Last Sunday Daughter and I happened to drive by the Swimming River water treatment plant owned and operated by New Jersey American Water. We noticed that the bridge which paralleled the road and spillway had STILL not been repaired after the damage it received from TropicalStormIrene…last AUGUST.
Nearly 200,000 could be without clean water for days after pipes break in Monmouth
MIDDLETOWN — Monmouth County officials and New Jersey American Water Company expanded the boil-water advisory this morning to 22 towns one day after a 90-foot section of a wooden bridge, which propped up the water pipes, collapsed.
The collapse occurred at the company’s water treatment plant at Swimming River Reservoir.
I can not believe the incredible level of incompetence that this seems to indicate. To not do a complete and thorough structural evaluation of the major pipes that are right in front of the goddamned treatment plant completely boggles my mind.
Total ASSHATS.
So here we are on the busiest weekend of the year at the Shore, and now also the hottest, and the entire county has no water and we don’t know for how long but I’m sure it will be several days at a minimum.
I’d love to know if NJAW got any FEMA funds from Irene last year and just what exactly they did with them.
Consumer Spending Falls to Weakest Level in Five Months
U.S. consumer spending was flat in May for the first time in five months as Americans eased off on vehicle purchases amid tepid wage growth, but subsiding inflation pressures should keep demand supported.
The Commerce Department said on Friday April’s consumer spending was revised down to show only a 0.1 percent rise instead of the previously reported 0.3 percent gain.
Revisions, revisions! And I’m sure glad they think “subsiding inflation” will keep demand supported, since it sure won’t be any JOB CREATION of note impacting the economy.
Obama oughta start running on THAT change, before the CBO figures come out revising what ObamaTax is going to COST THE MIDDLE CLASS now that the states can op-out of the MediCaid Expansion and we get to pick up the entire tab.
They say bad news comes in threes, and that’ll ring true for Angela Merkel this morning. First Germany was knocked out of Euro 2012, then she was forced to back down at the EU summit and now German retail sales have dropped for a second month running in May. Sales unexpectedly fell 0.3pc from April.
Quote of the day:
A decisive solution: using a fund that doesn’t exist to buy debt that won’t be repaid via a mechanism that hasn’t been agreed.
But really, everything’s wonderful, Kids, because the Eurocrats have so declared.
Even as markets cheered the agreement by European leaders to allow the direct use of the bloc’s bailout funds to recapitalize struggling banks, well-known investor Jim Rogers told CNBC the move does nothing to help solve the region’s biggest problem, which is its high debt levels.
“Just because now you have a way to get them (the banks) to borrow even more money, this is not solving the problem, this is making the problem worse,” Rogers said on Friday.
“People need to stop spending money they don’t have. The solution to too much debt is not more debt. All this little agreement does is give them (banks) a chance to have even more debt for a while longer,” he added.
Philip Falcone, the billionaire founder of Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, faces a lawsuit from U.S. regulators as soon as this week over claims he improperly borrowed client funds to pay his taxes and gave preferential treatment to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to two people familiar with the matter.
Falcone, 49, may also face a market manipulation claim related to trading in bonds of MAAX Holdings Inc., said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to authorize enforcement staff to file the case, the people said.
…Defense companies are preparing for the automatic U.S. budget cuts coming January 2, 2013, an estimated $52 billion per year, or 10% of the budget, over the next decade.
That means the U.S. defense and aerospace industries, which employs about 1 million workers, are already contemplating job cuts, like the 123,000 job layoffs Lockheed Martin (LMT: 83.27, -0.98, -1.16%) is now warning about.
Under a 1988 law, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, defense companies must notify workers 60 days in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs.That puts those layoffs on November 2, two days before the presidential election.
And that’s not counting small business layoffs; Boeing (BA: 70.74, -0.31, -0.44%) estimates it supports 1.3 million supplier-related jobs.
The National Association of Manufacturers warns nearly one million jobs could be lost by 2014.
…The layoffs, of course, won’t all happen on Jan. 2, as it would likely take months for sequestration to begin affecting contractors’ bottom lines. But the timing of the cuts — along with the requirement of 60-day notice — provides an opportunity for the defense industry to ratchet up the pressure on President Barack Obama and congressional leaders to tackle the issue before November.
Only a fraction of Lockheed’s workers ultimately would be let go as a result of the cuts. But the company plans to send out mass notifications because it is unsure exactly which employees would be affected. The White House Office of Management and Budget has not yet provided guidance for how sequestration would be carried out.
“We’ve wanted a dialog about what sequestration could look like,” Walters said. “But as of right now, no, we have no answers from OMB.”
Imagine that! With something this massive coming down the pike, the defense contractors would like the White House to have a PLAN for implementation in place, so business could PLAN.
France must agree to share sovereignty over its budget with its EU partners, French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said on Tuesday.
