Bring your family and friends – Ridgewood’s July 4th Celebration on Wednesday, July 4th. Buy your tickets for the Fireworks in advance and save! Local Stores are selling tickets now or buy on line www.ridgewoodjuly4th.org
Schedule of Activities
9 AM – Flag Raising at Wilsey Square (near train station)
10 AM – Parade (Rain or Shine)
6 PM – Gates open for Fireworks – musical entertainment, twirlers, skydivers and FIREWORKS at dark.
North Jersey towns turn to donors To keep July 4th fireworks alive
Tuesday, July 3, 2012 Last updated: Tuesday July 3, 2012, 7:33 AM
BY KATHERIN DRIESSEN AND JAKE HYMAN
STAFF WRITERS
The Record
Fourth of July fireworks and events across North Jersey
North Jersey towns that struggle to pay for costly but cherished Fourth of July fireworks displays are increasingly relying on hefty and sometimes unpredictable commercial donations to help light up the skies.
Using everything from red-white-and-blue-themed donation websites to direct mailings sent out as early as September, towns are desperately appealing to businesses’ sense of patriotism in the hopes they will open up their pocketbooks.
The approach is different in each municipality — some, like Paramus, now rely solely on commercial and resident donors while others, like Ridgewood and Clifton, offset costs by also charging admission to the show. But across the board, more towns are offering less financial support for the festivities.
Homeland Security Report Lists ‘Liberty Lovers’ As Terrorists
Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty” deemed domestic threat
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
A new study funded by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists.
Entitled Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008 (PDF), the study was produced by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. The organization was launched with the aid of DHS funding to the tune of $12 million dollars.
While largely omitting Islamic terrorism – the report fails completely to mention the 1993 World Trade Center bombing – the study focuses on Americans who hold beliefs shared by the vast majority of conservatives and libertarians and puts them in the context of radical extremism.
The report takes its definitions from a 2011 study entitled Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism, produced by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, in which the following characteristics are used to identify terrorists.
NJ Tea Party Coalition will be celebrating the birth of our country by marching in the Ridgewood July 4th Parade
NJ Tea Party Coalition will be celebrating the birth of our country by marching in the Ridgewood July 4th Parade with a large float supported by American Patriots, members of NJTPC!
Any veteran who cannot walk can ride on the float.
The year’s theme is “Born in New Jersey”
North Jersey Regional Tea Party and the Jersey City Tea Party Alliance, great friends of ours will also be joining us for this event….they and NJTPC were all “BORN” in NJ! The counties of Bergen, Passaic and Hudson will all be represented by the marchers.
If you would like to march in this year’s parade, expect to arrive by 9:00 AM to queue up. We will meet on Monroe Street and West Ridgewood Avenue. Information will be posted on the website at www.njteapartycoalition.org
The parade should end around noon or shortly thereafter, and thus you will have time for family activities if you leave at that time. Should you choose to stay after the parade, a schedule of the Ridgewood activities AFTER the parade can be found: https://www.ridgewoodjuly4th.org
Tell your friends and bring them with you to march with us or cheer us on from the sidelines- get the word out……let’s all come together in support of this great day, July 4th!
Please wear your tea party shirt or a red, white or blue t-shirt, but no slogans or signs – thank you for your understanding of the parade guidelines.
“Ambitious” program to reduce diesel pollution racks up one retrofit
A much-touted pilot program to reduce harmful pollution from off-road construction vehicles only has retrofitted one of hundreds of pieces of equipment targeted for upgrades, according to the Office of the State Auditor.
The audit of a range of programs initiated by the state Department of Environmental Protection found, by and large, a diesel retrofit program targeting school buses, waste-hauling vehicles, and commercial buses was working reasonably well.
But the eight-page audit suggested improvements should be made to the verification of the retrofitted off-road equipment, which, according to the governor’s office, accounts for one-third of toxic mobile source diesel particulate emissions in New Jersey. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
Gift card provider will return to N.J. market after change in law
A major gift card provider, InComm, announced Monday it would immediately return its gift cards, including Visa and MasterCard gift cards, to the Garden State.
“We plan to continue selling gift cards in New Jersey indefinitely as long as there is no requirement to collect consumer data at the point of sale,” said Brooks Smith, president and CEO of InComm, in the company’s announcement. “InComm intends to spend the next four years working to have any such data collection requirement permanently removed from the law.” (Caliendo, NJBIZ)
Hospitals group offers ACA penalty calculator for employers
While the individual mandate received the most attention while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was under Supreme Court review, the clauses making up the “employer mandate” are forcing employers to make difficult decisions about benefits.
To help with these complex decisions about offering coverage to employees, the New Jersey Hospital Association launched a new tool on Monday called RIPE – Reform Insurance Penalty Estimator – to help employers determine if they are at risk for penalties.
Under the law, by 2014, employers with more than 50 employees who do not offer insurance will face a penalty. Employers who do provide insurance but not meet federal requirements of affordability and “essential” coverage can also face penalties. (Caliendo, NJBIZ)
Sen. Lesniak angry at Christie veto of state “land grab bill”
After building support among Realtors, developers, banks and housing advocates in New Jersey for legislation to transform foreclosed homes into affordable housing, Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) was angered — but not at all surprised — when Gov. Chris Christie took a veto pen to his measure on Friday.
