Your New Favorite Restaurant

Good Day Philadelphia was on location this morning at the above restaurant. (The event? The Phily Diner is now serving alcohol!)

All I have to say is: It better be spelled that way because of the nickname of some guy named Phil.

N.J. HOF Finally Complete

The New Jersey Hall of Fame announced today the 13 inductees for the 2009 class, which includes Jon Bon Jovi, Jerry Lewis, basketball great and Newark native Shaquille O’Neal, and the comedic duo Abbott and Costello.

This is really an incredible lineup of inductees. It also includes Carl Sagan, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams (I would have gone by “Bill”), longtime Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto and, of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wow, Shaq gets higher billing than ol’ F. Scott? Amazing.

I must say, though, I’m pretty pumped for the comedic pairing of Lewis and Bon Jovi.

Bon Jovi, Shaq, Abbott and Costello make N.J. Hall of Fame [Newark Star-Ledger]

Hitler’s Mom Has Got It Going On

Yes! Best headline ever! Not mine — my reference is pretty effing old — but the one at right, from a story on NBC 10: Hitler’s Mom Speaks Out, Defies Court Order.

Yeah, you guys know what this is about: Little Adolf Hitler Campbell and his 2 siblings were taken away by the authorities (possibly Tom Cruise) and placed in foster care.

Now, Hitler’s mother, Deborah Campbell, has spoken to NBC 10 in violation of a judge’s gag order. Not sure how much we can trust a woman who named her son “Adolf Hitler” — and her other kids JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler [sic] Jeannie Campbell — but she says she and her husband were exemplary parents and that their children’s names are to blame for the state taking away her kids.

But the real money quote comes from little Adolf Hitler’s aunt, Jeanne Coverdale:

“What about tomorrow night when the President of the United States stands up and say, is forced to say, my name is Barack Hussein Obama. How’s that going to hit the world? I’m saying the one with the middle name he has, was a terrorist.”

I can’t wait ’til another historic day in our nation’s history, when a little boy named Adolf Hitler can overcome adversity and become president of the United States.

Adolf Hitler Captured By Authorities

Get your keyboards ready to sign some Internet petitions! The parents of everyone’s favorite New Jersey kid — one Adolf Hitler Campbell — had their three little tykes taken away by New Jersey Youth and Family Services.

Taken away were the little dictator, who’s three, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who’s 1, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, who will turn 1 in April. Yes, if you’re wondering, little Honszlynn Hinler is named after Himmler, the head of the SS. Clearly, the parents did a lot of research before writing down their kid’s name.

[Holland Township, N.J. Police Chief David] Van Gilson said he didn’t know why the children were taken or who had custody. He said his department received no reports of abuse or negligence. [...] “Whatever children were at the home were taken,” the chief said.

Though naming your kid Adolf Hitler might be construed as child abuse, there’s no word on what, exactly, these parents did to warrant removing the child. They did whore for attention at a ShopRite in New Jersey, but who among us hasn’t attempted to put a murderous dictator’s name on a cake before? I remember my first “Happy Birthday Pol Pot!” cake.

The Express-Times has been your number one source for Adolf Hitler Campbell news; the paper broke the scandal (it’s called “Watergate II,” I believe). This was my favorite part of today’s story:

Heath Campbell, who’s previously said he picked the names to honor German ancestry and because they are unique, has reported receiving threats after the story was published.

Well, they certainly are unique. But, I mean, he coulda just gone the easy route and spelled a normal name incorrectly. That way the kid could even get a job on TV (just ask Jennaphr Frederick). I don’t think Adolf Hitler will be getting to report live from a kindergarden anytime soon, you know.

New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services removes Adolf Hitler Campbell, sisters from parents’ home [Express-Times]

NJ College Pres. Hates His Students

Earlier this year, a bunch of college presidents got together to form the Amethyst Initiative, which asked for a dialogue on our de facto national drinking age.

It turns out — and I know this is going to shock you — that lots of kids on college campuses drink. I know, I’m surprised too. Don’t these kids know the law? Anyway: College campuses have developed a dangerous drinking culture, perhaps in part due to the 21-plus drinking age, and these college presidents were all wondering if the federal government could reconsider its policy.

The reaction to this from nearly all political and media quarters was that of horror. The New Jersey Senate held a hearing yesterday and decided the solution is just a little more law enforcement. “We’ve got to tighten these laws up to deal with this unfortunate problem,” said said the committee chairwoman.

But a special award goes to Stockton College president Glenn Miller, who requested the police arrest his students more often:

There is currently no law forbidding underage drinking, said Miller. Instead, under state statute, underage drinking outdoors is against the law, but underage alcohol consumption behind closed doors is not illegal.

“I think we should refine the statute to make it an actual violation to drink underage,” said Miller, who also called for harsher punishments for those who buy alcohol for underage adults.

“We are dealing with a population of young adults aged 18 to 22 and they are learning, most for the first time, how to live as a responsible member of the community. Students will make mistakes — however, when a community member does not learn from their mistake or refuses to accept the mistake they have made, enforcement needs to be taken.”

Let’s say you’re a 19-year-old at Stockton College, and you drink on the weekends like everybody else at school. You’re breaking the law, sure, but you don’t throw up like when you were 16 and you don’t get really hammered much anymore. You’ve somehow managed to become a responsible drinker. There is nothing you need more than enforcement.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is this: Yesterday, a Moorestown policeman pled not guilty to charges of having sex with girls and cows. While this was going on, the Senate was debating how to best fail at the impossible task of preventing all underage drinking.

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Or, I guess, fiddling while someone is diddling cows? Something like that.

Photo by cytoon used under a Creative Commons license

N.J. To Ban Insane From Voting

Now that the election is over, politicians can forget everything they said and get back to more important things, like barring the criminally insane from voting!

It happened again Tuesday, as it does in most every election: Howard Unruh, the man who killed 13 people in a 1949 Camden shooting spree, voted and the Mercer County Board of Elections declared his ballot invalid.

Though his ballot was not counted, the possibility of voting by Unruh and other people who have committed heinous crimes but have not been convicted either because they were found not competent to stand trial or because they were not guilty by reason of insanity sparked outrage among some officials this week.

State Sen. Shirley Turner, a Democrat from Lawrenceville, said that she is drafting a bill that would bar the criminally insane from voting. “These are the people who have been determined not to know right from wrong — which is why they’re in a psychiatric facility,” she said.

Cue the jokes about barring Republicans from voting and faux academic blog posts about why, yes indeed, being a Democrat is a mental illness. Ugh, I know. But we can all agree on one thing: Howard Unruh definitely cast a write-in vote for Ron Paul.

Criminally insane would be denied vote under bill [Bergen Record]

Vets Demand Kids Miss School

New Jersey residents have been constantly proving the state’s worthiness to the union for centuries. Many of them have enlisted in the armed forces to contribute to the national pasttime, war.

At least a few of them have gone a step further. They’ve decided to protest a Gloucester, N.J., school board meeting tonight for its decision to hold classes on Veterans Day, the day no one knows how to punctuate.

The vets are so angry they’ve brought out all the stops. These won’t be any ordinary veterans, though:

“I understand there’s going to be several disabled veterans groups there, and we’re going to present it to the board of education that we feel November 11th should be a day off in observance of Veteran’s Day.”

Whoa, pulling out the big guns right away. I fully expect the school board to retaliate with a group of children who would have graduated had they just gone to one day of classes on Veterans Day.

Vets Protest Classes in Gloucester, NJ on Veteran’s Day [KYW 1060]