Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Mosque Developer Can't Manage Existing Holdings Yet Wants Federal Grant to Build Near Ground Zero

It has been reported that the developers looking to build the mosque near Ground Zero are requesting a $5 million grant from the LMDC to help finance the build. Hopefully the LMDC has done its homework as the developers do not have such a great track record when it comes to managing properties. According to Mike Daly of The Record “Rauf' is the owner (along with Daisy Khan) of a slum apartment building in Union City, NJ. The local mayor refers to Rauf as a slumlord. Last week, a judge placed the building in the hands of a custodial receiver until code violations were fixed. (There were more than 200 violations.) The place didn't even have working fire alarms. While Rauf and Khan were out raising money for their Ground Zero mosque, the poor people of Union City were forced to live with rats.” (See full article below) Now whether you believe the mosque should be built or not do you really think that management of this property would be any better. Hopefully the LMDC will consider this when making their decision about the grant. The mayor and all the others fully supporting this effort should have at least done the same fact checking as Mr. Daly. Again they have every right to build the mosque but they definitely do not appear to be the people that they present themselves to be and they definitely do not deserve any type of City, State or Federal support of this effort.

Kelly: Mosque developer misses chance to come clean on apartments

http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/103027309_Cleric_misses_his_chance_to_come_clean_on_repairs.html

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

THE CUT AND PASTE GENERATION

More and more states are on the verge of bankruptcy and the federal government just continues to toss good money after bad. Has anyone wondered why we are in this situation? Here is our take. The problem is that we have become a cut and paste society and original thinking has all but disappeared from this generation. Just ask any student when was the last time they visited a library to do real research. Why should they when with the click of a cursor they can get all of the information they need. Ask them to write an essay and see how many spelling errors or "text abbreviations" you find. And you can forget about grammar all together. But why do they need to worry when they all have spell and grammar check on their computers. And it is not only the student's fault. School rankings are based on success in standardized tests. So students are taught to pass those tests. Shortcuts are instituted to bypass anything that is not covered on these standardized tests. And the problems just get worse and worse. An entire industry now exists to teach students to pass High School entrance exams and SAT tests. Shortcuts....shortcuts....shortcuts. And this extends to the business world as well. These same students have become today's executives. The majority of who have never worked their way up the corporate ladder. No real on the job training and more importantly no common sense. Personal gain overshadowing corporate responsibility. And why not! This is a generation that has been able to fast forward most of their lives while skipping over or deleting anything that has gotten in their way. A generation of "Guitar Heroes" who can't read a note of music. A generation who do not know the value of a dollar and whose lives are "PRICELESS" or who "WON"T LEAVE HOME" without their credit cards And these are the people who are now making the corporate decisions that have brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy. They are the same people taking these ideas into government who think that a $10 trillion national debt is not a concern.

The same people who pass bills without reading them.So we will have to work till we die as our 401K's disappear and Social Security goes bankrupt.

As the new cut and paste generation takes the place of the old cut and run generation before them We can only pray that the day will come when they begin to realize that Real Life is not something you watch on MTV. And hopefully that day comes soon.

Monday, November 1, 2010

A GOOD TRAILER DOES NOT GUARANTEE A GOOD MOVIE...DON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN

As it has been recently reported candidates for office in this midterm election will spend over $4 billion dollars on their campaigns.

That's right not $4 million...$4 billion and this is not even a presidential election year.

And that's just what they are going to spend; God only knows how much they have actually raised.

Maybe it's just me but in these tough economic times there are definitely better ways to spend this money.

People can't put food on their tables, unemployment is near record highs, schools are having their budgets slashed, the country's infrastructure is falling apart and we are trillions in debt but candidates can spend $4 billion attempting to get elected.

How can we expect any fiscal responsibility from any of them?

And this is just one side of the coin.

You then you have the millions that has been raised that will just go into campaign war chests for future elections or even worse spent on legal fees for when quite a few of those elected get into trouble.

And this process is repeated every two years with the numbers jumping during a presidential election.

So much for campaign finance reform.

They say that money can't buy you love but it is obvious they think that it can buy an election.

And it doesn't say much about what they think about the electorate.

Half of these ads just bash opponents with very little regard to honesty.

To say that they stretch the truth is an understatement.

The other half exaggerate what the incumbents have accomplished or overstate what the challengers will do if elected.

But they must think that it is worth it because the spending increases with every election.

And it is our fault if we let these ads impact our decisions.

If an incumbent is not doing the job vote him or her out.

If you only see a challenger come election time disregard him or her.

We need to put people in office who are involved with our community and care about “our needs”

We need hands on people of action.

As they say a good trailer does not guarantee a good movie.

Tomorrow let’s tell them we are smarter then they think.

If we don’t we will wind up with another two years of broken promises and little change.