Fact: The only thing that smells worse than your poop is tons of other people's poop. If you don't believe me, take a road trip to the town of Parrish, Alabama. They'll back me up on this one: According to the Associated Press, the citizens of Parrish were forced to endure the stench pouring off a train full of  sewer sludge from New York and New Jersey for close to two months.

It's not unusual for trains full of human waste to pass through the town of 982 people: there's a landfill complex that treats and disposes of the excrement another 20 miles further down the track. Having the train stop in town to share its intoxicating perfume for two months? That's both unreasonable and unusual. It seems that another county in Alabama blocked the train's passage, making it impossible for it to reach its final destination. So, there it sat in Parrish: like a man in the bathroom after a large, questionable meal, full of poop, making everything terrible for everyone. NPR states that the train was stopped near a local park. The odor coming off of it was so bad that little league games had to be cancelled.

After two months of having to put up with the stench ruining the lives of everyone in the town, in mid-April, the Mayor of Parrish was finally able to tell her constituents that it was finally moving on. The town's administration will be looking into passing a series of by-laws to keep similar incidents from happening again. Read the rest

Taxi, Throw Momma From the Train, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, War of the Roses, Death to Smoochy: Danny DeVito has his wee fingers in so many of the movies and television pies that I've loved over the years. It seems that others feel the love for Troll Foot just as hard as I do. According to The New York Times, the actor, writing and – I'm just going to say it – 4' 10" cultural touchstone, will be by his former Ashbury Park stomping grounds with a day of his own.

DeVito's love of New Jersey is no secret. Born and raised in the state, he left in his teens to pursue an acting career in New York. With that panning out pretty well, DeVito kept on moving and made his way to the west coast, because of Hollywood. Despite this, his connection to his home state still runs deep.

From The New York Times

He named his production companies after New Jersey and paid for repairs to the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park so the premiere of “Throw Mamma From the Train,” which he directed and starred in, could be held there. He was the executive producer behind “Garden State,” and when his fellow Jersey icon, Bruce Springsteen, was inducted into the state Hall of Fame, Mr. DeVito gave the introduction.

So, Danny DeVito Day: It'll fall on the 73-year-old's birthday, November 17th. Those with the power to declare this day or that day to have been bestowed to someone will be announcing the honor, officially, at the Ashbury Park Music and Film Festival. Read the rest

New Jersey State Senator Jeff Van Drew wants to run for Congress as a Democrat; he visited 17-year-old Emily McGrath's school, Egg Harbor Township High, where McGrath questioned him about whether he'd taken money from the NRA; Van Drew said he hadn't, and he was lying. Read the rest

Connecting voting machines to the internet is a terrible idea: the machines are already notoriously insecure, and once they're online, anyone, anywhere in the world becomes a potential attacker. Read the rest

First it was Montana, then New York, then California -- and now New Jersey has become the latest state to enact state-level Net Neutrality rules in defiance of Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who not only killed Net Neutrality despite the obvious fraud and deceit in the regulatory process, but also insists (as his Democratic predecessor, Tom Wheeler, did) that states do not have the right to override federal communications policy. Read the rest

Sick burn, EWR. The crooked as heck governor of New Jersey has barely been out of office for three whole days, and he gets escorted out by a cop when attempting to waddle his way into Newark International Airport's VIP entrance. Read the rest

As of Monday, there is a new kind of "DUI" in New Jersey: Droning Under the Influence.

On his final day of being New Jersey's (incredibly unpopular) governor, Chris Christie signed a law making it illegal to fly an unmanned drone aircraft drunk or under the influence of drugs.

Reuters reports:

The law prohibits flying a drone with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher, the same as for driving a vehicle, or while drugged. Violators face up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine or both.

The measure, which passed the Democratic-controlled state legislature earlier this month, also bars flying a drone near a prison or in pursuit of wildlife.

