Ridgewood rat sightings prompt idea for pest control law at building sites
AUGUST 8, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2014, 1:21 AM THE RECORD Print
Excessive bird feeding could have drawn in some of the rats, Ridgewood’s health supervisor suggested.
RIDGEWOOD — A recent rise in rodent sightings has village officials exploring the feasibility of an ordinance that would require a pest control presence at future construction sites.
More than a dozen residents have reported seeing rats since Tuesday morning, when it was reported that rodents were being spotted behind homes on Bennington Terrace and Howard Road.
Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld told Ridgewood’s governing body at its meeting Wednesday evening that rats have also taken up residence in “14 other areas around town,” including North Pleasant Avenue.
One resident living on that street claims to have trapped more than 20 rats since early July, Sonenfeld said.
A resident in another part of the village said he found a dead rat at the bottom of his in-ground pool.
Ridgewood health officials spent the first half of the week inspecting several properties around where rat sightings were reported.
Dhimmitude in Europe: How the fear of Muslim rage threatens free speech and democracy
August 9, 2014 By Tim Burton
Our forefathers fought for the freedoms we currently enjoy, including the right to free speech. Now fear of Muslim rage has inspired European governments to crack down on those very freedoms
BIRMINGHAM, UK, 06 August 2014
The concept of “dhimmitude” was introduced into Western discourse by the writer Bat Ye’or in 1983. “Dhimmitude” refers to the phenomenon of non-Muslims appeasing and surrendering to Muslims, and also to discrimination by Muslims against non-Muslims resulting in their eventual subjugation in Muslim majority regions. Over the past forty years or thereabouts, governments throughout Europe have imported large numbers of Muslims into our societies without any thought as to how this might affect the indigenous population.
Any opposition by indigenous Europeans to this huge social experiment was countered with charges of “racism”, “bigotry” and “Islamophobia” – and even when evidence was published of the criminal and anti-social behaviour of Muslims in our societies, such as this report from the Law and Freedom Foundation on the Muslim sexual grooming of young non-Muslim female children, where it was revealed that Muslims were 150-200 times more likely to indulge in such predatory behaviour – the response of those in power was to play down such reports for fear of Muslim rage.
Even when it became clear that Muslims were intentionally trying to subvert many of our institutions – such as with the Trojan Horse allegations concerning Birmingham schools – such allegations were initially ridiculed as being founded on “racism”, “bigotry” and “Islamophobia” but were later found to be not only substantiated, but far, far worse than had been originally thought, with boards of governors conspiring to introduce a hard-line Islamic agenda in several cities around the UK. Despite this, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said that trying to introduce and reinforce British values in UK schools could upset “moderate” Muslims.
Read more at https://www.brennerbrief.com/dhimmitude-in-europe-how-the-fear-of-muslim-rage-threatens-free-speech-and-democracy-2/#hq1wPa4EFrd2HBOQ.99
Reader says the Ridgewood Council still considering plans for Schedler property
Its has been 2 1/2 years now that the “Dream Team Council ” of ARONSOHN ,PUCCIARELL and HAUCK have been in charge of Ridgewood via their “Block Voting” and still no decision on the Shedler Property. What are they waiting for. Are they caught up with taking care of their friends at The Chamber of Commerce and the Developers. Is the Mayor to busy with his Wellness Campaign? Is the Deputy Mayor to busy starting up his grass roots committee to help in the development of the CBD? Is Councilwoman Hauck to busy throwing luncheons for the Senior Citizens? There the house sits rotting away while the Three Amigos promote their own personal agenda. The residents or “Folks ” should be applaud by the actions or rather non action of these three. After all didn’t our Mayor when running for reelection promise action on the Schedler house and property. Didn’t he encourage “Folks” in the area of the property to also support his running mates. So now what?
Delays loom for Bergen County divorce cases amid judicial staffing crisis
AUGUST 10, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 10, 2014, 12:17 AM BY MICHAEL PHILLIS AND PETER J. SAMPSON STAFF WRITERS THE RECORD
Divorce cases in Bergen County will face a murky and uncertain future when emergency measures to address a shortage of judges take effect next month, judges and lawyers say.
