National Weather Service Follows DHS In Huge Ammo Purchase
Hollow point bullets designed to cause maximum organ damage
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Why would the National Weather Service need to purchase large quantities of powerful ammo? That’s the question many are asking after the federal agency followed in the footsteps of the Department of Homeland Security in putting out a solicitation for 46,000 rounds of hollow point bullets.
A solicitation which appears on the FedBizOpps website asks for 16,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point (JHP) bullets, noted for their strength, to be delivered to locations in Ellsworth, Maine, and New Bedford, Mass.
A further 6,000 rounds of S&W JHP will be sent to Wall, New Jersey, with another 24,000 rounds of the same bullets heading to the weather station in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The solicitation also asks for 500 paper targets to be delivered to the same locations in Maine, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Exclusive: U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing collapse
By Rick Rothacker
Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:41am EDT
(Reuters) – U.S. regulators directed five of the country’s biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.
The two-year-old program, which has been largely secret until now, is in addition to the “living wills” the banks crafted to help regulators dismantle them if they actually do fail. It shows how hard regulators are working to ensure that banks have plans for worst-case scenarios and can act rationally in times of distress.
Officials like Lehman Brothers former Chief Executive Dick Fuld have been criticized for having been too hesitant to take bold steps to solve their banks’ problems during the financial crisis.
According to documents obtained by Reuters, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency first directed five banks – which also include Citigroup Inc,, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co – to come up with these “recovery plans” in May 2010.
Study: Obesity Increases Driver’s Risk Of Being In Car Accident
August 7, 2012 7:27 AM
SEATTLE (CBS Seattle) – A new study claims that obesity could not only increase a driver’s risk of being in a car accident, but also result in more severe injuries.
The study, conducted by Canadian scientists at the University of Laval and published in the Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, claimed that morbidly obese drivers may be at increased risk of a crash due to weight-related health complications.
Additionally, car designs that are less than sympathetic to larger frames could leave obese drivers in more critical condition following an accident.
Accoring to sources in las Vegas In what is sure to be a boon for the Las Vegas Strip’s many beer pong-friendly locations, Olympic officials have announced beer pong will be an official event at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Long considered to be a frontrunner to become a “demonstration summer sport,” beer pong has surprised critics and leap-frogged the lengthy approval process to become a recognized sport in record time.
Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. presents the 35th Anniversary Sweepstakes.
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Networks That Fawned Over Obama’s World Tour Mock Romney’s International ‘Blunders’
By Scott Whitlock | August 02, 2012 | 11:42
Mitt Romney’s week-long international trip resulted in unrelentingly negative coverage from the big three broadcast networks, a stark change from the glowing press awarded to then-candidate Barack Obama’s world tour in 2008. While Obama was treated like a rock star (from the Associated Press: “It’s not only Obama’s youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic….”), Romney endured a focus on gaffes and the trivial.
MRC analysts examined all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney’s trip to London, Israel and Poland between July 25 and July 31. Virtually all of these stories (18, or 86%) emphasized Romney’s “diplomatic blunders,” from his “golden gaffe” at the Olympic games to “missteps” that offended the Palestinians.
Explaining the Senate’s growing conservative Latino caucus
A Ted Cruz win in November gives the Tea Party five supporters in the Senate
August 4, 2012
By: Achy Obejas
When Ted Cruz, the U.S. senate GOP nominee, wins in November — and it will be a helluva a scandal if he doesn’t — the world’s greatest deliberative body will have three Latino senators. And two of them will be Republican.
Given the Democratic Party’s much “greater civil rights record”(guess the author never herd of Lincoln) and its much more traditionally muscular grassroots efforts, there’s something off about those optics. So how did that happen?
Photo by Boyd Loving Robert Menéndez,swearing on Mayor Paul Aronsohn
Robert Menéndez, the Latino Democratic senator from New Jersey, rose up the old fashioned way, through a close and often controversial mentorship with an older pol, former Union City Mayor William Musto (against whom Menéndez eventually testified). Menéndez worked his way up steadily, from school board member to mayor, to state senator to U.S. congressman to U.S. senator.
