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No. I am not trying to make you "believe that it is wrong." I don't care what you believe. I posted theory, arguments and other evidence to demonstrate to other readers. You posted your opinion. You have your opinion and you can have your opinion. You may have the "antibodies" but you don't have the facts. You can say all you want but when it comes down to it, you don't have the arguments to support your position.
I did not "invent" the "politically correct euphemism." Thanks for the credit though. As I demonstrated intellectuals, reporters and lawyers wrote those points. I'm not that smart. I'm just well-read.

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You're right. That was a sentimental post. I should have been more thorough.

I know I don't want to invest another public cent into fossil fuels that is damaging the earth and is not sustainable or renewable. Repairing and rebuilding current sources is hubris.

"While the temptation might be to repair damaged infrastructure quickly, Blakely warned that the state should build smarter and better. ?We can?t look to past weather conditions; we can?t look to past building codes anymore,?? he said.

Build an infrastructure for the next century, urged Blakely, a viewpoint repeatedly echoed at the conference, which was hosted by New Jersey Future, a smart growth organization, along with Kislak Real Estate Institute and the Urban Coast Institute.

?With climate change, we can no longer expect the future to look like the past,?? said Anthony Broccoli, professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. ?We do know that climate change alters the probability of extreme events.?? "
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12 ... jersey-shore-experts-say/

""The next 50 to 100 years are going to be very different than what we've seen in the past 50 years," said S. Jeffress Williams, a scientist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey's Woods Hole Science Center in Massachusetts."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11 ... rsey-shore_n_2056578.html

UPS is currently investing in Solar in NJ:
"Federal and state government incentives encouraged our investments in solar energy sources," said Steve Leffin, director of global sustainability at UPS. "We develop, engineer, own and operate our solar capacity, which is a departure from contracted power-purchase agreements in which a company pays a solar power provider for a set price of electricity for 20 years. Under this arrangement, we not only benefit at UPS, but can also help community power grids by providing a hedge against possible energy price hikes during peak usage times."
New Jersey has established incentives for the generation of renewable power that can serve as a catalyst for increasing overall business commitment to renewable energy. The state has one of the nation's most progressive solar energy policies and is currently second in the U.S. for total installed capacity of solar energy technology."
http://www.pressroom.ups.com/Press+Re ... +at+New+Jersey+Facilities

Dodge Foundation:
New Jersey municipalities are stepping up to help meet the state goals for renewable energy (solar, wind) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on foreign oil. However, town staff are finding that a lack of precedence and the tough choices regarding trade-offs are slowing the process.

New Jersey continues to be a leader in renewable energy and solar in particular, with over 18,000 solar development projects providing cleaner and renewable electricity. This is due in part to both federal and state financial incentives and in particular, New Jersey?s renewable portfolio standard which creates a market for owners of solar assets to sell Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs).

Municipalities Need Guidance

The large influx of solar projects has made an issue of the lack of clear guidance or accepted standards available to municipalities for properly siting and permitting these projects. As with any building improvement or development, solar projects must go through local land use and permitting procedures.

New Jersey municipalities are struggling to deal with issues ranging from the nitty-gritty of setting safety and aesthetics standards for small rooftop installations (would you like shrubbery with that solar panel?) to dealing with regional impacts from large commercial installations. Questions abound: Can I cut down the trees around my house so I can qualify for solar? Will the large-scale solar panel installation you are planning have an adverse effect on the surrounding wildlife and the overall image of the town? The need for renewable energy is great, but an honest assessment recognizes that when done wrong these installations can have significant land use, aesthetic, economic and environmental impacts.

- See more at: http://blog.grdodge.org/2012/12/19/sh ... sey/#sthash.AuJws6R3.dpuf

There is a sustainable nj meetup:
"WHY: In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey needs to rebuild vital infrastructure. As thousands of people continue to rebuild their homes, businesses and lives after Sandy, the benefits of energy efficient solutions should not be overlooked. Connecting our communities to the right resources, tools and incentive programs is crucial."
http://www.sustainablejersey.com/news ... bf9100abf7a7f8b39e1ab3a80

Forbes:
"Rebuilding smarter means finding ways to keep people, and vital infrastructure, out of harm?s way. It means strengthening power systems with smarter designs to prevent the multi-day outages that left hundreds of thousands in the cold and dark for days following the storm. It means revitalizing the natural systems, such as creating wetlands, which once helped protect our shores from storm surges and flooding.

