About Those Drones

My "honorary sister" sent me this screenshot about the sightings of drones near New Jersey.

Mystery solved? 

New Jersey: The Shape of Things To Come?

 

Republican early votes now exceed Democrat votes in New Jersey, normally a Democrat-leaning state! https://t.co/0eZQjVNlM6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2024

Sen. Menendez Refuses To Resign

New Jersey Democrat Senator Bob Menendez is in hot water over his indictment on bribery charges.

However, he is defiant and refuses to resign.

From ABC News:

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., signaled Monday that he will remain in office despite pressure to resign after being indicted on corruption charges.

Menendez was defiant as he delivered his first public remarks since the Sept. 22 indictment. He spoke in Union Station, New Jersey, where he started his political career four decades ago. He didn't take any questions from the press.

"Everything I've accomplished I've worked for despite the naysayers and everyone who has underestimated me," he said. "I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet. But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey's senior senator."

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for wielding his power to enrich three businessmen -- Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daides -- and benefit the Egyptian government. Those bribes, according to prosecutors, included gold bars, a luxury convertible car, home mortgage payments and more.

To read more, go here. 

Palisades Amusement Park

Above, a vintage photo of Palisades Amusement Park.

Back in the 1960s, I used to see frequent ads for Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey featuring Superman in DC's comic books.

The following is an example (from 1960):

 

I have never been to Palisades Amusement Park, for good reason. It no longer exists. It closed down in 1971.

At the time of its closing, the park was still a moneymaker, but the remaining owner died without any heirs.

From Wikipedia:

Palisades Amusement Park was a 38-acre amusement park located in Bergen County, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. It was located atop the New Jersey Palisades lying partly in Cliffside Park and partly in Fort Lee. The park operated from 1898 until 1971, remaining one of the most visited amusement parks in the country until its closure, after which a high-rise luxury apartment complex was built on its site.

Along with rides, the park boasted the world’s largest outdoor salt water pool.

To read more, go here.

Gold and Silver Could Soon Be Sales Tax Exempt In New Jersey

There's only a handful of states, New Mexico being one of them, who still applies sales and use taxes to gold, silver and other precious metals purchased as investments during this time of high inflation and bank collapses.

New Jersey may soon be joining a majority of states who have eliminated the sales tax on precious metals.

According to Shore News Network:

TRENTON, NJ – A the economy continues to suffer and inflation continues to rise under the Presidency of Joe Biden, many are turning to investments in precious medals to protect their assets.

Under existing New Jersey law, those investments, unlike other credible financial investments are subject to state sales and use tax.

The bill, A5294, would exempt legitimate gold, silver and other precious metal ‘bullion’ from state sales tax. It would also cover the sale of gold coins purchased for investment purchases.

As defined in the bill, “investment metal bullion” means any elementary precious metal that has been put through a process of smelting or refining, including, but not limited to, gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, and that is in such state or condition that its value depends upon its contents and not its form.  

The bill also defines “investment coin” as any numismatic coin manufactured of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or any other metal, including non-precious metals, and having a fair market value of not less than $1,000. 

It sounds to me, under this bill, coins not having a value of at least $1,000 will not be exempt from the sales tax. Not everyone can afford coins over $1,000. Most investment coins minted today are below $1,000 in value. If my reading is correct, the bill should be modified so that all investment coins of precious metals should be exempted. The change in the law would be useless for the average citizen unless modified.

To read more, go here.

Nixon Was A Halloween Fan

Some presidential trivia.

Former President Richard Nixon was a big fan of Halloween. Each year, he would be out greeting the neighborhood trick or treaters at his doorstep. 

The following has him posing with some of the kids. I presume it was at his residence either in Saddle River or Park Ridge, New Jersey.

Photo courtesy of the Richard Nixon Foundation.

Students Suspended For Going To Gun Range With Family

The Looney Left Report

This sounds like something from The Onion. Only it isn't.

What is the difference between school administrators/teachers who are either a.) assholes, b.) lunatics or c.) both?

Answer: Absolutely nothing!

Here's a story from Townhall.com that provides proof of the above:

Here's an outrageous story to end the week.  

A pair of students in New Jersey were reportedly suspended, one for an entire school week, after officials saw they went to the gun range with family and posted a photo of the outing on social media. 

Sounds far-fetched? Here's where Townhall got the story:

From NJ.com:  

A New Jersey school district that allegedly suspended two high school students this week over a gun photo taken during a family visit to a private shooting range is facing community backlash and the threat of a lawsuit over district policies. 

The photo of four rifles, ammunition clips and a gun duffel bag was shared by one of the students on the social media app Snapchat with the caption "fun day at the range," according to Lacey Township resident Amanda Buron, a family friend of one of the students. 

A screen capture of the image made the rounds among other students and later brought to the attention of Lacey Township High School officials. Buron said the students received a five-day in-school suspension for violating the school's policy on weapons possession.