Marco Rubio, the incumbent Republican senator from Florida, appeared to be following the same route as Menéndez when he began his political career. He interned for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the powerful South Florida Cuban-American congresswoman, and got close to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Rubio did stints in local government, both as a city commissioner and as a state legislator. From 2007 to 2009, he served as the first Hispanic and the youngest Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.
NJT: Inbound Lanes Approaching Lincoln Tunnel Closed During Overnight Hours – Expect Delays
The Roadway will Remain Open During Peak Hours – Beginning Monday, August 6, 2012
August 02, 2012
Beginning on or about Monday, August 6 and continuing through 2013, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey will begin construction on the Lincoln Tunnel Helix along 495 East. During the first phase, the inbound lanes (to New York) approaching Lincoln Tunnel will be closed during overnight hours for construction work as follows:
Weeknights – 10:30 PM to 5 AM
Saturdays – 12:01 AM to 8 AM
Sundays – 1 AM to 9 AM
The roadways will remain open during peak hours. Buses will be diverted to Pleasant Avenue and Boulevard East in Weehawken for alternate access to the Lincoln Tunnel.
Buses will be delayed both inbound and outbound from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Customers should allow for additional time when traveling or consider mass transit options such as PATH and NJ TRANSIT trains.
Ridgewood Affected bus routes include:163*, 164,
Note: *Denotes this route normally uses a local street from Union City and Weehawken to approach the eastbound Lincoln Tunnel and will encounter detoured traffic from the NJ 495 construction and could encounter a service delay as a result.
NJ TRANSIT customers are advised to review Informational web sites with travel times before travel:
For more information on the project, visit www.panynj.gov/thehelixfix
For real-time traffic information, please call 511 or visit 511nj.org
We regret any inconvenience. Thank you for your patience.
Many are qualifying for the Olympics tweet heat
By LEVI SUMAGAYSAY
It’s the nature of the job: GMSV has watched the controversy over tweets and the Olympics more than the sports. And now we throw caution to the wind — and risk the wrath of the International Olympics Committee — and dub these summer games the Twitter Olympics. From Twitter fails to protests (by the athletes themselves, over sponsorships) to controversies, the San Francisco-based microblogging service has been the star of the show so far.
• The talker du jour is the suspension of a Twitter’s journalist account, which seems to have been influenced by NBC and Twitter’s Olympics partnership. A PR nightmare now faces both, but bigger questions surround Twitter. After all, CEO Dick Costolo has called his company the “free speech wing of the free speech party.”
Independent correspondent Guy Adams was critical of NBC’s Olympics coverage and used Twitter to say so. One of his tweets read: “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think!” Adams then included Zenkel’s work email address. NBC, which said it filed an official complaint after reportedly being alerted to the tweets by Twitter itself, said distributing Zenkel’s email address violated Twitter’s rules. But Adams says, according to the New York Times, “I didn’t publish a private e-mail address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical [in form] to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share.” After taking a look at Twitter’s policy, most reasonable people would probably agree with Adams.
GMSV has emailed Twitter for comment. Twitter told the NYT it doesn’t comment about individual users.
Twitter is, of course, a free service and a business that can choose to do what it wants. But over the years, it has cultivated an image that has earned it the respect of many journalists and other supporters of free speech. Among other things, it has fought the U.S. government’s request to divulge information about users with ties to whistleblower website WikiLeaks. (Also see Trending: Praise for Twitter after it stands up for a user’s rights.)
Media critic Dan Gillmor writes for the Guardian that if the service doesn’t reinstate the journalist’s account, “this is a defining moment for Twitter. It will have demonstrated that it can be bullied by its business partners into acts that damage its credibility and ultimately the reason so many of us use it as a platform.”
• Another Olympian has been kicked out over a racist tweet. This time, a Swiss soccer player tweeted something that “discriminated against, insulted and violated the dignity of the South Korea football team as well as the South Korean people,” Swiss Olympic team chief Gian Gilli reportedly said. Last week, a track star was expelled from the Greek Olympic team over her tweet about African immigrants in her country. (See Quoted: on the dangers of tweeting, the Olympics version.)
