Juan Melli's Blog

If actions speak louder than words, then whether Republican presidential nominee John McCain says he supports and/or opposes affirmative action is irrelevant.

Conservatives denounce the practice as promoting under-qualified or unprepared people ahead of more qualified alternatives just for the purpose of diversity. Yet that is exactly what McCain is doing with his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

"It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America," said Palin at a Saturday rally in Dayton, Ohio. "But thankfully, as it turns out, the women of America aren't finished yet, and the voters will shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

Though the McCain campaign touts Palin as the answer for women eager to finally shatter the ultimate glass ceiling, nobody is arguing that she is the most-qualified person for the job -- not even her own mother-in-law.

"I'm not sure what she brings to the ticket other than she's a woman and a conservative," said Faye Palin. "Well, she's a better speaker than McCain."

During a gubernatorial debate in 2005, then-U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine was asked if he supported lowering the drinking age to 18.

"I think it is 18, isn't it?", he answered. Once told that it's actually 21, he added, perhaps recalling the Vietnam-era-type argument that succeeded in lowering the drinking age: "It's good enough to go and put your life on the line in the United States Army in Iraq or Afghanistan ... I don't have a problem with the 18-year-old (unintelligible)."

It was a moment of honesty from a politician, erased minutes after the debate when his handlers made him correct the "gaffe." Of course, he actually opposed -- no, really opposed -- a drinking age of 18.

Though almost as politically unpopular as self-serve gas, Corzine had it right the first time. Our current policy is rife with contradictions.

Last Thursday around 1 p.m., I began my dissertation defense -- a 45-minute talk for the final stage of the Ph.D. process. At almost exactly the time I was wrapping up, Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington) issued a press release titled "New Scientific Data Justifies Repealing Global Warming Response Act".

When people learn of my engineering background, they often ask why I changed gears and pursued a path in media and politics.

Mike Doherty is Exhibit A.
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I consider the well-funded, coordinated assault on and politicization of science to be one of the most dangerous threats to our country's future.

Doherty's statement, which was noticed by the Drudge Report, falsely claims that "[t]here are many credible members of the scientific community who have questioned the theory of global warming, and now we have some scientists actually suggesting the earth's temperatures may be entering a period of dramatic cooling." It continues: "According to recent news reports, a top observatory that has been measuring sun spot activity predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next 20 years as solar activity slows and the planet drastically cools down."

Apparently he is referring to "news reports" such as this editorial which points to the research of Dr. Kenneth Tapping, the project director at Canada's National Research Council at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. Tapping was not directly quoted, so I reached out and asked if Doherty's statement is an accurate characterization of his work and conclusions.

Tapping replied: "Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of bogus rubbish circulating on the web. I make no predictions on global climate one way or the other. I am not a climatologist. The only thing I foolishly discussed with someone who put a private conversation on the web was that the next solar cycle is a bit late starting. NOAA predictions are that it will not be getting under way until well into 2009. We concur with that prediction. For the climatological consequences of that, if any, I am afraid you will need to speak to a climatologist." He continued: "The moral of the story is that one has no control about what people put on the web, and there is little that one can do about it afterwards."

Almost comically underscoring his profound ignorance on the difference between weather and climate, Doherty cites a weather man -- one with no expertise on climate science -- as his second example of dissent with the universal scientific consensus.

Doherty is a dangerous politician who through willful ignorance would deny scientific evidence and readily accept junk science if it fits his ideological agenda. And he will continue to recklessly abuse the stature of his office to attempt to deceive the public.

Who knows what he'll propose next week? He might call for tearing down Xanadu since it's encroaching on the habitat of the Jersey Devil.
Perhaps he'll argue for offshore drilling rigs as our best chance for finding the Loch Ness Monster. Or maybe in a joint press conference with the Bigfoot hunters, he'll demand stricter enforcement of the Highlands Act in order to protect Sasquatch.

Juan Melli, associate editor at Politicker.com, has finished a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Princeton University.

What do 42 state attorneys general, U.S. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and New Jersey's entire congressional delegation have in common?

Apparently, they all disagree with state Attorney General Anne Milgram on the Free Flow of Information Act, S. 2035, which would bring federal journalist "shield" law protections up to date with that of 49 other states plus the District of Columbia.

"The essence of Democracy is an informed electorate," begins the mission statement of New Jersey's Election Law Enforcement Commission, but much of the information on ELEC's website has been off-limits to a significant portion of the electorate for years, and there are no plans to change that.

I'm not even talking about the clunky interface and seemingly random functionality. If you have that much access, consider yourself lucky.

