Blogs on a Plane

The Fifth Column presents Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers #51: Blogs on a Plane, and does a damn fine job of it. A very nice flying experience...

Post-Carnival Slump

Why is it, after hosting a Carnival I fall into a period with no motivation to write? I know there are lots of happenings in the world of New Jersey taxes and budgeting, and that they deserve comment. For some reason, I just can't summon the mental energy to do it properly this week.

Is it really the Carnival?

Tags: Carnival

Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers, Number Fifty

Folks, I wanted this to be an extra-special fiftieth anniversary edition of the Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers. I had all kinds of great plans for a themed carnival, featuring a song parody with links to all the submitted posts.

Two problems arose. One, my song parody just never came together. As a matter of fact, it sucked. Here's a sample, judge for yourselves:

Fifty Ways to Blog New Jersey¹

The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to blog New Jersey

She said it's really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore I hope my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued
So I repeat myself, at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to blog New Jersey
Fifty ways to blog New Jersey

Refrain:
Just leave her for him, Jim, get a new job, Bob
Don't try a new con, Jon, just listen to me
Trip on the rug, Doug, don't need to discuss much
Pump your own gas, lass, and get yourself free

The second problem is one every blog carnival host should face -- a whole mess of links. Getting them all to fit inside the confines of a single song would have been completely impossible, so I'll just do this the old-fashioned way. We've got a nice mix this week of regular contributors, old friends who've been away, and even friends we hadn't met yet. Let's start with them, after a nice glass of wine while we all get acquainted.

The New Folks

Several blogs were brought to my attention for the first time this week. As far as I can tell, these are their first visits to the Carnival. Please welcome them warmly and with many future links. First up is The Jersey Todd Show, a podcast blog covering the music scene. In Todd's own words from Episode 29, he's got "bands you've heard of, bands that you haven't heard of, bands you're absolutely going to fall in love with."
Corzine Watch take's the governor at his word ("Hold me accountable"), tracking his promises vs. performance. Just yesterday, they covered gas station attendants, speed limits, approval ratings, and college tuition rates. It's amazing what the governor has influence over.
Disconnect the Dots presents "OCD-enhanced analysis of the major flaws that surround us every day," and his submission this week explores the flaws inherent in today's internet.
Finally, Schadenfreude of The Fifth Column ("Bloggas with Attitude") chimes in with A Fistful of Pennies, in which money becomes an issue for some people.

The Prodigal Sons

A few folks who've visited, and even hosted in the past dropped by after long absences. Mr. Bingley of the Coalition of the Swilling starts us off by sharing his life experience with extreme punctuality. Two hours early for a first date?
Dan Riehl, in the meantime, stops blogging national events and news long enough to notice New Jersey's Attorney General. I guess asking her to enforce the law is a bit of a stretch, isn't it?
Next up is Steve Schippert, formerly of The Word Unheard. Steve has a successful new gig at Threatswatch.org, where their motto is "Supporting Security by Enhancing Awareness." Steve sends us a story about Stolen Honor Reclaimed, which is really a story about how milblogs are changing the landscape.

The Usual Suspects™²

Many of our regular contributors have stopped in this week talking about tolerance (The Opinion Mill), loss (Shamrocketship), theft (The Nightfly), shopping (The Art of Getting By), and finance ("D"igital Breakfast). Mike Hill gives us a chapter from his novel (Sluggo Needs a Nap), while Jim expounds on the glut of holidays (Parkway Rest Stop). Kate of Katespot had quite a scare this week, but fortunately Moira's fine.

Dmitri from Cobweb Studios shares another beautiful photographs, while Princess Tata gives us some disturbing images.

Gasoline prices are an understandably hot topic this week, given the near-three-dollar price for regular. Joe's Journal the Center of New Jersey Life, and The Contrarian weigh in.

Joe also highlights the ACE Project, promoting alcohol awareness at Monmouth University. Joe's brothers in the fraternity are taking up a heavy burden trying to prevent acute alcohol poisoning, and should have gotten some recognition for their efforts. Joe's blog was the only media covering their kickoff event -- nicely done, Joe!

