his staffers are busy putting together colorful charts highlighting reasons not to give Rangel anything more than a censure.

Yet, I think that there's more than sufficient reasons and justifications to expel Rangel from the House - the fact that he repeatedly lied about his taxes and real estate holdings. He avoided reporting and paying the proper income tax and improperly utilized a rent stabilized apartment as a campaign office.

That's grounds for expulsion - not a censure or reprimand.

Yet, I expect nothing more than a slap on the wrist because that's what Congress generally does.

Misguided Math Challenges Think Tank's Assumptions About NJ Tax Burden

A liberal think tank, New Jersey Policy Perspectives, claims that New Jersey's tax burden is not as high as Gov. Chris Christie and New Jersey taxpayers think. They attempt to tackle the issue by claiming that Gov. Christie's annual taxable income of $540,792 was not sufficiently taxed, when Christie paid $33,619 in taxes.

The think tank's assumption is that the entire $540,792 should be hit with the 10.25% top tax rate, rather than the actual tax paid equivalent of 6.2%. By that reasoning, everyone is severely underpaying their actual taxes because the graduated tax system means that you pay income tax up to a set dollar value at each of the lowest rates.

However, that further ignores the reality that the entire Gross Income Tax in New Jersey is meant to be for property tax relief. It was not instituted to raise revenue separately for the state, but as a means to reduce property tax burdens around the state. New Jersey has been in the top three of top tax burdens overall for years, and is the highest property tax burdened state in the nation. This organization thinks that hitting up high income taxpayers will solve matters? Hardly. The overall tax burden means that taxpayers are fleeing the state to find lower tax burdens or that they themselves are fleeing from New York or Connecticut while staying in the New York metro area.

No, what will solve matters is reducing the pressures to continue raising property taxes endlessly and reducing the bureaucracies and unfunded mandates around the state - as well as properly funding pension obligations all while reducing and eliminating pensions going forward on new hires to reflect the fact that localities and taxpayers simply can no longer afford those obligations (and that the private sector no longer provides such compensation packages). Raising taxes further sends the wrong message at the wrong time.

Iranian Nuclear Scientists Targeted For Assassination

Attacking the physical infrastructure of the Iranian nuclear program may produce minor setbacks and cause the Iranians to further fortify their program against physical attack, defending and protecting the scientists and brain-trust that is building the infrastructure could produce longer lasting setbacks because of the knowledge gap and the time it takes to train and gain expertise in dealing with the practicalities of building a nuclear infrastructure.



So, when reports surfaced that someone planted car bombs that killed one leading Iranian nuclear scientist and wounded another, my ears perked up.

Two bomb blasts in the Iranian capital Monday killed a top nuclear scientist and wounded another.

State-controlled media immediately accused the US and Israel of being behind the assassination, which came days before Iran is scheduled to discuss its nuclear program with international officials. And on Sunday a trove of US embassy cables revealed by WikiLeaks revealed that multiple Arab countries have urged the US to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, while many Western nations accuse Tehran of using the program to develop nuclear weapons.

State media reported that two bombs were attached to the cars of the scientists by unidentified men on motorcycles, then detonated from a distance, reports Agence France-Presse. The scientist killed was Majid Shahriari, a professor in the nuclear engineering department at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. Fereydoon Abbasi, also a professor at the university who is involved in nuclear research at the Defense Ministry, was wounded.

The attacks occurred at two separate locations with two separate bomb attacks. While some might think that this is a plot line out of James Bond, these attacks may have the ability to put a crimp in Iran's nuclear ambitions and there are more than a few countries that might be behind the effort to stop Iran by any means necessary.

As the recently released US State Department cables and documents show, it wasn't Israel pushing the US to take action against Iran. It was Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and these cables and documents increase the number of likely parties responsible for undermining the Iranian nuclear threat.

Thus, Iranian claims that the US or Israel were behind the attacks is just the tip of the iceberg of potential parties to the incidents. Multiple countries in the region are hoping to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions, and taking out a couple of nuclear scientists - or putting them in fear of cooperating with the Iranian regime - may help delay Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Are Businesses Bouncing Back With Start To Holiday Shopping Season?

That's the multibillion dollar question. Are retailers seeing increases in consumer spending as the shopping season when most retailers see the bulk of their revenues?

So far, retailers have seen the barest of increases in sales in brick and mortar stores and shopping malls, while online retailers have done better (that includes those stores that have both online and brick and mortar presence). They saw a 0.3% increase in sales over last year, which suggests that consumer confidence still hasn't recovered.

The heavy discounting and lower prices on certain types of items, particularly LCD TVs, held down overall spending. On Friday, retailers at shopping malls eked out a 0.3 percent increase to $10.69 billion, according to preliminary figures from ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks sales at 70,000 stores.

TV prices are falling almost twice as fast as they did earlier this year amid a glut. They're selling for anywhere from 15 to 20 percent lower than Christmas 2009.

Earlier buying in November also stole some sales away from the day, said ShopperTrak co-founder Bill Martin. But 2.2 percent more customers came into stores on Black Friday compared with the same day last year. The research firm tracks sales at stores in shopping malls, not big discounters like Wal-Mart and Target, which draw much Black Friday spending.

The National Retail Federation trade group estimated on Sunday that 212 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 195 million last year, according to a survey it conducts.

A fuller picture on spending will come Thursday when retailers report November revenue figures.

Online, spending rose more than 14 percent from Thanksgiving Day through Saturday, according to IBM's Coremetrics. The average order rose 14 percent and the number of items per order grew 15 percent, fueled by shoppers taking advantage of deals on Black Friday.