But it won?t happen quickly. By some estimates, it may take ten years, and tens of billions of dollars, before hard-hit areas like the Jersey Shore start to resemble their pre-Sandy outlines. Additional resiliency measures for thwarting more powerful storms will cost exponentially more. (One example of this: Consolidated Edison says it would cost $40 billion to put its electric lines underground.) One thing is certain: no one jurisdiction can do it alone. Extreme events like superstorms and super-droughts cross all boundaries, political and geographic. And solutions, both the financial costs and necessary policies, must cross those boundaries as well..... Along the Pacific coast, leaders of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia have been working together since 2008 on the Pacific Coast Collaborative (PCC), promoting cross-border efforts to grow the economy, create jobs, advance clean, renewable energy, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Most recently, these jurisdictions announced the creation of the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange, designed to boost efforts to invest in critical infrastructure needs, including upgraded roads, bridges and water systems.

The PCC provides the structure necessary to strengthen long-term collaboration and financing support between governments, businesses and investors. Similar public-private partnerships are needed on the East Coast and elsewhere for post-Sandy rebuilding, and some of them are already in the works.

In December, the New York City Teachers Retirement System pledged $1 billion for new investments in infrastructure projects in New York City and throughout the tri-state area, including improvements to transportation, power, water, communications and housing. In Louisiana, power utility Entergy is restoring wetlands that will help soften the blow from future storms. In Maryland, which has seen a dozen Chesapeake Bay islands disappear due to sea level rise, the state?s governor signed an executive order last month mandating that new bridges, roads and sewer systems be designed with higher sea levels in mind. He?s also asked regulators to raise electricity rates by a dollar or two a month to allow utilities to do more resiliency work.

Factoring climate change into such building and rebuilding efforts is only common sense. The sweeping economic losses from subways, electricity, hospitals and Wall Street being shuttered by Sandy will be felt for years to come. Yet the lesson hits with the force of a flood: Cost-effective resiliency investments can help avoid future economic calamities. We must ensure that policymakers, businesses and investors act on that lesson before the next catastrophe strikes."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mindylubb ... lding-in-a-warming-world/

NYT OPINION:
OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Solar Panels for Every Home
By DAVID CRANE and ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr.
Published: December 12, 2012
"....Residents of New Jersey and New York have lived through three major storms in the past 16 months, suffering through sustained blackouts, closed roads and schools, long gas lines and disrupted lives, all caused by the destruction of our electric system. When our power industry is unable to perform its most basic mission of supplying safe, affordable and reliable power, we need to ask whether it is really sensible to run the 21st century by using an antiquated and vulnerable system of copper wires and wooden poles.

Some of our neighbors have taken matters into their own hands, purchasing portable gas-powered generators in order to give themselves varying degrees of ?grid independence.? But these dirty, noisy and expensive devices have no value outside of a power failure. And they?re not much help during a failure if gasoline is impossible to procure.

Having spent our careers in and around the power industry, we believe there is a better way to secure grid independence for our homes and businesses. (Disclosure: Mr. Crane?s company, based in Princeton, N.J., generates power from coal, natural gas, and nuclear, wind and solar energy.) Solar photovoltaic technology can significantly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and our dependence on the grid. Electricity-producing photovoltaic panels installed on houses, on the roofs of warehouses and big box stores and over parking lots can be wired so that they deliver power when the grid fails.

Solar panels have dropped in price by 80 percent in the past five years and can provide electricity at a cost that is at or below the current retail cost of grid power in 20 states, including many of the Northeast states. So why isn?t there more of a push for this clean, affordable, safe and inexhaustible source of electricity?

First, the investor-owned utilities that depend on the existing system for their profits have little economic interest in promoting a technology that empowers customers to generate their own power. Second, state regulatory agencies and local governments impose burdensome permitting and siting requirements that unnecessarily raise installation costs. Today, navigating the regulatory red tape constitutes 25 percent to 30 percent of the total cost of solar installation in the United States, according to data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and, as such, represents a higher percentage of the overall cost than the solar equipment itself.
In Germany, where sensible federal rules have fast-tracked and streamlined the permit process, the costs are considerably lower. It can take as little as eight days to license and install a solar system on a house in Germany. In the United States, depending on your state, the average ranges from 120 to 180 days. More than one million Germans have installed solar panels on their roofs. Australia also has a streamlined permitting process and has solar panels on 10 percent of its homes. Solar photovoltaic power would give America the potential to challenge the utility monopolies, democratize energy generation and transform millions of homes and small businesses into energy generators. Rational, market-based rules could turn every American into an energy entrepreneur. That transition to renewable power could create millions of domestic jobs and power in this country with American resourcefulness, initiative and entrepreneurial energy while taking a substantial bite out of the nation?s emissions of greenhouse gases and other dangerous pollutants.