Judge Peter E. Doyne’s extraordinary order banning civil trials of more than two weeks, and his likely shifting of some judges to the criminal division, prompted predictions about an array of consequences.
Complex divorce cases involving wealthy couples will be put on indefinite hold. The persistent backlog of divorce cases will grow. Custody battles requiring the lengthy testimony of psychological experts will face lengthy delays. Retired judges may be enlisted by increasing numbers of litigants as paid arbitrators to settle cases outside court.
For the average person who needs the intervention of a judge, the answer may not come until New Jersey politicians end their behind-the-scenes stalemate over appointing judges to dozens of open seats.
“You are affecting everyone who is weighing their options about whether to settle or get adjudication from a judge,” said Amanda Trigg, the incoming chairwoman of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Family Law Section. “You can hold out for a trial, but it is going to be an indefinite amount of time down the road.”
IBM develops a computer chip with one million ‘neurons’ that ‘functions like a human brain’
TrueNorth is being hailed as the world’s first neurosynaptic computer chip because it can figure things out on its own Modern processors have 1.4 bn transistors and consume up to 140 watts but the IBM chip contains 5.4 bn transistors and uses just 70 milliwatts Richard Doherty, the research director of tech research firm Envisioneering Group, hailed IBM’s chip as a ‘really big deal’
By DANIEL BATES
PUBLISHED: 10:40 EST, 8 August 2014 | UPDATED: 13:43 EST, 8 August 2014
IBM has developed a computer chip which it says will function like a human brain in a giant step forward for artificial intelligence.
TrueNorth is being hailed as the world’s first neurosynaptic computer chip because it can figure things out on its own.
The chip also has one million ‘neurons’ and could cram the same power as a super computer into a circuit the size of a postage stamp.
Are US millenials turning away from Israel?
By Niall Stanage – 08/09/14 12:50 PM EDT
Young Americans are showing far less fervent support for Israel than older generations, but almost no-one can agree on why the change is happening, how permanent it is likely to be, or what it all means.
Observers offer a laundry list of possibilities
They say millenials are more likely than their elders to be liberal and Israel’s actions — particularly in the current offensive in Gaza — increasingly meet with vigorous criticism in left-of-center circles.
Millenials are also much more avid consumers of social media, on which different narratives explaining the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are more readily available — as are especially gruesome images of the human toll extracted by Israeli missile strikes.
These young people also don’t have the same memories as their parents.
Many older Americans can still recall the Six-Day War in 1967 or the Yom Kippur War in 1973, during which Israel’s very existence seemed to be threatened by its Arab neighbors.
By contrast, “young Americans have grown up with Israel as an incredible superpower in the region, and with occupation and intifada,” said Ira Stup of J Street, the liberal-leaning pro-Israel lobby group. “Young Americans often have a vision of Israel vis-a-vis Palestine that is more in line with what is going on now.”
There is no mistaking the depth of the generational split.
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/international/214756-are-us-millenials-turning-away-from-israel#ixzz39v5cS6cm
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Cory Booker may be the most puzzling man in the Senate. We don’t know where he lives. We don’t know whom, if anyone, he lives with. And he’s been caught in lie after lie about his heroics. Yet, this enigma of a man has emerged as the king of odd-couple bromance, using selfies and Instagram posts to burnish his stardom even as he appears surprisingly vulnerable in his upcoming bid for reelection.
But Booker is less popular in New Jersey than he is in Washington. He is polling below 50 percent in his matchup against Bell, a policy wonk and virtual unknown in the state who has received little support from the national party. Though he was expected to breeze to reelection, a Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday has Booker ahead by just ten points, 47 to 37 percent.
Many of Booker’s fiercest ideological opponents, however, are riding the Booker juggernaut rather than going in for the kill. Cory Booker can be beaten, at least the polls suggest so. So why are they so eager to cozy up to him, so hesitant to take him on?
