Once in a while, Jersey gets something right.

On my way to work over the past couple days, I’ve seen the Orange Jumpsuit Guys picking up and bagging litter on Route 78.  They are “minimum custody inmates”, and they comprise but one of 108 work details of the Community Labor Assistance Program in the state.

The program involves the use of inmates to perform numerous public service projects, including “the development of the safe play areas for children, building rehabilitation, general maintenance work, landscaping of state parks, emergency/disaster relief and removing litter from highways….”

Having inmates pick up litter on the highways is a cooperative venture between the Department of Corrections and the Department of Transportation.  Over the past couple days, the prisoner detail has picked up enough trash to fill hundreds of trash bags, which are later picked up by a truck.

Given that New Jersey has plenty of prisoners and plenty of work that needs doing, this seems like a rare win-win situation.  I have no doubt that the inmates appreciate not being locked up, but, at the same time, spending the day picking up God-knows-what people toss from their car windows is hard enough work to serve as a disincentive to some of them to return to prison.

Speaking of disincentives, I wish that the pigs who throw the stuff from their car windows could spend a couple weeks working with the Orange Jumpsuit Guys.

At about ten minutes before closing time in Donovan’s Pub in Jersey City, Joe Crook enters the bar, pulls a gun on Mike the owner/bartender and says, “Empty the register.  Now!”

Mike:  “OK, buddy.  Take it easy.  Stay calm.  I’ll cooperate.  Just be careful with that gun.”

Crook:  “Fine.  Hurry up, and no one will get hurt.”

Mike:  (Removes money from register and turns towards Crook)  “Wait a minute.  What do you think you’re doing?”

Crook:  “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?  I’m holding up the place, fer Chrissake.”

Mike:  “I know that, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Crook:

Mike:  “You just lit a cigarette!”

Crook:  “Yeah, so what?”

Mike:  “No smoking allowed.  It’s the new law.  I’m going to have to ask you to take that outside.”

Crook:  “Don’t you see that I have a gun in my hand?”

Mike:  “Sure.  I see that, but I also see that you have a cigarette in the other hand, and you’ll have to take that outside.”

Crook:  “You must be out of your mind.”

Mike:  “Sorry, but you can’t smoke in here.  It’s the law, man.”

Crook:  “Don’t hand me that crap.  This is a goddamned robbery.”

Mike:  “I know that, but I’m going to have to ask you again to take that cigarette outside, and be sure to move at least twenty-five feet away from the door.”

Crook:  “Jesus Christ!  OK, I’ll put the damned thing out.  Now hand over the money.”

Mike:  “I’m sorry, but I can’t offer you an ash tray.”

Crook:  “You must some kind of nutcase.  You want me to go outside to smoke, and then what?  I’m supposed to come back inside to finish this robbery?”

Mike:  “Suit yourself, but you may have to hurry.  I’m closing in seven minutes.”

Crook:  “Just my goddamned luck.  Of all the joints in the city to stick up, I hadda pick one run by a kook.  (Walks to the door and flicks the cigarette into the street)  OK, happy now?  Hand over the cash.”

Mike: (Hands Crook the money)

Crook:  “What’s this shit?  There’s only twenty-three bucks here.  Where’s the rest of it?”

Mike:  “There is no ‘rest of it’.  That’s it.  That’s all of it.”

Crook:  “Don’t bullshit me.  It’s Saturday night, and you’re telling me you only took in twenty-three dollars?”

Mike:  “Yep.  All my former customers are smokers.  I’m gonna have to sell the place and get a job.”

Crook:  “Man, that stinks.  Waddya gonna do?”

Mike:  “I’m thinking about running for the State Assembly.  A guy can make some real money there.”

Crook:  “Damn, I had no idea.  I haven’t been reading the papers.  Here, take the money back.  Do I have time for a beer?”

Mike:  “Sure, just as long as you don’t smoke.”

Crook:  “Tell me more about that State Assembly thing.”

HAPPY EASTER!

 

Note:  The teeny picture is evidence that I am still trying to figure out the image thing in WordPress.

Check this out, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.  Most impressive.

The background music is by Duane Eddy playing with the Ventures.

This post is dedicated to Harvey, Denny, Ken, Randy, Ward, my buddies Ron, Walt, Sol (WWII, and who will be 100 next month), and most of all to my friend Paulie (a Tin Can Sailor) who is hanging tough in the hospital following some heavy-duty heart surgery.

Thanks to my friend Brian, the Air Force Vet

Most people I know break their ass every day to make a living and put a little away for retirement.  Earning money is much easier for some.  Indeed, we all probably know a select few people who manage to earn money by not doing much of anything.

However, some celebrities earn a fortune each year for doing absolutely nothing.  Indeed, they generate a shitload of money even though they’re dead as doornails.

For example, the highest earning dead celebrity made $45 million in 2005.  Who do you think that might be?

Hint:  It’s not John Lennon.  In 2005, he only put a paltry $22 million in Yoko’s pocketbook.

The answer, along with the identity of the other top eight dead celebrity money machines, is here.

via The Presurfer

A spokesperson from Governor Corzine’s office announced that, on the heels of the passage of New Jersey’s Smoking Ban, the Governor has signed into law, The Flatulent Emission Reduction Act.

The new law prohibits flatulent emissions in restaurants, bars, public buildings, and workplaces.  Specifically, the statute provides, in pertinent part:

New Jersey’s Smoking Ban, which outlaws smoking indoors in public places, including bars and restaurants (except, of course, in Atlantic City’s Casinos), takes effect on April 15^th.  No longer will the owner of an establishment be able to choose to permit smoking or not; the state had made that choice for him.

Which means that smokers have been relegated to the great outdoors if they wish to smoke.  Freezing cold, driving snow, pouring rain – it doesn’t matter, “Outside with you, filthy swine!”

Today, just three days before the law takes effect, the Department of Health and Senior Services issued a regulation stating that smokers cannot be within twenty-five feet of the door of the establishment.  The feces head who wrote the regulation must have had large office buildings in mind, because he/she obviously has not spent much time visiting about a gazillion Jersey saloons and restaurants that have a frontage of about twenty-five feet.

I suppose that means that smokers have to go onto someone else’s property to stay far enough away from the door to legally smoke.  Perhaps they should stand in the street in order to satisfy the twenty-five feet rule?  But wait, there are other laws that would prevent that.

This Nanny State Crap is consistent with the recent hike in the cigarette tax that was proposed as part of the state budget..  Enlighten New Jersey ferreted out the real deal on the cigarette tax hike.  It’s purpose is not to increase revenues to combat the scandalously high deficit in this state, which has resulted from corruption, governmental inefficiency, and profligate spending, but rather its unspoken purpose is to tax smokers out of their habits.  Indeed the budget forecasted a net revenue loss of $149 million as a result of the tax hike.

This is yet more social engineering brought to you by the Beautiful People, many of whom, by the way, enjoy a good cigar and made damned sure that “cigar bars” remained legal.  (Please spare me the increased-healthcare-costs-resulting-from-smoking crapola unless Corzine is also willing to tax hell out of potato chips, ice cream and Twinkies.)