As we restore crucial infrastructure after the storm, let?s build an electricity delivery system that is more resilient, clean, democratic and reliable than the one that Sandy washed away. We can begin by eliminating the regulatory hurdles impeding solar generation and use incentives like the renewable energy tax credit ? which Congress seems poised to eliminate ? to balance the subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuel producers.

And as we rebuild the tens of thousands of houses and commercial buildings damaged and destroyed by the storm, let?s incorporate solar power arrays and other clean energy technologies in their designs, and let?s allow them to be wired so they still are generating even when the centralized grid system is down.

We have the technology. The economics makes sense. All we need is the political will."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/opi ... -for-every-home.html?_r=0

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Am I missing something? I don't see your straw man argument line.
All I saw was
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I was responding to your #1 point.

And regarding your #2 point. Exactly. Currently Countries have documents. As I stated in my posts before, these migrants do not have documents and that does not make them "illegal." Currently, there are "borders." Until the borders are eliminated, migrants are undocumented and not "illegal." I personally believe borders ought to be eliminated.

Read
A world without borders makes economic sense
Allowing workers to change location significantly enriches the world economy. So why do we erect barriers to human mobility?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-deve ... n-increase-global-economy

You're right though that some Solar Power does require fossil fuel power:
"Over in Fair Lawn, Mayor Lisa Swain said that her city had not interfered with the program and that she was trying to make the community sustainable in other ways, like using motion sensor lighting in city buildings.

?I?m going to do what I can,? she said.

Sean Smith, a 43-year-old airline sales supervisor in Fair Lawn, said he was fine with the seven panels on his street, especially ?if it?s helping the greenhouse effect.?

?We have the kids to think about,? he said.

But his neighbor Tony Christofi, a 47-year-old contractor, wondered aloud whether Fair Lawn, by not fighting, was getting more than its fair share.

?I?m fine with green energy,? he said, ?but are the savings going to be passed on to consumers??

PSE&G officials said solar energy was still more expensive to produce than more traditional power sources and acknowledged that bills were going up 29 cents a month. One panel will produce enough kilowatt hours in one year to light four 60-watt bulbs around the clock for around six weeks, the company said.

When complete, the panels on the poles are expected to provide half of the 80 megawatts of electricity generated by the utility's overall $515 million solar investment ? enough to power 6,500 homes."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/sci ... solar.html?pagewanted=all

I think you're right that it will be an adjustment to full renewable energy but the same can be said about electricity when it started. But even in contemporary times, we face brown outs, black outs and power outages. When I lived in California, we had brown outs frequently. Most 3rd world countries have brown outs. I lived in NYC during the 2003 Black Out. We need to shift our power system yesterday.

But, I think they can power entire buildings like Jersey City Shop rite
Shoprite had power after the storm because they have solar power panels

In 2010: " The third Project of the Year is presented to G & S Investors, the developers of Metro Plaza for the installation of solar panels on the Shoprite building at the Plaza. All of these projects represent this "coming-of-age" of sustainable building in Jersey City.
"The Green Awards is our way of thanking and recognizing the City's green pioneers. They are the trail blazers who will lead our environmentally responsible development now taking hold in our City and the State," stated Jerramiah Healy, Mayor of Jersey City."
http://www.thejcra.org/index.php?p=news&nid=137

"Clear Skies Solar, Inc. (?CSS?) (OTC Bulletin Board: CSKH), a full-service renewable energy provider to commercial, industrial and agricultural clients, announces its second fully financed project for 2010, a 324 kW solar power project to be installed on the ShopRite building located in the Metro Plaza in New Jersey. The new project is being financed by G&S Investors of New York City, bringing the total currently announced and financed CSS backlog to $2.1 million or more than half a megawatt in just the first six weeks of the New Year 2010."
http://www.levelstock.com/levelstock- ... rsey-city-project-cms-198

Here's a solar power vendor
http://www.dasolar.com/solar-panel-in ... on/new-jersey/jersey-city


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why does ripple's comment say i wrote that comment about insurance companies? i didn't say the insurance companies comment. thanks.

