Athens in New York

Seven “Occupy” people are dead.

The scenes in Athens are about to be duplicated in New York and Oakland.  We have seen vicious behavior wounding police officers and accidental injuring of protesters.  The disruption of commerce and travel echoes the Grecian happenings. 

What the majority of people inhabiting the camps fail to realize is that the “leaders” and spokespeople are advocating is the destruction of our economic system and the institution of socialism at best and communism at worst. 

The lack of specific goals and the proliferation of statements inciting violence do not bode well for the safety of society or the people who live in it.  The “Day of Disruption” prevented ordinary people from getting to their jobs.  It would not be surprise if violence against ordinary citizens begins soon.  

Sooner or later the anarchists, communists, and criminals will completely take over the “movement” as the spirited and misguided, yet sensible, college students figure it out and go back to school. 

As that happens the “movements” leaders will, most probably, step up the physical actions against law enforcement forcing sterner responses and exacerbating the situation until we have full blown riots in the streets and more people die.  

Emergency Alert System Fails

It’s only funny because there wasn’t an emergency.

by John Hayward

11/09/2011

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47439

Today was the first test of the new Emergency Alert System, which is a centrally controlled version of the Emergency Broadcast System whose tests have been annoying the hell out of people for the better part of fifty years.  The idea is to give the President a way to alert the entire populace to a national emergency instantly, by seizing control of all TV and radio communications. 

In the event of a nuclear war, large-scale civil unrest, a massive cyber-attack, or a zombie apocalypse, you’ll hear a headache-inducing tone, followed by emergency instructions.  Unless we get attacked by an electromagnetic pulse weapon.  Then you’ll be alerted to disaster by the collective howl of millions of enraged cell phone users.  The EAS tone is less alarming.  

The test was a… well, “failure” is such an ugly word.  Let’s just say it was a “conditional success.”  As reported by the New York Times: 

Beginning at 2:01 p.m., viewers and listeners in many states said they saw and heard the alerts at the scheduled time, but others said they did not. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancies, but that was one of the purposes of the test — to find out how well the system would work in an actual emergency.  

Many of the reported failures affected cable and satellite television subscribers, and some were quite puzzling. Some DirecTV subscribers said their TV sets played the Lady Gaga song “Paparazzi” when the test was under way. Some Time Warner Cable subscribers in New York said the test never appeared on screen. Some Comcast subscribers in northern Virginia said their TV sets were switched over to QVC before the alert was shown.  

In some cases the test messages were delayed, perhaps because they were designed to trickle down from one place to many. A viewer in Minneapolis said he saw the message about three minutes late. A viewer in Chattanooga, Tenn., said she saw it about 10 minutes late.  

In Greensboro, N.C., a local reporter saw the alert on all the cable news channels but on none of the local broadcast networks. In Los Angeles, some cable customers said the alert lasted almost half an hour.  

Americans have become accustomed to their government spending staggering amounts of money on crap that doesn’t work, so today’s Emergency Alert System test was pretty much par for the course.  Compared to “green energy” programs, it was a smashing success, unless you happen to live in sparsely populated areas like Chattanooga or New York City.  Just keep your ears peeled in the future, as you will probably hear either a warning tone and important instructions, or a Lady Gaga song, within ten minutes or so of a major national catastrophe.

Montville Retirees to Lose Houses to Town Taxes

Essentially, nobody turned out to vote yesterday in Montville.  Of about 10,000 registered voters, it looks like only 2,234 voted; about 22 percent.  It was a poor showing.

Those of us who are living in Montville that are retired on a fixed income and those who are unemployed are doomed to lose their homes and vehicles to the town via tax liens.  A democrat controlled town government will spend huge amounts of tax dollars on unnecessary and frivolous projects while ignoring the infrastructure and taxing the low and moderate income populace into oblivion. 

So the apathetic herds of sheep that are the majority of Montville residents have once again passively submitted to the democrat elitist power machine.

