From the Record:
Clifton is one of the hottest towns in New Jersey for homebuying. Here’s why
While not much farther from New York than Bergen, many Passaic communities feature more spacious neighborhoods and are known for beloved nature spots, like the Botanical Gardens of New Jersey in Ringwood. The county has busier hubs like Clifton, or areas with quieter lifestyles like Ringwood and Bloomingdale.
Clifton is a large and diverse Passaic County city, taking up five ZIP codes and housing more than 88,000 residents. Despite its size, the city is broken up into more than 10 distinct neighborhoods that each offer their own close-knit communities and varying housing styles.
Clifton’s large size lends itself to be a diverse cultural hub filled with eclectic restaurants, a variety of housing styles and an abundance of amenities, all within close proximity to New York City.
The hottest ZIP code in Clifton for 2024 is 07013, where a home sold for $599,000, according to Joel Bergen, Realtor.com‘s senior economist, who compiled a list of the top homebuying ZIP codes for each of the five North Jersey counties in 2024.
Hell yeah 07013
By the way, sorry about your gas bills this month, going to be brutal.
“ Clifton’s large size lends itself to be a diverse cultural hub filled with eclectic restaurants, a variety of housing styles and an abundance of amenities, all within close proximity to New York City.”
This applies to all NJ. That’s why we all live here. We will defend democracy and freedom.
Federal government must help rebuild California.
Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent to rebuild Florida every year.
They really need to stop building on any mountains subject to Santa Ana winds. Sorry, but that’s where the problem is. Same with building single story homes along the beaches in the Gulf of Florida.
By the way, sorry about your gas bills this month, going to be brutal.
I just paid it this morning. lol. Yeah, ouch!
Federal government must help rebuild California.
Math question: If $7.5 Billion in federal dollars yields 8 EV charging stations, how much is needed to rebuild Los Angeles County due to historic fires? Please show your work.
Clifton was always a hidden secret. Convenience to everything is an understatement. Kielbasa, Punk Bagel, Dingbats, Rutt’s Hutt, Silk City booze, medical facilities along Clifton Avenue… all good!
They will never get through the permit process according to Adam Corolla
Clifton is no different than a handful of other towns in the area; it’s all mediocrity. Stroke to property values all you want, but these are just meh places to live with decaying infrastructure.
Your gift to Ukraine. Slava Ukraine!
By the way, sorry about your gas bills this month, going to be brutal.
I just paid it this morning. lol. Yeah, ouch!
As someone who lived a few years in Clifton in the Athenia section, I can affirm it’s a decent place to live by most standards. It’s very blue collar proud and extremely diverse both age and nationality wise. My only knock is the poor performance of their secondary and post schools, which is most likely a socio economic issue. They do have an excellent location if you commute to New York with a train station and the Allwood bus depot offering multiple options with decent parking available. And there are plenty of good restaurants with amazing variety suited to the diverse population. In many ways, it’s like Paterson, but without the horrible crime. And Paterson is one town over offering those options and 3.5 percent sales tax. Quite honestly, I’ve told a more people starting their careers to look there to live than anywhere else.
3 to 5 years to get a permit in Los Angeles to rebuild after the fire. I guess they need to do environmental impact studies so they don’t disturb the mating calls of Endogeic earthworms.
Or you could take the MAGA position and make believe this has nothing to do with climate change nor are our snowless winters, record long droughts and 10 inch rains. Heck, who needs environmental policy when the church will save us.
MAGA position in Florida is to rebuild after every storm and ask for Federal Government handouts and insurance subsidies
Libturd,
Regarding climate change: Too many people on the planet, need to cull the masses. Boomers need to go first!
I kind of agree with you there Gary.
Major credibility problems on the left as their irresponsible governance implodes in front of our eyes. Still reeling and grasping for excuses.
Traiter Joe, your four years are just ahead. When the shit does hit the fan, please remember to tell us it’s the new Trump cologne, worn by all of the leaders of the stupid.
Now let’s check for the Trump laughable move of the day…
Ah, lets go over the Trump/Musk lies of the day.