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ACLU: "When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one vulnerable group, everyone?s rights are at risk. The ACLU Immigrants? Rights Project is dedicated to expanding and enforcing the civil liberties and civil rights of immigrants and to combating public and private discrimination against them."
http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights

"When one refers to an immigrant as an "illegal alien," they are using the term as a noun. They are effectively saying that the individual, as opposed to any actions that the individual has taken, is illegal. The term ?illegal alien? implies that a person?s existence is criminal. I?m not aware of any other circumstance in our common vernacular where a crime is considered to render the individual ? as opposed to the individual?s actions ? as being illegal. We don?t even refer to our most dangerous and vile criminals as being ?illegal.? "
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04 ... o-Human-Being-is-Illegal#

"I have been allotted 700 words to make a simple and direct point about the use of the phrase ''illegal immigrant.'' Here it is then: ''Illegal immigrant'' is a term that no self-respecting journalist ought to ever use. Not because it is politically incorrect, or inhumane -- though an argument can be made for both -- but because it is imprecise.

It adds nothing to the political debate and, more important, it says nothing about the person(s) being written about. Good journalists seek details and work with facts. Mediocre journalists are content with labels and generalities."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0524-28.htm

"You shall know that no one is illegal. It is a contradiction in
itself. People can be beautiful or even more beautiful. They may be just or
unjust. But illegal? How can someone be illegal?" -- Elie Wiesel
http://thecounterpoint.blogspot.com/2 ... no-person-is-illegal.html

"Recently, in an important story about child migrants, Ms. Preston described six-year-old Juan David Gonzalez, as an "illegal border-crosser." Ms. Preston argues that the term applies in some instances, but a court has never found anyone to be "illegal" in the history of immigration court. Neither "illegal alien" nor "Illegal immigrant" are terms defined by law. Only when people are caught entering the country without inspection and are then prosecuted, does the possibility even exist for them to be charged with a misdemeanor. People who have entered and are present in the country without papers are held to civil code. Still, whenever someone's actions are in violation of the law, that does not make a person's entire existence "illegal." We know she was convicted of a crime and still we don't call Martha Stewart an "illegal businesswoman." Firearms can be "illegal." Contraband can be "illegal." A person cannot be described as such."
http://colorlines.com/droptheiword/bl ... o-the-new-york-times.html


"Advocates for immigrants are calling on the New York Times, arguably the most respected newspaper in the U.S., to stop using the term "illegal immigrant." They argue that the term is not only an inaccurate description of unauthorized migrants but also promotes racial stereotypes. On Oct. 1, M?nica Novoa, coordinator of the Drop the I-Word campaign, wrote an open letter to the New York Times calling into question the paper's use of "illegal immigrant." In particular, Novoa takes issue with the rationale of Times' staffers who argue that the term is "neutral."

"The term is far from neutral, given that it was popularized by anti-immigrant restrictionists and recommended for use by Republican strategist Frank Luntz in an effort to encourage an understanding of immigrants as 'criminals' and create a politically useful division among voters," Novoa states in her letter."
http://racerelations.about.com/b/2012 ... erm-illegal-immigrant.htm

