Al-Shabaab calls for attacks on Oxford Street and Westfield centres in new terror threat
Somalia-based terror group releases video threatening some of the world’s busiest shopping areas
By Tom Whitehead, and Peter Foster
6:38PM GMT 22 Feb 2015
Islamist terrorists have called for attacks on London’s Oxford Street and the Westfield shopping centres in the latest jihadist threat to the UK.
A video released by the Somalia-based fanatics al-Shabaab called on its followers to “hasten to heaven” by attacking some of the country’s busiest shopping areas.
It also threatened venues in America and Canada as well as “Jewish-owned” centres.
Counter-terrorism police in the UK were assessing the video while the head of US homeland security warned shoppers to be “particularly careful”.
The video, which lasts more than an hour and was released over the weekend, centred on the fall out from al-Shabaab’s attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Kenya in 2013 that left 62 people dead and more than 100 injured.
The Ridgewood Police Department is pleased to announce the 2nd annual Chief Michael Feeney, Jr. Police Academy
February 23,2015
Ridgewood NJ,The Ridgewood Police Department is pleased to announce the 2nd annual Chief Michael Feeney, Jr. Police Academy scheduled from June 22nd to July 1st 2015. Applications will be available on April 1st at the Ridgewood Police Station. The academy is open to Ridgewood Residents entering 6th 7th and 8th grades next fall.
The Junior Police Academy has proven to be a valuable experience for all involved and has provided a vital link between the Police Department and the youth of Ridgewood. Further, the Junior Police Academy has afforded students a deeper understanding of the Police function as well as an increased ability to see what the Police and the community can do to serve the Village. The overwhelming success of our first Junior Police Academy class has far exceeded the expectations of everyone involved. This program attracts a highly motivated group of recruits, and the Instructors thoroughly enjoy their interaction with these young people. We look forward to another great class.
scheduled from June 22nd to July 1st 2015. Applications will be available on April 1st at the Ridgewood Police Station. The academy is open to Ridgewood Residents entering 6th 7th and 8th grades next fall.
Posted by Dan Cirucci On February 23, 2015 0 Comment
By Dan Cirucci | Dan Cirucci’s Blogspot
It’s no accident that George Washington was called “the father of our country.”
From the very beginning, American presidents have been somewhat patriarchal — not in the sense of a monarch, of course but more like a strong, caring, reliable dad who sees the best in us, inspires us, rallies us and above all, defends and protects our national family.
That’s what the best dads do. That’s what we’ve come to expect from them.
But what if we had a dad who always noticed our faults? What if he was repeatedly critical? What if he kept pointing it out to others whenever he thought we did something wrong?
Instead of challenging us to aspire to our highest goals, what if he constantly warned us and attempted to lower our aspirations? What if he pushed us to pull back instead of leaping forward?
What would it be like if we had a father who at times appeared to be arrogant and occasionally disdainful toward us?
Fox’s Neil Cavuto Admits Yes Mr President its All Fox News Fault
Fox’s Neil Cavuto breaks out the sarcasm: Yes, it was somehow Fox that caused the IRS to crack down on conservative groups, Fox that told people you could keep your doctor under Obamacare. Calling ISIS the “JV team”? The measles outbreak? Blame Fox.(Brent Bozell)
Saturday Night (Pointed) Humor: Cavuto Admits That It’s All Fox News’s Fault
By Tom Blumer | February 21, 2015 | 11:59 PM EST
Thursday on his Your World show, host Neil Cavuto went after the Obama administration’s near obsession with the coverage it gets on Fox News.
While Team Obama can count on the Big Three triumvirate of ABC, CBS and NBC to toe the line, promoting its points while generally avoiding damning information, Fox has generally remained fair and balanced, an approach which has clearly gotten under their ultra-thin skins.
The occasion for Cavuto’s rant, which veered into some impressive sarcastic humor, was Eric Holder’s claim that Fox wouldn’t have anything to talk about if it wasn’t noting the failure of the administration to call Islamic terrorism what it is, i.e., Islamic terrorism:
Transcript (bolds are mine):
NEIL CAVUTO: All right, folks. I have a confession to make.
I did it again. Eric Holder caught me.
ERIC HOLDER (taped): We spend more time, more time, talking about “What do you call it?” instead of “What do you do about it?” I mean really, y’know, y’know, if Fox didn’t talk about this, they’d have nothing else to talk about.