Trump claimed that Newsom wouldn’t divert Northern Cali water to South Cali leaving southern reservoirs empty hence, planes couldn’t be used to fight the wildfires. The truth is that nearly all of the reservoirs in California are near or at max capacity since the multiyear drought ended last Winter and Spring which has significantly added to Lake Mead and all of the other reservoirs in the Southwest US. Again and as usual, Trump tells a huge lie, but MAGA can do no wrong.
Later, he claims there is no water because the hydrants were having pressure issues. Again, another big fat lie from your big fat leader. The pressure was down in the hydrants from all of the idiots who instead of evacuating, selfishly and stupidly stayed behind to try to hose down their properties to keep them from burning leaving the firefighters with less water pressure to try to control the spread of the wildfires. Again and as usual, Trump tells a huge lie, but MAGA can do no wrong.
Then Musk, the biggest grifter of them all (and always has been even when he was sucking blue cock instead of red), claims DEI is why the firefighters are failing since the department is lead by women. Again, no proof or evidence that gender has anything to do with anything here, because it doesn’t. But doesn’t blaming women for the devastation sound wonderful to a group of dumb alpha males who can do no wrong?
Had enough? You can spend every minute of every hour pointing out MAGA lives, but it would only fall on deaf ears since MAGA can’t do no wrong.
TDS, I know.
Insane how an elected official would see a massive natural disaster as payback to a political rival. Disgusting on every level. You got what you wanted folks.
Trump doubling down on hius lies today. Lies. devoured like Big Macs from a duped populous too stupid to care about the truth.
This from Truth Social, the echo chamber of MAGA:
Governor Gavin Newscum should immediately go to Northern California and open up the water main, and let the water flow into his dry, starving, burning State, instead of having it go out into the Pacific Ocean. It ought to be done right now, NO MORE EXCUSES FROM THIS INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR. IT’S ALREADY FAR TOO LATE!
As usual, no arguments from the MAGA devotees here. Why bother?
The water main.
His incompetence is on full display, as it always is.
As usual, no arguments from the MAGA devotees here. Why bother?
Greatest comeback ever… most influential political figure in our lifetime, defeated progressive ideology and implemented a global swing towards conservative principals while enforcing the strength and influence of America. Parsing vowels and consonants is akin to a junkie scraping another line from the dirty, oak crevices of a broken coffee table at 5:45 AM. The howls of misery from the left should be played on a loop, it’s the same story over and over and over. The Howls of Misery… my next song.
Pretty sure “you got what you wanted” hits closest to home in LA where they elected an imbecile and then watched their city burn while she trotted off on a taxpayer funded vacation. The woke mind virus on full display.
Everyday, I will continue to publish the lies. And the only thing you’ve got is he got elected and I have a mind virus. Perhaps you should open the water main between your mouths and brains.
4:02 gloating about a natural disaster is on brand for you.
Implying that somehow “you” would have been able to prevent is simply beyond pathetic.
People should be upset about the fires…then angry…I can’t believe that no one saw something like this coming. People in charge of preventing this disaster should be held accountable.
Libturd says:
January9, 2025 at 4:28 pm
“I will continue to publish the lies”
If that ain’t a surefire sign of TDS, I don’t know what is! It’s gonna be a long 4 years for Lib and the other stooges! Keep publishing those ‘lies’, Lib, you’re doing important work…
Personally I’m sad about this fire. I recently hiked in this area. Incredible. It’s truly a loss. I don’t believe much could have been done to prevent this without massive amounts of expenditure, even then it’s almost impossible
good luck LA. Soon you won’t be dealing with disaster capitalism. The vultures are flying over there now seeing who they can pick off.
Climate change is real
Climate change did not cause the LA wildfires
The devastation that accompanies a fire is without precedence nothing is left behind. Just ash. I read these comments from obviously extremely unhappy fools living their pathetic lives blaming various entities and political factions for a lack of preparedness.
