I’m going to look into this documentary to see if there is a way that I can watch it. I think it looks interesting!

For me, this is a simple situation and one that really doesn’t require any protesting or arguing or petty “left vs. right” political comparisons. In short, there’s no money. No money = no jobs. Take the private sector over the last three years – people have been losing their jobs left and right. Why? Because their companies couldn’t afford to staff the position. It might suck, but New Jersey can’t afford to pay some of its policemen and firefighters, among other public workers.

And it’s silly to blame Governor Christie when Jon “Money Bags” Corzine, Jim McGreevey, and Christine Todd Whitman (among many other previous political leaders in this state) are the ones who raped our state’s finances. For my friends who aren’t from New Jersey – for decades it hasn’t mattered whether a Republican or a Democrat has been in office because both parties fleeced the state.

Yet, I understand that people need someone to lash out at and Governor Christie is the head of the state so they’re going to lash out at him. In fact, there’s a protest of public workers going on up the street from my office in Trenton today. And while I think contemporary protesting is so fabricated and false that in 2011 it typically gets Americans nowhere, I don’t mind the folks up the street protesting. I do mind that they added 45 minutes on to my commute this morning (because I wanted to spend nearly 2 hours in the car). But at least the folks protesting today are from New Jersey versus the idiots who protested in Trenton last week who were primarily bussed in from Pennsylvania and New York.

At the end of the day, though, there’s no money and cuts have to come from somewhere so jobs are going to be lost. For anyone to be surprised at that simple economic math means that they either had their head buried in the sand as the private sector was rocked over the last 3 years or they just don’t understand that no money = no jobs.

The video below puts it pretty plainly – Governor Christie has turned New Jersey upside down in a good way! If there were any doubts left in anyone’s mind about whether times are changing in Trenton, watch the video below. During a press conference a few weeks ago, Governor Christie noted a proposal presented by Democrats for business tax cuts as an example of his Administration being transformational. He said:

“Here’s another manifestation of turning Trenton upside down. Democrats are talking about business tax cuts in New Jersey. Ok? So if you don’t think that this administration has been transformational in a year, then I point you to that example.”

What this man has accomplished in New Jersey is nothing short of phenomenal. He is saving this state and improving our near death-bed fiscal health at the same time. Absolutely remarkable.

Please note that portions of the text above were taken from an e-mail prepared by the Governor’s Office.

Let me make this very clear, folks. There is not one thing in either of these videos that is defensible. Not one. And now, for your viewing pleasure disgust, the hateful, grotesque New Jersey Education Association as presented by the same guy who brought us the ACORN videos last year.

Feeling sick to your stomach yet? Look folks – enough is enough with the NJEA. This hateful organization needs to be dismantled and the local teachers unions need to be empowered. Just like any good bureaucracy, the people at the top of this chain have forgotten their mission and values and need to be removed. Let the local unions handle the local issues – not some filthy, unethical, immoral group of scum in the NJEA’s Trenton office.

Anyway, the other day I received a link to the video below. It’s short and sweet, but I liked it and I wanted to share it with my readers. Enjoy!

Pretty cool, huh? Sure, it’s part propaganda, but the facts and statements littered throughout the short video are absolutely true. Thank God we have Chris Christie righting the ship in New Jersey!

Listen up, particularly, around the 1 minute mark when Governor Christie starts talking about the truth about the “it’s about the kids” argument. In the Governor’s own words, “It’s easy to say it’s about the kids when…” Watch the video below to find out how the Governor finishes that line!

Enough is enough of the same old crap in New Jersey’s broken education system. The time has come to fully fund charter schools and to break the unnecessary (and, frankly useless) statewide teachers’ union. There’s no need for a statewide association when countywide and local teachers’ unions are the source of the state group’s power. Break the NJEA now and save the future of education in New Jersey!

That guy is crazy! He’s definitely at the wrong gig!

Governor Christie is the man! Thank God we have him as our Governor. With this guy in charge, New Jersey might actually become a place that young people like me can actually afford to live in. Thanks, Governor!

Such was the way that I wound up downloading MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular album. If you don’t know, MGMT is the band that sings one of the songs that always seems to be on Alt Nation – Kids. It’s a catchy song that mixes a bunch of different styles and sounds like a lot of fun. I’m sure that if you haven’t heard it on Alt Nation or whatever your local radio station is, that you’ll enjoy it. In fact, I’ve got a YouTube video for the song embedded below. Maybe you want to scroll down there and listen to it while you read the rest of this post (I take no responsibility for the weirdo video associated with the song).

After downloading the rest of the album, though, I don’t think that most of MGMT’s music is for me. While I’ve had some recent success with listening to (and liking) all of Cartel’s Cycle and Owl City’s Ocean Eyes, my luck ran out with MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular.

To MGMT’s credit, though, the album doesn’t have a lot of bad songs on it. In fact, most of the songs are pretty good. However, the general sound – which is a type of electronica and psychedelic blend (some even call it synthpop, but I don’t know what that means) – it just wasn’t for me. However, if you like that sort of stuff, then you’ll absolutely love MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular.

Pretty weird video, huh? So if this stuff is for you, then by all means – go and get yourself a copy of this album. But if this isn’t really your thing, then you might want to just download a copy of Kids from iTunes or Amazon.com or some other music service. If anything, that’s a pretty good song. Enjoy!

Well, it turns out that I don’t like live bands in stores because it gets really loud, really quick! Yet, as I was browsing around the store and the band was playing, I really began to enjoy the music. In fact, at one point I found myself trying to figure out if there were any posters or signs indicating the band’s name because I wanted to look them up and see what the deal was with these guys.

After I left the store, some of the music that the band was singing was stuck in my head. When I got home I Googled some of their lyrics and found out that the band was named Cartel – a group that had some notoriety with some big time hits in the last few years and who had been on some MTV show. After finding that out, I was pretty impressed that a band with a national audience and a clear abundance of talent was playing in the local Best Buy. That’s pretty cool.

After doing some YouTubing to hear some more of the band’s songs, I wound up downloading their new album, Cycles, and I’m glad that I did because it is a great album. First things first with this album – there is something to be said for the lost art of track planning on an album. It used to be that you could pop in an album and listen to the whole thing without coming across a bad song or a poorly produced song. In recent years, I think that art has gone to the wayside and been replaced with poorly produced songs or songs that are essentially “filler” in between the commercial hits.

Cartel’s Cycles doesn’t have that problem at all. It was very enjoyable to listen to the entire album all the way through. In fact, the first four songs are very upbeat in their tempo with lyrics that are easy to understand and performances that are crystal clear and fun for the listener.

Granted, the style of Cartel’s music isn’t for everyone; I understand that people have different tastes. I have a wide variety of tastes, too. Cartel’s style can be defined as part alternative rock and part power pop (I don’t really know what power pop is, but that’s what the interwebs call this style). Take a listen to one of the songs from the album below and I think you’ll get at what type of music these guys sing.

While I enjoy all of the songs on this album, my favorite songs are the first four – Let’s Go, The Perfect Mistake, Faster Ride, and Deep South. In fact, I liked these songs so much that I went and got the two other albums that this band has put out and there’s pretty good, too.

This album, much like Owl City’s Ocean Eyes, are fun for me to listen to while I do web design and while I’m working on my computer for other reasons. Anyway, listen to that song embedded above and maybe some of their other stuff on YouTube and I’m sure that you’ll begin to like their stuff. Cycles by Cartel gets a high recommendation from JerseySmarts.com and yours truly. Check it out!