The local news media are reporting that the West Long Branch Zoning Board vote of 5 to 1 in favor of expanding the Monmouth University campus has been upheld by a State Appellate Panel. Some of the folks living around the university took it upon themselves to fight against this approval, citing petty collusion between the university and township officials. Someone even blasted a local Committeeman because his daughter received an academic scholarship from the university. What a disgraceful charge to levy at the Committeeman…

That’s the problem with local politics in America today - anyone with a voice feels that they are entitled to their day in court and this holds up the progress of the greater good. An article in today’s Asbury Park Press cites that 36 families have been fighting against the expansion of the university…but you do NOT see it listed anywhere that well over 200 families in the town have supported the university and many more families just don’t care either way. I live down the street from the university and while I do not publicly support Monmouth’s desire to expand, I can certainly agree with the vast silent majority in West Long Branch that we don’t mind the expansion.

Now, some people will claim, “Well I live across the street from the university and quality of life is low and blah blah blah.” Sorry, but if you live next a community swimming pool, do you complain that people are swimming there? If you live next to a gym, do you complain that people are coming and going all day to work out? If you live next to a university do you complain that college students are being college students?

No.

And this is obvious - none of these thoughts are new in the debate. The small minority who feel that their opinion outweighs the majority in West Long Branch oftentimes comes back with the statement that they were in town before the “university” was. In this argument, the word “university” is key. In 1994, Monmouth College became Monmouth University. So many of the locals take 1994 as the starting point of the “university” not mentioning that the college was started in 1933.

Yes - this “We were here first” argument HAS been used to defend the minority’s right to blast the university. I’ve even had it used against me in informal discussions about the university with other people in town. It’s mind-boggling, really.

Anyway, congratulations to Monmouth University for winning the right to expand their campus. Best of luck.

The three young men who were falsely accused and publicly abused by disgraced former District Attorney Mike Nifong have filed criminal complaints against him. Good for these guys! A few comments on the overall situation…

College students all over the country know how their civil liberties are trashed on a near-constant basis because the few “bad apples” in the bunch ruin the image for the greater group. As I’ve said time and time again, as an undergraduate I routinely had police officers just open my front door and walk through my house at all hours of the day from the early morning to the late night. It got to the point where it was near-comical. We went so far as to even call the FBI for their help (our reasoning was - when the police are the ones who are breaking the law, who do you call?).

What Mike Nifong did to these boys is criminal. He attempted to prosecute them while KNOWING they were innocent and that the evidence proved them to be innocent. He ruined their college years, he ruined their immediate post-college years, and he greatly damaged the justice system in his district. He’s disgusting and a fraud and he deserves both jail time and to give these boys a just financial sum. Imagine if you were in the place that these boys were in - imagine that you were Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty or Dave Evans.

First, you are falsely accused of rape and while you KNOW you’re innocent, a corrupt system keeps beating you down. Then you have to endure public criticism from the anti-collegiate crowd. Furthermore, you have racist groups threatening to “take care of” your situation if the legal system does not (how are these groups allowed to hold the legal system hostage like that?). Your parents are blowing through millions of dollars to defend you in court because - as we now know in America - you are guilty until you PROVE yourself innocent. Oh, and to top it off - your own SCHOOL convicts you before the justice system by suspending you as soon as you are charged! Another epidemic affecting America’s college campuses are administrators who feel that they are judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to adjudicating off-campus activities. These administrators were not at the event, had second and third had FALSE reports about the event, and still decided to suspend the students.

And this is in America, people!

I hope that Reade, Collin, and Dave take Nifong to the limit. I hope they bankrupt him and send him straight to jail. All these kids did was be college students and you know what? There’s NOTHING wrong with that! And for you idiots out there who are completely against college students being college students, go see a psychiatrist. Yes, students should be respectful when living off-campus. But when they ARE respectful and you don’t hear a peep out of them - STOP trying to look into their homes and their lives and passing judgment on them.

Because you know what? Sometimes the chickens come home to roost - just ask Mike Nifong about it.

Earlier today Mike Nifong was found in breach of nearly every professional, ethical code of conduct that was charged against him. For those of you that don’t know, Nifong is the former District Attorney who waged a jihad (the word is appropriate here) against the three Duke lacrosse players who were falsely accused of raping a stripper who came to their off-campus house to perform at a party.

