Xanadu, the billion dollar shopping mall/entertainment mecca/fiasco continue to make the news.

• Opening delayed for Pepsi Globe Ferris wheel at Meadowlands Xanadu. One of the main attractions for Xanadu is (was?) supposed to a 300 foot tall ferris wheel sponsored by Pepsi. Well, Pepsi has decided to wait until the economy picks up. Maybe next year.
• The Bergen Record also covers the Pepsi angle ( Pepsi Globe Delayed ) and adds this bit of bad news Xanadu project lands on ‘Troubled Assets Radar’ list . The list is published in a business weekly “Real Estate Finance and Investment” and it is not exactly a vote of confidence. Rather, it is an unbiased analysis that the project is a dog, and this dog has fleas.

I have a theory that this project will be adopted by the Obama administration as part of the next stimulus package. We paid $2 billion to hire thousands of workers to build the thing. Next we’ll pay another billion to hire thousands of workers to tear it down. The ultimate in Keynsian economics.

The headline:

State officials look out of state to find investors on highway projects

So far NJ officials have been to San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and New York City, with a trip down the turnpike to Philadelphia next Thursday.

Have they thought about offering a free toaster?? How about a Mr. Coffee??

I haven’t watched prime time TV since the 1980’s, and with my schedule I barely get time to watch the news. But once the kids are in bed, I’ll park myself in front of the TV, and with remote in hand I’ll find a classic movie and watch it. Even if I’ve seen it a dozen times before.

My wife is amazed that I’ll watch “Pulp Fiction” or “The Godfather” whenever they’re on. But some movies are meant to be watched more than once, and it seems everytime I watch “Taxi Driver” I notice something I didn’t notice the last few times I watched it.

The latest new classic movie I’ve been watching is “No Country for Old Men”. Actually, the first time I watched it, I didn’t understand all the buzz about it, or why it got all the awards and critical acclaim. But the more I watch it, the more I’ve grown to appreciate it.

I found a great analysis of the movie, a pdf file called An American Parable, No Country for Old Men: The Movie. The author of the analysis discusses at length the religious symbolism in the movie. It’s obvious that Anton Chigurh is Satan. The sherrif, played by Tommy Lee Jones, and the couple, Llewelyn and Carla Jean Moss, represent three ways we deal with evil. Llewelyn toys with evil. When Carla Jean meets Chigurh face-to-face, she refuses to sink to his level. “I knew you was crazy when I saw you sitting there” and “I know exactly what’s in store for me”. She is the most heroic character in the film (an aside, I saw an interview with the actress that played Carla Jean, and she’s Scottish!! Her Texas drawl in the movie was so good, I thought she was Texan).

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but the ending reminded me of a sermon our pastor once gave, “Sometime the Dragon Wins”. Yes, sometimes the dragon wins but God will be ultimately triumphant.

Hey, I think it’s on again tonight, 11:30 on Starz.

Of course, I hope bloggers everywhere will be checking DynamoBuzz frequently over the next 7 months for news, updates and biting satire and commentary as we approach (my hope) the end of the Jon Corzine Reign of Error here in New Jersey.

But there are many sites you can also check on for news.

At Real Clear Politics, there’s The Scorecard.

Go to Pollster.com for a constant update of polls in the race.

The Election Advantage site also gathers current news and polls. Two months ago they rated New Jersey SIGNIFICANT ADVANTAGE FOR CORZINE. Now it’s SLIGHT ADVANTAGE FOR CORZINE.

The NY Times discusses funding for New Jersey Preschools in the 2009-2010 budget in Corzine Still Focused on Preschools. Corzine is cutting property tax rebates and threatening layoffs, but he’s still increasing state supplied pre-school funding partly using federal stimulus money. But the superintendent of the Rahway school system asks the question that nobody wants to answer, “What happens in a few years when there is no stimulus money or extra state funding?” The answer will probably be the same answer NJ has used for the past 30 years. “Raise taxes.”

Then there’s this article A Budget Weighed Down by Old Debt. Old debt?? How about the new debt?? Corzine’s treasurer, David Rousseau, blames the debt problem on out of control borrowing from previous administrations. The article fails to mention that Corzine has done his part to increase the state debt. Corzine refinanced the outstanding debt in the Transportation Trust fund, which basically stretched out the loan payments. And a year ago Corzine also authorized $2.5 billion of debt to fund school construction. That was only a down payment. Corzine will ask for more if he’s re-elected.

I give democrats credit for one thing, and that’s the ability to corrupt the english language to further their political agenda. A few days back I mentioned the “millionaire’s tax” which can actually increase taxes on residents making as little as $300,000.

“Shovel Ready” is only the latest. The American public was sold a bill of goods with the multi billion (or is it trillion) dollar stimulus package that would fund thousands of shovel ready projects, and put millions of Americans to work. These projects would be job creating engines that were ready to start as soon as the stimulus spigot was opened.

NJ governor Jon Corzine was one of the biggest champions of “shovel ready” projects. Well, now that it’s time to start the projects, we start to see that there not quite as far reaching and stimulating as we were told.