Montville Election Results - All districts reporting

Mayor                                      

Ronald K. McDaniel Jr. (D)       2,079

Donna Jacobson (R & U)            1,235

Town Council                            

Billy Caron (D)                         2,234

Gary Murphy (D)                       1,897

Laura Tanner (D)                     1,849

Catherine Buebendorf (D)        1,817

Dana McFee (R & I)                  1,727

Chuck Longton (D)                   1,699

Rosetta Jones (R & I)                1,466

Ellen Hillman (R & I)                   1,418

James Andriote Sr. (R & I)          1,382

Mari Jurczyk (R & I)                   1,369

Leon Moore (R & I)                     1,117

Board of Education                    

Dave Rowley (R & I)                 2,017

Jim Wood (D)                           1,955

Deborah Sue Reed-Iler (D)       1,860

Robert Mitchell Jr. (R & I)         1,779

Board of Assessment Appeals   

John Geary (D)                         1,790

Shirley Morphis (R & I)             1,220

Board of Zoning Appeals            

Ellen Lakowsky (D)                  1,987

Thomas McNally (R & I)            1,854

Douglas Adams (D)                  1,655

Al Wittkofske (R & I)                  1,364

Occupy Nothing…

Unfortunately I was more accurate than I wanted to be ten days ago.  There have been two deaths within the Occupy Movement (Vancouver and Oklahoma City). 

It is past time to end it.  Hopefully nobody else will die in the interim. 

I see more bad things happening if the “Occupy” events continue.  I don’t see the situation in some locations getting better unless the “true” protesters make the anarchists, “wackos”, and criminals go away. 

The problem with the movement continues to be that anarchist and criminal type people have either sized control of the faction or heavily influenced the “movement’s” leadership. 

We are too close to duplicating the scenes we have seen in Greece.  Cooler heads must prevail or the “movement” must end soon lest more people die.  

Montville Election 8 November 2011

What is really disappointing is that none of political parties or the candidates have put forward any solid plans regarding the offices they are campaigning for.  The mayoral candidate that has put forth concepts on dealing with budget planning and spending is Donna Jacobson.  Mr. McDaniel espouses a tired party line about education, infrastructure, and education without discussing where the money is going to come from. 

My choices for this election:

Mayor –Jacobson (I)

Town Council – Andriote (I), Buebendorf (D), Hillman (R), McFee (R), Jurczyk (R), Longton (D), Caron (D)

Board of Education – No choices here, 4 vacancies, 4 candidates

Board of Zoning Appeals – Lakowsky (D), McNally (R), Wittofske (R) 

Board of Assessment Appeals – No choices here, 2 vacancies, 2 candidates,

Reasons to not vote for someone:

Mayor – McDaniel (D) - Espouses party line, no stated plans or concepts to minimize tax burden 

Town Council –

Tanner (D) – Conflict of interest, employed by Montville Board or Education 

Murphy (D) – Conflict of interest, Chief of Oakdale Fire Department   

Jones (I) – Idealist with minimal real world experience or economic background; conflict of interest, son employed by Montville Board of Education 

Moore (R) – I really like his background but lacks sufficient experience in Montville affairs      

Board of Education – No choices here, 4 vacancies, 4 candidates

Board of Zoning Appeals – Adams (D) – Conflict of interest, Montville business owner

Board of Assessment Appeals – No choices here, 2 vacancies, 2 candidates  

Time To End It...

The Occupy Wall Street movement, in Oakland and possibly other locations, has been at least overshadowed if not taken over by anarchists, violence prone wackos, and criminals.  The movement is rapidly losing credibility in my view.  It is time for the sincere protestors to get out of the way and let law enforcement deal with the sociopaths. 

Another reason to end the encampments is the negative effect they are having on the surrounding neighborhoods and small businesses.  They are damaging the lives and livelihoods of the very people from whom the activists seek to gather support and empathy.  That certainly isn’t gaining them any brownie points with the general populace.

In God We Trust

Yesterday the House passed a resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions. 

The resolution was introduced by Representative Forbes on 01/26/2011.  The resolution garnered 64 co-sponsors. 

The resolution was agreed to by Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 396 - 9, 2 Present.  I wonder what the nine dissenters were thinking.