My neighbor told me when we moved here that the killer fire would be one that started in the Hollywood hills. He said that one will be the one where people simply cannot escape. With the widespread devastation it seems that he was correct. The modest loss of life is one bright spot. He said the other day that this was the first time that fire fighters had to navigate abandoned cars to get to the fire.
Imagine trying to extinguish red hot embers blowing through town at 60-80 mph while the dry foliage ignites creating napalm that takes out everything in it’s path.
I am fairly certain that the Mayor of LA has seen her career extinguished with this event. The optics behind her trip abroad and the cutting of funds is too much to overlook.
Newsom might also feel the effects of this massive disaster and his dwindling base may decide he actually isn’t up to the task of running the state. We’ll almost certainly have or homeowners insurance cancelled in the next couple of months as nearly every major insurer is pulling out of the State much like Florida experienced after their hurricane damage.
I’d still rather live here that many, many other place. Why? After 8 years it feels like home despite the incredibly high cost we all pay to be here. Pacific Palisades was one of the most expensive places to live in the Country. At this point, it’s future is unknown. But one thing if for sure. A lot of suffering has been inflicted in a very short time and on a scale that defies imagination.
Again mismanagement….of water. Maybe they could have saved more homes. They ran out of water at the the fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades because they did not have enough water tanks up the hill, only 3 tanks one million gallons in each tank, and they emptied them quickly with fire hoses so no water. It takes a long time to pump water uphill in pipes to refill those tanks. For reference an Olympic size pool holds 660,000 gallons.
If and when they rebuild they should perhaps build more reservoirs in those ravines at the top of those hills and build a dam and fill it up a nice large artificial lake at the top of the hill.
Oh Wait…they have one now. Santa Yanez Reservoir, they could use 10 more. Apparently it is empty..and has been since 2009!!!! Some kind of EPA regs….
https://x.com/pagesix1536/status/1877120777855590819
WTF? Why is it empty?
Here is a recent google photo.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Santa+Ynez+Reservoir/@34.0720403,-118.5702287,467m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c2a22de52ca30b:0x6e365d513135717f!8m2!3d34.0729192!4d-118.5692201!16s%2Fg%2F1v0ll0w9?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
They also need to desalinize water from the ocean up and down the coast.
I dunno man! Maybe everyone is sleeping on the job.
Newsom pissed away billions on the homeless problem
with very little to show for it.
They’ve just watched a community of millionaires and billionaires lose it all.
You can bet they’ll be fallout and perhaps some real productive change.
But I wouldn’t hold my breath. It’s the government you’re talking about here.
All the DEI in the world won’t bring those homes and businesses back.
This is a massive loss at a time when Hollywood is on the ropes and media firms
in general are sucking wind. There have been more layoffs in tech over the last few years than during the dot crash decades earlier. More misery will surely follow.
SHHHHHHHH…… does not fit narrative; must suppress…..
Must virtue signal….. don’t tell people that China burns coal to power their EV’s.
China ignores Paris accord…… SHHHHHH
WSJ
The Billionaire Mining Magnate Who Bet Coal Had a Future—And Won Big
The U.K. closed its last coal-powered plant, but 76-year-old Low Tuck Kwong ignored naysayers and built a fortune from the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel
Bayan Resources’ Tabang coal mining complex on the island of Borneo in Indonesia.
By Jon Emont
TABANG, Indonesia—Deep in Indonesian Borneo, workers laid asphalt on a new 60-mile road being built to transport coal from mines that have never been busier.
At one end of the road, crews built a 40-foot-high conveyor belt that whisks the coal over swampland to a new jetty on the Mahakam River. From there, the coal is funneled onto barges and floated downstream to a private port on the Pacific Ocean. Giant loading machines fill equally massive ships headed for China, India and the Philippines.
Coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel, is booming, and few are profiting more than Low Tuck Kwong, the 76-year-old businessman behind one of Asia’s largest coal-mining complexes. Coal’s resurgence as a cheap and reliable energy source propelled him to a spot on Forbes’s 100 richest people. Low’s wealth is estimated to have swelled to $28 billion from $1 billion in the years since coal was assumed to be headed for the slag heap.
