Governor Christie, about that $400 million for the New Jersey schoolkids you managed to lose

Oh sure, you said all kinds of things after coming up a couple points short. First you blamed Obama. That was really classy by the way, blaming a guy whose people practically held your representatives hands in TRYING to help you score enough points to get big money and no whammies. Then you started pointing fingers at almost any carbon unit in your sightline. It's what bullies often do when things blow up in their faces, place blame anywhere they can try.

So now it comes out you KNEW you could have secured the money by letting Education Chief Bret Schundler turn in a joint proposal from your administration and the NJEA. You were told there were more than enough points to secure the $400 million for schoolkids of the state you claim to represent. You KNEW you had enough points to get the cash but that wasn't enough for you was it? No, you had to be Big Bad Chris Christie, the tough governor who is setting some kind of example fighting the teachers unions to the death.

We quote Bret Schundler:

"We have an opportunity to win here, with union support, which is a rare thing," Schundler said he told Christie. "He said he didn’t care about the money … He said he hadn’t gone through hell with (the NJEA) so he could then cave in to them now."

Didn't care about the money. Except Governor, that money was for children, NOT so you could continue bloviating about how you stood up to the teachers union. You put YOURSELF ahead of the CHILDREN.

How noble of you. How classy of you. How conservative of you. How utterly irresponsible of you.

Late night open thread

Porcupines float in water. Just thought we'd get that out there.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Baseball and football and hockey, oh my...

Well sports fans, the baseball playoffs begin today with the defending World Champion Yankees in Minnesota for a matchup with the Twinkies. Can the Yanks ride but one top starting pitcher and once again get some October magic out of Derek Jeter? What are your thoughts?

The Jets and Giants are a month in, the Jets are looking strong while the G-Men are anything BUT strong. Again we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Finally, Friday kicks off yet another NHL regular season. Make your predictions now for the Devils, Rangers and Islanders. Johnny thinks the Devils will have a drop off this season but more on that as we preview things later this week. Where do you see the three NYC area teams finishing?

Late night open thread

Only one US state does not have a McDonalds in their capital city. Can you guess which one?

Answer here.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Failed Times Square bomber gets our first Red Forman 'Dumbass' award

Faisal Shahzad, you failed. You will forever live your life knowing you had once chance to kill Americans and yet you failed, miserably. You set up an SUV in Times Square to blow up with ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel, three 25-pound propane tanks and two five-gallon gasoline canisters. If you were smarter and not such a failure and could read instructions right you might have pleased your evil masters.

But you're not, you're a failure AND a dumbass.

You'll get your mandatory life sentence in a Manhattan federal court today, sending you off to prison without your 72 virgins, without your river of honey and without your 4 whole fried chickens and a Coke.

Faulty wiring? Dumbass. Low grade fertilizer? Dumbass.

Some evil jagoff will no doubt succeed one day in blowing up a car in NYC, it's a reality we all live with these days. But it won't be because of Faisal Shahzad, because much like the guys who can't light their shoes on fire or those who can't explode chemicals in their underpants he's a failure.

Oh yeah, and a dumbass.

Late night open thread

While we were away the great Tony Curtis passed away. We wanted to pay a small tribute. Johnny's fav-o-rite Tony Curtis movie isn't his most famous or maybe even his best but it's always made Johnny happy to watch it. Tonight before bed Tony Curtis as The Great Leslie, Natalie Wood as suffragette Maggie DuBois, the perfectly sinister Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate and Peter Falk as his henchman Max.


Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Framed

An all too clever art type managed to hang a picture frame off of some fishing line to the lines overhead in the Powerhouse Arts District and in this wind today it'll frame many things as it swings, in this case the Trump Tower.

OK Hudson County and friends across the river...

Do tell where you hide the corn mazes and cider mills out here. Please alert the staff here where we can get our autumn on. Johnny saw plenty of roadside ads for corn mazes and haunted houses and cider mills all across Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania on his travels. He'd love to know where the great fall events are out in this tri-state neck of the woods.

Late night open thread

There is a Coastal Flood Advisory in effect from 3 am to 11 PM EDT Monday along *gasp* the coastal areas. By 11 PM Monday many can expect whales, dolphins, urchins and narwhals washed up in their yards. Please stop putting these in the city sewers people, they are your mess to clean up.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Johnny and the staff are back from vacation, what'd we miss?

So to ease back into things as we fire up the servers and turn the Wayback Machine back on we thought we'd let you vent or talk over recent events that happened while we were gone. Such as:

A suitable punishment, short of death for Rutgers peeping Tom and peeping Tomette Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei. Be creative, as they were, in disseminating Tyler Clementi's world before he jumped off the George Washington Bridge. The bidding opens at a year's worth of trash pick up along the Garden State Parkway in clown suits and could probably go all the way up to hanging them from jibbets (cages) over the Passaic River as bait for the Giant Space Cat head to devour.

Speaking of Rutgers, two straight losses have this season on a knife's edge. Are Greg Schiano's Scarlet Knights forever a 9-4 team or can they storm through the Big East and grab a rung on an upper echelon bowl game?

The Jersey City Artists Studio Tour continues today from noon to 6 pm. You can download maps to the artists studios here and here and here.

What about Jersey City's newest city councilman, Radames “Ray” Velazquez? Good choice? Bad choice? Give us a shout.

Good to be back Jersey City, good to be home.