Australia Scrapping Pollution Levy Marks First U-Turn on Climate
By Jason Scott and Mike Anderson Jul 17, 2014 1:03 PM ET
Coal is stockpiled in preparation for loading onto ships for export at the Newcastle… Read More
Australia’s decision to repeal its levy limiting fossil-fuel pollution makes it the first nation to turn back from a market approach to fighting global warming.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government won final approval from Parliament yesterday to scrap a levy about 300 companies paid for their carbon dioxide emissions. The move leaves Australia, the largest polluter per capita among industrial nations, without a system for reducing greenhouse gases as it prepares to host a meeting of the Group of 20 nations.
“Australia is bereft of a credible climate policy just as the international community focuses on deeper reduction targets,” said John Connor, chief executive officer of The Climate Institute, a Sydney-based environmental group. He called the move an “historic act of irresponsibility and recklessness.”
A flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur reportedly shot down in Ukraine is thought to have been flying in or near an unsafe zone.
A plane which crashed in eastern Ukraine with 295 people on board was reportedly shot down as it flew through or near airspace deemed unsuitable for passenger jets.
The Malaysia Airlines plane, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was travelling at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 metres) when it was shot down, Russia’s Interfax reported.
An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry told the news agency the Boeing 777 was brought down by a Buk ground-to-air missile, killing all 280 passengers and 15 crew members.
Reader says who has time to look? We’re too busy making money and driving our kids to soccer practice
All but a few old-timers and insiders know what really goes on inside the Village Hall. For most people, Ridgewood is a place you live while your kids go through school, after which you sell up and move out. It’s quite a transient community. An affluent town. Lovely houses. We wave at our neighbors and have cocktails and BBQs. We are a pretty sophisticated bunch, mostly wrapped up in the lives of our kids and the long, stressful hours we put in at some big corporation. We have this natural impression that all our fellow Ridgewoodians are the same. Sophisticated.
That nice looking Village Hall is not staffed and managed by people like you. Just because Ridgewood has that Norman Rockwell image, does not mean it’s run by Norman Rockwell types. These people know all too well that the typical Ridgewood resident is blasting through life full speed and living a very comfortable life, to pay attention to the nepotism, insider perks and the feasting at the trough of what these residents pay in the form of taxes, fees, and yes, parking meter coins.
Hey, who has time to look? We’re too busy making money and driving our kids to soccer practice.
Reader asks Will there be quid pro quo? between developers and council members ?
It will be interesting to see how the Mayor, his Deputy and Mrs. Hauck respond to the 2 current plans before the Village. Both require Master Plan amendments and both developers have courted our Council majority heavily.
The Council majority have been caught meeting secretly with these developers and have been caught accepting inappropriate gifts from at least one of them. Will there be quid pro quo? Stay tuned – if any of these 3 come out in favor of either of the 2 projects before the Village it would be appropriate to involve the prosecutors.
Why are those of us that favor an upgrade to the CBD but are against projects that require a Master Plan amendment labeled by our Mayor and his Council majority as naysayers? Why does our Deputy Mayor shout down his detractors in public meetings then demand a level of decorum?
JULY 17, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2014, 1:21 AM BY CHRIS HARRIS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — A member of the Planning Board spoke out this week against a proposed master plan amendment that would permit multifamily, high-density housing complexes downtown — calling for a moratorium on development in the village.
But she received mixed reviews from other board members, who were divided about the process or feared the village would face litigation.
“I don’t believe what is happening here is really in the best interest of the village as a whole,” said Michele Peters, after nearly three hours of testimony Tuesday night on three proposed developments.
Those developments — the Enclave, a 52-unit project on East Ridgewood Avenue; The Dayton, a 106-unit apartment building for South Broad Street; and the 52-unit Chestnut Village on Chestnut Street — are currently prohibited under the village code. And the amendment has been under consideration for nearly two years.
Peters urged the others members to “take time to stop, so we can talk about this.”