• Last — at least for now — a teenager has been arrested over tweets he directed to an Olympic athlete, British diver Tom Daley. The teen reportedly tweeted to Daley that he had “let down [his] father,” who died last year. The Guardian has rounded up some of the teen’s subsequent tweets afterward, some of which include profanity and threats.
Calif. cities eye plan to seize mortgages
By AMY TAXIN and CHRISTINA REXRODE | Associated Press – 15 hrs ago
FONTANA, Calif. (AP) — In the foreclosure-battered inland stretches of California, local government officials desperate for change are weighing a controversial but inventive way to fix troubled mortgages: Condemn them.
Officials from San Bernardino County and two of its cities have formed a local agency to consider the plan. The securities industry has been quick to register its displeasure and say it will only make loans harder to get.
Discussion of the idea is taking place in one of the epicenters of the housing crisis, a working-class region east of Los Angeles where housing prices have plummeted. Last week brought another sharp reminder of the crisis when the 210,000-strong city of San Bernardino, struggling after shrunken home prices walloped local tax revenues, announced it would seek bankruptcy protection.
Now — and amid skepticism on many fronts — officials from the surrounding county of San Bernardino and cities of Fontana and Ontario have created a joint powers authority to consider what role local governments could take to stem the crisis. The goal is to keep homeowners saddled by large mortgage payments from losing their homes — which are now valued at a fraction of what they were once worth.
Colorado Shootings : One Glaring Omission
July 21,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, like everyone we are sadden to hear of the events in Colorado and commend the authorities for their quick response to the the crisis which probably averted more deaths. We also commend most of the media for showing restraint except for ABC News which could not resist making fools of themselves by immediately looking to politicize the crisis.
While in the coming days I am sure we will be inundated with the usually cries for gun control with the blame game looking to finger everyone from bugs bunny cartoons, Batman , TV violence, addiction to porn . Bushes fault, Obama’s fault ,the parents ,the Tea Party ,salt ,Slurpee’s , the economy and anything and everything but personal responsibility, because we all know that spoons make people fat.
The usual suspects of Hollywood’s clueless ,agenda driven politicians and bigots and uninformed talking heads will bombard us with their off the mark missives.
Before this all goes south we wanted to mention one glaring detail that as of now has gone unnoticed or at lest unreported To quote Time Magizine of all things “While it does take, primarily, a particularly deranged person to shoot up a crowded theater during one of the most anticipated movie premieres in recent memory, it also takes some serious firepower.” ( https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/21/colorado-theater-shooter-carried-4-guns-all-obtained-legally/ )
And James Holmes had no shortage of firepower . Holmes had four guns on him when he was apprehended an AR-15 assault rifle ,a Remington 8-gauge 1270 shotgun and two 40-caliber Glock handguns. FOXNews is reporting he also had 6000 rounds of ammunition including high capacity clips for the assault rifle . His apartment was also rigged with over 30 explosives and he was wearing a significant amount of body Armour and used smoke grenades.
Far be it for the Ridgewood blog to be cynical but how exactly did and unemployed student afford all this state of the art equipment and where did all that money come from. An AR-15 can cost $900 and $1,500 while the shot gun could run from $250- 500.00 and the Glocks about $500.00 each . A Bullet proof vests runs $450-600.00 so let me get this straight the guy is unemployed, paying rent ,eating , joining porn sites and investing in all this equipment ?
Something to think about over the next couple of weeks while the media starts shoveling the bull .
Ridgewood Water storage tanks now at 76% of capacity
July 21,2012
the staff of the ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , Ridgewood Water Is Feeling the heat after 10 straight years of summer water restrictions . According to the Ridgewood News (RN) ,”As of this morning, we were at a level of 76 percent in our storage tanks,” Village Manager Ken Gabbert said Wednesday. “That’s indicating that we’re getting a very good level of cooperation from the residents of the four communities, and we did have a long weekend when we were watching every foot on the storage facilities.” ( https://www.northjersey.com/news/163221036_Ridgewood_Water_says_residents_are_cooperating_in_water_usage.html )
The RN goes on to say that Ridgewood Water officials have not yet determined when restrictions would be lifted, nor did they speculate how today’s rainfall would impact storage tanks.