This article at NJBIZ, $27 million road project announced, says this project will create 130 jobs. That works out to a bit over $207,000 per job for “..repaving the roads, improving the drainage system, and installing sidewalks and a traffic signal” in Cumberland County.

Then there’s these shovel ready jobs described in DOT launches bidding process for stimulus-funded projects. Two of the three projects are painting jobs, about $30 million to paint bridges on I-280 and route 1&9.

And these painting jobs will have to pay prevailing wages, which for a painter is something like $66 an hour in salary and benefits. Not exactly the best use of $30 million if you ask me.

There are only two governor’s elections this year, and the Virginia race doesn’t feature an incumbent. So most of the attention this November will be on the New Jersey governor’s race. Lots of news coverage already, and the election is still 7 months away.

1. The latest FDU / Public Mind poll shows Chris Christie leading Jon Corzine by nine points link. Corzine is tied with Steve Lonegan.
2. The American Spectator takes note in Corzine Continues to Slump.
3. I heard a Steve Lonegan commercial on the radio today where he seemed to be encouraging registered democrat voters to vote in the GOP primary. He volunteered to drop of the forms at their homes if they wished.
4. Corzine is also in a primary, but it appears to be token opposition. Carl Bergmanson of Glen Ridge, Jeff Boss of Guttenberg and Roger Bacon of Phillipsburg are the three democrats who filed the paperwork.

The Wall Street Journal has an article up today How Democrats Make Millionaires with details of a tactic democrats have been abusing the past few years, and that is championing the “millionaire’s tax” as a means of balancing bloated state budgets.

As the WSJ notes, many democrat governors and legislatures are pushing millionaire’s taxes that hit taxpayers making much less. The New York state legislature, led by the despicable Sheldon Silver, is pushing a millionaire’s tax that kicks in at $300,000. Many small business owners who run their operations as sole proprietorships will see that all of a sudden they are considered millionaires.

And then this paragraph from the article:

The new fashion is to take advantage of hard times to target a class of people that few politicians are willing to defend — and then expand that class. Like so many doubtful experiments in public finance, this one was pioneered by the People’s Republic of New Jersey.

The article indicates that the first mention of a pseudeo millionaire’s tax was by NJ governor Jim McGreevey, who pushed through a millionaire’s tax in 2004 that actually raised taxes on income over $500,000. So in addition to corrupting the office of governor and forever disgracing himself, McSleazy also corrupted the english language.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Kevin Ferris has a good snapshot of the state of the race for NJ governor. Ferris is assuming it will be Chris Christie up against Jon Corzine, and he gives his thoughts in Back Channels: Giving the governor a run for his money.

Christie notes that the problem with New Jersey’s last republican governor, Christie Whitman, wasn’t that she cut taxes, but that she cut taxes and increased spending. Christie promises he won’t increase taxes, and he’ll use the line item veto to keep spending in line.

Which former NJ elected official is quoted in today’s Star-Ledger as saying the following:

“Candidates sooner or later learn the political price of taking inappropriate contributions exceeds the value of the money.”

If you answered “Bob Torricelli”, then you win an antique grandfather clock and bunch of Italian suits. Yes, if the Torch had learned that leason a few years ago, he’d still be a senator.

Of course, the Torch would never say that about a democrat. This article is about GOP governor candidate Chris Christie. Christie has only been a candidate for a few months, but his campaign finances have been examined under a microscope, something nobody every did to Torricelli, Menendez or any other recent democrat candidate.

The democrat strategy for November appears to be three pronged. Corzine will shore up his support with the standard democrat special interest groups. Surrogates will play connect the dots to link Christie to “questionable” characters or practices.

And then rely on a strong union backed get out the vote effort on Election day which will probably have a low voter turnout. Off year elections generally do have a low turnout, and I think Corzine won in 2005 in an election with a record low turnout. The wild card is the economic unrest which may increase turnout of angry voters, voters who will not look kindly upon incumbents.

The NY Times puts its spin on the battle between New Jersey and the government workers unions in an article In a Reversal, Corzine Faces Labor’s Wrath.

The article plays up the supposed tension between NJ governor Jon Corzine and the state workers unions. This is really just for show, since nobody expects the unions to abandon Corzine in November. He’s their sugar daddy, and Governor Christie or Governor Lonegan will not be standing in front of a union mob screaming “We will fight for a fair contract!”.

I saw this list at Yahoo, 10 Cars That Sank Detroit. How bad is it that I have owned 2 of these cars?

First on the list is the Ford Pinto, and that was actually my first car. I had a 1974 powder blue one. It was a hand me down from my grandfather who was confined to a wheelchair and couldn’t use it anymore. It was plain as vanilla, but I was in college and having a car on campus made you a big shot.

The other car on the list that I owned was a Chevy Cavalier. Technically I owned it, but it was my wife’s first car. She didn’t like it, but she only complained about it in passing. It actually lasted quite awhile.

The other cars are more recent models. I was expecting to see the AMC Eagle Premier on the list. That car gets really bad reviews. And I also owned one of those.