He told BFM TV and RMC radio: “This is what we are talking about, budget solidarity in Europe which implies that not only that the French budget, but also the German, Italian and Spanish budgets be subjected to a review by all our partners.”
He said: “This does not mean abandoning sovereignty, it is sharing.”
LONG BEACH, N.J. (CBS/AP) — New Jersey beachgoers were startled over the weekend to see a small plane flying overhead pulling a swastika banner.
…The group behind the flight says it wasn’t meant as a representation of hate. The International Raelian Movement says the swastika is actually a symbol of peace and beauty that was corrupted by Nazis in 20th century Germany.
(CNN) — Turkey is changing its military rules of engagement and will now treat a military approach toward its borders from Syria as a potential threat that “will be dealt with accordingly,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.
The announcement is a significant escalation of rhetoric after Syria shot down a Turkish plane last week.
Egypt’s Islamist President-Elect Wants to Restore Ties to Iran, ‘Revise’ Peace Deal With Israel
Egypt’s Islamist Presidential-elect Mohamed Morsi says he wants to restore ties to Iran in order to “create a strategic balance” in the Middle East. He will also “reconsider” the country’s peace deal with Israel, according to an interview published by Iran’s Fars News Agency on Monday.
“We must restore normal relations with Iran based on shared interests, and expand areas of political coordination and economic cooperation because this will create a balance of pressure in the region,” Morsi said, according to the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Egypt and Iran severed diplomatic ties in 1980, roughly a year after Egypt signed a peace agreement with Israel. And now after roughly three decades of peace, Israel is in trouble of gaining yet another hostile Islamic enemy in the region.
“Part of my agenda is the development of ties between Iran and Egypt that will create a strategic balance in the region,” Morsi was quoted as saying.
…“We will reconsider the Camp David Accord” that, in 1979, forged a peace between Egypt and Israel that has held for more than three decades, Morsi was quoted as telling a Fars reporter in Cairo on Sunday, just before his election triumph was announced.
Lucky thing for Israel they have no greater friend than the United States! And I’ll bet that’s just what they’re thinking long about now…
As you may well recall Dear Readers we reported last week that there is GROWING CONCERN amongst the world’s really intelligent and compassionate peoples that fat Americans are dooming the planet.
So to do my Fair Share I made somewhat over 4 pounds of mussels for us on Friday night
washed down with several bottles of pinot grigio and a few fresh baguettes, naturally
And then on Saturday I decided to travel to the epicenter of ‘Merkun epicurean delights, what could well be the very St. Peters locus of our gluttonous theology…yes, I went to Walmart.
And I got their cheapest bacon
and I got some of their fancy organic free-range chicken…which are no where near as endowed as the Pamelas from other places
carefully slice a pocket and place some freshly cut mozzarella
and fresh basil leaves inside
and wrap them lovingly in as many slices of bacon as needed and secure with toothpicks
yes, basically the entire pound of bacon was used on these three Pamelas. This is a good thing.
Anyhooo put those beauts on the grill over indirect heat and cook until the bacon is crispy in the wonderful bacony way
serve with some fresh steamed broccoli and wild rice (making sure to take the toothpicks out of the Pamelas so you’re not dialling 9-1-1 during dinner) and serve with lots of wine
and enjoy doing your part to destabilize the world!
Taken from our favoritest Johnson’s Beach at beautiful Gulf Islands National Seashore ~ about 8 miles from the house.
We were gassing up as well. Banglacolians take NO chances, considering most of our petrol is barged in.
Top it OFF, baby.
They don’t want you in the water, seems like. O_o
Whole island came out to see the waves and the overwash is already impressive.
Beach baby, beach baby, gimme your hand…
CowaBUNGA! Surf’s UP!
Churn, baby, churn. Now we sit and see if the rain comes.
Blech.
ths update: 5 p.m. track has it going in Appalachicola, but that’s a big mofo cone. I’ll just stick with my Ebola updates. He’s the best weatherman eh-vah.
…so I feel a little better, since he has an abysmal record as far as being in the middle of anything. We’re mainly sweating the rain considering as how we’re a wee bit past our fair allotment already and what’s looming on the radar looks substantial…and S.L.O.W.
But Mike Seidel’s not in town, so we might just squeak by. major dad and I are gonna try to scoot down to the beach in a bit and get some shots while there’s a beach left. The surf looks spectacular and, at the rate Tropical Storm Debby’s crawling nowhere, the coast is going to take a pounding.
ths update: DAMMIT. Oh, NOW we’ve made the cone with the damn thing as a hurricane on Wednesday.
Well, shit.
I TOLD him breaking into the snausages for a stupid rain storm was bad ju-ju, but OH, NO. He does it anyway.
Big Blows, Life, Makes Ya Barf | Mr. Bingley | 
June 30, 2012 6:10 pm | 
Comments (8) 
Subscribe