Month: March 2013

photo by Boyd Loving Ridgewood REORG

Potential prosecution of Menendez faces a tough path forward, experts say

TRENTON — Veteran prosecutors and defense attorneys said Friday the government faces a formidable challenge in building a public corruption case against Sen. Robert Menendez, who is reportedly under investigation by a federal grand jury in Miami over his relationship with a wealthy donor.

Christopher Baxter-The Star-Ledger

https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/mendendez_prosecutors_face_an.html#incart_river

Dunes vs. property rights in storm battered NJ

HARVEY CEDARS — The sand dune that ruined Harvey and Phyllis Karan’s view of the ocean allowed their beachfront home to see another day when superstorm Sandy’s surge crashed ashore. They still want the $375,000 a court awarded them for the blocked sunrise, though.

Wayne Parry-Associated Press

https://www.northjersey.com/news/Dunes_vs_property_rights_in_storm-battered_NJ.html

Joint meeting of Board of Education and Village Council, Tonight  7:30 p.m., at the  Education Center, 49 Cottage Place.

The Board will hold its next Regular Public Meeting on Monday, March 18 at 7:30 p.m. This meeting will be a Joint Meeting with the Ridgewood Village Council, followed by a Regular Public Meeting.

The public is invited to attend the meeting at the Ed Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3. Or it may be viewed live via the district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us using the “Link in Live” tab.  It may also be viewd on FiOS channel 33 and Optimum channel 77.

Click here to view the agenda of the March 18, 2013 Joint Meeting with the Village Council & Regular Public Meeting : https://tinyurl.com/d3rkffa

At all regular meetings, two opportunities are provided for citizens to make comments.The public comment periods will be scheduled after presentations and approximately 9:00 p.m. or just prior to the end of the meeting, whichever occurs first. The first opportunity may be limited by the presiding officer to conclude at about 8:00 p.m. in order for the Board to continue with its scheduled agenda.

The second opportunity will occur at about 9:00 p.m. at the discretion of the presiding officer taking into consideration a break point in the agenda. At every opportunity for public comment, citizens are invited to comment on subjects on the agenda or general topics.

At the discretion of the presiding officer, public comments may be permitted at other times. Persons wishing to speak must, upon being recognized, rise, sign in, and state their names and addresses. Each speaker shall be limited to four minutes. The Board Recorder will note the time. A speaker who has not finished in the allotted time will be directed by the presiding officer to summarize quickly and relinquish the floor within 30 seconds.

Comments shall be limited to issues. If personal remarks or discourteous statements are made, the presiding officer shall require the speaker to stop. No person will be recognized for a second time until all others asking to speak have been heard.

To Reassure Investors, Fed Stresses It Will Not End Stimulus
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
Published: March 17, 2013

WASHINGTON — Each time in recent years that the Federal Reserve has paused in its efforts to stimulate the economy, it has come to regret the decision as premature. Its leading officials say the recovery has been slower as a consequence of those pauses. It is a mistake they do not want to repeat.

When the Fed’s policy-making committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, its members are likely to spend a lot of time talking about the potential costs of the current stimulus campaign. Then the Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, will probably seek to reassure investors that the Fed plans to press on.

The central bank is buying $85 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities because it wants unemployment to fall more quickly. While recent economic data suggests that growth is quickening, Mr. Bernanke has said that the situation remains unacceptable and that the pace of progress is uncertain.

Mr. Bernanke and the Fed’s vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, “have been abundantly clear in recent commentary that the improvement in the labor market to date falls far short of what they will need to see before reducing monetary policy accommodation,” Joseph LaVorgna, chief United States economist at Deutsche Bank, wrote last week in a note to clients.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/business/economy/federal-reserve-expected-to-continue-stimulus-tries-to-reassure-investors.html?_r=0

Author and Ridgewood resident Harlan Coben’s Bergen County
Sunday, March 17, 2013    Last updated: Sunday March 17, 2013, 4:56 PM
BY  KARA YORIO
STAFF WRITER
The Record

His go-to dish is the Kung Pao chicken, but on this dreary day in early March, author Harlan Coben is focused on the specials menu, particularly the salt-and-pepper calamari salad.
Author and Ridgewood resident Harlan Coben enjoying a quiet moment at Baumgart’s Café in Ridgewood, the setting for many of his books.