She added that she thinks the board is “dealing with a fire as it comes to us” and questioned the entire process that members are embroiled in.
Peters was also critical of the ordinance that enabled the developers’ requests for a master plan amendment, saying the village was “putting the cart before the horse.”
Urging more of an exchange with the public throughout the hearing process, Peters said, “These are major issues having to do with the way our community is planned and it should be freely discussed.”
Ridgewood Emergency Medical Services seeks new members
JULY 15, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014, 12:06 AM BY LAURA HERZOG STAFF WRITER
This past March, on a small 50-seat plane heading out to New Orleans, three friends with Ridgewood Emergency Medical Services (EMS) training – including Ridgewood EMS Chief Brian Pullman – helped abate a scary situation.
A fellow passenger passed out as he was walking to the bathroom. The three men attended to the anxious man, who had the flu, and calmed his wife and the plane crew. Their calm under pressure prevented a possible emergency landing.
Ridgewood Police Lt. Glenn Ender also recalled how this winter he put his EMT training to important use when he was off-duty. Driving into the IHOP on Route 17 South, Ender saw an SUV flip over near the restaurant’s entrance. He put his family’s breakfast on hold, telling his children to stay put while he ran over and helped the driver, whose leg was pinned beneath the dashboard. He put pressure on the driver’s bleeding wounds until on-duty police and an ambulance crew arrived minutes later.
“Once the ambulance pulled up, I turned it over to them, and I just had breakfast,” Ender said.
Ridgewood’s fire chief, a former paid Ridgewood EMS staffer, also has a similar tale. During a family rafting trip on the Colorado River rapids in May 2001, Fire Chief James Van Goor helped fashion a splint for a young rafter who fell and broke his arm. The rafter was later escorted by a helicopter out of the area.
The EMS department is hoping that more residents see the need to learn these heroic skills and are willing to volunteer their time.
Waldwick Police Officers Brian Finale and Chris Goodell (Courtesy WALDWICK PD).
Waldwick police officer Christopher Goodell killed in crash on Route 17
Originally published: July 17, 2014 5:25 AM Updated: July 17, 2014 6:35 AM
WALDWICK – Authorities say a police officer in northern New Jersey has died in a traffic accident.
Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli says the Waldwick police officer was operating radar on Route 17 when a tractor-trailer rear-ended his unmarked police car just before 1:30 a.m. Thursday.
Waldwick Police Chief Mark Messner identified the officer as 32-year-old Christopher Goodell. He was a five-year veteran of the department. He also served in the U.S. Marine Corps for eight years.
The Border Crisis Stories the Networks Aren’t Telling You About Published: 7/16/2014 10:25 AM ET Subscribe to Geoffrey Dickens Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter By Geoffrey Dickens Deputy Research Director
Government officials restricting reporter access to illegal immigrants at detention centers. Border patrol agents being infected with diseases “not seen in decades.” The general in charge of the U.S. Southern Command warning that terrorists and gang members could be hiding among the new influx of immigrants. These are just some of the startling new border crisis stories the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) have refused to tell their viewers about.
From June 8 through July 15 the networks have run a total of 133 border crisis stories on their evening and morning shows (CBS 54, NBC 53, ABC 26), yet not one of them has mentioned any of the following explosive reports from recent weeks:
Scott Garrett Moves ensure the TSA doesn’t overstep its bounds Introduces the Freedom of Travel Act, which would prohibit the TSA from conducting random searches July 16.2014
Ridgewood NJ, Of the many revolutionary ideas that our country’s Founders included in the Constitution, the inherent rights to privacy and due process are truly unique. Our Founders witnessed firsthand the ruin and terror that a distant, unresponsive, and ultimately tyrannical government could inflict on peaceable people as individual liberties were curtailed. They could not tolerate such abuses, and neither should we today.