Music makes an appearance at The 15.24 Meter Blog, with memories of Kung Fu Fighting and other great songs from 1974. The Rix Mix also talks a bit about Neil Young, folk music, and calendars.

Gil's got literature, travel, and shaving covered at Virtual Memories, and celebrates an important anniversary with some thoughtful introspection. Also in a literary state of mind, Maureen of Jersey Writers passes on a little advice via Dorothy Parker's resume.

Chanice covers New Jersey politics, especially in the big cities. Today's target: Newark and the Housing Authority.

Karl in Atlantic City agrees with President Bush (and Fausta) about the national anthem -- sing it in English! Speaking of Fausta, she doesn't like Airbus' idea of standing up in an airplane for multi-hour flights. I can't say I blame her, those "seats" look more like vertical coffins with windows.

Surprisingly, Sharon and Enlighten don't agree on an issue of taxation. There's more to it than just taxation, but you need to read both posts to really understand the differences.

In items about the news business, Danny Klein notes The Jersey Journal's appearance on the Sopranos, while Jay Lassiter was an officially credentialed blogger for today's protest rally in NYC.

Government intrusion into our daily lives? Bob's got that covered.

On the international front, Jane keeps up her relentless blogging for freedom in Yemen. If half of us worked this hard at our blogging, the newspapers would just fold up and go away.

I've got two final thoughts to leave you with. First, please read my post about the state's "hiring freeze." The numbers will send a chill up (and down) your spine. Then, stop by to see Mel for a good chuckle, and have a great New Jersey week!

Next week's Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers will be hosted by The Fifth Column. As always, submit your links to NJCarnival@gmail.com.

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¹ With apologies to Paul Simon (who was born in Jersey)
² With apologies to Jim


Tags: Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers

Carnival 50, not ready for prime time

Watch the space above this post. I'll git-r-done, but not until late today. Sorry, but Real Life™ is getting in the way.

If you had a link you wanted to get in and thought it was too late, well, it isn't.
Feel free to submit it to NJCarnival@gmail.com.

See you later today!

Tags: Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers

I have the honor of hosting the Carnival of the NJ Bloggers this week.

Are you interested in submitting a post to be included in this week's Carnival? All you have to do is to send an email to njcarnival@gmail.com containing a link to one of your posts that you would like included in the Carnival. Or not, but maybe I might pick one of yours anyway. It's really much easier for me if you send me something, and your life should be centered around making my life easier.

Since this is Carnival # 50, I'd like to include at least 50 posts. If you've run across a new blogger from Jersey, please suggest to them that they submit a link.

If I do not hear from you by noon on Saturday, I will assume that you do not wish to be included this week. Don't do like I did last week and wait until 3 minutes before the deadline to submit a link. [Sorry, Anonymous B., but those darn Incas attacked my Greeks in Civ III and I just had to finish exterminating the filthy swine.]

Tags: New Jersey, Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers

Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers #49

No/w/here hosts a festive and friendly potluck Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers #49. Lots of links, good food, and friendly conversation, even between the lefties and righties...

Tags: New Jersey, Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers

Carnival Time

The Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers is up over at The Center of New Jersey Life. Sharon does her usual fine job of hosting.

Also, one of my posts was included in the Carnival of the GOP Bloggers! I mentioned this new carnival a few weeks ago. Go check it out.

Tags: Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers, Carnival of the GOP Bloggers

A Conservative Goes to the Library

[Welcome, Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers and Carnival of the GOP Bloggers! Thanks for stopping by.]

