Trentonian Zings Us Again

From the newspaper that brought you the headline “Roasted Nuts” when a psychiatric hospital burned down yesterday comes “Prosecutor’s dick causes wreck, but victims barely paid” when a prosecutor’s detective is involved in a car accident.

Ho ho! I get it.

Thanks, Jon.

Trentonian Columnist: City Needs Plan For Obama Assassination

Trenton is a city in New Jersey, and it has two newspapers, one of which is The Trentonian. (You follow me here?) And The Trentonian has a columnist named L.A. Parker.

And, today, the columnist with a name disturbingly close to the company that brought us L.A. Lights shoes wrote a column titled Activist: City needs plan for Obama assassination. Oh, yes, what will happen to Trenton if its most famous native son, Barack Obama, is assassinated? They better have a contingency plan!

Anyway, here’s the best paragraph:

Whether you believe James Earl Ray acted alone or Lee Harvey Oswald fired without conspiracy or that John Wilkes Booth delivered a monological historical intervention, assassination remains a showstopper of U.S. human energy.

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Farmers Ride Into Trenton On Tractors

Yesterday, New Jersey farmers protested a possible shutdown of the state Department of Agriculture. You see, people like to complain about big government, but when somebody — a Democrat no less! — wants to shrink the government, people lash out.

But you all know that. What made yesterday’s protest special was there were farmers protesting, meaning people rode into Trenton on tractors, brought pet pigs and lambs and generally made New Jersey look like a state full of slack-jawed yokels. Which it is, but not because of farmers.

Farmers are worried about losing their “advocate” in state government, and one man even said “he welcomes communications from the Agriculture Department because such outreach brings helpful information for his business.” Outreach only the state can provides.

And now the fun part: There is a photo gallery at the Courier-Post’s site.

Crack, Weed, Nicotine Make Local News

Oh, so apparently this story is gaining a lot of traction: A 7-year-old in Trenton was found with crack in school; his 10-year-old sister turned him in. This was a little different than the usual minuscule amount kids manage to steal from idiot parents and bring into school for show and tell. Our little 7-year-old had seventy grams of cocaine.

The kid won’t be punished — hooray! — but his parents have been arrested on drug charges and endangering the welfare of a child. A commenter on Action News‘ website plainly states: “does anyone who has made it out of the inner city care enough 2 put their successes aside 2 mentor 1 child 2day honestly it does no good 4 the white community 2 step up 4obvious reasons 2 numerous 2 list as a community both blk n wht n other we r in trouble.” Uh, yes.

The Eagles’ Mike Patterson was recently charged with possession of a drug of a less dangerous nature, i.e. marijuana, reefer, pot, ganja, cannabis and about 150 other stupid names. The Daily News‘ John Smallwood goes and says he shouldn’t be smoking pot because of Andy Reid’s sons!

Considering his family’s ordeal, it would be difficult for Reid to simply dismiss Patterson’s actions and let them drift away. For Reid to do nothing to Patterson would be a tacit acknowledgment that drug use isn’t that big a deal, and really, how can he possibly do that? Yet, if Reid hands down an overly harsh penalty on Patterson, would it be viewed as him allowing his personal issues to influence his professional duties?

Sigh. Meanwhile, Philly Edge points to a debate about a legal drug: Some snooty teenagers in Bensalem want to take away our right to smoke in parks and playgrounds! If not the suburbs, there’s nowhere else to smoke! The kids are part of the Extreme Service and Intergenerational Training Experience, and we all know how much extreme power that group has. Guess we’ll have to be content to smoke elsewhere. Who knew you were even allowed to smoke at a playground anyway?

Washington’s Crossing Still Remembered By Losers

Yesterday was not only the annual Pagan Tree Festival, it was also the anniversary of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, where he braved icy conditions (and piranhas) to go to Trenton, where he was shot. But then he recovered and killed the Hessians, German mercenaries who were, apparently, incompetent.

One thing they weren’t, though, was drunk, as the Courier Times pointed out yesterday. The Hessians weren’t drunk, but they sure were good people!

Fischer writes that the Hessians also were not mercenaries per se. Rulers of small principalities in Europe often hired out their well-trained armies to other nations.

The soldiers had a profit motive as well, making money not just from their regular pay, but from whatever they could plunder.

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A Nation In Crisis Needs You Now, Sisqo

In recent years, horrible columns with incessant whining of conservative commentators decrying the “nanny state” have risen in numbers that no graph could possibly contain. (Plus, I’m fairly sure conservative commentators are against functions, too, so there’s no point in plotting it anyway.) These columns have risen in such great amounts because commentators have run out of topics, yes. But they’ve also risen because, uh, lots and lots of people are telling us how to live our lives so we don’t manage to kill ourselves.

Some regulations by a government make sense. For example, we have building codes so we don’t all drive our cars into a new barn on Walnut Street. (Or something like that.) We have seatbelt laws because we’re too dumb to wear seatbelts. We have drug laws so the government can oppress us. But sometimes the laws seem to go too far, depriving us of our American right to eat ourselves into a 500-pound ball of fat and die of heart disease at 45. (I think that’s how Patrick Henry died.)