“Foreclosed homes are a huge drag on economic development and job growth. Everybody knows that, but not (Christie),” Lesniak said. “We put in a lot of effort and had a lot of support behind this, and he just dismissed it with a stroke of a pen. He’s not coming up with any ideas. I’m gonna try to come up with something else, but it’s not gonna matter if the governor doesn’t care.” (Eder, NJBIZ)
Christie asks N.J. lawmakers to turn tax increase into cuts
Whether it takes a day, a week or months for New Jersey lawmakers to pass a tax cut, the outcome would be the same: no relief until at least 2013, if then.
Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, conditionally vetoed a measure backed by Democrats to raise the income-tax rate on those earning $1 million or more a year. He sent the bill back and convened a special legislative session yesterday with an appeal to produce a levy rollback.
“A bipartisan tax-cut plan is on all of your desks right now,” Christie said in remarks to lawmakers yesterday. “Let’s show our state we can work together and finish the job before we leave.” Tomorrow is a U.S. holiday, Independence Day. (Dopp and Young, Bloomberg)
8,733,461: Workers on Federal ‘Disability’ Exceed Population of New York City
By Terence P. Jeffrey
July 2, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – A record of 8,733,461 workers took federal disability insurance payments in June 2012, according to the Social Security Administration. That was up from 8,707,185 in May.
It also exceeds the entire population of New York City, which according to the Census Bureau’s latest estimate hit 8,244,910 in July 2011.
There has been a dramatic shrinkage in the United States over the past 20 years in the number of workers actually employed and earning paychecks per worker who is not employed and is taking federal disability insurance payments.
Nude Photo ‘Sexts’ Sent By One In Four Teens, Study Finds
By Jeanna Smialek – Jul 2, 2012 4:13 PM ET
More than a quarter of American teenagers sent nude photos of themselves electronically, and those who engaged in ‘sexting’ were almost twice as likely as their peers to have had sex, researchers found.
About half of almost 1,000 students ages 14 to 19 from seven public high schools in Texas said they had been asked to send a naked photo electronically, according to a study published today in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Another third reported asking someone else to send them a nude picture.
The study found the 28 percent of teens who exchanged nude messages were more likely to have sex. Pediatricians and other adults should ask about sexual messaging to screen for other sexual behavior, said Jeff Temple, a researcher from University of Texas Medical Branch Health in Galveston and the study’s lead author.
It is time to privatize this or make into a public-private partnership, and let the other towns it serves have a stake in owning it (if they want to) as well as in sharing in all of the costs of running it if they become co-owners. There’s a lot of murk in Ridgewood Water, it sure does seem, and it’s been going on for ages, getting murkier all the time.
I bet that either United Water or Aqua America would have great interest in something like that. United currently charges much more than Rwd Water per m/gallons, but so does HHK for that matter. I don’t know Aqua’s current rates in the NJ markets it serves, but I think they are less than United’s.
Point is that it’s time to make the water utility fully supported only by its customers – the ratepayers – and nothing else. Village finances, bonding, and many other things should not be so intertwined with Rwd Water, since fact is the utility has always served many customers outside of the Village anyway.
If other towns it serves want to own a stake, they can put up the money and do so under such an arrangement. If not, they could continue to be just customers -but of a new entity that is fully financed, administered etc etc on its own – based totally on its ratepayers, just like many other utilities work.
Aren’t we already doing pub/priv partnership on wastewater? So why not on the water utility?
RECESSION : Manufacturing In U.S. “Unexpectedly” Contracted In June
By Shobhana Chandra – Jul 2, 2012 4:21 PM ET
Manufacturing in the U.S. unexpectedly shrank in June for the first time since the economy emerged from the recession three years ago, indicating a mainstay of the expansion may be faltering.
The Institute for Supply Management’s index fell to 49.7, worse than the most-pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, from 53.5 in May, the Tempe, Arizona-based group’s report showed today. Figures less than 50 signal contraction. Measures of orders, production and export demand dropped to three-year lows.
Financial Giants Are Moving Jobs Off Wall Street
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
Published: July 1, 2012
New York’s biggest investment houses are shifting jobs out of the area and expanding in cheaper locales in the United States, threatening the vast middle tier of positions that form the backbone of employment on Wall Street.
The shift comes even as banks consider deeper staff cuts here, which could undermine the state and city tax base long term.
“Places like New York or London will remain financial centers, but most of the players are taking a much harder look and asking whether they can move large numbers of jobs,” said James Malick, a partner at the Boston Consulting Group who advises banks on relocation. In addition to higher taxes in the New York region, employers face real estate and labor costs significantly above the national average.
Consultants say they have seen a sharp pickup in this trend, known as near-shoring, as opposed to offshoring overseas. Goldman Sachs, during a presentation to investors in late May, even boasted of the cost savings that relocating jobs can bring.
Judge: Twitter Must Turn Over Occupy Wall Street Protester’s Tweets
Prosecutors say the messages could show whether Malcom Harris was aware of police orders he’s charged with disregarding
Monday, Jul 2, 2012
Twitter has been ordered to give a New York City judge almost three months’ worth of an Occupy Wall Street protester’s tweets despite the social-networking company’s efforts to fight prosecutors’ demand for the messages.
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. also ruled Monday that prosecutors would need a search warrant — not just a subpoena — to get the final day’s worth of tweets they seek from Malcolm Harris. That’s because of a time frame set by federal law.