Nifong embodies the worst of our judicial system. This is a man who had obvious evidence in front of him that proved these boys were innocent and that their accuser whored herself around with many men other than these boys. What did he do with that evidence? He declined to make it public and instead he took up the cause that was the “popular” cause in the community.

Many college students out there know what I’m talking about. While you are in school, you live in a college setting and there are non-college people who live there, too. In most situations, these non-college citizens are always at war against the college students and the university for “quality of life” issues. This results in students losing their civil rights when dealing with the local justice system.

In other words, local citizens expect their local government to be the whip that is constantly bearing down on the college student community. And 99% of the time, that is exactly what happens.

Well, Mike Nifong played his role in this disgusting true-life set-up and he got what was coming to him. He’s a disgusting human being. What he did to those boys’ lives was wrong. It was dishonest. It was abhorrent. He is a gross human being and he does not deserve to ever practice law in these United States again.

Many of you know that I am very “into” the Founding Fathers of this country and what they wanted when they made the United States of America. They did NOT want Nifong. They did NOT want communities that treat people differently because of age, sex, or color. Sure, some idiots point to the fact that the Constitution doesn’t include women in equality, but they neglect the reality that the Founding Fathers wrote their documents in very broad terms that were appropriate to the day.

Nifong is NOT what they wanted in our justice system. The North Carolina State Bar has done themselves a great credit by putting this man up on charges and then publicly defaming him. I feel no remorse for him or for what he did. This is a man who saw his position in the legal system to be that of a puppet for what the public wanted.

That is NOT what our legal system was meant to be! Our legal system was meant to be a place where the accused are innocent until proven guilty. The burden of justice is on the accuser; the burden of proof of innocence is NOT on the accused.

Thank God this filthy creature was reprimanded and found in breach of standard ethics. I’m not going to watch the rest of these proceedings, but I’m hoping that they throw the book at him now that he’s been found in breach.

You know when summer hits Deal, New Jersey when the New Yorkers are keeping you up at all hours of the night. Tonight, we had the first gathering of 10 - 15 year olds outside of our window. The cops were called and the kids dispersed a little after midnight. Completely ridiculous that kids this age are allowed to prowl around town without any supervision.

And even more ridiculous that the Ocean Township Police Department told them to just “go home” when - if they were college students - they would have called in the paddy wagon (don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen before).

Now, at about 2:30am, there’s no way you can sleep because three and a half blocks away a bunch of the older New Yorkers are having a dance club party such that the bass on their music can be heard blocks away. We just drove by and there were probably 50 people standing OUTSIDE of the house.

Again, I’ve seen college parties in this area get broken up with less than half of that amount of people and the party completely contained to a living room or a basement. This party is taking place outside of a house, on a main road, with music that you can hear more than 3 blocks away…

No paddy wagon, no police, nothing.

Anyone who doesn’t think that there is a preconceived dictate in this town to “go after” college students and “leave the New Yorkers alone” is out of their mind.

And here we go again, with another “fantastic” summer in Deal… Ugh…

This is another old e-mail that I’m purging…

25 Ways To Confuse Your Professors

1. Brush your teeth during class. While doing so, raise your hand as if you have a question, and mumble your question incoherently while brushing, spewing toothpaste all over the place. If your professor objects to your actions, go on a tirade about proper oral hygiene.

2. Sit way at the back of the room, up against the wall, to get as far away from your professor as possible. While he/she is lecturing, shout out things like, “What!?” and “Speak up! You’re mumbling!” If your professor advises you to sit closer to the front, tell him/her you can’t because you’re scouting the room for “assassins.”

3. If you have an early morning class, get there before anyone else, and bring a pillow, some blankets, an air mattress, and an alarm clock. Wear your pajamas. Lie down on the air mattress with the pillow and the blankets and act like you’re asleep. Have the alarm set for about two minutes into class. When it goes off, preferably very loudly, hit the “snooze” button and go back to sleep. Keep doing so for the duration of the class.

4. Dispute everything your professor says, no matter how simple. Try to get him/her to “prove” everything to you. Rant and rave about what a big liar your professor is. Yell at students who are taking notes, saying, “Stop writing down all these lies!”