The drone measure was among 109 bills that Christie signed into law on his last full day in office, spokesman Brian Murray said by email. Christie’s successor, Democrat Phil Murphy, is to be sworn in on Tuesday.

photo by Andrew Turner Read the rest

In the department of "You can't make this stuff up," the president's second son, Eric, blew out the candles of his 34th birthday cake -- a Carvel "Fudgie the Whale" ice cream cake, no less -- on Saturday.

Watch this video posted on Facebook by Lynne Patton for proof. He's the one wearing a giant black sombrero:

(The Daily Meal) Read the rest

Trumpcare was dead on arrival (again) until Rep Tom MacArthur [R-NJ; Twitter: @RepTomMacArthur; DC: (202) 225-4765; Burlington County: (856) 267-5182; Ocean County: (732) 569-6495] introduced an amendment that allowed insurers to refuse to cover people with "pre-existing conditions" including surviving domestic violence and/or rape, living with PTSD, being born with a congenital defect, and so forth. Read the rest

Former NJ Port Authority Chairman David Samson -- a "staunch ally" of Chris Christie -- got United to schedule an extra, largely empty Friday night flight from Newark airport to Columbia, SC, where he had his weekend place (the flight returned early Monday in time for him to go back to the office). A court has now accepted his guilty plea for accepting bribes and sentenced him to one year of house arrest and four years of probation. Read the rest

Civil asset forfeiture is the bizarre American practice of seizing peoples' property without charging its owner: instead the property is charged with being the ill-gotten gains of a crime, and if the owner doesn't pay their property's legal bills, the police get to keep or sell the property. Read the rest

The New Jersey DA's office just announced that it had arrested New York's Habib Chaudhry in connection with a $200M credit-card fraud; Mr Chaudhry joins 19 others who've pleaded guilty to the frauds. Read the rest

Dave Black snapped this astounding photo of the infamous cryptid known as the Jersey Devil in Galloway Township, New Jersey. Photo evidence is always welcome, as residents of Southern New Jersey and the region have been reporting sightings of this bizarre creature since 1909. Apparently it looks like a kangaroo with a goat's head, bat wings, cloven hooves, and the forked tail of, you guessed it, a devil. Below, a drawing of the infernal beast from a 1909 edition of the Philadelphia Bulletin.

"I was just driving past the golf course in Galloway on Route 9 and had to shake my head a few times when I thought I saw a llama," Black recounted in an email to NJ.com. "If that wasn't enough, then it spread out leathery wings and flew off over the golf course."

Read the rest

New Jersey's Action Park is legendary for crazy rides, and now it has a water slide that's about one-third of a mile long. Above: a ride by park employee Jasosn Mulder, including a mid-air corkscrew flip. Read the rest

Efrem writes, "The Jersey Journal is doing some good work during Sunshine Week, trying to publish the pay information of every public employee in the county. The results have been hilariously depressing. To whit:" Read the rest

Princeton's Andrew Appel writes on Freedom to Tinker about an illegal cover-up of New Jersey e-voting irregularities. The Princeton team have done amazing technical and investigative work on electronic voting machines, and Appel's piece (the first of three) demonstrates exactly the sort of dangers that e-voting critics have long warned of.

1 New Jersey court-ordered election-security measures have not been effectively implemented.

2 There is a reason to believe that New Jersey election officials have destroyed evidence in a pending court case, perhaps to cover up the noncompliance with these measures or to cover up irregularities in this election. There is enough evidence of a cover-up that a Superior Court judge has referred the matter to the State prosecutor's office.

3 Like any DRE voting machine, the AVC Advantage is vulnerable to software-based vote stealing by replacing the internal vote-counting firmware. That kind of fraud probably did not occur in this case. But even without replacing the internal firmware, the AVC Advantage voting machine is vulnerable to the accidental or deliberate swapping of vote-totals between candidates. It is clear that the machine misreported votes in this election, and both technical and procedural safeguards proved ineffective to fully correct the error.

NJ election cover-up Read the rest