As we all know Stage II water restrictions were “Declared” on July 10th Stage II water restrictions mean that residents, businesses, governmental agencies, and all other water users must adhere to Stage II restrictions. No irrigation is allowed on Mondays at any time. Irrigation using a handheld hose is allowed at any time except Mondays. Stage II limits irrigation to alternate days based on the street addresses of properties. Irrigation of properties with odd-numbered addresses shall be permitted on odd-numbered days, while irrigation of properties with even-numbered addresses shall be permitted on even-numbered days.
While the issues is and has been for the last 10 years not that there is not enough water , but the inability of Ridgewood Water to pump and Store water fast enough .
Everyone is well aware of the dangers of low water pressure or not having enough water . The inability to fight a fire or sufficient reserves to offset a water main break like the Village experienced on July 14th when a 10 inch water main broke between Circle Avenue and John Street.(https://theridgewoodblog.net/16338/ ) or two months ago a construction crew working on a gas main replacement project for PSE&G struck a water main at the intersection of Godwin and West Side Avenues. ( https://theridgewoodblog.net/water-main-break-godwin-west-side-avenues/ ) could create a serious issues without needed reserves.
The Bergen record reported that “miles of leaky, aging pipes — routinely loses track of 25 percent of the water it treats before a drop ever reaches customers. And other suppliers lose even more.” ( https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/bergen_safety/North_Jersey_drinking_water_going_to_waste_as_system_leaks_lose_25.html )
And while it was nice to see Ridgewood Water admit to the Ridgewood news that , “Restrictions on water usage are not unfamiliar to Ridgewood’s water department customers. Moritz said that he could not remember “any other year that we have gone without them.”https://www.northjersey.com/news/163221036_Ridgewood_Water_says_residents_are_cooperating_in_water_usage.html ) It does not excuse the continued unacceptable situation and third world conditions of Ridgewood’s valuable water supply. Making Ridgewood Water more a liability than an asset.
Five myths about free enterprise
Arthur C. Brooks | The Washington Post
July 13, 2012
The 2012 presidential campaign is shaping up to be a battle of two economic philosophies. One favors a greater redistributive and regulatory role for the government; the other prioritizes the values of free enterprise, including private property, individual liberty and limited government. Given the economic hardships the United States has endured in recent years, it is tempting to conclude that free markets are no longer best for us — but that would misread our history, and buy into myths about the impact of free enterprise.
“Given the economic hardships the United States has endured in recent years, it is tempting to conclude that free markets are no longer best for us — but that would misread our history, and buy into myths about the impact of free enterprise.” -Arthur C. Brooks
https://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/free-enterprise/five-myths-about-free-enterprise/
1. Free enterprise hurts the poor.
The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 and plenty of politicians would have us believe that the free-market system is a contest between the ultra-rich and everyone else (the “99 percent”). But in fact, there never has been a greater force for helping the poor than free enterprise.
Since 1970, the percentage of the world’s population living on the equivalent of less than a dollar a day has fallen by more than 80 percent. Hundreds of millions of people have been pulled out of grinding deprivation.
This miracle was not the result of U.N. development projects or U.S. foreign aid. It was free trade, rule of law, property rights and entrepreneurship that achieved this miracle. In China alone, free trade and foreign investment lifted 400 million Chinese out of absolute poverty between 1981 and 2001.
Whatever the Occupy movement claims, every American earning more than $34,000 a year is in the world’s top 1 percent, as World Bank economist Branko Milanovic calculates in his book “The Haves and the Have-Nots.” Americans make up less than 5 percent of the planet’s population, but we’re about half the members of the world’s 1 percent. And we’ve accomplished that through our commitment to free enterprise.