Our right to privacy must be diligently preserved, the more so since it can be so quickly taken away. Whether it’s the NSA’s unlimited collection of Americans’ communications, the IRS’s unequal and invasive scrutiny of politically disfavored groups, or the TSA’s expansion of unwarranted airport-style screening to our streets, we as Americans owe it to ourselves to fight this barrage of privacy infringements—and that’s not an exhaustive list.
One example that I want to bring to your attention is the TSA’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program. VIPR teams are roving units that conduct thousands of unannounced, random sweeps of personal vehicles; bus, train, and subway stations; as well as things that have nothing to do with transportation, like football stadiums. As you can see, these teams reach far beyond the TSA’s traditional jurisdiction of airports and aviation. To ensure the TSA doesn’t overstep its bounds, I introduced H.R. 2589, the Freedom of Travel Act, which would prohibit the TSA from conducting random searches of surface transportation passengers.
The evolution of technology has also opened up many new questions about our rights in an electronic world. Recently, the Supreme Court unanimously defended our Fourth Amendment rights by holding that police are required to obtain a warrant before searching the cell phone data of an individual who has been arrested.
While I believe in maintaining our country’s anti-terrorist capabilities and supporting our brave law enforcement officials, I applaud the Supreme Court for drawing a clear line that recognizes the critical privacy interest all U.S. citizens have in their mobile devices. To further this protection, I supported an amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations that would prohibit the use of any government funds for warrantless searches of your electronic communications.
Before and during the American Revolution, homes were raided, people were arrested without warrants, personal property was confiscated and destroyed, and people understandably lived in fear of the arbitrary and invasive government. It is our duty, as Americans, to protect the civil rights that so many have fought and died for.
Fed Chair Yellen testified before Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
House Passes Garrett Amendment to Financial Services Appropriations Bill looks to end costly tax payer bailouts Jul 16, 2014
“Tax dollars should not be spent on the costly bailouts of institutions that are labeled too-big-to-fail” , Rep Scott Garrett
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, issued the following statement today after the passage of the FY2015 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations Bill, H.R. 5016, which included his amendment to ensure that non-bank financial institutions cannot be designated as Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFI) by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).
“With every reckless designation of a non-bank company as a SIFI, FSOC makes our economy more dangerous and unstable. FSOC is not working out as intended, so I’m glad to see that the House adopted my amendment today. We must prevent government regulators from expanding the doctrine of too-big-to-fail into other parts of our economy. And we must not allow too-big-to-fail to take root in the non-bank financial sector. These companies are too important as a counterbalance to the mega-banks for us to ruin them with crony capitalism.”
Rep. Garrett’s amendment would prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in their roles as members of the FSOC, from designating non-bank financial companies as SIFIs. The FSOC, as created under the Dodd-Frank Act, has the ability to label non-banking financial companies as systemically important and has essentially codified an endless cycle of too-big-to-fail.
The Ridgewood News Superintendent’s Corner June 2014 by Daniel Fishbein, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools 201-670-2700 ext. 10530 (fax) 201-670-2668 Round-up The following column appeared in The Ridgewood News on June 27, 2014. Each June I reflect on the many great opportunities the Ridgewood Public Schools and the Village of Ridgewood provide our youngest citizens, culminating in the Ridgewood High School graduation at the close of the school year.
On Tuesday, June 24, Ridgewood High School seniors received their diplomas in the district’s 119th annual graduation ceremony.
Here are the stats:420 graduates
91.4% 4-yr. Colleges
5.3% 2-yr. Colleges
2.1% Post-secondary Schools
1.2% Work
Congratulations to all!
Click here to read Superintendent Dr. Fishbein’s remarks to the RHS Class of 2014 at Graduation.Click here to read RHS Principal Dr. Tom Gorman’s remarks to the RHS Class of 2014 at Graduation.
JULY 16, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2014, 1:21 AM BY RON FOX SPECIAL TO THE RECORD THE RECORD
As a youngster, Yurina Harada was determined to become a gymnast, but she may have had second thoughts once she got up on the balance beam.