Some experts had concluded that coal consumption peaked in 2013 at 8 billion metric tons. It has since surpassed that level three years in a row. Indonesia, the world’s largest coal exporter, is shipping more of it than any nation in history. In December, the International Energy Agency abandoned projections that coal use would drop in coming years, saying that it will increase through at least 2027 to nearly 9 billion tons.
Western nations have turned away from coal, but emerging economies are taking up the slack, as more nations seek to industrialize, modernize and pull their people out of poverty. A swath of Asia that spans Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines to India, Bangladesh and Pakistan—together home to 30% of humanity—has increased the share of its power supply that comes from coal.
By comparison, the U.K., where coal helped fuel the industrial revolution two centuries ago, shut down its last coal-powered plant in September.
In China, energy demand is growing at such a pace that the amount of coal burned keeps climbing, despite a push toward renewable energy. The uptick defies expectations from a few years ago, when coal consumption in the world’s second-largest economy had stagnated.
Experts had predicted that Beijing’s solar and wind investments, in conjunction with a shift toward less energy-intensive industries, would herald an era of shrinking demand. Instead, coal use in 2021 surpassed the nation’s 2013 peak. China consumes 30% more coal than the rest of the world combined, the IEA reported in December.
For developing nations in Asia, coal is hard to beat. Regional supplies are plentiful, unlike oil and natural gas. In contrast to solar, wind and hydropower, it generates electricity regardless of the weather, providing a dependable anchor for the region’s expanding power grids. Severe droughts in China in 2022 and 2023 reduced hydropower generation, helping spur a coal surge.
Coal underpins cement production for India’s infrastructure push and powers factories in Vietnam, which is racing to buttress its position as a top manufacturing alternative to China. It powers Indonesia’s nickel industry, which feeds the production of electric-vehicle batteries.
As heat waves throttle Asia, a growing middle-class is installing millions of new air conditioning units a year, driving electricity demand higher. Power-hungry data centers are multiplying to sate computer banks behind artificial intelligence. The shift to electric vehicles also is putting new pressure on power grids.
“We’ve forecast peak coal at least three times,” said Rory Simington, a coal analyst with Wood Mackenzie, a natural-resources analytics company. “We keep getting surprised.”
Low’s company, Bayan Resources, is looking to supercharge its coal mining to more than 80 million tons a year by 2026, up from 50 million in 2023. The company is building an airport to ferry workers to its remote mining site.
Even the billionaire’s private zoo, built on his concession, needs to make way for the mining of the bounty buried beneath. That means Filbert the rescue orangutan will move to new digs, along with more than a dozen tigers, two zebra-donkey hybrids called zonkeys and Low’s zorse.
Bayan has spent around $500 million on its infrastructure expansion since 2020, and the company isn’t worried about coal’s future. “Many poor countries still need coal,” Low said.
The U.S. and other wealthy countries have offered billions of dollars in financing to encourage such developing countries as Indonesia, Vietnam and South Africa to retire their coal plants in favor of green energy. But skeptical leaders in the developing world say the aid, mostly loans, isn’t enough to overhaul their energy grids while saddling them with debt.
At a coal conference in September, Luhut Pandjaitan, a senior Indonesian government official, said his country would try to reduce the rate of rising carbon emissions while expanding the economy. He challenged advanced countries to take the lead.
“Countries that have greater capacity must reduce carbon emissions further and faster,” he said.
Environmentalists chalk up coal’s persistence in part to vested interests. Coal tycoons in Indonesia and India, for instance, wield great political influence, discouraging the government from sharp moves away from their fossil fuel. The industry also employs millions of people and provides enormous tax revenue from exports.
Even Switzerland-based Glencore, one of the West’s largest miners, has scotched a proposal to spin off its coal holdings. “The world continues to grow. It needs that energy, needs that high quality coal, and we provide that,” said chief executive Gary Nagle in August. Shareholders were very happy for the company to stay the course, he added.