The Ridgewood resident is at Baumgart’s Café on Franklin Avenue, sitting in a booth around the corner from where his signed photo hangs on the wall. A few minutes earlier he had ducked in from the cold and the staff greeted him like the old friend he is.

“A lot of scenes in my books take place in Baumgart’s — Ridgewood in general, but Baumgart’s especially,” says Coben, whose 24th book — a stand-alone thriller titled “Six Years” — will be out Tuesday .

https://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/books/198649251_Harlan_Coben_s_Bergen_County.html

Google Glass: The opposition grows

“Stop The Cyborgs” is a new site that attempts to bring a balanced trepidation to the unbalanced idea that we’ll all be walking round with Google’s outer brain strapped to our faces.

Chris Matyszczyk
by Chris Matyszczyk
March 15, 2013 12:21 PM PDT

The opposition will congregate in dark corners.

They will whisper with their mouths, while their eyes will scan the room for spies wearing strange spectacles.

The spies will likely be men. How many women would really like to waft down the street wearing Google Glass?

It won’t be easy. Once you’ve been cybernated, there’s no turning back. Which is why the refuseniks are already meeting in shaded corners of the Web.

One site is called “Stop The Cyborgs.” It claims to be “fighting the algorithmic future one bit at a time.”

A sticker being offered on the “Stop The Cyborgs” Web site.

It’s going to take a lot of bitty fighting, but the people behind this site — they’re naturally anonymous, in an attempt to stop Google spying on them — say they’re fighting Google Glass in particular.

They say that it will herald a world in which “privacy is impossible and corporate control total.”

https://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57574607-93/google-glass-the-opposition-grows/

SnapChat photo app in Ridgewood nude photos case not making money, yet
Last updated: Saturday March 16, 2013, 10:29 AM
BY  MARY DIDUCH
STAFF WRITER
The Record

Snapchat, a free smart-phone application that sends photos that disappear 10 seconds after they are opened, is gaining followers and funding, though it generates no revenue and on occasion could be used inappropriately.

That happened recently at Ridgewood High School, where nude photos of two female students were sent through Snapchat then captured and posted publicly on another smart-phone app, Instagram, making permanent what was supposed to be a temporary “snap.”

Snapchat, which has offices in Los Angeles, sends a notice to the sender if a screen shot of a snap is grabbed, and its parental guide urges parents to discuss the legal and social ramifications of sending explicit images.

The free Snapchat app, which without advertising on its interface doesn’t bring in any revenue, was created in 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy and has raised $14 million in funding. Its primary backer is Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley firm that initially financed Instagram.

With little fanfare or marketing, Snapchat built a following among mostly underage users through word of mouth. By October 2012, users of the app had shared more than a billion snaps, or more than 20 million a day. By December, that number had climbed to 50 million, according to Snapchat’s blog.

Spiegel and Murphy have said the lure of risqué photo opportunities is not what is generating interest in the app.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/snapchat.html

Secaucus journalist indicted on charges for helping hack Tribune Company website
Last updated: Friday March 15, 2013, 12:03 AM
BY  ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER
The Record

A Secaucus man was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in California on charges that he helped hackers break into the Los Angeles Times’ website after he had been fired by the company that owns the newspaper, authorities said.

Matthew Keys, 26, was fired from his job as a web producer for a Sacramento, Calif., television station, KTXL-FOX 40, in October 2010, two months before he provided members of a hackers group called Anonymous with a username and a password to help them log onto the website of the Tribune Company, Justice Department officials said in a statement.

At least one of the hackers was able to break into the website and make changes to a Los Angeles Times feature story, authorities said. Keys allegedly wrote a favorable response on an Internet chat site when he learned of the hacker’s success.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/Journalist_from_Secaucus_faces_conspiracy_charge_in_connection_with_Anonymous_hacker_group.html