Update, 5:00 PM: Snowfall has lightened up, visibility has improved to nearly normal, heavy gusts of wind are far less frequent. We have just under a feet of snow, which indicates that the heaviest precipitation occurred this morning. But it hasn’t stopped. And with a layer of ice under much of the snow, it will be awhile before travel is back to normal.
Today is suitable for a little random weather blogging here in central Arvada … Snow started falling at sometime around 6 AM. I’ve spent the morning working inside, but ventured outside at high noon.
Observations: Blowing snow (heavy at times), visibility is about 100 feet or so (occasionally much less than that), the nearby side streets are barely passable for standard 2-wheel drive vehicles, traffic is exceptionally light and generally slow-going. Outside our house we have 8 inches of snow on the ground, with a few drifts over a foot deep. No sign of letting up. I’m happy to be inside today.
As bad as this storm is, so far it pales in the inevitable comparisons to the December 2006 blizzard and especially to the March 2003 monster snow (we had more than 50 inches outside our Golden apartment).
Mr. Bob has some downtown Denver snow pics from this morning … nothing too substantial yet.
Synopsis
The New York Times Bestseller
Updated with the Latest Scandals
It’s not a joke
New Jersey leads the country in corruption
The Soprano State details the you-couldn’t-make-this-up true story of the corruption that has pervaded New Jersey politics, government, and business for the past thirty years. From Jimmy Hoffa purportedly being buried somewhere beneath the end zone in Giants Stadium, through allegations of a thoroughly corrupt medical and dental university, through Mafia influence at all levels, the Garden State might indeed be better named after the HBO mobsters.
Where else would:
– A state attorney general show up after police pulled over her boyfriend who was driving without a valid license?
– A state senator and mayor of Newark (the same guy) spend thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money on a junket to Rio days before leaving office?
– A politically connected developer hire a prostitute to tape sex acts with his own brother-in-law and then send the tape to his sister?
Only in the Soprano State.
Kirkus Reviews
A pair of seasoned investigative reporters catalogue New Jersey’s epic political dishonesty. Gannett Newspapers Trenton bureau chief Ingle and veteran journalist McClure (Christie Whitman for the People, 1996) demonstrate that, for Garden State pols, there is indeed such a thing as a free lunch-with lots of gravy. They point to the appointed culprits who administer the state’s medical school, the thieves who manage various school districts, the municipalities carrying costly double dippers, long-dead pensioners and unborn employees. Law enforcement is selective, the authors note, with bench and bar contaminated by patronage. As far as the mob is concerned, ethnicity, gender and political affiliation matter not at all. Chiefly by recapping their own investigative articles, Ingle and McClure present a cheerless story of oligarchy and kleptocracy covering the length of the Turnpike from Cape May to Fort Lee, the executive mansion in Princeton to the statehouse in Trenton, horse country and the Pineys, Sinatra’s native turf in Hoboken and Joe Piscopo’s down at the shore. They nail the backroom intrigues in impressive scope and detail. Only occasionally do they weaken their case with faulty evidence, as when they base their claim that there are too many government workers on the national average per square mile, rather than on population; New Jersey is the most densely populated state. The authors close with a few suggestions for improvement. Readers won’t be laughing: The Garden State doesn’t smell too sweet here.
More Reviews and Recommendations
Biography
Bob Ingle is Trenton bureau chief of Gannett Newspapers. Sandy McClure is a veteran political reporter. Their work is read by more than a million people daily.