http://www.northjersey.com/

Hundreds of North Jersey municipal employees are guaranteed paid time off — at taxpayers’ expense — to go Christmas shopping, attend weddings, and even donate blood, according to a scathing report released Tuesday by the State Commission of Investigation.

The 108-page report examined a cross-section of local government contracts and policies across the state, finding that tens of millions in taxpayer dollars are being wasted to fund luxurious benefits for municipal employees.

Among North Jersey’s biggest offenders are Englewood Cliffs, Fort Lee and the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners, which each doled out massive lump-sum cash payouts for unused sick time and personal and vacation leave. Several other towns, including Englewood and Paterson, were cited for shelling out “exceptional perks,” such as paid days off — in addition to regularly allotted vacation and personal time — for getting married or donating blood.

And most importantly to me being a Fort Lee resident:

Taxpayers in Fort Lee are on the hook for more than 30,000 days of unused leave banked by the borough’s 408 full and part-time employees. If all of this accrued leave were to be cashed in at once, the tab would exceed $7 million – an amount equal to 11 percent of Fort Lee’s annual budget of $63.6 million, the report reads.

Between 2004 and 2008, the borough paid retiring employees a combined sum of more than $1.4 million for unused sick, vacation, holiday, terminal and other leave. More than one third of the payout – approximately $547,000 – was for accrued sick time.

The report also casts a spotlight on municipalities who grant their employees “special perks.”

• In Fort Lee, police officers receive one or two days off if they qualify at the firing range as expert or distinguished expert marksmen, the report states.
• Rutherford has a lottery system that awards cash payments to civilian municipal employees who have perfect attendance for a certain period of time. Between 2004 and August 2009, these sick leave incentives totaled $12,600.
• In Union City, all civilian municipal employees receive one day’s leave at full pay every year for Christmas shopping.
• Englewood gives its fire and police personnel a paid day for moving, and city police officers get three additional paid days when they get married.

Bureaucrats taking advantage of the their position? No!

Can anyone name me a business or field which has such perks? Or is it only those which are funded through coercion? Is anyone surprised that those who utilize coercion through threats of violence rather than convincing people to do business with you by providing a good service increase their abuse of their victims over time?

Samsung (and your local government) hasn’t been shy with its plans for electrifying passports. Yet we still haven’t seen video of its e-passport with flexible OLED display in action, ’till now. The 2-inch, 240×320 AMOLED displays a disembodied, rotating head in 260k colors and 10k:1 contrast when activated by an RF source reader. No details were provided as to when these might enter production but we have the icky feeling it’ll be sooner than we want.

REAL ID 2.0 is PASS ID. Once they have that finished I’m sure they’d love to waste money and further bring on the police state by increasing the technology in the national IDs.

Reminds me a bit of the handheld devices in Gattaca.

The techie in me loves the technology… I can’t wait till we get the propaganda wallpaper TVs like Fahrenheit 451.

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dhbvr2gz_18gk9wt8gt

Note: the below was created from OCRing screencaps of a Flash based chatroom. Excuse the mistakes.

Xaq Fixx 3:39 pm
Alright… Question 1:
Political Identified Profile field, when will it return

Lee Doren
As soon as I get confirmation to add it back—it was my intention to add at asap Friday, but then it was unclear what my authority was to do so
The only reason why it was removed was so I could add something else asap
Like an open-ended political affiliation
Read More…

http://www.keenesentinel.com/…

If the marijuana protest and guerilla gardening in downtown Keene failed to raise many eyebrows, the sight of a handful of handcuffed Free Staters being taken out of the city’s District Court earlier this week surely had plenty of residents scratching their heads.

The reader comments piled up under online coverage of Monday’s protest at the District Court on The Sentinel’s Web site, where some people ridiculed and criticized the Free Staters for wasting taxpayer dollars and the time of city police officers.

“Time and again, the Free Staters come off as insolent children who stomp their feet and hold their breath until their faces turn blue because they don’t like being told what to do,” commenter Arch wrote.

The Free Staters hit back, outnumbering the opposition with post after post, saying that District Court Judge Edward J. Burke had blatantly stomped on their personal freedoms when he banned the use of video cameras in the District Court lobby.

“What many commenters here are showing is how slavery is enforced. Slavery was enforced by the slaves themselves. It isn’t the government that keeps people down — it is the people,” wrote commenter Frake.

The District Court blowup unfolded during the arraignment of Manchester videographer Dave Ridley, who was arrested in March because he refused to turn off his video camera in the court lobby. Ridley and others showed up to cover the arraignment of Free Stater and marijuana activist Andrew Carroll.

Carroll was arrested in January when he stood in Keene’s Railroad Square carrying a small amount of marijuana while surrounded by Free Staters and curious onlookers.

Though state law allows media representatives to record public court proceedings in most cases, lobbies and hallways are gray areas. Police officials say there is a fear that rape victims and juveniles could be captured on film while in these areas, which are generally off-limits for videotaping and photography, according to state judicial branch spokeswoman Laura A. Kiernan.

“We’ve talked about this at length and the Free Staters know that,” Kiernan said in a previous interview. She did not return a phone message seeking additional clarification on the law.
Read More…

http://www.cnht.org/…

In a stunning denial of their oath of office, members of the House of Representatives today voted 216-150 to defeat HCR 6, the bill that sought to reaffirm the US and NH Constitutions.

A massive rally was held ahead of the vote.

Rep. Dan Itse (R) the bill’s sponsor, gave his testimony, which was then supported by Rep. Al Baldasaro (R) and others.

A Representative from the Democrat side spoke against it citing a vote from YEARS ago when similar legislation was defeated.

In rebuttal, another Republican Representative stood up and challenged the hypocrisy shown when she reminded this same Democrat that he had voted to protect us against the Federal National ID legislation, a bill which had bipartisan support and was signed by the Governor.

The reaction from those observing in the gallery was not a favorable one. The gallery when CRAZY and was heard yelling things like “this isn’t over” and “we aren’t giving up”.

To be sure, these legislators will forever be tagged with the fact that they have essentially violated their oath off office, which they took, and which states they will uphold the NH Constitution.

Follow the link above for photos of the rally and supposedly a list of those who voted against it.

I think that while it failed it was close enough to be a promising start. More free staters and more federal government intervention in local government will hopefully push this type of rather extreme resolution into the realm of possibility.