Thurman Hart, the Xpatriated Texan at BlueJersey.net, writes: Ken is a liar. He's trying to fool us all! Don't let him snow you. Or words to that effect. What he really says is that my post on the State Business Tax Climate Index is "intentionally misleading" and contains "disturbingly inaccurate info."
Let me start by stating that Thurman appears to care about the subjects on which he writes, and is normally polite in his discourse, so when I saw that he had linked to my post, I was encouraged that someone from the left side of the blogosphere wanted to engage in debate on the subject. My encouragement quickly turned to disappointment when I read his introductory remarks. As a former naval officer and Naval Academy graduate, I have always tried to conduct myself honorably. To be called a liar in a public forum is a slap in the face, and is very much unappreciated. While Thurman may disagree with my conclusions about the data, none of the information provided is inaccurate (although I did make one mathematical error, as described below). It is all verifiable at the links I provided to the State Business Tax Climate Index and the Gross State Product Report. (For the true geek, the actual data behind the report on GSP is here.)
Thurman appears to have gone to the data, and includes in his post the growth rates and growth ranks for each state I listed in the top and bottom 10. What I said was that "overall US growth rate was 4.3 percent," "the top 10 states ... hit an average of 4.67 percent," and "the bottom 10 states averaged 3.44 percent." He attempts to refute my analysis by pointing out that two of the top 10 business tax climate states, "Wyoming and Alaska badly underperform," and 60% of the states in the top 10 meet or exceed the national average. In Thurman's view, 60% beating the average isn't good enough. Unfortunately, his view is based on a flawed analysis - only the two states he cites, Wyoming and Alaska, are below the 4.3% national average, while Montana equals it, as shown in this copy of his table (emphasis added).

State	Tax Climate Rank	Growth Rate	Growth Rank
Wyoming	1	3.3	40
S. Dakota	2	4.5	20
Alaska	3	3.4	38
Florida	4	5.9	5
Nevada	5	9.3	1
New Hampshire	6	5.4	9
Texas	7	4.6	17
Delaware	8	5.0	12
Montana	9	4.3	25
Oregon	10	4.5	19

He then really confuses matters by trying to average the rankings and compare it to the median ranking, and excluding the highest percentage performer, Nevada, from the comparison to reinforce his position that the difference isn't really all that significant. Problem is, it's apparent that he averaged the growth rates, without accounting for the total growth in each of the states involved. He states that "If you separate Nevada from the rest, the average drops to 4.5." His calculation is correct for his flawed methodology, but doesn't really tell you the complete story. To do that, you have to sum the total GSPs and total growth, not average the averages.

	Dollars in millions
State	2004 Total	Percent Growth 03-04	03 Total	03-04 Growth	Overall Tax Climate Rank
Wyoming	23,979	3.3	23,213	766	1
South Dakota	29,386	4.5	28,121	1,265	2
Alaska	34,023	3.4	32,904	1,119	3
Florida	599,068	5.9	565,692	33,376	4
Nevada	100,317	9.3	91,781	8,536	5
New Hampshire	51,871	5.4	49,213	2,658	6
Texas	884,136	4.6	845,254	38,882	7
Delaware	54,274	5.0	51,690	2,584	8
Montana	27,482	4.3	26,349	1,133	9
Oregon	128,103	4.5	122,587	5,516	10
Top 10 States	1,932,639	5.2%	1,836,804	95,835
Percentage of US	16.6%		16.4%	19.9%

With Nevada in the mix, the combined growth rate for the top 10 states is 5.2%.^[1] Without Nevada, the combined growth rate falls to 5.0%. Thurman's argument doesn't hold water here. His method is akin to computing a team batting average by totalling the averages of each player, then dividing by the number of players. These states taken in the aggregate significantly outperform the nation as a whole, even if you exclude the top performer.
The next attempt to portray my analysis as "intentionally misleading" and inaccurate looked at the bottom 10 states. Thurman points out, correctly, that 40% "outperform" the US economy. His conclusion "guess," that "it must be something besides tax rates" is obviously correct, but not pursued or supported by any other data or analysis. What exactly is it then, Thurman? 70% of states with favorable business tax climates outperformed the US economy, while 60% of states with unfavorable business tax climates underperformed. I stand by my conclusion.
Let's put it another way. Look at the economic performance of the bottom 10 states, and compare with the top 10.