CAVUTO: Yeah. If not for us at Fox News making such a big deal out of saying “Islamic extremism,” no one would be making a big deal out of the White House not saying “Islamic extremism.” Not this Democratic congresswoman or this former top Obama intelligence official. They say words matter too, but it’s Fox News making the big stink, so, well that’s all that matters now.
And it got me thinking. You know it happens sometimes. I know, I’ve heard this before, this whole White House mentioning this Fox News thing before.
(shows a series of derisive or negative references to Fox News by Barack Obama and Josh Earnest)
CAVUTO: Well, I am so busted. Pick a crisis, any crisis, you name it. Fox News is behind it. Worse yet, Fox News created it. And I’m here to admit the White House ain’t telling you the half of it. How clever we are, how devious we are. If only I had known that you had known.
If only I had known that Fox News said you could keep your doctor when you couldn’t keep your doctor, and it wasn’t the President saying that.
Or that it was Fox News’s plan to send your health insurance premiums skyrocketing and not the President’s plan.
Or that Fox news dismissed ISIS as “the jayvee team” and not anyone on the President’s team.
Or FOX News was the one spying on our very own James Rosen, and not the Justice Department spying on our very own James Rosen.
That Fox News was the one targeting conservative groups, and not the IRS targeting conservative groups.
Very clever. God knows what other controversies we caused. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before it all comes out.
So let me just fess up now and spill the beans. Everything bad, Every time … Fox!
All this frigid weather? Yeah, Fox News. Don’t ask, we just did it.
This whole measles outbreak thing? Bingo! Fox News!
This tepid economic recovery? Sorry, Fox News.
The housing meltdown that preceded it? You guessed it. Fox News started it.
The Internet bubble? Fox News created it, then we burst it so could keep milking it.
The energy crisis back in the 1970s: Fox News — which is amazing, because we weren’t even around in the 70s!
But that didn’t stop us from having a role in the JFK assassination. Yeah, that was a Fox News guy in the grassy knoll.
The Titanic. Yeah, the captain, see the captain? So Rupert Murdoch wth a beard, don’t you think? And now you know why the movie was so good. We damn near wrote the script!
Pearl Harbor: Fox News knew the Japanese were coming!
The potato famine. Even Fox News’s Irish-American anchors (i.e., Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity — Ed.) did nothing, nothing to stop it from coming. They’re the culprits!
“Tsunamis: Fox News! Earthquakes: Fox News! Tornadoes: Fox News!
That meteor hit in Russia that blasted buildings a couple of years back? Well, (that was) Fox’s little Putin payback.
Oh yeah-yeah-yeah, this goes way back, to the Dinosaurs: Fox News killed them off.
And the Big Bang? Fox News started life itself up, only to toy with all living creatures since, and make a mockery of political leaders today.
Summer Job Openings Hoping to be Filled at YWCA Bergen County Job Fair Become Part of the YWCA Team as a Summer Camp Counselor or Lifeguard YWCA Bergen County will be holding a job fair in search of individuals who want to join our team as Summer Camp Counselors and Lifeguards. Positions available for three of our Summer Camps throughout Bergen County as well as Lifeguarding opportunities at our camps and Englewood swim programs. Job fair will be held from 6:00 – 8:00 pm on Thursday, February 26, 2015 at YWCA Bergen County, 112 Oak Street, Ridgewood. There will be information regarding summer camps and Englewood swim programs, applications available, and on-site interviews with YWCA staff. Camp Counselors must be at least 18 years of age and available to work June 22 – August 21, 2015 at our Dumont location or June 29 – August 21, 2015 at Mahwah and Saddle River Locations. Lifeguards must be at least 15 years of age and able to work May 16 – September 7, 2015. For more information, please contact Kerry Jannicelli at 201-345-1906 or email [email protected].
kate spade Ridgewood invites you to
ESCAPE THE ORDINARY
we wanted to personally invite you (plus a friend) to our ladies night out event featuring a preview of our new spring collection.
enjoy sips & snacks (byob) while you shop this special event.
thursday, february 26th
7pm-8:30pm
pop by our shop at ridgewood ave. and receive 20% off your entire purchase!
please rsvp 201.689.6204
hope to see you there!
the kate spade ridgewood team
202 e ridgewood ave.
ridgewood, nj 07450
Secrecy around police surveillance equipment proves a case’s undoing
By Ellen Nakashima February 22 at 3:10 PM
TALLAHASSEE — The case against Tadrae McKenzie looked like an easy win for prosecutors. He and two buddies robbed a small-time pot dealer of $130 worth of weed using BB guns. Under Florida law, that was robbery with a deadly weapon, with a sentence of at least four years in prison.