5. Show up to class about ten minutes late. Ride into the room on a bicycle, yell, “Look out!”, and crash into the blackboard. Get up, take a seat, and act like nothing happened. Do this every day.

6. Keep “accidentally” setting fires at your desk. Burn notebooks, papers, or whatever you have handy. Whenever you start a fire, no matter how small it is, start yelling, “Fire! Fire!” and run out of the room in a panic. Don’t return for the rest of class.

7. Hide somewhere inside the classroom. Wait for your professor to take attendance. Don’t come out when he/she calls your name. Halfway through class, jump out and yell, “Just kidding! I’m here! Fooled you again!” Sit down and be quiet for the rest of class.

8. Wrap yourself in bandages and come to class in a wheelchair. Throughout class, cry a lot and moan things like, “Why me?” and “Please kill me!” Get up during class, like your going to miraculously start walking. Instead, fall down, cry out in pain, and wait for someone to help you back up. When class is over, say, “I feel better now,” leap up, and run home.

9. Come to class with a jar full of angry hornets. Five minutes into class, release the hornets, scream, and run away.

10. Bring a vacuum to class. Halfway through class, stand up and start using it. If your professor objects, explain that you “can’t stand sitting in this pigsty any longer.” Keep vacuuming, grumbling angrily.

11. Bring a small cactus to class with you. Raise your hand, and when you’re called on, say that the cactus has a question. Turn and look at the cactus, as if you’re waiting for it to say something. After a few moments, shrug, and wait for your professor to move on. Do this once a day, and become increasingly irritated with the cactus every time, sighing heavily and giving it evil looks when it fails to “speak.” When you leave the room after class, start yelling at the cactus, “I can’t believe you embarrassed me AGAIN….”

12. Every time your professor stutters, do a shot. If he/she objects, explain that drinking games make the class more interesting.

13. When your professor gives you a syllabus, take it home, correct it, give it a grade, and return it to the professor. Demand extra credit.

14. Come to class every day wearing scary Halloween masks. Try to get your professor to guess who you are. Shoot him/her with a water pistol, scream, and run around the room knocking things over. Say, “Pretty scary, huh?”

15. Get the whole class to show up a few minutes early, and throw a surprise party for your professor. Insist that you can’t start class until he/she has a piece of cake. Keep asking people when the strippers are going to arrive.

16. Instead of taking notes, do an abstract painting during every class. Call the paintings things like, “Professor Acting Like Mr. Know-It-All” or “An Idiot Who Doesn’t Know What The Hell He’s Talking About.” Give the paintings to your professor as gifts.

17. Wait for your professor to mention a date, and then yell out, “Bingo!” Apologize, and explain that you got confused.

18. Carve a bust of your professor out of cheese. Tie a ribbon around it, and present it to him/her at the beginning of class. Demand extra credit.

19. Write your professor a note that says, “I’m going to be about 15 minutes late. Go ahead and start without me.” Wait outside the building until the time when class is supposed to begin. Tie the note to a rock, and throw it through the window.

20. Write down everything that your professor says, word for word. Think up a melody, and turn the words into a song. Bring a guitar to class and perform the song for the class. Explain to your professor that he/she is “very inspiring.”

21. Get a monkey, and bring it to class with you. Tell your professor that you’ve hired the monkey to take notes for you. Sit back and relax during class, letting the monkey scribble on a piece of paper. When it comes time to write a paper or take a test, write down things like, “I wish I had a banana” and “I miss my tire swing.” Assuming you get a bad grade, angrily fire the monkey in front of your professor.

22. When you have to write a paper, get it done early and mail it to your professor’s house. From then on, don’t hand anything in, and blame it on the sluggishness of the U.S. Postal Service.

23. Tell your professor that you’d like to interview him/her for a writing class. Get him/her to tell you his/her life story. Act interested, and write down everything he/she says. Fabricate a few romantic interludes and turn your efforts into a trashy romance novel. Make copies for the entire class, and your professor. Demand extra credit.

24. Draw hearts and flowers on the backs of your papers and tests. Next to them, write things like, “You’re the best, even though you suck” and “You’re the worst professor in the world, but I still love you.”