	Dollars in millions
State	2004 Total	Percent Growth 03-04	03 Total	03-04 Growth	Overall Tax Climate Rank
Arkansas	80,902	5.3	76,830	4,072	41
Iowa	111,114	5.5	105,321	5,793	42
Nebraska	68,183	1.5	67,175	1,008	43
Kentucky	136,446	3.7	131,578	4,868	44
Maine	43,336	3.9	41,709	1,627	45
Vermont	21,921	4.6	20,957	964	46
Ohio	419,866	2.6	409,226	10,640	47
Rhode Island	41,679	3.5	40,270	1,409	48
New Jersey	416,053	3.4	402,372	13,681	49
New York	896,739	4.7	856,484	40,255	50
Bottom 10 States	2,236,239	3.9%	2,151,923	84,316
Percentage of US	19.2%		19.2%	17.5%

The monetary difference in growth between the top 10 and bottom 10 states is large.

	2003 Economy	03-04 Growth
Top 10	$ 1,836,804	$ 95,835
Bottom 10	$ 2,151,923	$ 84,316
Delta	$ (315,119)	$ 11,519
% Delta	-14.6%	13.7%

The top 10 states generated $95.8 billion in growth, while the bottom 10 states generated $84.3 billion in growth starting from a much larger base. Their favorable tax climate let them create 13.7% more economic growth, using 14.6% less working capital. If these were companies, in which one would you invest? The data clearly show that states with a favorable business tax climate, in general, outperform the states with unfavorable business tax climates.

Tags: New Jersey, Taxes

p.s. Thanks to Enlighten-New Jersey and New Jersey for Change for weighing in on this as well.

________________
^[1] As I put together this rebuttal, I realized that I had made a calculation error. The top 10 states did not average 4.67% growth as I had noted. As you can see from the table, the average growth was actually 5.2%. I can't account for the error (didn't save my working Excel™ file), and I stand corrected on this point. This correction will also be appended to the original.

NJ Schools Construction Corporation Annual Report

[Welcome, Carnival riders! If you find this post enlightening, there's more here and here].

The New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation has published its annual report to the governor and legislature. Paul Nelson of NJ Fiscal Folly provides a nice, simple summary of the document: We're All Doomed, Doomed I Tell You!

Painfully, I've read the whole thing. It's not pretty, but the $12.8 billion cost widely quoted in the press is nothing more than a fantasy. The details of this fantasy start on page 77 of the report, but here's the game they are playing:
Step 1: Take the January 2005 construction cost estimates (CCEs) from the project management firms (PMFs) and add 7.5% escalation for the age of the estimates
Step 2: Add a further 15% "contingency"
Step 3: Add 2% to the design fees to account for restarting the work that was stopped
Step 4: Add 1-1.5% for permit fees, plus 0.25% for "other miscellaneous fees"
Step 5: Add 0.5% for temporary space.
Step 6: Add 2% for Schools Construction Corporation overhead.
Here's a real killer: "PMFs are compensated based on a percentage of the CCE of projects that they are managing." In other words, the PMFs are incentivized to generate construction cost estimates that are as high as possible.
So, in summary, an artificially inflated construction cost estimate is then further inflated by nearly 30%.
After establishing a nice, high baseline, SCC then moves to scare us into buying in now rather than later. They take the baseline, and further inflate it for two ridiculous cases -- waiting five or ten years to start the same projects. They apply an annual 7.5% inflator to the construction costs, and 15% inflation to the land acquisition costs. From page 81:

The proposed 15% adjustment is largely due to the anticipated increased value of real estate (primarily residential) and also takes into account anticipated increased cost for services (outside legal counsel, appraisal, review appraisal, title, relocation and property maintenance). The adjustment for anticipated market conditions is based on the SCC’s experience in all Abbott District market areas except Phillipsburg, Vineland and Millville over the past 5 years. All market segments, as seen in the Market Studies (Residential, Industrial and Commercial), have advanced significantly (largely 15 - 20%) each year since 2001. These studies are based on unaltered sales data from the Multiple Listing Service.