Howard Zinn in 2006, "Ironically, having just gone through its own revolution, the United States was fearful of having revolutionaries in its midst. France had recently overthrown its monarchy. Irish rebels were protesting against British rule, and the new U.S. government was conscious of ?dangerous foreigners??Irish and French?in the country. In 1798, Congress passed legislation lengthening the residence requirement for becoming a citizen from five to fourteen years. It also authorized the President to deport any alien he regarded as dangerous to the public safety.
There was virulent anti-Irish sentiment in the 1840s and ?50s,especially after the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, which killed a million people and drove millions abroad, most of them to the United States. ?No Irish Need Apply? symbolized this prejudice. It was part of that long train of irrational fear in which one generation of immigrants, now partly assimilated, reacts with hatred to the next. Take Irish-born Dennis Kearney, who became a spokesman for anti-Chinese prejudice. His political ambitions led him and the California Workingmen?s Party to adopt the slogan ?The Chinese Must Go.?
The Chinese had been welcome in the 1860s as cheap labor for the building of the transcontinental railroad, but now they were seen, especially after the economic crisis of 1873, as taking away jobs from the native born. This sentiment was turned into law with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which, for the first time in the nation?s history, created the category of ?illegal? immigrants. Before this, there was no border control. Now Chinese, desperate to change their lives, tried to evade the act by crossing over from Mexico. Some learned to say ?Yo soy Mexicano.? But violence against them continued, as whites, seeing their jobs go to ill-paid Chinese, reacted with fury. In Rock Springs, Wyoming, in the summer of 1885, whites attacked 500 Chinese miners, massacring twenty-eight of them in cold blood.
In the East, Europeans were needed to work in the garment factories, the mines, the textile mills, or as laborers, stonecutters, ditch diggers. The immigrants poured in from Southern and Eastern Europe, from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, and the Balkans. There were five million immigrants in the 1880s, four million in the 1890s. From 1900 to 1910, eight million more arrived.
These newcomers faced vicious hostility. A typical comment in the Baltimore Sun: ?The Italian immigrant would be no more objectionable than some others were it not for his singularly bloodthirsty disposition, and frightful temper and vindictiveness.? New York City?s Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham insisted that ?half of the criminals? in New York City in 1908 were Jews.
Woodrow Wilson?s decision to bring the United States into the First World War brought widespread opposition. To suppress this,the government adopted legislation?the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act?which led to the imprisonment of almost a thousand people. Their crime was to protest, by speech or writing, U.S. entrance into the war. Another law provided for the deportation of aliens who opposed organized government or advocated the destruction of property.
After the war, the lingering super-patriotic atmosphere led to more hysteria against the foreign born, intensified by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In 1919, after the explosion of a bomb in front of the house of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, a series of raids were carried out against immigrants. Palmer?s agents picked up 249 noncitizens of Russian birth, many of whom had lived in this country a long time, put them on a transport, and deported them to Soviet Russia. Among them were the anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. J. Edgar Hoover, at that time a young agent of the Department of Justice, personally supervised the deportations.
Shortly after, in January 1920, 4,000 persons in thirty-three cities were rounded up and held in seclusion for long periods of time.They were brought into secret hearings, and more than 500 of them were deported. In Boston, Department of Justice agents,aided by local police, arrested 600 people by raiding meeting halls or by invading their homes in the early morning. They were handcuffed, chained together, and marched through the city streets. It was in this atmosphere of jingoism and anti-foreign hysteria that the Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put on trial after a robbery and murder at a Massachusetts shoe factory, found guilty by an Anglo-Saxon judge and jury, and sentenced to death.
With the increased nationalist and anti-foreign sentiment, Congress in 1924 passed a National Origins Quota Act. This set quotas that encouraged immigration from England, Germany,and Scandinavia but strictly limited immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe.
Following World War II, the Cold War atmosphere of anti-communist hysteria brought about the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which set quotas of 100 immigrants for each country in Asia. Immigrants from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany could take up 70 percent of the annual immigration quota.The act also revived, in a virulent way, the anti-alien legislation of 1798, creating ideological grounds for the exclusion of immigrants and the treatment of all foreign-born residents, who could be deported for any ?activities prejudicial to the public interest? or ?subversive to national security.? Noncitizens suspected of radical ideas were rounded up and deported.
The great social movements of the Sixties led to a number of legislative reforms: voting rights for African Americans, healthcare for senior citizens and for the poor, and a law abolishing the National Origins Quota system and allowing 20,000, immigrants from every country.
But the respite did not last.
In 1995, the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed, with the deaths of 168 people. Although the two men convicted of the crime were native-born Americans, the following year President Bill Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which contained especially harsh provisions for foreign-born people. For immigrants as well as for citizens,the act reintroduced the McCarthy-era principle of guilt by association. That is, people could be put in jail?or, if foreign born, deported?not for what they actually did, but for giving support to any group designated as ?terrorist? by the Secretary of State. The government could deny visas to people wanting to enter the United States if they were members of any such group, even if the actions of the group supported by the individual were perfectly legal. Under the new law, a person marked for deportation had no rights of due process, and could be deported on the basis of secret evidence.
Clinton?s signing of this act reaffirmed that the targeting of immigrants and depriving them of constitutional rights were not policies simply of the Republican Party but also of the Democratic Party, which in the military atmosphere of World War I and the Cold War had joined a bipartisan attack on the rights of both native and foreign born.
In the wake of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, President George Bush declared a ?war on terrorism.? A climate of fear spread across the nation, in which many foreign-born persons became objects of suspicion. The government was now armed with new legal powers by the so-called Patriot Act of 2001, which gave the Attorney General the power to imprison any foreign-born person he declared a ?suspected terrorist.? He need not show proof; it all depends on his say-so. And such detained persons may be held indefinitely, with no burden of proof on the government and no hearing required. The act was passed with overwhelming Democratic and Republican support. In the Senate, only one person, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against it.
In the excited atmosphere created by the ?war on terrorism,? it was predictable that there would follow violence against foreign-born people. For instance, just four days after the 9/11 events, a forty-nine-year-old Sikh American who was doing landscaping work outside his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, was shot and killed by a man shouting, ?I stand for America all the way.? In February 2003, a group of teenagers in Orange County, California, attacked Rashid Alam, an eighteen-year-old Lebanese-American, with bats and golf clubs. He suffered a broken jaw, stab wounds, and head injuries.
Shortly after 9/11, as documented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch, Muslims from various countries were picked up, held for various periods of time in tiny, windowless cells, often beaten and abused. As The New York Times reported, ?Hundreds of noncitizens were swept up on visa violations in the weeks after 9/11, held for months in a much-criticized federal detention center in Brooklyn as ?persons of interest? to terror investigators, and then deported.
?Muslims became a special target of surveillance and arrest.Thousands were detained. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis told of one man, who, even before September 11, was arrested on secret evidence. When a federal judge found there was no reason to conclude the man was a threat to national security, the man was released. However, after September 11, the Department of Justice, ignoring the judge?s finding, imprisoned him again, holding him in solitary confinement twenty-three hours a day, not allowing his family to see him.
As I write this, Republicans and Democrats are trying to work out a compromise on the rights of immigrants. But in none of these proposals is there a recognition that immigrants deserve the same rights as everyone else. Forgetting, or rather, ignoring the indignation of liberty-loving people at the building of the Berlin Wall, and the exultation that greeted its fall, there will be a wall built at the southern borders of California and Arizona. I doubt that any national political figure will point out that this wall is intended to keep Mexicans out of the land that was violently taken from Mexico in the War of 1846-1848.
Only the demonstrators in cities across the country are reminding us of the words on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor: ?Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.? In the wave of anger against government action in the Sixties, cartoons were drawn showing the Statue of Liberty blindfolded. The blindfolds remain, if only symbolically, until we begin to act, yes, as if ?No Human Being Is Illegal.?
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2663:no-human-being-is-illegal