2. Free markets are driven by greed.
I once asked Charles Schwab how he built the $16 billion investment company bearing his name. He never said a word about money. He spoke instead about accomplishing personal goals, creating good jobs for employees and the sacrifices along the way — including when he took a second mortgage on his home so he could make payroll.
Entrepreneurs are rarely driven by greed. According to Careerbuilder.com, in 2011, small-business owners made 19 percent less money per year than government managers. And as Northwestern University business professor Steven Rogers has shown, the average entrepreneur fails about four times before succeeding.
Free markets and entrepreneurship are driven not by greed but by earned success. For some people, earned success means business success, while for others, it means helping the poor, raising good kids, building a nonprofit, or making beautiful art — whatever allows people to create value in their lives and in the lives of others.
Earned success gets at the heart of “the pursuit of happiness.” The General Social Survey from the University of Chicago reveals that people who say they feel “very successful” or “completely successful” in their work lives are twice as likely to say they are very happy about their overall lives than people who feel “somewhat successful.” And it doesn’t matter if they earn more or less; the differences persist.
3. Free enterprise breeds envy.
Americans don’t resent the wealthy. In a poll in April, the Pew Research Center found that 88 percent said they admired people who get rich by working hard.
This is one way the United States is exceptional. In the World Values Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007, researchers asked people in 54 nations whether success flows from hard work or from luck and connections. Americans were more likely than people in other developed countries — twice as likely as the French, for example — to say success comes from hard work. “In a society that rewards initiative and offers opportunity, free enterprise fosters aspiration and ambition.” -Arthur C. Brooks
In a society that rewards initiative and offers opportunity, free enterprise fosters aspiration and ambition. In a social democracy with economic stagnation, you find envy, resentment, unrest — just look at Greece and Spain, where people are demanding government benefits instead of demanding to keep more of what they earn.
4. The free market caused the financial meltdown.
It wasn’t free enterprise that was at fault; it was the lack of free enterprise. Statism and its co-dependent spouse — corporate cronyism — melted down our economy.
As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison has documented, two decades of misguided government policy contributed to a massive bubble in housing. When it began to deflate, so did the whole financial system. And who showed up first in the bailout line? Large corporations, including car companies and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Find me an opportunistic politician chumming the waters with tax loopholes, and I’ll show you a corporate shark.
This isn’t the free market at work — not even close. It’s a toxic mix of big government and its corporate clients. We need more free enterprise, not less — free enterprise where entrepreneurs put their money on the line and earn a profit or suffer a loss.
5. Free enterprise is unfair.
When I was an economics professor, my students would sometimes argue that it was “not fair” for the rich to have so much more than the poor. So halfway through the course, I proposed that a quarter of the points earned by the top half of the class be passed on to the students in the lower half, to improve grade equality. Unanimously, the students agreed that this would be unfair.
I didn’t have to spell out my point much.
Income redistribution is necessary to pay for the state and desirable to finance a social safety net, but as long as incomes are legitimately earned, redistribution is not intrinsically “fair.” For a majority of Americans, fairness means not redistribution, but rewarding merit — and that is what free enterprise does.
In 2006, the World Values Survey asked a sample of Americans to consider two similarly placed workers, one of whom was more reliable and efficient than the other. Was it fair, they asked, that the better one was paid more? Approximately 89 percent of respondents said it was.
And since 1973, the General Social Survey has asked Americans this question: “Some people say that people get ahead by their own hard work; others say that lucky breaks or help from other people are more important. Which do you think is most important?” For 40 years, between 60 percent and 70 percent of Americans have chosen “hard work.”
Unless you believe that Americans don’t earn their success, you must recognize that free enterprise makes our nation more fair.
Arthur Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.”
Weekly Jobless Claims Post Rebound; Jobs Market Still in Doldrums
Published: Thursday, 19 Jul 2012 | 8:36 AM ET
By: Reuters
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rebounded last week, pushing them back to levels consistent with modest job growth after a seasonal quirk caused a sharp drop the prior period.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 386,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 352,000 from the previously reported 350,000.
