• Iran Defies Pressure, Resumes Tests of Nuke Plant. The article also says Iran has told The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take a hike, and they’ve broken the seals the IAEA placed on Iran’s nuclear equipment. This after Iran promised the EU three (France, Germany, England) in October it would suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment.
• Sudan rejects Darfur resolution. Sudan, not exactly a world military power, thumbs it’s nose at the UN.

And these are the partners John Kerry is suggesting that will protect the United States from terrorism?? No thanks.

Three days after I beat up on Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack for making fun of New Jersey accents, Paul Mulshine at the Star-Ledger follows up with a similar rebutal on the : Memo to the Vilsacks: Youse ought to go home“. Paul notes that the charming Mrs. Vilsack vacations in Ocean City and that’s where she ran into the pushy New Jerseyans who “tawk funny”.

Mulshine seems to think it’s funny. Note to Mr. Mulshine: We need to stop these pushy Iowans now!! Next thing you know, they’ll be saying corn dogs are superior to sausage, peppers and onions on a hard roll.

Allahpundit has a great Photoshoped picture:

John Kerry as a Teletubbie

I joked yesterday about NJ governor Jim McGreevey addressing a group at the democrat convention with this eye popping line, “We come here to say there is a better way, a New Jersey way”. Apparently, the democrat party is trying the New Jersey way when it comes to fundraising. Seems like the biggest fund raiser for the national democrat party is Stephen Bing and he’s got links to organized crime according to ABCNews [Democrat’s Biggest Money Man Has Mob Connections].

Bing has raised nearly $16 million for democrat causes. One of his “business partners” is in federal prison on racketeering charges. A note to the democrats: When a business partner has the nickname “Donnie Shacks” he’s probably up to no good.

Bing is most famous for being sued by british brunette babe Elizabeth Hurley in a paternity suit. Bing denied being the father of Hurley’s baby, accusing her basically of being a slut and a gold digger. A paternity test proved that Bing was in fact the father and now must pay up for the little bloke’s support.

The latest Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll of New Jersey voters has Kerry leading Bush by 2 points, 45 to 43 percent. When Ralph Nader is included, Kerry’s lead shrinks to a single point [link]. By the way, Nader will most likely be on the Jersey ballot because the signature amount needed to qualify is pretty low (of course, the NJ Supreme Court could always find a way to disqualify Nader).

Considering Bush lost by 16 points to Gore in 2000, this is a pathetic performance by Kerry in a state that should be a solid democrat state. Not good for Kerry.

I was going to compare that picture of John Kerry in a tyvek clean room suit to Woddy Allen dressed as a sperm from “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask “, but Michelle from A Small Victory beat me to the punch. She also links to a post that says Kerry actually looks like one of the Oompa Loompas from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (see here).

When you think of the acting Baldwin brothers, your first thought is the bloated Alec Baldwin, who had announced in 2000 that he would leave the country if George Bush won the election. We’re still waiting. But I saw this article about the youngest Baldwin, Stephen, who says he is a born again Christian and that he would like to start a religious ministry. The star of “Bio-Dome” and “The Usual Suspects” (how’s that for a range of movies) says while he isn’t ashamed by his past movies, he wouldn’t be doing too many sequels because they were “B.C. (before Christianity)”.

Good luck Stephen. Nice to know that not all of Hollywood is in step with Whoopi Goldberg/Meryl Streep/Michael Moore/etc.

I was steamed when the NJ Supreme Court ruled that the plan to borrow $2 billion dollars to balance this years budget was unconstitutional yet they allowed it just for this year because they didn’t want to “..cause great disruption, forcing legislators to overhaul the budget.” The Asbury Park Press and DynamoBuzz are in total agreement on this one. The APP editorial puts it in simpler terms:

UPDATE:The Courier Post says “The justices should be embarrassed by such a ridiculous ruling“. The editorial mocks the supreme court’s decision:

Seems like the only editorial page in favor of the court’s decision is the Star Ledger. The Ledger gave up all appearances of impartiality a long time ago and for all intents and purposes can now be considered the unofficial house newspaper for the NJ democrat party. In their editorial, they call it a “..common sense reading of the New Jersey Constitution”. They did criticize it a bit later on, saying “..the justices didn’t do anyone any lasting favors by giving the administration a constitutional freebie.” And then they say that republican and the administration should immediately start working on constructive proposals for next years budget. Are you serious?? After McGreevey spent the past year running millions of dollars in campaign ads against the republicans, the best thing the GOP in Trenton should do next year is to sit on their hands and watch McGreevey squirm.