The resurgence in coal use is helping doom the international goal of stopping global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or about 2.7 degree Fahrenheit, above preindustrial temperatures. To be on track for that decade-old target, the U.N. said in October that coal’s share of global power generation would have to come down from 32% in 2022 to 4% in 2030. Analysts consider that next to impossible.
Low, Indonesia’s coal baron, has a personal zoo and travels to his coal site via helicopter, yet he carries his own bag and wears the same pair of what look like $200 Swiss-brand black sneakers for a few days at a stretch.
He bought his first coal-mine concession in Borneo in the 1990s. Most investors were focused on mines near the coast, spots where coal could easily be shipped. Low’s site was inland and not especially close to a river.
“People said there was something wrong with our brains,” Low recalled.
But the coal was high-grade, and Low, an engineer by training, was confident he could make it work. At the time, favorable government regulations helped Indonesia emerge as a major player in the regional coal trade, which until then had been dominated by Australia. Big markets such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan began buying large amounts of coal from Borneo, which had the advantage of being conveniently close for shipment.
Low’s operations got off to a lumpy start. By the time the first shipment was ready in 1998, the three-decade reign of Suharto, Indonesia’s dictator, had just ended. Low’s Japanese buyer, fearing unrest, refused to send a ship to collect the coal, forcing the company to hunt for a new buyer.
Low’s company focused on expansion, purchasing a coal port on Borneo’s east coast in 1998. Over the next 15 years, it added new mines around the area, piling on debt.
The investment appeared ill-timed. Global concern about climate change led to the negotiation of the Paris Agreement in 2015, in which nations said they would limit carbon emissions, hurting coal’s prospects.
During that period, Chinese policymakers were restructuring the economy toward clean energy and away from years of breakneck infrastructure and manufacturing-led growth that had fueled a massive rise in coal demand.
“The coal industry is facing huge pressures, and the main reason is China,” Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, said in 2015. “The economic transformation in China and environmental policies worldwide—including the recent climate agreement in Paris—will likely continue to constrain global coal demand.”
The Tabang coal-mining complex in East Kalimantan.
Bankers for Low’s company hired a consultant who concluded that future expansion was unrealistic. The consultant said the company would never sell more than 15 million tons of coal a year from its main mining site, a company executive recalled. The company, swimming in more than $500 million of debt, negotiated with creditors to buy time.
Instead of burying coal for good, China maintained its position as the world’s factory floor and its ravenous demand for power continued. India and Indonesia fired up more coal plants to support their industrial ambitions. Coal prices rose. By 2018, Low’s company returned to financial health.
Logistics remained a persistent problem: The company’s main mine was some 140 miles inside Borneo, far from coastal ports. “Mining coal is pretty easy, you dig it out of the ground,” said Alastair McLeod, Bayan’s chief financial officer. “Getting it to where you can sell it is the issue.”
In 2019, a lengthy dry season reduced water levels in the fickle river tributary Bayan depended on to transport coal to the coast. In desperation, senior company executives consulted a local shaman and gave an offering of eggs and bananas to a local river god, hoping for rain. It came, eventually, but the company sought a more reliable solution.
They began building a road through the rugged terrain of eastern Borneo, connecting their mines to the main Mahakam River, which was deep enough to barge coal even in the dry season. To get the coal to the Mahakam jetty, the road would need to be flat and arrow-straight for the double-trailer trucks bearing 220-ton loads.
Along the way, crews hit swampy terrain, causing worries that the road might sink under the weight of coal-laden trucks. The company built an overland conveyor belt for the final 5 miles.
Near one of the main mining sites, a crew of Japanese and Indonesian workers for Komatsu, a Japanese heavy machinery company, were assembling the first of six new 23-foot-high coal loaders near one of the main mining sites. The wheels are 14-foot high, and each vehicle weighs 220 tons, about three times the weight of an Abrams tank. They can lift more than 37 tons of coal with each shovelful.
“We’re doubling our capacity. We believe there is 30 years or maybe 40 years of coal still going forward,” said McLeod, the company’s chief financial officer. “Other people may not believe it.”
“China consumes 30% more coal than the rest of the world combined, the IEA reported in December.”
