"Lab tech allegedly faked result in drug case"

NJ.com: A lab technician for the State Police allegedly faked results in a drug case, and has drawn into question 7,827 criminal cases on which he worked, according to state officials.

Kamalkant Shah worked as a laboratory technician for the State Police laboratory in Little Falls and was found to have "dry labbed" suspected marijuana, according to a Feb. 29 memo to Public Defender Joseph Krakora from Deputy Public Defender Judy Fallon. Shah's essentially accused of making up data.

"Basically, he was observed writing 'test results' for suspected marijuana that was never tested," Fallon said in the memo.

The memo was released Tuesday on the New Jersey Municipal Court Law Update Service's website.

Shah was removed from lab work on Dec. 10 as soon as the problem was discovered, said Peter Aseltine, spokesman for the Office of the Attorney General. Shah, who received a salary of $101,039, was suspended without pay effective Jan 12, he said.

Shah has not been charged with any crime, and is believed to have retired, Aseltine said.

"Black activist charged with making fake death threats against black students at Kean University

"The Union County prosecutor’s office says McKelvey participated in a Nov. 17 rally on racial issues at Kean and then went to a computer station in a campus library and posted anonymous threats on Twitter against black students."

McKelvey then allegedly returned to the rally and tried to raise awareness about the threats. One tweet made reference to a bomb on campus; others were about shooting black students.  She’s scheduled to make a court appearance in two weeks.

A Kean graduate posted this comment on Reddit...

There was genuine fear on campus for a few days, and it lingered until prosecutors released this info today.

The consensus in class tonight was that this was probably the worst person who could have done this. The campus is incredibly diverse and the initial threats were a huge deal. Having the black alumnus who also happened to be the former president of the Pan African Student Union fake the threats is revolting.

I have a class with the current president of the PASU. I am interested in what she's going to have to say on all of this.

"SUV catapults 60 feet off bridge, lands upright; 2 inside OK"

"An SUV driver swerving to avoid striking another vehicle on a highway on Friday hit a snowbank along a guardrail and catapulted 60 feet off a bridge. Incredibly, authorities say, the vehicle landed upright and the two occupants suffered only minor injuries."

"The Toyota Rav4 was headed east on Interstate 80 when the accident occurred Friday morning in Hackensack, police said."

Tanked

Tanked is a television show on Animal Planet channel about a family owned business in Las Vegas that constructs specialized aquariums. The family speaks to each other in brutal New Jersey accent but their affection for each other shines through.

(I had the show on tonight in the background while preparing a batch of Anasazi beans and red Swiss chard but this is irrelevant to the subject at hand.)

One of their accounts was for a dining room table that displays all the fish from the top. A technical problem is the table must be filled completely with no air gaps or else condensation would fog the view from the top, and there needs to be surface agitation to create air exchange, so they designed a centerpiece shaped like a square vase that does all that with an insert that holds another vase for an impressive floral display. And all of the pipes must be concealed.

They did a beautiful job.

At wrap up one of the sons said to his father in unvarnished rough imperative, a tone I would never use with my dad, "Now you gotta use your etiquette experience and set the table by yourself." Then he leaves. The father addresses the camera directly, smiling broadly and in his own gruff accent."

"Now is my time to shine."

The clients were thrilled with the result. "Now everyone can see our products."

Notice the practical problem? 

Andrew Sullivan: The “Quality Of Life” In New Jersey

"What you have here is not an argument, but a prejudice. Why is a head-shop somehow bad for a neighborhood? Why is tourism for casinos fine but for smoking a joint such a terrible thing? Why is legal pot worse for New Jersey’s reputation than the popularity of Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of New Jersey?
And why, pray, is it a better quality of life to have less personal freedom rather than more?"

Chris Christie explains:

For the people who are enamored with the idea with the income, the tax revenue from [legalized marijuana], go to Colorado and see if you want to live there. See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado where there’s head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high. To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that.

Who do side with, Andrew Sullivan or Chris Christie?