Take Rand Paul, with whom Booker appeared last week on PBS, CNN, and MSNBC. They were touting their proposal for reforming the country’s criminal-justice system. Paul was one of the few Republican stars who campaigned energetically against Booker last year, but at a cocktail party hosted by Politico’s Mike Allen, they discussed the origins of their “bromance” and joked about co-starring in a reality show. This is the same Rand Paul who has knocked leaders of his own party for being insufficiently conservative, but there he was, arm-in-arm with a man who represents the blue-state liberalism he spends most of his time denouncing.
New Jersey’s junior senator is popular in Washington. His Republican opponent, former Reagan official Jeff Bell, even got a chilly reception from Ted Cruz, according to a source who attended the meeting the two had – the same Ted Cruz who precipitated the confrontation over the government shutdown last year. Cruz, according to the source, grilled the staunchly conservative Bell about why he hasn’t raised more money and asked him, pointedly, “How do you think you can win?” (Cruz’s office describes the conversation as a “fairly standard” one that it has with lots of candidates, and it is true that the latest Federal Election Commission filings show that Booker has nearly $3.5 million cash on hand while Bell has $0.) Cruz was spotted breaking bread with Booker in March, and Booker later gushed about their “great intellectual discussion.”Booker has spent much of his nine months in office charming his colleagues, partly by photographing himself with them. He’s in the midst of a campaign to take selifies with each of his fellow senators. In the pictures he’s posted to his Instagram account, he’s praised Senate majority leader Harry Reid as a “profoundly kind, caring, compassionate, and decent man” and South Dakota Republican John Thune as a “valued colleague and friend who challenges me on issues in constructive ways.” You get the idea.
It’s Booker’s second statewide race in a year, and it’s the second time polls have shown him unexpectedly vulnerable. “It’s been surprising both times,” says John Weingart, associate director of Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics. Last year, Booker was expected to trounce long-shot candidate Steve Lonegan in October’s special election, but after national media began for the first time to scrutinize his record, he stumbled on the campaign trail.
The New Jersey Republican party didn’t put up much of a fight. “The refusal to expose Cory Booker is frustrating,” says a Republican operative who has worked on campaigns both nationally and in New Jersey. “In 2013 the state GOP appeared to be on lockdown, refusing to go after both Cory Booker and Bob Menendez.” Even without that sort of institutional opposition, Booker saw a 30-point lead narrow to an 11-point win on Election Day.
Celebrity promotion of charities is ineffective at raising awareness but can make the stars more popular with the public, a study says.
A survey of more than 2,000 people found two thirds could not link any celebrity with a list of seven well-known charities and aid organisations that they worked for.
Stars did not support charities for self promotion, but this was the unintended outcome of their work, researchers concluded.
The seven organisations mentioned in the survey were Action Aid, Amnesty International, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Save the Children and the Red Cross.
Speaking about their study which also used focus groups, Professor Dan Brockington, of the University of Manchester, and Professor Spencer Henson, of the University of Sussex, said: “Our survey found that while awareness of major NGOs (non-governmental organisations) brands was high, awareness of celebrity advocates for those brands was low.
The same judge and prosecutor who let professional football star Ray Rice avoid a trial after beating his wife unconscious are pushing forward with the prosecution of Shaneen Allen, a single mother who carried a gun into New Jersey without realizing her Pennsylvania permit didn’t apply there.
Allen, a mother of two from Philadelphia, was driving in New Jersey last fall when she was pulled over by a police officer. She informed the officer she had a handgun in her purse and a Pennsylvania license-to-carry permit, at which point the officer arrested her and charged her with a felony for unlawful possession of a weapon, because New Jersey does not recognize out-of-state gun permits.
Allen tried to avoid a trial and jail time by applying to a pre-trial intervention program in New Jersey for first-time offenders. Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens running back who knocked his then-fiancée unconscious during an altercation in Atlantic City in February, was accepted into the program in May.
But Superior Court Judge Michael Donio and New Jersey District Attorney Jim McClain, the same judge and prosecutor who allowed Rice to avoid prosecution, denied Allen’s application to the program on Wednesday.