1. we must think of future generations.
2. http://www.njcleanenergy.com/reip
3. explore feasibility http://www.njcleanenergy.com/renewabl ... power-feasibility-studies
4. http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/ ... ne-Sandy-tests-solar-wind.
5. "Hence, the Northeast?s wind and solar farms evoked little public anxiety this week when Hurricane Sandy hit ? unlike the nuclear and fossil fuel infrastructure. Safety officials kept a careful eye on the nuclear power plants and three were shut down in New Jersey and New York. And the smell of natural gas in any flooded areas drew quick attention from those who understood the danger." http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/r ... -renewable-energy-systems
6. "The study cited offshore wind and solar facilities as one potential example. They could be sited in areas that are initially more expensive, but less subject to large reductions in power plant output resulting from climate change, the report said." http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13 ... -according-to-new-report/
7. We won't have a "choice." The next storm may wipe out power for weeks, months. We can't afford to keep rebuilding. Einstein says, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting DIFFERENT results." We are at a crossroads. In the next power outage, I do not want to have this discussion again. I want to be on our way to sustainable renewable power. I don't want to be seeing gas lines. I want to see the US moving away from dependance on fossil fuels. We ought to be growing our own local foods, moving towards urban gardening and making our communities more sustainable.
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No person is illegal.
They're undocumented.
It's the 21st century. Borders don't even exist anymore for corporations. Companies can just move their businesses overseas but people can't? It's a double standard. Then the Supreme Court says corporations are people. They can't have it both ways.
People from other countries leave ther homelands because they can't support their families since most of the work in their homeland is maquiladoras or sweatshops (owned by USA companies). So the people move to the USA and send their money back to their families.
Many undocumented immigrants are exploited here in the USA. They're underpaid, abused and overworked. They have no labor protections and their bosses often exploit that by not paying them what they agreed on or by threatening to contact INS. The undocumented person lives their lives in fear and often are forced to act subservient so they don't ruffle any feathers. It's a sad existence. Undocumented immigrants should have the same rights as "citizens." Just because I was born here doesn't mean I should have more rights than someone next to me who was born somewhere else.