There is an interesting debate to be had, though; if making things like smoking a minor inconvenience actually saves peoples’ lives, does the government have a moral obligation (for lack of a better term) of enforcing these laws? Or does this encroach too much on our own liberty?

Yes, there is an interesting debate to be had, but not here. That’s because this new law is about banning thongs and baggy pants in Trenton.

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In Trenton, Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number

The Trenton Thunder is known for a couple things. Yeah, they’re a Yankees minor league team, so when Yanks players are on rehab assignments, they sometimes pitch in Trenton. (Roger Clemens did earlier this year.) They also have a golden retriever as a bat, uh, dog. He had a bobblehead of himself this year.

But whatever aphrodisiac the Trenton Thunder have (or possibly has), they might want to start bottling it up and selling it; it might be a more lucrative than minor league baseball. So far this year, a whopping 11 couples have gotten engaged at Thunder games, a team record. (This stat is, sadly, not in the new SABR Baseball List and Record Book.) It’s unclear if these couples all first met at a Trenton Thunder game and are picking a cute place to get engaged or if they’re just yahoos who get engaged at a baseball game.

But one thing is clear: There was a little near-Lolita action going on in at least one of the new happy engaged couples.

The latest engagement took place Thursday for Jessica Margerum, 20, of Bristol Township, who goes by Jessyka, and Michael Birbeck, 26, of Falls Township. As the big question appeared on the scoreboard, Michael lowered to one knee, and Jessica’s screams alerted the fans around them.

The pair became friends four to five years ago, but waited to date until Margerum finished high school. Birbeck, a youth minister at First Presbyterian Church of Levittown, felt it was inappropriate to date a member of his youth group. Spending more time together, they realized they were meant for a deeper connection.

Congratulations, Jessica Jessyka! Your future husband wanted you from the time he first laid eyes on you when you were 15.

Love hits a home run at Thunder games [Bucks County Courier Times]

Crime Now Legal In Trenton (Wasn’t It Already?)

Mercer County — home of Trenton, Princeton and the 79th-ranked per capita income among all American counties — has come up with an ingenious way to deal with a rising crime rate.

Crime is now, apparently, legal.

There’s such a backlog of cases in Mercer County that Superior Court Judge Maria Sypek is considering letting some alleged criminals go since they’ve been robbed of their right to a speedy trial. There are around 800 cases awaiting a grand jury hearing, and, well, Stephanie March can only do so much, people.

The police are doing their part to legalize crime by not showing up at grand jury hearings. A word to the wise: Best to stay out of Trenton for the next few months. Not to mention Princeton.

Officers Skip Hearings; Judge Might Let Defendents Go [AP/NBC 10]

Have The Lambs Stopped Screaming?

Ah, so what does an juvenile correction facility/school do if there’s a riot of Bloods gang members? That’s a hard one, right?

Well, if you’re in Trenton, it’s actually fairly simple: You strap ‘em in to the electric chair!

Now, now, people, just calm down. This is an electric chair with no juice attached to it — so I guess it’s just more of a “chair” — but it does restrain the kids and include a helmet and face shield.

Alright, that still seems kinda bad. But certainly it’s been deemed appropriate by all the right, uh, people who declare these things humane or not. I mean, I’m sure this is just common knowledge and the Trentonian is blowing it out of proportion. Right? Right?

A source in the institution, who asked not to be identified, said, “They’re for the ones that are assaultive. One was banging his head against the wall. They’re kept in a room and they’re checked on.

“It’s better than the old way it used to be done — they used to just hogtie ‘em right onto a bed. So I guess it’s more compassionate, doing it this way.” [...]

In another development, corrections officers and other staffers have been made to sign notices warning them not to talk to the press about the discontent burbling inside the jail/school….

“They (administration) put out these things where everybody has to sign, that they can’t talk to the media, or your public representatives, either — your senators, your assemblymen,” he said. “You can’t divulge any information. Or you could lose your job.”

Well, maybe this chair isn’t so bad — another source says the masks are mainly to stop the inmates from spitting — but that whole second part just makes things a little, erhm, fishy?

Controlling the chaos [Trentonian]

Quickies: The Write-In Stuff

• Hey, the write-in candidate supported by the city’s Democratic machine might’ve lost, as Tony Payton edged ahead of Emilio Vazquez by 18 votes, with 11 write-in votes still to be counted. And now, for the exciting sequel to the election: The Court Challenge To The Election Results! [Daily News]

• The lawyer for the widow of William Berkeyheiser said he wants to keep the wrongful death suit against the private investigation firm who helped Berkeyheiser’s killer find him in Bucks County. He cited the “power of the press.” Also, he really wants to know who won those Legion games over the summer, and if the trial’s not in Bucks County, how will he be able to find out? [Bucks County Courier Times]

• GM is capping gas prices! Whoo! Er, wait, but you have to buy a new car from GM. And only in Florida and California. And you have to sign up for OnStar. I retract my whoo. [AP/Yahoo!]

• The Trenton mayoral race is over, but the bitching between everyone involved continues. [Trentonian]