But before trial, his defense team detected investigators’ use of a secret surveillance tool, one that raises significant privacy concerns. In an unprecedented move, a state judge ordered the police to show the device —a cell-tower simulator sometimes called a StingRay — to the attorneys.
Rather than show the equipment, the state offered McKenzie a plea bargain.
Today, 20-year-old McKenzie is serving six months’ probation after pleading guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor. He got, as one civil liberties advocate said, the deal of the century. (The other two defendants also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years’ probation.)
Popular athletic field turf raises worries in North Jersey
FEBRUARY 22, 2015, 9:50 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2015, 9:59 PM
BY JEFF ROBERTS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The tiny specks of black rubber burrow their way into everything.
Keith Verkem finds them embedded in his carpet. In his car mats. Even chewed by his dog.
The shredded bits of used car and truck tires — called crumb rubber — routinely infest his Glen Rock home. They are carried in by his 13-year-old son, Zachary, after soccer games on artificial turf. They are used as infill on nearly all synthetic fields in the country.
And he wonders just how safe those little pellets are.
“My son comes home and takes off his cleats, and now I have piles of crumb rubber in my house,” Verkem said. “They do get everywhere.”
The large majority of studies have found minimal to no health risks from crumb rubber after testing turf fields, including analyses conducted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the University of California at Berkeley.
Reader says it would only take one well-conceived lawsuit brought under the Sunshine Law to effectively neutralize the “normative” power of their innocuous-sounding series of roundtable discussions
The Sunshine Law was put in place for the benefit of the public to foster transparency and thereby stem corruption (sunshine being the ‘best disinfectant’). In accordance with that important purpose, the Sunshine Law is interpreted liberally (i.e., broadly) to effectively foil the plans of politically-aligned colleagues who separately populate a common public board or municipal council to influence or, worse yet, pre-determine the course of public business outside regular, well-publicized and predictable channels.
One well-conceived lawsuit brought under the Sunshine Law would be all it would take to put the fear of G*d into these shysters and effectively neutralize the “normative” power of their innocuous-sounding series of roundtable discussions.
Reader says residents will have to practically beg forgiveness for failing to appreciate the supernatural degree of wisdom of our elected officials
These ‘civility roundtables’ are exclusively taking place in the confines of the Village of Ridgewood. Discussions occurring during these ‘civility roundtables’ are clearly directed to the proper manner in which Ridgewood residents who have yet to be intimidated into silence will be allowed to express themselves or otherwise comport themselves at a public microphone during a public meeting when dissenting from the next fruitcake scheme the three amigos cook up. Once the ‘civility roundtable’ meetings have managed to aggressively purge themselves of all political dissenters, or bored them so thoroughly that their political opponents stop attending the meetings to preserve their personal sanity, the meetings will move on to discuss more substantive public issues.
All of this constitutes public business and can be legitimately called out as such, Bernie-esque, so long as three or more members of the Ridgewood Village Council are present and are actively engaged in the meeting.
Just wait until the future public meeting of the VC when a disgruntled Ridgewood resident makes the mistake of violating one or another ‘unofficial’ rule of decorum solemnly laid down by one of these self-appointed local roundtables populated by politically progressive tut-tutting busibodies. Mark my words, that resident will be treated to a harsh and demeaning earful from one of the three amigos disgusted and frustrated at having to deal with yet another untutored rube, unhip to the “new normal”, in accordance with which we are to verbally kiss the tucchus of our elected officials and practically beg forgiveness for failing to appreciate their supernatural degree of wisdom before daring to explain how or why we disagree with them.
Feds sent incorrect tax information to 800,000 people on ObamaCare
By Peter Sullivan and Sarah Ferris – 02/20/15 10:26 AM EST
The administration sent the wrong tax information to 800,000 people who have enrolled in ObamaCare, officials announced Friday.
The information used to calculate subsidies was wrong on about 20 percent of tax forms, an error that could delay tax refunds for thousands of people.
Administration officials stressed that the vast majority of HealthCare.gov customers received the correct forms, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the issue impacted “a very small fraction of people.”
But the tax glitch quickly provided new ammunition for Republicans, who continue to argue that the healthcare law is fatally flawed.
“Surprise, surprise, the Obama administration still does not have its act together,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote in a statement.
She said the new problems offer more proof that the IRS should be kept out of healthcare, and pledged to redouble her efforts to repeal the ObamaCare insurance penalty entirety.
