What ‘state of emergency’?

These towns and counties are really feeling the financial crunch, and the state-wide state of emergency didn’t help:

South Jersey asks ‘What state of emergency?’ (via NJ.com)

It appears South Jersey has bone to pick with Gov. Chris Christie’s office. While residents in northern and central Jersey spent their morning shoveling out their cars and driveways, the southern half of the state barely got a dusting of snow or ice…

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Dear corporate media, your class bias is showing

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I can’t tell you how many Democrats tried to explain to me that the Dems had no other choice but to vote for this. I dunno, evil is evil:

Following an initial Senate vote Monday night and a House vote last week, today the Senate is expected to pass a farm bill that cuts food stamps by over $8 billion in the next decade. The White House has signaled that President Obama will sign the bill, ending a two-year fight in which key Democrats and Republican disagreed over how much — but not whether – to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“Our political system is basically evil versus spineless now,” former Clinton USDA official Joel Berg told Salon following the House’s vote. Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and author of “All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?,” blasted White House “disingenuousness,” Republican “race-baiting,” media “class bias,” and progressive “weakness” for the ultimate outcome. “There is no mechanism now,” he argued, “to hold people accountable for shafting poor people.” A condensed version of our conversation follows.

The Associated Press described the ultimate deal as having “a mostly symbolic cut in food stamps.” Is that accurate?

It’s not accurate, and shows you in a few words virtually everything wrong with the American media today. It shows you class bias, reporters listing as a fact something that’s an opinion, it shows you lack of empathy.

Running out of salt

DSNY salt truck loaded up

I’m seeing many news reports of municipalities all along the East Coast running out of salt — which means when they order it now, the cost goes ‘way up, and your taxes will go up as a result. (They gambled, they lost.) Yet another hidden cost of global warming!