>About those conflicted school board members
The governor, thankfully, reads the Daily Record.
We know that because at a town hall meeting in Hackettstown last week, Chris Christie referenced a Daily Record story about school board members having ties to the teachers’ union — the New Jersey Education Association. (Snowflack, Daily Record)
>N.J. bills seek to curb mail solicitation by lawyers
Marcus Rayner was pulled over for speeding in North Jersey recently, and within days he had received a half-dozen letters from lawyers all over the state seeking to represent him. (Osborne, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
>Union Drops Health Coverage for Workers’ Children
By Yuliya Chernova
One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.
The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.
The fund informed its members late last month that their dependents will no longer be covered as of Jan. 1, 2011. Currently about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23.
MORE: https://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2010/11/20/union-drops-health-coverage-for-workers-children/
>Ridgewood Blog Poll : Have Village Layoffs affected Services
Yes
62%119
No
38%73
Total Votes : 192
>Rowdy in Ridgewood : We, as a community, seem to demand total control and just don’t tolerate even the remote possibility of any chaos.
I don’t know why everyone is so uptight these days.
Sure, I don’t want to go out for a fine time with my lady and get punched in the face or have someone barf on my girl but that’s why we leave before 2 am. Maybe we, as a regulated society, don’t feel comfortable letting people stagger home because we feel an over-arching need to regulate every breath they take from cradle to grave. Maybe, if we let one person lay down in their own vomit, we would lose the ability to rob them of every ounce of empowerment, money and innate human ability they might possess.
Calling in police from two other towns reminds me of the day the Ridgewood Planning Board made a last minute switch of venue for its final vote on the Valley rezoning. I recall the meeting was moved at the last moment from a location with tremendous capacity and parking to the totally inadequate venue of the GW School. Literally, thousands of residents were upset as what appeared to be the capstone of underhanded behavior in this completely one-sided push to turn our village into Valley’s dog sled. It’s not that the police are to blame for over-reacting. That didn’t happen. In fact, it was the bad act of the Planning Board that precipitated the need to call-in three towns’ police. For one perfect moment, the Planning Board had the police to do their blocking and tackling with the public locked out. In a less-perfect world, the police would have told the Planning Board…don’t expect us to do your dirty work, you intentionally created this mess, now face your neighbors!
We, as a community, seem to demand total control and just don’t tolerate even the remote possibility of any chaos. We expect total order and controlled behavior at all times no matter the context or personal cost. That type of rigid thinking and behavior is not nature’s way. It’s a prison we have put ourselves into. And I feel bad for the police who operate under an unrealistic mandate to keep the lid on a societal pressure cooker we’ve created. The police are good people.
>TEST 6YQV6MKPY664
>Hundreds rowdy in Ridgewood Friday, November 26, 2010
BY DEENA YELLIN
The Record
STAFF WRITER
https://www.northjersey.com/news/110763064_Hundreds_rowdy_in_Ridgewood_.html
RIDGEWOOD – An unruly crowd on Chestnut Street on Thursday morning was so rowdy that it forced Ridgewood police to call for backup from surrounding towns.
The incident occurred at 2 a.m., when most of the bars close up, said Lt. Todd Harris.
Harris estimated that nearly 300 college-age men and women were disturbing the peace.
Police surmised that most of the crowd was exiting two bars on Chestnut Street and one around the block that were just closing their doors.
The pack disintegrated into rowdiness — shoving one another, throwing punches and shouting.
MORE: https://www.northjersey.com/news/110763064_Hundreds_rowdy_in_Ridgewood_.html
>Going to work today: State workers’ paid day off marks union victory over Christie
State workers’ paid day off marks union victory over Christie
Going to work today?
For many state employees, today may mean staying home, enjoying turkey leftovers in pajamas — and a full day’s pay.(Fletcher, Press of Atlantic City)
https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/top_three/article_2e6fe124-f8f5-11df-a873-001cc4c002e0.html
>State’s pension gap looms large
State leaders began to debate again this week how much money they should put into New Jersey’s beleaguered pension system. (Method, Gannett)
https://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20101126/NEWS01/11260326/State-s-pension-gap-looms-large
>Two Thirds of Americans Favor Pay Cut for Federal Workers
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
By Matt Cover
Job seekers check job listings at a state-managed employment center in Providence, R.I., on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
(CNSNews.com) – Sixty-six percent of American voters favor a proposal to cut federal payrolls by 10 percent over the next decade, a new Rasmussen Reports survey found.
The survey, conducted Nov. 8 to 15, found that a vast majority of the country favored the 10 percent reduction in federal payrolls. Only 22 percent were opposed, and 12 percent were unsure.
more: https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/two-thirds-americans-favor-pay-cut-feder
>
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from PJ Blogger and the Staff of the Ridgewood blog
>Poll finds 61% oppose new airport security measures
November 23, 2010 | 11:41 am
On the eve of one of the nation’s busiest travel days, a poll has found that 61% of likely voters oppose the newly enhanced security measures at the country’s airports.
The poll by Zogby International of 2,032 likely voters also found that 48% said they would probably seek alternatives to flying because of the new measures.
https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/11/new-poll-says-61-oppose-new-airport-security-measures.html
>The Great Thanksgiving Hoax
Mises Daily: Saturday, November 20, 1999 by Richard J. Maybury
Each year at this time school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.
It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving’s real meaning.
The official story has the pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620-21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The Pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They are grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.
The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or less happily ever after, each year repeating the first Thanksgiving. Other early colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon prosper and adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this prosperous new land called America.
The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.
In his ‘History of Plymouth Plantation,’ the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with “corruption,” and with “confusion and discontent.” The crops were small because “much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable.”
In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, “all had their hungry bellies filled,” but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first “Thanksgiving” was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.
But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, “instead of famine now God gave them plenty,” Bradford wrote, “and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God.” Thereafter, he wrote, “any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.” In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.
What happened?
After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, “they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop.” They began to question their form of economic organization.
This had required that “all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means” were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, “all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock.” A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.
This “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that “young men that are most able and fit for labor and service” complained about being forced to “spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children.” Also, “the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak.” So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.
To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.
Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called “The Starving Time,” the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.
Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was “plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure.” He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, “we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now.”
Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation as Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons. But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic that the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday.
Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them.
* * * * *
Mr. Maybury writes on investments.
This article originally appeared in The Free Market, November 1985.
>NJ Assemblyman vows study of special education
Assemblyman David P. Rible, R-Monmouth, announced Tuesday that he will draft legislation to examine the special-education system in New Jersey. (Staff, Home News Tribune)
>DiGaetano starts 36th District comeback
DiGaetano starts 36th District comeback facing GOP connective tissue challenges
A fundraiser at the Brownstone in Paterson last night yielded handfuls of supporters intent on re-electing former Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano to public office, this time to the state senate. (Pizarro, PolitickerNJ)
https://www.politickernj.com/43106/digaetano-starts-36th-district-comeback-facing-gop-connective-tissue-challenges
