] As of last week, there have been no accidents since the
] reconfiguration, Bishop said. But he added he considers
] the intersection "an accident waiting to happen."
]
] His point was underscored by a March 7 incident in which
] a line of six cars driving east on business Route 33 all
] veered into the lane of oncoming westbound traffic.
]
] Bishop said the driver of the lead car went into the
] wrong lane, and the other drivers following closely also
] went the same way.

God, I miss New Jersey...

SIGNS SAY SOMETHING'S WRONG ON BUSINESS ROUTE 33

] An airline passenger who had two "No War with Iraq" signs
] in his suitcase says the federal security agent who
] opened his luggage inserted a note criticizing his
] "anti-American attitude."
]
] "I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have
] received this message," said Seth Goldberg, 41, of
] Cranbury, New Jersey.
]
] Federal Transportation Security Administration officials
] are investigating.

CNN.com - Passenger finds 'chilling' note from bag handler - Mar. 16, 2003

] State Sen. Leonard T. Connors Jr. and Assemblymen Jeffrey
] W. Moran and Christopher J. Connors, all R-Ocean, are
] asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to
] investigate how someone was able to videotape on the
] grounds of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant without
] being noticed.
]
] In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Thomas J.
] Ridge, dated Wednesday and made public yesterday, the
] lawmakers write: "The inquiry is to report to your
] Department of Homeland Security an alarming security
] issue at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and
] urge your immediate help to take priority steps to
] improve security at this facility.
]
] "The video depicts a vehicle entering the Oyster Creek
] grounds without being confronted by security forces. The
] vehicle drives around the first inner perimeter of the
] plant and up to the loading dock, again without
] challenge. The (News 12 New Jersey) team contends that
] this vehicle, a truck that could carry a large payload of
] explosives, was close enough to do considerable damage to
] the plant if, in fact, this staged event were a real
] terrorist attack," the legislators wrote.

Rattle, you'd better bust out your KI pills too...

] Following in California's footsteps, New Jersey
] legislators are poised to approve a bill that would allow
] embryonic stem-cell research.

Wired News: Stem-Cell Research OK in N.J.?

Presented by the UMDNJ Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Newark Division

Show up at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (on South Orange Ave in Newark) to attend a free one-day symposium. The keynote speaker will be Eric Drexler, founder of the Foresight Institute. Lecture topics include:

Nanotechnology and the Future of Medicine
Structural DNA Nanotechnology
Making Things Move Using Nanotechnology - Nanomagnets
Tumor Therapy with Actinium-225 Labeled Nanogenerators

Nanotechnology in Biomedical Research

Firefighters planned to set backfires - controlled fires that burn away the brush that could fuel the larger blaze - around the perimeter to contain the main fire. They said they expected the fire to consume between 1,500 and 1,600 acres.

This made for a fun weekend. Its been a few days now, but most of the county still has a burnt pine smell to it. Caused a lot of havoc with the roads.

There was a fire in the early 90's that was much worse.. This one only shut down the Parkway. That one shutdown the Parkway and RT9, the only north/south thrufares in the area. Total and complete chaos.

The area is still very dry, so I expect this will probably happen again before the summer is over.

Fire rages in the New Jersey Pinelands

Unleashed in late spring, 2004, New Jersey’s Black Clouds play bracing rock music characterized by soaring melodies, dynamic arrangements and superior song craft. Hard, loud and impossibly catchy, the band has won a loyal following by lighting up clubs on both sides of the Hudson River. For fans of classic hard rock and alternative, the Black Clouds aim to bring danger, fun and deep lyricism back to rock and roll. To music lovers, nationwide, who have eagerly awaited the return of danceable, unpretentious rock, the Black Clouds have arrived. With a self-financed, self-produced album released in January of 2008, mixed and mastered by Jack Endino, known best for his work with Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney, these four motivated young musicians have set their sights very high. They worked ceaselessly to develop a sound that balances the creativity of indie rock with the professional acumen required to achieve mainstream success. -Patrick Veil

Wow, I've never read Vile sounding so professional. In any event, I got my hands on a copy of "Wishing Well" and listened to it recently. If you're one of those people who is still listening to early '90s grunge rock you should check this out. Its good, and you haven't heard it before, but its exactly what you want to hear.

MySpace.com - The Black Clouds - Monmouth County, New Jersey - Rock / Alternative / Grunge - www.myspace.com/theblackclouds

A raging forest fire, started by what authorities suspect was an errant flare from a military aircraft, burned more than 12,000 acres of Pine Barrens, forced more than 1,000 southern Ocean County residents from their homes Tuesday night, and closed parts of several highways including the Garden State Parkway.