Hope you and yours are ok LAX. I was up in Napa for a wedding at the end of 2017 when all those fires were breaking out. It was crazy as thousands of homes burned. While I was there the firetrucks were racing all over to put out fires, everything was so dry fire would break our spontaneously and it did…
Everyone knows that California forgot to rake the forrests again.
https://x.com/maddenifico/status/1877400632216166714
Best part of the day, watching Donnie having to shake Pence’s hand. I don’t have a lot of time for Mikey, but he does have his moments.
chi – Electricity… some crazy number too hundreds of new electric plants fired by coal planned every year now. The have around 1200 coal fired electric plants. The USA which is #3 after India 285 plants has 204….
“I’d still rather live here that many, many other place.”
I would go back to San Francisco. Even with the Homeless and the Drugs, it is a fantastic place to live.
re : rake the forest..
California has massive issues with invasive grass. Those honey-colored hills in California with the grass growing? Like smallpox, the golden grass growing all over California was brought by Europeans. It has completely taken over.
It is one of the reasons why the fire spreads so fast. You don’t need to look far to find a story..
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/02/us/grass-fire-evacuation-san-joaquin-tracy-california/index.html
We won’t know where things went wrong for a while. I was thinking, between all of the homeowners running hoses a thousands of burnt out husks of homes with broken water pipes there was no way the municipal water system could supply water to fire hydrants. No matter how good their water management was.
D-FENS the water chief just covered it. I told ya 3 tanks only…..drained quick…..3 million gallons are not nearly enough..
Ignore the political message in the tweet….As I mentioned poor planning… They are no different than New Jersey.
https://x.com/amuse/status/1877336432882135389
Which was more responsible, climate change or negligence/poor management?
More popcorn.. Donnie from Queens sentencing is tomorrow….. he just was denied today his appeal to the NY Supreme Court and the additional US Supreme Court appeal.
Seems he is going to face the music. Does Judge Merchan have the balls? No other judge or court is stepping on his neck….
Unanimous jury of 12, the sanctity itself of the jury system is at stake after all.
How about a week at Rikers? It will be 10 days until he is Officially president..
BRT the latest water management CEO cannot be blamed. She is too new..It’s decades of negligence. They should for example have a billion gallons of water stored uphill to protect those homes. 8,840 households in the Pacific Palisades and only three uphill water tanks…with 3 million gallons total.
Did some math here..306 acres of water 10 ft deep would give them a billion gallons of water.
Better planning and spending.. That billion gallons could feed plenty of sprinklers to keep homes from burning. All the money in the world up there too. Look around here for example the tiny Manasquan Reservoir has 4 billion gallons of water.
“Seems he is going to face the music”
No, this was always going to be no Jail time. First time offence, white collar crime and he was not “hands on”.
The reason he has been fighting it so hard is that is removes the “First Time”, so next time up, the FL, GA or WI cases as a convicted felon, the big house is a real prospect!
Fab – Jail is always in the cards if you piss off the judge.
Who is the say all the tweets won’t factor?
If I was up for a Class E Felony in NY I would not be dissing the judge on Twitter…..
As I said the judge is not handcuffed by the higher courts. How about a day in jail?
Just to point out the water issues in CA.
From an recent article… “A lot of water in California does flow into the Pacific — much of it is reserved for environmental uses”
I water skied inland on the delta near farms etc a few times….. it’s 75,00o square miles. Really massive fresh water. What is not used by drinking water and farms goes straight into the bay…More than half the state using it for drinking water, the rest farming and recreation…it flows all the way to LA and i a primary source of water for Los Angeles.
Amazing how it was all built decades ago plenty of documentaries on how he desert that is LA was transformed. YV Shows on How it’s Built etc.
Not sure when or where it went…….the planning that is. Big and bold no longer seems to exist.
While I would love to se Donnie spend even a day in jail, it is not happening here.
If that’s what comes down there is an appeal on Judicial Overreach.
Worst for Donnie is the minimal slap on the wrist for first offense, but a bigger issue next time he’s up for sentencing in any case, as at that point he is a Convicted Felon!