Allen has no criminal record, and she claims she bought the gun for self-defense after being robbed. Her trial is scheduled for October.
AUGUST 8, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2014, 12:31 AM BY LAURA HERZOG STAFF WRITER
“I’m tired…”
“No, you’re not,” said my patient Graydon Pool swim instructor Ryan Martin. “It’s all in your head.”
I tried to calm down, but my facial muscles were tense, and my treading arms were moving in frantic circles. As the water moved closer to my mouth, an irrational thought started to circle through my head.
I’m going to drown. I’m going to drown.
I’m not one to give up on things, but put me in a body of water over 6 feet and watch me freak out in five minutes.
I’m 24 years old, and I can’t really swim – but thanks to my recent adult swim lessons at Graydon Pool, at least I’m now on the right track.
So, how did I get to this point?
I took lessons at the YMCA as a kid, but I abruptly stopped, for unknown reasons, after mastering “airplane, chicken, soldier” floating. I’ve since mostly avoided swimming. Thanks to friends, I learned the basics of freestyle, but I never became skilled enough to truly enjoy swimming.
I know I’m not alone, but it often feels like it: In my experience, people who can’t swim generally are too embarrassed to liberally share that information, even if, like me, they want to swim.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/lessons-go-beyond-swimming-1.1064506#sthash.f1bFQztT.dpuf
Back-To-School Information: Parents and guardians are asked to update emergency contact information and also are required to review various district policies and grant certain permissions. This Mandatory Annual Online Re-registration process takes place through Skyward Family Access between August 11 and September 12. Detailed instructions will be mailed to homes on or about August 11. For more information in advance of the letter, please click here for the press release.
8.06.14: Back-To-School Night Schedule SCHOOL DATE GRADES TIME
Hawes September 11
September 18K-2
3-57 p.m.
7 p.m.
Orchard September 11 All 6:30 p.m.
Ridge September 16
September 23K-2
3-57:30 p.m.
7:30 p.m.
Somerville September 11All7 p.m.
Travell September 10All6 p.m.
WillardSeptember 16
September 183-5
K-26:45 p.m.
6:45 p.m.
BFMS September 9 All 7 p.m.
GWMS September 18 All 7:30 p.m.
RHS September 17 All 7:30 p.m.
Community Emergency Response Team ( CERT )Application and Fall Schedule
Community Emergency Response Team – All residents are invited to participate in the training. Ridgewood has recently formed a CERT group to help respond to emergencies.
6 storms in 4 short years…so much for the 100-year storm hooey.
Do you have the repairs costs as well…?
Mother Nature keeps mastering the Master Plan.
Thee field was put in during summer 2010. We’ve had floods worth remembering on:
– October 1, 2010 (there was wrinkling of the carpet then and in all the other events below) – March 8, 2011 – April 17, 2011 – Jun 23, 2011 (graduation) – August 29, 2011 (Irene) -August 1, 2014
Sandy didn’t cause a lot of flooding. It was more of a wind event
We’ve had minor flooding many other times, but not to the scale above
BOARD BIDS AMERICA A HAPPY BIRTHDAY: (from left): Board members Jim Morgan, Sheila Brogan, Christina Krauss and Vince Loncto join Superintendent Dan Fishbein (center) for the Ridgewood Fourth of July Parade.
Reader asks Was there any publication that the BOE elections were coming up and any potential candidate packets were available ?
Any Notification ? Any Publication ? Candidate Packets ?
Well two BOED trustees are running unopposed. So its the same old song. Was there even any publication that the elections were coming up and any potential candidate can pick their packets up at the BOED. Snuck that one through.
BOE MEETS MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2014
The next Regular Public Meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education will be held on Monday, August 25, 2014 at 5 p.m. The public is invited to attend the meeting at the Ed Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3. The meeting will be aired live on FiOS channel 33 and Optimum channel 77. Or it may be viewed live via the district website atwww.ridgewood.k12.nj.us using the “Link in Live” tab.
Click here to view the agenda and addendum for the July 21, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
Click here to view the webcast of the July 21, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
