Late night open thread

A quick public service announcement before bed. This year's Macy's New York City fireworks are being shot off on the Hudson River side of Manhattan and not the East River side. A few minutes after 9 pm Saturday the biggest and best show around will commence. The change this year is because we are celebrating the 400 year anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploration of the river named after him. The show is planning on shooting off 40,000 shells, a clip of 1500 a minute.

Giddyup.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect until 7 pm tonight

For all of Hudson and other counties where people live near Hudson County and count their blessings each day. From Wunderground:

Severe Thunderstorm Watch 533 in effect until 7 PM EDT this evening...

Tonight
Mostly cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms likely this evening...then a chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms after midnight. Patchy fog after midnight. Some thunderstorms may produce damaging winds...large hail and heavy rainfall this evening. Lows in the upper 60s. South winds 5 to 10 mph...becoming east after midnight. Chance of rain 60 percent.

So batten down them hatches mateys. And if you're on a train tonight and hear a pounding on your cars' roof it ain't Batman, it's hail the size of cornish hens.

BREAKING NEWS: Reports of big explosion in Newark, power outages there--UPDATED (2)

We don't have the details but JCD readers are calling in telling us there was a rather large explosion in downtown Newark and thick black smoke can be seen rising from the source. It happened in the general vicinity Newark Bears baseball stadium early reports tell us....

Will keep you updated...

UPDATE--NJ.com is out with the story that it is a transformer that blew causing minor injuries to three people. Power is out around Penn Station but trains ARE running now with NO delays....

UPDATE--4:14 pm--The power is back on in the affected area now in Newark. A friend of JCD emailed a few minutes ago and said it's back on. You know what that means, no slacking off tomorrow because you can't make "I didn't know if we'd have power or not" work for you. Everyone reads the JCD on matters of importance like explosions with injuries. Your bosses sure do. We don't miss on those.

See, you can make a difference in fighting the scourge of crime

Four losers were loading up their SUV with stolen goods when a citizen, like you or me, was willing to simply pick up the phone and call police. A man noticed three men loading his neighbor's belongings into a vehicle at Linden and Garfield at 2 am yesterday and made with the 911 call. The three crooked males, Edwin Ventura, and Freddie Mauricio, both of Jersey City, and Michael Lima of North Bergen were arrested along with female Soveira Polanco of Paterson who was sitting behind the wheel of the SUV (because women simply can't do the heavy lifting when it comes to crime and flat screen teevees).

All four were charged with burglary and theft. Book 'em Dan-O

Late night open thread

Let's practice parasailing like these pros before bed tonight. Nothing says fun like a ruptured spleen.


Time for Jersey City, After Dark

The difference between institutional theft and a guy with a handgun in an alley ain't much around here

Let's suppose a guy caught you in an alley alone and robbed you at gunpoint of $500. You did nothing wrong but you were still victimized. No doubt you'd see in a press release the mayor's office say something like "This is a tragic happening and we hope soon for the victim to be made whole" if they took time to comment on all the robberies in Jersey City. BUT, should the robbery be institutional in nature, ie the Jersey City Parking Authority putting boots on cars that didn't deserve to get them in a city run money grab that's too bad and we shouldn't worry about the victims here, after all, it'll cost us THEIR money.

Yep, over the last several YEARS, the JCPA has been booting cars they should only have been issuing $42 tickets for as a revenue stream. 'Cars can only be booted if the owner has three outstanding tickets and hasn't responded to notices to appear in court.' This however hasn't stopped JCPA from raking in some hefty cash. Maybe you had money STOLEN this way. Remember the above comment the city government may have put out, oh things are different when the city is the one stealing:

Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy is worried about the precedent of the city owning up to bad behavior.
"We should be cautious with reimbursements for past errors because of the potential financial ramifications for the city and ultimately the taxpayers." Steal from taxpayers, when caught say you can't just give money back after all, you're protecting taxpayers.

Got that? If a private individual stole from you, we wish you the best. If however it's the city taking your money, hey too bad, the city has designs on YOUR money, we should be careful about making you whole for the city's thievery.

If your head doesn't hurt after this one you're not paying attention.

Monday morning open thread

Johnny's got some work to do getting things back to workable here in the JCD offices this morning. Like Trixie mentioned bums got in the stairwell. We're sure gonna have a comment or two later on the illegal booting of vehicles over the last few years in Jersey City later and the mayor's troubling reaction...

Late night open thread

Yes Johnny is back from Michigan after a delightful trip seeing friends and family and visiting with other wizards. He made it safe and sound. Which brings us to:

PADOT, EPIC FAIL. That delightful 13 mile-ish construction hell on eastbound I-80 you foisted upon the general public around Bloomsburg in Columbia County, what were you thinking? There has been anarchy better coordinated. Signs giving differing information, no kind of plan to deal with miles and miles of backups inconveniencing several thousands drivers and passengers. All to make 3 lanes into 2 near the end. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation have got themselves one heinous unattended traffic clogging machine out there in Columbia County.

Really, get it together kids. It cost Johnny over an hour today. When you start stealing hours of Johnny's life he takes an active interest in you'n yours. He will get his vengeance in this life or the next.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Late night open thread

Well kids, Johnny's off back to Michigan for the week to hobnob with his fellow wizards. Hopefully if all goes well he'll be back with you next Sunday night. Even the interns get the week off. Kiki is heading down to the shore and Zoltron's off to Rhode Island to scope out spots for Johnny to vacation at in August.

If you're a reader here and find yourself on the 280 west and then the 80 west in the morning and have a guy behind you with a shaved head making faces and gestures at you to get in the slow lane, give a Johnny a break and get out of his way, he's got a 10 hour drive ahead of him. Somebody call the Sidetrack and tell 'em Johnny's coming back to town.

Should something big come up simply use this thread to express yourselves. You know the routine.

You folks be good and we'll talk next week.

In support of the Iranian citizens fighting and dying to make their votes count

As Johnny has said before, this site is for the most part about THIS surrounding area. That's why most of our readers come here, for news and infotainment and a few laughs about our fair city. However, when something is going halfway across the world far bigger and more important than this blog, we cannot ignore it. We fully support, commend, sympathize, and offer our thanks for those inside Iran who will not be silenced, who will not be intimidated and will not kowtow to the big bad bully known as a corrupt government. They were lied to, they were dismissed as bit players in an election whose outcome was obviously decided beforehand. THEY have the bravery to stand up to this sham (and when was the last time Americans as a group were willing to go to the mat for something they believe in by facing down police and government overlords?) and actually put their lives in jeopardy for the RIGHT thing and the JUST thing.

We'd say this about any people in this world with a just cause who live under a repressive, arrogant, corrupt government. If you think you need to spill blood to take your own destiny back, if you need to spill blood to take your voice back, if you need to spill blood to end your tyranny, you'll have Johnny's support.

We hope against hope the Iranian people are successful in this grand, important endeavor, by any means necessary.

People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people"