It's not about the size of the dogs. It's the rules. And if one dog owner sees another dog owner with their dogs off of a leash then the other dog owner thinks it's okay. The ordinance does not define the weight of the dog.
You're right. Cars are a problem too. pedestrian right of ways at crosswalks needs to be enforced as well.

Port Liberte has underground power lines. Port Liberte was without power for at least a couple of weeks after Hurricane Sandy.

We need sustainable renewable energy (i.e. solar, wind power).

Ah! Great idea about photos! I literally saw a young (30 year old) African American Woman today with her small dog off the leash. I was rushing my child to school. I told her that the dogs need to be on leashes. She just shrugged. I said I was going to call the cops. She said "go ahead." And I asked her name and she just shook her head. I couldn't call the cops because we were in a rush. But you're right! Next time, I'll take her photo! THANK YOU.
I re-posted my signs on the bulletin boards. Let's see if anyone takes them down again.

We go to Summit Auto.
But, I don't know if Rich does European Cars.

brewster wrote:
"I'll just bite off one piece of this turd. It's pure idiocy to create pressure to use public transport when the trans hudson rails are already strained far beyond capacity. It's like turning up the flame high under a boiler with no exhaust valve. Do it the other way around, create capacity THEN create pressure to use it!"
"turd" "idiocy"
Why do you have to be so mean and hurtful. No one has talked to me like that since grammar school. FYI: I was bullied in grammar school.
My plan has other components than just public transportation. There is a car pooling.
What is your solution/recommendation? I am interested in having a respectful discourse but I don't appreciate being treated so harshly.
Peace, Arcy

Wow! This thread is so refreshing. I appreciate reading people's awareness of the need to repair the Pulaski (ala Minnesota Bridge circa summer 2007) and Christie's destruction of the Arc tunnel (although I hear there are explorations for a new tunnel (won't be done until after the Pulaski Skyway closure).
Why I support the northbound closure of the Pulaski Skyway.
I support the closure of the Pulaski skyway.
The Pulaski skyway is in need of drastic repair. I support the DOT's decision. In fact, they should fix it immediately instead of waiting for the Super Bowl.
NJ needs to stop being so dependent on cars and fossil fuels. If anything, we learned from Sandy that we need more sustainable alternatives immediately (like yesterday).
Here is are some idea:
1. Discounted parking at Newark/Secaucus train stations, bus stops and Bergen Co. light rail stations for car-poolers from the suburbs
2. Additional trains (How about an ARC tunnel? Oh, Christie squashed that idea).
3. Shuttles/buses from suburbs and local areas who normally commute over Pulaski Skyway.
4. Limiting alternate thoroughfare to emergency, buses and car pools.
5. Increasing tolls at Holland and Lincoln tunnel to $20 for single passengers and giving a hearty discount for car pools (the current $3).
6. Raise the New Jersey Gas tax. Our state has the lowest gas tax.
7. Hire DOT workers and NOT consultants. DOT workers actually cost less than consultants.
8. Possibly shutting the Pulaski skyway down to vehicles forever and making it a park/bicycle pathway.
The "keep the Pulaski Skyway Open" drum beat, is reactionary and not very progressive. We need innovative solution-oriented measures for the future. We need to expand public transportation and stop relying on foreign oil.
(full disclosure: I have the Pulaski Skyway tattooed on my arm so I think I have authority on this subject :) ).

i'm frustrated because some dog owners take their dogs off leashes and let them walk around the hamilton park (even in the pet-free parts). i've confronted these dog owners saying, "even if your dog is well trained, some other dog owner will see you letting your dogs run with no leash and they will take their untrained dogs off the leash." they would agree and then i'd see them a few days later doing the same thing. usually around 9am and in the afternoon.
i made handmade signs. someone took them off the park bulletin boards.
God forbid some dog attack me, my son or some other resident.
I'm concerned.

? 90-16. Use of leash in public places.

No person who owns, keeps or harbors any dog shall suffer or permit it to be upon the public streets or in any of the public places of the city unless such dog is accompanied by a responsible person and is securely confined and controlled by one adequate leash not more than six feet long.

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