“It still scares me to be on the beam,” Harada said with a laugh as her senior year at Ridgewood approaches. “It has always been my hardest event, but I like it more now.”
Previously, Harada’s most difficult struggle was convincing her mother to allow her to sign up for gymnastics in the first place.
“My mom put me in ballet when I was 6,” Harada said. “I was a little ballerina, but then I went to a birthday party.”
The party was held at a gymnastics club, where she was fascinated by the trampoline and other gear. There, the idea for a change in activities was spawned.
“My mom tried to talk me out of it,” she said. “She showed me a video about how intense gymnastics was, but that made me like it even more.”
Since then, Harada has blossomed into a two-time North Jersey all-around selection. Last year, she recorded the season’s highest floor exercise score (9.675) by a North Jersey gymnast during the state championships, where she tied for first place.
Her wariness on the beam has not been easy to overcome. “I wasn’t really comfortable until the beginning of this year,” the 5-foot-3 standout confided, crediting a switch of training clubs for her improvement.
It’s the floor exercise where Harada has become most comfortable. There, she’s a combination of a ballerina’s grace and an athlete’s power.
“Once I started doing double-backs on the floor, I began to enjoy it more because it was a skill that came pretty easily,” she said.
Joseph Stalin estimated over 20 million people were murdered under his Socialist Rule
Millennials Don’t Know What “Socialism” Means
Emily Ekins|Jul. 16, 2014 9:14 am
Young people don’t know what socialism is.
Recent polls have suggested that millennials are far more positive to socialism than older cohorts. For instance, the Pew Research Center found that 43 percent of 18-29 year olds had a positive reaction to the word socialism, compared to 33 percent of 30-49 year olds, 23 percent of 50-64 year olds, and 14% of 65+. The older you get the more you hate socialism.
But do young people even know what socialism means?
Perhaps not. A new Reason-Rupe report on millennials finds that young people are more favorable to the word “socialism” than a government-managed economy, even though the latter is lessinterventionist. Millennials don’t like government intervention in the economy when you spell it out precisely, rather than use vague terms like “socialism.”
In fact, a 2010 CBS/New York Times survey found that when Americans were asked to use their own words to define the word “socialism” millennials were the least able to do so. According to the survey, only 16 percent of millennials could define socialism as government ownership, or some variation thereof. In contrast, 30 percent of Americans over 30 could do the same (and 57% of tea partiers, incidentally).
Millennials simply don’t know that socialism means the government owning everybody’s businesses. They don’t understand that socialism means the government owns the banks, the car companies, Uber, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc. They don’t even want the government taking a managerial role over the economy, let alone nationalizing private enterprise.
In fact, millennial support for a government-managed economy (32%) mirrors national favorabilitytoward the word socialism (31%). Millennial preferences may not be so different from older generations once terms are defined.
Millennials’ preferred economic system becomes more pronounced when it is described precisely. Fully 64 percent favor a free market economy over an economy managed by the government (32%), whereas 52 percent favor capitalism over socialism (42%). Language about capitalism and socialism is vague, and using these terms assumes knowledge millennials may not have acquired.
Jul. 16 Bob Menendez, Corruption, Foreign Policy 3 comments
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Fending off foreign intriguers and Communist conspirators isn’t cheap, Save Jerseyans.
According to IRS filings for the legal defense fund of Senator Robert “Hudson Bob” Menendez (D-Dominican Republic, Ecuador) released Tuesday, the Cuban conspiracy *cough cough* to undermine the sitting Senate Foreign Relations Chairman is a $700,000 endeavor to date.
Nice, right?
Our state’s senior senator now owns the distinction of being the U.S. Senate’s most frequently investigated member, gracing the headlines annually for one poor decision or questionable association after another, but a full 1 1/2 after the New York Times called on Harry Reid to take his gavel away, the man who is also Congress’s senior most foreign policy leader remains at his post without a single call – right or left – for his removal.