25. Start asking questions in a fake foreign language. Act like your professor is stupid for not being able to understand you. Get other people in the class to start speaking the fake language too, and have frequent discussions during class. Act like you’re really interested in what you’re discussing. If your professor tries to interrupt or stop you, act annoyed and kick his ass

Enjoy!

One of the things that really irked me about graduate school was how subjective almost all of the academic “studies” that we read really were. Sure, I complained about this when I was a new student at the graduate school, but it got me no where. However, I clearly remember the day when I was sitting in a stats class and the professor (a committed far-left thinker) showed us how to manipulate the statistics program to pump out numbers that answered the research question.

Almost immediately I shot my hand in the air and said, “WHOA! That’s not right! This is intellectually inaccurate if you falsify the numbers!” The professor, to his great credit, said that there was no other way to answer the research question than to manipulate the code in a manner such that your question was answered. I came back with, “But if the raw numbers pump out a statistic that disproves your initial question, then isn’t THAT the answer? That you have to accept the null hypothesis and that your research hypothesis cannot be proven?”

At this point, those of you who understand that stuff about null hypotheses are smiling remembering your own statistics classes.

The professor returned with an argument that if the basis of the research is to find an answer to the question, then you need to find the answer to the question. Some of the political extremist students in the class began to agree with him at this point, though there were a great number of students who just looked really confused at his answers.

Let me note that I really liked that Professor’s class. He was a funny, intelligent guy who knew a great deal about the statistics field. Yet, the core of his argument has always sat ill with me because it IS intellectually false. If the answer to a question is “No, you’re wrong,” then that’s the answer! And I bring all of this up because of an article published by one of Bill O’Reilly’s editors on the Los Angeles Times website. Specifically, I am referring to this bit of the article:

Brooks also failed to tell Times readers that the researchers admit they had to make several changes to their “coding instrument” because the first attempts generated “unacceptably low scores.” That’s code for: they tried and tried until the results fit the preconceived notion of name-calling on the Factor.

I’ve seen this before! THIS is what the vast majority of Americans need to know! Folks, when you see these “studies” or these “scientific opinion polls” you’re being duped! The authors of these studies and polls can make the numbers say whatever they want. A great case in point is this O’Reilly article. Now, from my standpoint, I don’t care whether O’Reilly calls people names or whether he is all nice and dandy. It’s the point that his editor brings up that is way undercovered in American media.

The next time you hear that so and so is “up” x percentage points in the opinion polls, do yourself a favor and actually download the poll. Look at the margin of error (another opinion-based number). In fact, do some research on WHO is asked to participate in these polls. What you might find is interesting…did you know that ONLY people who have landline telephones are permitted, by law, to participate in these polls? Did you know that most, if not all, of the major media polls are conducted this way?

How about the fact that most people who still use landline phones are getting up there in years and are committed Democrats born of the 1960’s cultural revolution era? I’ve never, not even once, been asked to partake in one of these polls. I use a cell phone only.

Folks, if this doesn’t make you stop and think about what the media pumps out at you on a daily basis then nothing will.

Today, the brothers at the Delta-Beta Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity garnered a front page headline in the local paper, the Asbury Park Press. Though the link below will not show you the picture of Joe Mullan or Bob Wankel, it does include the entire, full-text of the story (at least for the next week it will). A picture of Bob and Joe holding the ACE Project banner appears on the front page of this newspaper, if you’re in the Monmouth County area and want to see two GOOD college students:

COLLEGIANS: WE’RE NOT ALL ROWDIES

As any fraternity leader can tell you, press like this is very exciting in the Monmouth University area. I understand that most college areas are against students from the very start, but the “witch hunt” that goes on around Monmouth University is extremely frightening at times. Not only are the civil liberties of our these young men trampled on a weekly basis, but the local governments back the actions that you’ll read about in the article. And remember, I’m a guy who routinely had police just walk into his house at all hours of the night after the majority of the roommates were asleep. They were “just checking” - sound a little fascist to anyone?

I’m extremely proud of the Sigma Pi guys at Monmouth University. It’s not easy to put yourself out there like these guys have. I remember getting all different types of great responses to my student loan article last year, but I also remember getting some really vicious, unintelligent responses, too. I applaud the effort that these guys are putting into making the reality of their situation work.