Apparently, they haven't been reading Grim over at the Northern New Jersey Real Estate Bubble. There's always the possibility that Grim is wrong, but no market can go up forever. Take a look at the Camden area, for example, since Camden is an Abbott District. Recently, the market's been climbing at a pretty good clip, based on the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's quarterly home price index (last updated for 3rd quarter 2005).

Note: In each of the following charts, the blue line represents the home price index (left scale), while the red line indicates rate of change (right scale). I know the clarity isn't very good, but I will try to clean it up later.



There was a similar growth trend in the Camden market back in the 80s, as you can see here:


But what happened in between? Nothing! The market was essentially flat for about six years, as you can see in the next chart.

My point here is simple: previous year market trends cannot be used to reliably predict future movement! The Schools Construction Corporation wants us to believe that it can accurately estimate the cost of a construction project five-to-ten years from now, when it cannot even get a handle on current year spending. I think we ought to give them five-to-ten years, but in a Federal prison rather than in our wallets.

Governor Corzine, do not spend another dime of my money on this fiasco. Cut our losses, ignore the arrogant Supreme Court, and stop feeding cash into the gaping maw of the Abbott Districts.

Tags: Jersey, Taxes, Education, NJSCC

54th midway of the Carnival of Education

The Carnival of Education is up over at The EdWahoo. They were kind enough to pick up my post on recent hish school proficiency scores in New Jersey. Lots and lots of links to peruse, covering the gamut of educational issues.

Carnival of the GOP Bloggers 1

A new Carnival comes to town: the Carnival of the GOP Bloggers. Check it out - simple, short, and very interesting.

Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers 39

Bob at eCache hosts the latest Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers, the 39th and apparently biggest edition yet! I overloaded my browser with tabs trying to open all of the interesting links. Go check it out.

Tags: Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers

New Jersey Carnival

Philomathean hosts the 38th edition of the Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers. Good stuff, go read it all!

Carnival Blog Rankings

Updated 3:00 PM: 15th-20th places revealed!
Updated 8:00 PM: 3rd-14th places revealed. Stop by after 10:00 PM to see who was number one!
Updated 10:00 PM: And the most linked carnival blogger is... Gigglechick! In a world full of lefty and righty political bloggers, it's the person trying to make us laugh who gets the most linky love.

In Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers XXXVII, I may have opened a can of worms. My little exercise in link counting and ranking has raised questions about what the rankings mean. Here's what I did.

Step 1 - get a copy of all the previous carnival posts.
Step 2 - grab all of the hyperlinks embedded in each file. This is the painful and repetitive part, so I wrote a little 6-line script in Word to do the work for me.
Step 3 - read the resulting list and eliminate those links that are not part of the actual carnival post. This includes things like blogrolls, archives, comments, and the administrative links at the beginning and end of each post. Content varied widely depending on who was hosting each week, but the link to Enlighten's carnival page and the Technorati tags served as pretty good markers for the beginning and end of real content.
Step 4 - move the whole mess over to Excel for analysis. Clean up inconsistencies, such as links to both dynamobuzz.com and www.dynamobuzz.com.
Step 5 - manipulate the text of the links to separate out the server name, top level domain, etc.
Step 6 - use Excel's Pivot Table to count up the links by blog address.

From there, it was a simple matter to get rankings. The blog with the most Carnival links was number 1, and the 82 blogs with only one link each were tied for 121st place.

Here are the Top 20. For now, it's just those that submitted a link for this week. Later today, I'll update to fill in the blanks.

Rank	Posts Linked	Blog
20	20	SmadaNek
20	20	Tami, the One True
20	20	The Rix Mix
20	20	The Eternal Golden Braid
17	22	NJ Conservative
17	22	KateSpot
17	22	Armies of Liberation
16	23	The Art of Getting By
14	24	Poor Impulse Control
14	24	The Contrarian
12	26	Parkway Rest Stop
12	26	Shamrocketship
11	27	Sluggo Needs a Nap
9	28	DynamoBuzz
9	28	Suzette
8	29	The Opinion Mill
6	31	NJ.com
6	31	The Center of NJ Life
3	32	Media in Trouble
3	32	Mister Snitch
3	32	Enlighten New Jersey
2	39	Fausta's Blog
1	40	Gigglechick

This was fun! Thanks for stopping by.

Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers XXXVII

Welcome, my friends, to the 37^th Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers. It's been twenty-six weeks since I last inflicted myself on you, and it has taken me this long to recover from the pain of writing so many haikus.
A lot has happened in the last six months, so I decided to take a look at all of the previous carnivals. What I found in the link data was pretty interesting. I had expected there to be a core group of pretty regular contributors, and a few not-so-regulars, but that turned out to be wrong. Our little network already follows a power law, just like the blogosphere at large! There are a few folks with a large number of posts, and a very large number (82) with only a single link in the mix.


A side benefit of counting up these links as the ability to rank each blogs place in our little network. For example, my 20 previous links put Smadanek in a 4-way tie for 20^th place of 202 linked blogs. Pretty cool, huh?
Now, Im sure youre all dying to see where your blogs placed in this little unannounced competition, but you will have to wait. We have company! Peter of Mano a Vino Montclair, where wine is the order of the day, joins us for the first time. Peter presents a wealth of useful information, and submitted his post on Favorite Wines Under $10. We'll have to hook Peter up with Mr. Bingley, who has also been known to enjoy a glass of wine or two.
Next up is Noreen Braman of Roderama, whose first carnival visit was just last week. Noreen's two links put her in a pack with 15 other blogs in 105^th place, and this little story about a snake sleeping with a hamster will definitely move her up in the standings.
Jay Lassiter and Anonymous B. Nowhere, in the first of five ties this week, sit in 90^th place. Jay tells us about his experiences with the military's social support network, and wants to ensure that the government continues to take care of veterans, while A.B.N. laments the loss of a friend.
El Zorro Viejo, coming in at 68, expounds on what he sees as the shortcomings of intelligent design. Meanwhile, MyManMisterC (63^rd) comments on the whole Oprah-vs.-James-Frey-thing.
In 58^th place, we have Virtual Memories with our first double entry of the week. On the political front, you can read about the Palestinian election; if that doesnt float your boat, then try this little piece about a trip to the movies. [VM was down at press time. Hopefully itll be back up by the time you all read this. Ed]
Our next guest is Tom Wright of the Wright Wing, holding down 53^rd position, with his take on new-fangled school security measures.

Before getting into the top 50, Id like to share a little useless trivia with you. In my sick obsession with numbers, analysis, statistics, etc, I found it necessary to break down the links by top-level domain. No surprises here, but .com has everyone else beat by a wide margin: I think the three trailers here (.gov, .edu, and .us) slipped past my screening process.

.com	176
.net	13
.org	8
.gov	2
.edu	2
.us	1

Oooh! This one's cool. Check out Dmitri's photo selection for the week. (49^th place, by the way).
Nordette Adams (44) shares her thoughts on bloggers getting paid, and why she wont use BlogIt to do so. And gumbo, too tell the Soup Lady.
Riss is in 41^st place, and apparently likes big butts, but not the music on her iPod.
Dojo Mojo must have figured out I was doing a rankings thing. Currently ranked 36^th, he would like to share three posts to move up ten spots.
1. Its Hudson Restaurant Week (sounds like a good deal).
2. Jersey City is broke, and increasing taxes (in Jersey? I cant believe that would happen).
3. There's a new novel out about a JC girl. Inspiration to start a book club.
Furey (26) deals with drunks. Lifes like that when you work in bars.

Our next contributor, Thurman Hart, is a little hard to rank. I started this out as ranking the blogs, and not the authors, but his record bears mention here. First 26^thplace Tammany on the Hudson notes that Jersey City is trying to get tough on developers, then 24^th place Xpatriated Texan gets on Ann Coulter's case for making a dumb remark that could be taken as a threat to a Supreme Court justice. I dont know how he keeps up his writing pace, but the combined ranking of these two blogs in the Carnivals would place Thurman in 3^rd place overall.