Standard and Poors, Fitch and Moody’s haven’t been buying the democrat line about the greatness of the New Jersey budget. Two of the agencies have dropped the ratings on New Jersey bonds and the third agency has our debt on the “watch list” [link]. Lower ratings means the state has to pay out higher interest on it’s bonds. The ratings agencies said this year’s budget reflected a continuing failure of fiscal discipline, and the increased spending will make balancing the budget next year even more difficult. Get ready for the “millionaire’s tax” to apply to anyone making over $200,000. Or even worse, do we get a repeat of the NYC budget mess of the 1970’s, with Jim McGreevey playing the role of mayor Abe Beame??

New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey at a speech at the democrat convention in Boston [link]:

Hmm … I’m not sure the national democrats want to think of record tax increases, record borrowing, huge spending increases, fund raising scandals and criminal indictments as the way to go.

Jersey blogger Fausta from The Bad Hair Blog struck blogger gold by getting a link from Instapundit to her comments on the differences between the world views of Bush versus Kerry. In her post, Fausta compares Kerry to the feckless Jimmy Carter [link]. The rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 may have been the birth of modern terrorism, and Carter’s inaction and miscalculations only made it worse. And you can make a good case the problems with North Korea nukes is due to Carter, who was selected by Bill Clinton to negotiate an agreement with the North Korean dicatators. Years after that great piece of statesmanship, the North Koreans are now armed with weapons capable of destroying much of Asia and perhaps threaten the United States.

How much do I hate the Clintons?? Rather than watch those two sleazebags last night at the convention, I watched the NY Mets - Montreal Expos baseball game. It was arguably the worst baseball game I’ve seen in the last 10 years. I am not exagerating, it was pathetic.

The Mets lost 19-10 to the last place Expos and they used up all their pitchers and had to use infielder Todd Ziele to pitch the last inning. Reliever John Franco got ejected from the game knowing full well that the Mets were running out of relief pitchers. All the Mets pitchers were awful, Cameron and Wiggington made two more errors, and they got embarassed by a baseball club that’s a notch above a minor league team. And in front of a crowd of 6600 in Montreal. I listened to WFAN sports talk radio a bit after the game, and the Mets fans were in an uproar. It was terrible.

On Monday, the NJ Supreme Court ruled that Jim McGreevey’s plan to borrow more than $2 billion dollars is unconstitutional [link]. But then they say that they’re going to allow it just this one time because if they don’t allow the state to borrow the money, it will “..cause great disruption, forcing legislators to overhaul the budget.” That’s the idea, Debbie, overhaul the budget so it’s not unconstitutional!! I don’t remember a supreme court ever saying something is unconstitutional, but then allowing it. Only in New Jersey!!

The job of the supreme court is to look at something and say “Yes, it’s constitutional” or “No, it’s unconstitutional”. Instead we have an out of control court in NJ which, dating back to the Mt. Laurel decision and including the Abbott decision, has decided that they will write the laws.

This decision is a joke. The article quotes from the court’s decision: “The justices said they believed the legislature and the governor acted in good faith, “relying on an honest, albeit erroneous, belief that the budget properly was balanced under existing constitutional standards.” Bull!! The democrats were warned that the plan was probably unconstitutional. I guess when Jim McGreevey is called to testify in the Halper farm extortion case, his defense will be that he had “honest, albeit erroneous, belief” that shaking down a farmer for $40,000 was legal. Debbie Poritz and the Supreme Court will buy that argument.

The court said similar borrowing for future budgets will be prohibited. Unless of course it causes “..great disruption, forcing legislators to overhaul the budget”. Give me a break.

This also allowed for the truly bizarre situation of both sides claiming victory. McGreevey calls it a victory against “..a Republican-led assault on property tax relief” and a victory for “..higher education, open space preservation and building new schools”. NJ GOP chairman Joe Kyrillos called it “..a victory for the State’s taxpayers” and the court ruled that this kind of accounting tomfoolery “..cannot be used to balance future state budgets” [link]. Kyrillos is wrong on this one, the only loser in this is the taxpayer. So what’s new, right??

One of the speakers at the democrat convention in Boston will be Christie Vilsack, wife of Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. The Boston Herald has found an article from 1994 where the charming Mrs. Vilsack rips into the speech patterns of blacks, southerners and PEOPLE FROM NEW JERSEY!!!