Now, I’m generally not one to bring back tragic memories of the past and write about them. However, given the Virginia Tech massacre earlier this week, everyone has a renewed awareness about the other major school-related tragedy in recent history – the Columbine High School shootings.

As I blogged about earlier this week, what I remember from the Columbine situation was coming home from school and sitting down in horror as I watched kids literally jumping out of windows to escape from the two maniacs who began shooting up the school. At the time, I was a Senior in high school and my other vivid memory was going to class the next day and (in Mr. Wilkens’ class) making sure that the doors to the classroom were both closed and locked – if possible. That day in school there was absolutely no education curriculum covered, just people talking about the Columbine shootings. Even the teachers were a little uneasy – and rightfully so.

It turns out that the day after Columbine, one of the less popular kids in my high school went to school wearing a black trench coat which, if you’ll remember, was what the killers at Columbine wore – calling themselves the Trench Coat mafia. As if this wasn’t scary enough, the bastard kid at my high school was found with a list of names of people he’d like to see die. Not many people from my high school know about this situation even today. I had a small degree of access given my position as the Student Body President, but all our Principal would tell me (a few weeks after the fact) was that there was a student who was expelled for bringing that list to school and some type of weapon…never found out what that weapon was, though.

The collective consciousness of the country has got to be saddened today. Even these far-left, socialist-minded liberals out there who are trying to ruin our country have got to stop and say, “Damn, this sucks.” I single out this cohort of people specifically because there has been no greater group of protagonists preaching the need for less rigid social structures. Part of their battle has been fought in the education arena, where they fight for lower standards to make everyone feel included. This is exactly what happened at Virginia Tech. A kid who should have been put away or at least taken out of regular society was allowed to be in the same area as the thousands of normal kids because of the progressive mindset of reintegration.

And late word out of Columbine is that the two bastards who killed all of those people 8 years ago showed similar anti-social attitudes. In fact, the word coming out of Columbine is so strong that people are calling for all of the sealed documents from the days after Columbine to be re-opened. Whether or not that will happen, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that everyone should be a little saddened today that one of America’s traditional strongholds is under attack. If our schools are not safe any more, then just what IS safe these days?

Earlier today a news story was posted on FOXNews.com that talked about a high school kid who threatened the life of two classmates before shooting himself. Let’s hope that this isn’t the beginning of a rash of copycat cases where disenfranchised students begin to take out their frustration on their classmates.

There MUST be a national campaign that puts help at the hands of these students. And for the love of God if a person is found to be a potential menace to his surroundings, then PLEASE put that kid in a place where he cannot hurt anyone - including himself!

As the United States continues to reel from the massacre at Virginia Tech, I think it’s worth looking at what happened here in a global perspective. What does that mean? Well, think about this…

In Iraq today alone, more than 180 people were killed. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY! And that was just today. Now, bear in mind that Iraq is a country of some 27 million people. In contrast, America has over 300 million people and the entire country is on its heels about the 32 dead at Virginia Tech.

And yes, I understand that Iraq is a rogue state because of the young government there and the quasi-civil war that is taking place. And I also understand that many more than 180 people were killed on MANY days under the Saddam Hussein regime. However, I think that as we, as a nation, mourn the innocent dead in Virginia it would do us some good, as a nation, to stop and think about why we are so shocked.

From my standpoint, we are shocked because we are used to a safe, secure homeland. We are used to sending our brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters away to college and knowing that they are as safe as could possibly be while they are there. We are used to a homeland that values life more than anything else. Think about that - life more than anything else.

When we see elements of the third world encroaching our beloved America, the question after “Why is this happening?” should be “How do we stop this from getting worse?” Folks - now is the time to stop the evil in our streets before we suffer more than 180 dead daily. Now is the time to look at your local, state, and national leaders and ask if they and their policies have the best AMERICAN interests at heart. This means that you may have to put your personal beliefs aside to support someone whose platform will allow you to continue living and breathing in these United States.

At the risk of sounding overly conservative - it’s time that we look at our country’s policies and stop doing whatever it is that we are doing that is allowing America to slowly denigrate into a place where this type of terror can take place on a college campus.

If we don’t do it today - in the name of the United States of America - then our children and grandchildren may have to suffer through talking about their own 180+ massacres…and on a daily basis. And if that happens - then we might as look at whether or not we’re being true to the founding ideals of this country.