And now, the top 20, starting with Bob at the Rix Mix, where the subject is art and what it means to be an artist.
Janet, at number 16, is getting by this week with celebrity reality shows. I watched the previews for one of these, and I just dont get it.

Ah, we have another tie, this time between the Contratian and Tata for 14^th position. But not for long; we have Mormon baby names (who would name their girl Abcde?), farewell to Mario, and a way to turn any website into porn from the contrary one, while Tata isn't happy about rumors concerning medical care for veterans.

In 12^th place, we find both Shamrocketship and Parkway Rest Stop. The latest from the ship: baby son turning 13! Meanwhile, operatives from the house by the parkway ran into Howard Dean at the Newark Airport.

More useless trivia: 71 sites linked in the Carnival were hosted by Blogger. Nine were hosted by TypePad, and the remaining 107 had their own domain names. And now that the trivia is over, here are the top 10.

Tied for 9^th, Suzette (now back at Bob the Corgi!) and Roberto (of DynamoBuzz). Bob's not doing too well, and needs to wear a silly hat to get better. According to Roberto, Jon's not doing too well either, and NJ bloggers need to make sure he feels their love to get things right.

Steven Hart at The Opinion Mill has a lock on 8^th place, and reviews Orson Scott Card's essay in support of Intelligent Design.

Sharon's not in the center; she's nearly at the top of New Jersey life in 6^th place. She wants us to drop Tom Kean, Jr's name, and just call him Junior.

Media in Trouble sees a bizarro world in which Matt and Katie go out of their way to make Republicans look good and Democrats look bad, then adds some thoughts on spying. His prolific posting ties him for 3^rdplace with our founder, Enlighten New Jersey. The gang at Enlighten notes that New Jersey is a Financial Basket Case.

Our number two is a lady who writes prolifically, intelligently, and beautifully: Fausta. In the first 35 Carnivals, she's been linked 39 times! In her latest, she abandons the usual deep analysis of foreign affairs in the Spanish-language press to give us a boy in a skirt.

So who is number one? Post your guesses in the comments. I will reveal the complete top-20 list sometime late tonight.

Thats all folks. Next week, the Carnival will be hosted by Philomathean.

Carnival Number Thirty-Seven

Is not ready yet. But I do have 2⁵ links now. Keep 'em coming!

Carnival Tomorrow

Folks, looks like the Carnival is going to be a bit thin this week -- only 16 links submitted so far. I'll be out beating the bushes today, in between working on the honeydew list and helping son #1 with Cub Scout stuff.

If any of you have links to submit, send them to njcarnival@gmail.com. I expect to post late tonight / early tomorrow morning, so get your links in before midnight!

Hosting New Jersey Carnival Thirty Seven

I am hosting the Carnival of the NJ Bloggers this week, and I can't do it all by myself. I NEED YOUR HELP! All you have to do is to send an email to njcarnival@gmail.com containing a link to one of your posts that you would like included in the Carnival post.¹ It would also be really cool if you could send me a link to a post from a New Jersey blog that hasn't been in one of our little carnivals. We can always use a little new blood to strengthen the gene pool.
If I do not hear from you by sometime Saturday night, I will assume that you hate me for my good looks and wonderful writing do not wish to be included this week. However, the Carnival's mail box address remains the same and you can always submit a post any week to be part of that week's Carnival.
More information about the Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers may be read at the Carnival Home Page.

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¹ Editorial policy. If you send a link to an actual NJ blog post from the past week, I will include it. I will also attempt to respond to your submission within 24 hours. If you don't hear back from me, assume your mail was lost and resubmit.

Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers XXXVI

Sharon of The Center of NJ Life hosts a very nice Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers XXXVI. I enjoyed every bit, except the piece about Suzette hanging up her keyboard.

I'll be hosting the next edition of the Carnival, twenty-six weeks after my last go-round. Post your links to the usual email address, njcarnival@gmail.com.

The Carnival of NJ Bloggers #30

Mamacita (Humor, News & Entertainment for Women Who Can't Be Fooled) hosts the 30th edition of The Carnival of NJ Bloggers. Who knew something as simple as putting together a list of links could get controversial?