“The Obama administration has built a healthcare law so complex, so confusing, and so costly that even they don’t know how to properly administer it,” Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) added in a statement just minutes after the error was disclosed.
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
…PATCHY ICE OVERNIGHT INTO MONDAY MORNING…
TEMPERATURES HAD RISEN TO ABOVE FREEZING ACROSS THE REGION TODAY
WITH A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF MELTING.
TEMPERATURES WILL BE FALLING TO BELOW FREEZING EARLY THIS EVENING
AND REMAIN BELOW FREEZING INTO MONDAY. AS A RESULT…ANY STANDING
WATER WILL FREEZE THIS EVENING.
IF YOU WILL BE OUT TONIGHT OR DURING THE MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE BE
AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ICY PATCHES ON ROADS…AND
WALKWAYS.
OVERNIGHT LOWS ARE EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM AROUND 10 TO 15
DEGREES…AND HIGHS MONDAY WILL RANGE FROM AROUND 12 TO 25.
Pro Arte to Present “Celebration! Love is in The Air” Concert Friday March 13
Pro Arte Chorale’s second concert of the 2014-2015 Season, Celebration! Love is in The Air will be presented on Friday, March 13, 2015 at the West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, NJ beginning at 8pm. Join Pro Arte in celebrating the arrival of spring with music of renewal and romance. You’ll be charmed by Elgar’s musical scenes of the mountains of Bavaria, and share the joy of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ inspired setting of Epithalamion, a 16th century poem by Edmund Spenser, revealing the adventure of love and marriage.
Spring is upon us, and brings to mind songs filled with love,joy and dance! Elgar wrote The Bavarian Highlands, a cycle of six songs celebrating dance and love, as a remembrance of a holiday he had enjoyed in Upper Bavaria with his wife. Parry’s I Was Glad is an introit commonly used in the Anglican church, and was performed at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton as well as Prince William’s parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana. An epithalamium is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. Perhaps no poem of this class has been more universally admired than the pastoral Epithalamion of Edmund Spenser (1595). Vaughan Williams’ Epithalamion, consisting of 11 movements, is based on Spenser’s poem. As he often did, Vaughan Williams incorporated the flavor of English folk songs into these songs.
There will be an intermission lecture regarding Epithalamion. Come and explore the wonderful details of this fabulous piece. Musical ideas and development will be explained as well as detailed information regarding the text. Steven Fox, the Musical Director of The Pro Arte Chorale,is also the artistic director of Clarion Music Society in New York, and the music director for Musica Antiqua St. Petersburg in Russia. The Pro Arte Chorale, a 60- member volunteer chorus based in Ridgewood, is committed to enriching the lives of its members and its audience by exploring many musical traditions. For more information about Pro Arte Chorale or to join the mailing list, visit www.proartechorale.org or send an email to [email protected]. Phone: 201-497-8400 •
Ridgewood Ice Hockey takes the cup for fifth straight year
Third period comeback propels Ridgewood Ice Hockey to 4-2 win over Paramus Catholic in Big North, Patriot Division final
By Richard Greco | For NJ Advance Media
on February 20, 2015 10:20 PM, updated February 21, 2015 12:14 AM
WAYNE–For the second straight year,Ridgewood needed to mount a third-period comeback against Paramus Catholic in the Big North, Patriot Division Tournament title.
Last year, the Maroons scored three unanswered goals. This year Ridgewood closed out the game with four unanswered third- period tallies to repeat as Big North Tournament, Patriot Division champs in a 4-2 win at the Ice Vault on Friday.
The title is Ridgewood’s fourth overall.
Ridgewood entered the third period trailing 2-0, before a Brendan Buckley goal midway through the final frame started to shift momentum. Buckley took the puck in the offensive zone and launched a snap shot through a defender’s legs to cut Ridgewood’s deficit to 2-1.
“That (goal) changed all the momentum,” Buckley said. “I knew then that we had all the momentum. I know we were going to go all the way.”
Location: Christ Church, 105 Cottage Place (Corner of Franklin Avenue), Ridgewood, NJ 07450
Event Description
Friday, March 6th/11am-8pm
Saturday, March 7th/10am-5pm
The 70th Annual Antiques Show & Sale features over 35 dealers from around the tri-state area; Christ Church Cafe offers gourmet food for lunch and dinner; Music performance by Bruce Hector, versatile jazz guitarist, on Friday evening. Free parking and shuttle service from Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 155 Linwood Ave., Ridgewood, NJ.