Since at least 2005, ELEC has been aware that "Browsers such as Firefox and Netscape are not supported through our search engines."

In 2007, the only visible change to their help page was the inclusion of another unsupported platform: "At this time, the Macintosh platform and browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Netscape are not supported through our search engines."

Currently only the Internet Explorer browser is supported, and only on Windows (the old version of IE on Macs is not supported). The market share of IE, which has been declining since 2003, is now around 75 percent, which means that about one in four users would not be able to access the information they are searching for.

While trying to do some research, I called ELEC to explain that I am on a Macintosh computer and ask how I could access their information. According to the IT director, they don't have any plans to make the information available to those on the currently unsupported platforms.

They probably could have looked the other way.

The news that Assemblyman Neil Cohen is under investigation for allegedly having child pornography on his office computer was painful to read.

But learning that it was his legislative runningmates -- Senator Ray Lesniak and Assemblyman Joe Cryan -- who turned him in was most shocking.

Lesniak and Cryan often get tagged as the bad guys in Jersey politics. And yet despite how difficult it must have been, they did the right thing by turning in their colleague.

We shouldn't lower the bar too much on what constitutes ethical behavior, but let's give credit where it's due. Not all legislators would have done the right thing in the same situation. Less than two years ago we learned that some of former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's colleagues knew about his advances toward underage pages, yet remained silent. Some still remain in office.

We'll probably learn more about how this unfolded in the days and weeks ahead, but we should at least give credit to Ray Lesniak and Joe Cryan for the unenviable role they played in this sad chapter in New Jersey politics.

And while we're on the topic, if the legislators are looking for bonus points, they can extend their do-gooder streak by pushing to make sure that whoever replaces Cohen looks a little more like the people they represent.

Although the 20th district's residents are over one-fifth African American, one-third Hispanic, and one-half female, the delegation has been 100 percent white and male for a long time.

Who wants extra credit?

Bear with me here...at least I'm not proposing something patently ridiculous like self-serve gas stations!

It's true that rising energy prices pose serious financial hardships, particularly for those with little to no disposable income, and politicians should take action -- possibly through targeted tax cuts for those hurting the worst -- to ease the burden while the economy adjusts to a new reality. But there is a silver lining to the energy crisis, and most politicians are unfortunately trying to run away from it.

Bucking a decades-long trend, Americans are actually driving less than they did last year, while public transit ridership is surging. Despite Al Gore's best efforts, a heightened public awareness of the effects of climate change couldn't accomplish what basic market forces could.

Among the nearly 1 million residents of Bergen County, approximately 0.4 percent are on the county payroll. But that figure jumps precipitously -- to more than 40 percent -- for one group of Bergen residents in particular: Democratic municipal chairs loyal to Bergen County Democratic Organization chairman Joseph Ferriero. That means that the 70 Democratic municipal chairs and five legislative district leaders in the county are more than 100 times more likely to hold government jobs than the average Bergen County resident.

Joe Ferriero has always maintained that he doesn't control the awarding of government jobs and contracts. But last October, when Republicans accused him of enticing Lyndhurst Mayor Rich DiLascio to switch parties with a $20,000 a year county contract (which was awarded and later withdrawn), Ferriero admitted the obvious -- perhaps accidentally -- to Scott Fallon at The Record: "We chose not to award a contract to him because we didn't want the feeling of impropriety."

Though Ferriero holds no elected position in Bergen County government, he controls how taxpayer resources are allocated. The best-case scenario in such an arrangement is an unaccountable, truly benevolent boss who legitimately looks out for the best interests of county residents. But when Ferriero decides how and when to allocate government resources, the top determining factors are not competency or efficiency, but rather which choice will help him further amass money, consolidate power and ultimately steer contracts to the law firm where he is a partner. No attempt was made to hide this from his bio on the firm's website: "Mr. Ferriero has been appointed by various municipalities throughout New Jersey as Borough Attorney, Special Labor Counsel, Special Litigation Counsel, and Environmental Counsel, and has served as Tax Appeal Counsel to various municipalities and corporate clients as well."

Perhaps the most egregious example of Ferriero's abuse of taxpayer money dates back to November, 2004. Again, it was The Record that reported: "A county police officer racked up more than $1,000 in overtime while chauffeuring Bergen County Democratic boss Joseph Ferriero to Yankees games and to an Atlantic City casino, Police Department records show."

If The Record keeps this up, in a few years it'll be Ferriero penning the update to former U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli's premature death notice for the Bergen County paper, which in 2006 was awarded the prestigious IRE Medal for investigative journalism.