My own experience with Black Friday shopping in Bergen County seems to track that. I found that car traffic on the Route 17 and Route 4 corridors to be much lower than a normal Saturday, which means that consumers were elsewhere. Parking for the Garden State Plaza was crazy and traffic did back up on to the Garden State Parkway for the exit that led into Garden State Plaza, but Route 4 and 17 were unaffected by the kind of congestion that usually occurs during the holiday season.

Paramus Park's parking lots weren't nearly as busy at 8am when I arrived there, but the mall was busy and people were definitely buying items. Clothing retailers like Ann Taylor were holding 40% sales, but those sales extended through the weekend. Sears wasn't as busy as I expected, considering that they had some great deals on appliances and televisions.

That is a double edged sword - as businesses gave deep discounts to drive traffic to their stores, but retailers aren't going to make as much if they're discounting - and if people are expecting deep discounts, they are going to come to expect it more regularly and that will hold prices down.

Once again, I did about half my shopping online, and the other half was done at the various malls and local stores. Shopping may have been skewed this year to some extent because the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah has come much earlier than many years - it begins the evening of December 1.

Also, some businesses started their deep discounting sales earlier this year than in prior years. Some started giving Black Friday type deals at least a week ago, if not more, and others were conducting online deep discount sales on Thanksgiving day. Amazon.com gave rotating deep discounts all week long, and will continue doing so tomorrow on Cyber Monday. That will certainly skew sales as well.

We'll have a much better picture in coming weeks.

New Jersey Pedestrian Safety Law Needs Greater Enforcement

The Record notes that the state has proffered $12,000 each to seven Northern New Jersey towns to carry out undercover operations to crack down on drivers who ignore the state's recently strengthened laws requiring all vehicles to come to a complete stop when a pedestrian is in a cross walk.

Officer No walked into the street three times in the first 45 minutes of the day's operation. Cars and trucks, some honking, sped around him. As No tried to cross the street in one 15-second event, officers pulled over a dozen vehicles into the Fort Lee Historic Park. The officers walked down the line and wrote the tickets — $200, plus court costs, and two points against their driver's licenses.

"A lot [of drivers] are finding out the hard way, but they are learning," traffic Capt. Timothy Ford said. "It's going to take awhile to educate them — but it's going to happen."

Pedestrian safety events, such as this one in Fort Lee, are going to become more common because the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety has awarded grants to seven Bergen County and Passaic County communities to use decoy programs to educate drivers about the new state law.

This is one particular law that drivers routinely ignore. Indeed, around Radburn New Jersey drivers flout the law with seeming impudence. They actually try to outrace pedestrians to the crosswalk so that they aren't inconvenienced by waiting 30 seconds for someone to cross the street. It becomes a game of chicken, and pedestrians are the big losers.

The thing of this is that the Fair Lawn police could make a killing if they posted cops to ticket drivers who break the law. As the article points out, one undercover cop was able to lead to a dozen tickets issued in all of 15 seconds. Each of those tickets carried $200 fines plus administrative costs and points on licenses.

Decoy programs aren't needed. Stationing a patrol car at the intersection of Plaza Road and High Street would be a good start, followed by Fair Lawn Avenue at Plaza Road. The drivers on Plaza Road and Fair Lawn Avenue routinely ignore the state law and race through intersections even as pedestrians are crossing. Drivers then think that they can proceed if the pedestrian has crossed out of their path, but state law requires that they completely exit the crosswalk.

Treasonous Releases of Diplomatic Documents Threatens US Security Interests Worldwide

Wikileaks needs to not only be taken behind the woodshed and thrashed to the fullest extent of the law, but all those who work in connection with the organization and those who have leaked the 250,000 diplomatic caches to the entity need to be brought up on charges of treason and possession of diplomatic documents and other classified documents.

These document releases threaten the national security of the United States and our diplomatic efforts worldwide. This is on the heels of a previous release of military documents that threatened US interests in Afghanistan and Iraq - which contained unredacted information that put the lives of those who worked with the US in jeopardy of being targeted for reprisals.

Wikileaks claims that they are in the business of releasing classified government documents from around the world, but their overwhelming focus has been on the undermining of US national security and diplomatic efforts of and by the US.

The US State Department is in damage control mode as they're trying to scramble to figure out who the leaks are coming from, what those documents could say and who might be offended by the documents and analysis - both among our allies, potential allies, and our foes.

The scope of these most recent diplomatic documents is breathtaking in the damage that has been done and cover most of the last three years - pretty much running from the end of the Bush Administration to the present:

The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism. Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:

— A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”

— Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.

— Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

— Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

— A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.

There are very good reasons why these kinds of documents remain classified - because they go to the heart of negotiating tough situations like with North Korea or the Middle East. They include unvarnished analysis and game situations such as the collapse of the North Korean regime and what various other countries might do.

At this point, even some who had previously worked with Wikileaks are now critical of the group and are demanding that criminal prosecutions take place because they're putting lives in danger. In fact, it's one of Julian Assange's cofounders of Wikileaks that holds the organization in contempt for its blatant disregard for the law.

Then again, some of those documents aren't exactly a surprise. One such document notes the ties between Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs. Other documents point to Jordan and Saudi Arabia calling on the US to take action against Iran - in light of Iran's nuclear ambitions. That latter release shows how these documents can affect the strategic balance in the Middle East and further complicate efforts to contain Iran and North Korea among others.

Julian Assange and the other people working for Wikileaks must be held to account for their supernational effort to undermine US national security. Their actions are fully within the scope of 18 USC 794 and 18 USC 798, which relates to the disclosure of classified information. Further, Congress should undertake a review of those relevant statutes to specifically include leaks of information that can benefit terror regimes and foreign governments when not specifically and directly transmitted - that Internet posting is sufficient such that any regime seeking to obtain an advantage of the classified documents can view these documents online.