What?! One cannot possess weapons to go to a firing range with family members?

As Townhall pointed out:

Not only do tyrannical, leftist school administrators believe constitutional rights end once students step onto campus, they apparently also believe they shouldn't be exercised freely outside of school jurisdiction. 

To read more, go here.

Megumi Odaka To Appear At Chiller Theater Expo

Above, from the Chiller Theater website.

Not since she appeared at G-FEST 2000 in Hollywood, Heisei Godzilla actress Megumi Odaka has not appeared at any stateside convention (as far as I know).

That is all about to end when she appears next month at Chiller Theater Expo at the Hilton Parsippany in Parsippany, New Jersey April 21 to 23.

Above, Megumi Odaka arrives in Los Angeles in 2000 for G-FEST. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

I took a look at Chiller Theater's website and they do have a pretty impressive line-up of guests.

For more information, go here.

Christie Gets The Proctocope While Obama Gets A Pass By Media

"Now That Christie Is Denying Everything He Sounds Even More Presidential!" - Jay Leno

I am not a fan of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but it appears that Jay Leno has a point. Christie seems to be taking a page from President Obama's playbook.

President Obama has denied knowledge about every scandal that has hit his administration. Benghazi, the IRS, NSA spying on Americans, Fast & Furious and so on. Thus far, the media has been going after Christie over a matter that is like "jaywalking" (according to the Wall Street Journal) in comparison to the electronic spying of Americans' phone calls while giving Obama a pass on all of his (and Hillary Clinton's) scandals.

It is plausible that Christie was deceived and didn't know about the bridge closure. Yet the media is going after him with a proctoscope because he is not a Democrat.

It's the usual double-standard by the liberal media. Go after Republicans with gusto and ignore Democrat shenanigans.

Well, there's one good thing, at least. The Amazon Kindle ebook ad for The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan is appearing at The Drudge Report and in other news websites during a time of high traffic (no pun intended).

ComiXpress Update, Etc.

ComiXpress, the publisher/printer of The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan, has posted the following update at their website:

Sorry we haven’t been able to update before now. As we may have expected, we did lose power on Monday as a result of hurricane Sandy. We’ve been out all week in the office as well as most of the team’s homes. With 100s of thousands of people and businesses without power on the East Coast we unfortunately still have no date for when we’ll be with power again. 

Thanks to all of the wonderful creators and readers we work with for their concern and patience – we’re itching to get back to it as soon as we can. 

As rough as it’s been to be without power we know that many have had it much worse. Our thoughts are with all of you and we hope we can all return to some sort of normalcy soon. 

~Logan, Marc, Jodi and the Team

They seem to be taking adversity in good stride.  As I mentioned a couple of days ago, they are located in Dumont, New Jersey, which was in the path of Hurricane Sandy.

Their attitude is in sharp contrast to the reports of some areas of Manhattan where people are acting out a real-life version of "Lord of the Flies."

It is interesting to see all hell is breaking loose (in some respects I can't really blame them) after President Obama flew in for photo ops and then took off, virtually leaving people to fend for themselves in scouring dumpsters for food, fighting over scarce gasoline, no utilities (especially heat), defecating in apartment hallways, etc.  Those people are in dire need and the relief efforts seem to be lacking.

At least it appears that ComiXpress's main concern is the restoration of power so they can resume operations.  It doesn't seem that they suffered any damage to their facilites.

Hopefully, ComiXpress can resume operations to that my re-order of The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan can be filled.

Hurricane Sandy and ComiXpress

In a more serious vein, ComiXpress is located in Dumont, New Jersey, which was in the path of Hurricane Sandy.

Two days ago (October 29), ComiXpress posted this notice on their home page:

We’re not sure if everyone is aware of the situation, but being based in Northern NJ, ComiXpress is in the path of Hurricane Sandy. This is a 900-mile wide storm dubbed ‘Frankenstorm’ and is expected to bring 85mph winds and impact more than 50 to 60 million people. A State of Emergency has been declared in several states – including NJ – and power outages are all-but guaranteed in large areas. 

We had a small crew come in this morning in the hopes of getting some work out ahead of the storm, only to find that nothing can ship today as there won’t be any pickups by the post office or UPS. 

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this is going to cause, and we will work with everyone to the best of our ability to catch up on orders and emails as quickly and efficiently as possible once the worst is over.To anyone in the path of the storm, stay safe, and we’ll see you on the other side!

There has been no further updates from ComiXpress.  Much of Northern New Jersey has no power or Internet services and there had been flooding in the region.  Power lines are down in the Dumont area and people have been told to remain indoors for their safety.

Last week, I re-ordered a new supply of The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan for the Christmas season and for the Mad Monster Party Convention that will be held March 22-24, 2013 from ComiXpress.  No doubt, the damage from Hurricane Sandy will delay ComiXpress's orders a bit.  Fortunately, I have enough copies of the travel guide on hand that should be adequate for any Christmas orders.