Knock my president, I get slightly annoyed. Knock New Jersey, and those are fighting words!! She also said southerners have “language problems” and commented how blacks speak “in an English I don’t understand” amongst themselves then switch to “standard English when the situation requires”. Perhaps the charming Mrs. Vilsack can have a sitdown with the equally fetching Teresa and discuss all those unwashed masses that live in the red states??

Luckily for Mrs. Vilsack she’s a democrat so this story will get buried by the media who are too busy smooching democrat rear end at the convention. You’ll hear more about Arnold’s “girlieman” statement then you will about the bigoted Mrs. Vilsack.

Also check on blogger Tom Maguire at Just One Minute for his take on Mrs. Vilsack knocking his home state. Good going, Tom!!

Ken Fireman at Newsday has a take on the political landscape and geography in New Jersey with the article, “Old suburb vs. new in N.J.“. The writer says the reason New Jersey has become more democratic is because over the last few years, voters have become “repelled by the social conservatives” in the republican party. I disagree. I think the demographics in New Jersey have changed. NJ has a sizeable senior citizen population and a sizeable minority population. The article even makes the point that older suburbs, mostly north Jersey, are more democratic while the newer suburbs like Monroe are more republican. Most of the growth in the suburbs is young couples with families looking for more affordable housing, and these people tend to be more conservative than the new influx into northern Jersey, mostly immigrants and ex-NYC residents. I’d guess there are more union households in the older suburbs.

The funniest line is from a Kerry supporter, Silvia Barba of Oradell who says of Bush and Cheney “I think he and Vice President Cheney are out of touch ..They don’t know any hard-up people.” I wonder how many “hard-up” people Kerry sees on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket or at the numerous Heinz mansions?? I didn’t see too many common folk out there kite surfing with Kerry last week.

Now that Joe Wilson and Sandy Berger are on the outs with the John Kerry campaign, the democrat nominee is looking to Hollywood for advice. Meryl Streep chimes in with her critique of Kerry. Her opinion: Too Stiff. Streep says of Kerry, “..He’s got to pretend he’s talking to the person he loves most in the world.” For John Kerry, that would be himself. So I guess that means he should be talking like he’s looking into a mirror.

NJ Governor McGreevey took a break from his scandals and fund raising (wait, that’s the same thing) in January and signed a bill that allows liquor stores to offer free wine samples [link]. There are rules, of course. A store can have only six bottles open at a time, and each customer may receive up to four 1.5-ounce samples every 24 hours. I’m not a wine drinker, unless you count Boone’s Farm, but this is something that our governor has done that I agree with.

Since it’s a rainy day, we decided it would be a good day to finish painting the kids’ rooms. My daughter Allison’s room is almost done. Once we finish with the paint, all I need to do is put up a border.

We’re painting around the closet, and Allison wants to use the roller to paint. She’s 7 years old, and I really don’t want her to make a big mess. She said, “Dad, I know how to use a paint roller. I watch Trading Places”. OK, give it a shot.

One postive side benefit of the war in Iraq is that the United States is learning which countries it can truly call allies. A pleasant surprise has been El Salvador, who early on agreed to send 360 soldiers to Iraq to help out in the peacekeeping effort. And most recently, El Salvador has agreed to increase the troop count to 380. Not a big increase, but contrast that with Spain and the Philippines who have decided to make like the French and surrender at the first sign of despair.

Jane at “Armies of Liberation” writes that the El Salvador troops have performed extremely well in Iraq [link]. In April of this year, a 16 member platoon of Salvadorans was under attack by thugs from the Muqtada al Sadr militia. The Salvadorans fought off the attackers, and when they ran out of ammunition they engaged the criminals in hand-to-hand combat armed with only knives. Some tough hombres!!

Jane is the brains behind Armies of Liberation. She’s a Jersey girl who concentrates on bigger things than the latest McGreevey scandal. Her blog is mostly about the struggles in the Middle East and the war on terroristm. She has also written at length about the disaster unfolding in the Sudan. “Armies of Liberation” comes from an FDR quote from 1943. It’s at the top of her blog. Read it and then compare that to the nonsense coming from the John Kerry-Michael Moore wing of the democrat party.

The headline at Reuters: “Prostitutes Join Police Converging on DNC Boston“. I’ve called democrats worse things than prostitutes, but the label does fit.

Oh, wait a minute, they’re talking about prostitutes going to Boston because of the business potential. Seems like adult businesses in Boston are putting out calls for ladies to help out with the additional demand from conventioneers and visitors.

Q: What’s the difference between a politican and a prostitute?
A: You get something of value from the prostitute after she takes your money.

or my favorite.

A: There are some things a prostitute won’t do for money.