That flare, released by a plane flying over the Warren Grove Gunnery Range, ignited a blaze that, fed by dry weather and whipped by a 30-mph southwest wind, burned close to 20 square miles of forest land and damaged about 50 homes in Barnegat's Brighton at Barnegat, an age-restricted development of prefabricated, modular homes in perhaps Barnegat's most rural neighborhood.

By 10 p.m., the fire had consumed about 19 square miles, according to Bert Plante, a division fire warden with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.

"As of 10 p.m., we have 15 percent of the fire contained," Plante said. "We're hoping that goes up rapidly overnight. We're not going to get a very good damage estimate until daylight hours. It's a crapshoot if we can keep damage under 15,000 acres. The fire is still very active because of the wind."

Gabliks said hundreds of state forest fire workers were called in, along with 150 pieces of equipment with crews from fire companies in Ocean, Monmouth, Atlantic, Burlington and Camden counties.

"It was a usual mission, when aircraft roll in to drop practice bombs and strafe targets on the range," Garcia explained.

As part of the simulated combat, pilots "pop off" flares from ejector tubes in the tails of the aircraft. The extremely hot flares are designed as decoys to attract enemy heat-seeking missiles that otherwise would home in on the aircraft engine exhaust, he said.

The range control crew dispatched its own firefighting equipment when spotters in the range tower detected the blaze, but it got out of control in winds gusting to 27 knots, he said.

Garcia acknowledged the fire could pose problems for the Air Guard, which has faced local community complaints about the range over the years. In fall 2004, another F-16 pilot accidentally discharged his jet's 20 mm gun during a night approach to the range target. Several non-explosive bullets pelted a school on the other side of the parkway in Little Egg Harbor as janitors worked inside. No one was injured then.

This is my home town. This kinda thing actually happens often.

The wail of sirens seemed to come from all directions while planes and helicopters circled constantly overhead, but many residents in Ocean Acres seemed unfazed by the commotion unfolding before them.

Susan and Rick Campanile, who have lived on Mermaid Drive for 30 years, said the frequency of forest fires, especially those in Warren Grove, have almost numbed them to the possibilities of what could happen.

"It always makes you nervous, but you can't do anything," Susan Campanile said.

One year they entertained guests at a cookout as cinders fell from the sky while a fire burned along Route 72. Other times the threat grew so real they hosed down their home as a precaution.

Yesterday, though, the Campaniles merely joined the rest of their neighbors out in the street to watch the smoke plume grow.

Asbury Park Press | 12,000 Acres of Jersey Burn

Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll on nuclear terrorism.

At some point, perhaps after the expenditure of a great amount of money, it will probably be cops like these, and not scientists or defense theorists, who decide where radiation detection should rank on the long and diverse list of counter-terrorism techniques. The Department of Homeland Security recently announced an initiative to experiment with the installation of radiation detection at some bridges, tunnels, roadways, and waterways leading into Manhattan; later, the department hopes to surround other cities. The N.Y.P.D. fears that the sensors might prove to be too costly and would generate too many false alarms. Nearly three hundred thousand cars and trucks cross the George Washington Bridge in both directions on an average day; without an efficient way to process radiation alerts, a single convoy of banana trucks could jam up traffic for hours. "There are a lot of possible concerns that could surface with it," Raymond Kelly, the NYPD's commissioner, told me. Yet, he said, "we see this as something certainly worth trying." Kelly wants to deploy rings of sensors fifty miles or more from New York, so there would be a better chance of spotting an incoming device. In February, he held talks with his counterparts in Connecticut and New Jersey. Still, Kelly said, the entire project remains "very conceptual in nature."

See also this recent conference on the subject. No briefing materials are directly available, but the participant/speaker list is a good set of pointers.

The Unthinkable | The New Yorker

A group of hikers rolled videotape and took photographs as a bear entered their camp at High Point State Park and bit a sleeping counselor, New Jersey wildlife authorities said yesterday as they continued to investigate the incident.

The 19-year-old Pennsylvania counselor, camping with about five other hikers along the Appalachian Trail, suffered raised welts on his left thigh when the 142-pound female bear bit into his sleeping bag around 6:30 a.m. on July 13, authorities said.

Martin McHugh, director of the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, said yesterday that wildlife officials were disturbed by the behavior of the hikers, the boldness of the bear and the fact that the incident was not reported to his office until July 21. It was not until last week that a trap was set at the campsite for the bear, which was captured and killed Friday.

"As soon as the bear entered the camp, the counselors or those in charge should have taken measures to scare it off and not just take photographs and videotape it," said Larry Herrighty, chief of the division's Bureau of Wildlife Management.

Hikers took photos as bear bit teen